The Lisu people ( Lisu : ꓡꓲ‐ꓢꓴ ꓫꓵꓽ ; burmese : လီဆူလူမျိုး, [ lìsʰù ] ; chinese : 傈僳 族 ; pinyin : Lìsùzú ; Thai : ลีสู่ ) are a Tibeto-Burman heathen group who inhabit cragged regions of Myanmar ( Burma ), southwest China, Thailand, and the amerind state of Arunachal Pradesh. About 730,000 Lisu live in Lijiang, Baoshan, Nujiang, Diqing and Dehong prefectures in Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province, China. The Lisu form one of the 56 cultural groups formally recognized by China. In Myanmar, the Lisu are recognized as one of 135 heathen groups and an estimate population of 600,000. Lisu live in the north of the country ; Kachin State ( Putao, Myitkyina, Danai, Waingmaw, Bhamo ), Shan State, ( Momeik, Namhsan, Lashio, Hopang, and Kokang ) and southern Shan State ( Namsang, Loilem, Mongton ) and, Sagaing Division ( Katha and Khamti ), Mandalay Division ( Mogok and Pyin Oo Lwin ). approximately 55,000 populate in Thailand, where they are one of the six main mound tribes. They chiefly inhabit outside cragged areas. [ 2 ] The Lisu tribe consists of more than 58 different clans. Each family kin has its own name or surname. The biggest family clans well known among the tribe clans are Laemae pha, Bya pha, Thorne pha, Ngwa Pha ( Ngwazah ), Naw pha, Seu pha, Khaw pha. Most of the syndicate names came from their own oeuvre as hunters in the primitive clock. however, by and by, they adopted many chinese family names. Their culture has traits shared with the Yi people or Nuosu ( Lolo ) culture.

Reading: Lisu people

history [edit ]

A burmese depiction of the Lisu people in the early 1900s Lisu history is passed from one generation to the next in the shape of songs. today, these songs are so long that they can take an entire night to sing. [ 3 ]

Origins [edit ]

The Lisu are believed to have originated in eastern Tibet flush before present Tibetans arrived in the tableland. Research done by Lisu scholars indicates that they moved to northwestern Yunnan. They inhabited a region across Baoshan and the Tengchong plain for thousands of years. Lisu, Yi, Lahu, and Akha are Tibetan–Burman languages, distantly related to Burmese and Tibetan. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] After the Han Chinese Ming Dynasty, around 1140–1644 CE the eastern and southern Lisu languages and polish were greatly influenced by the Han polish. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Taiping village in Yinjiang, Yunnan, China, was foremost established by Lu Shi Lisu people about 1,000 years ago. [ citation needed ] In the mid-18th hundred, Lisu peoples in Yinjiang began moving into Momeik, Burma, a population of southern Lisu moved into Mogok, and southern Shan State, and then in the late nineteenth hundred, moved into northerly Thailand. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Lisu is one of the three Lolo tribes, the descendants of Yi. Yi ( or Nuosu ) are still much closer to the Lisu and Myanmar languages. Myat Wai Toe observes that as the say, “ the Headwaters of the Great River, Lisu originates, ” where Lisu lived in “ Mou-Ku-De ” ; they were not yet called “ Lisu ” until 400–200 BC. [ 13 ] [ better source needed ]

Lisu in India [edit ]

lisu people in India are called “ Yobin ”. In all politics records, Lisu are Yobin, and the words are sometimes used interchangeably. Lisu is one of the minority kin of Arunachal Pradesh of India. They live chiefly in Vijoynagar Circle in 11 villages. Gandhigram ( or Shidi in Lisu ) is the largest village. Lisus are found in Miao town and Injan village of Kharsang Circle Changlang District. The Lisu traditionally lived in the Yunnan Province of China and northerly Myanmar. There are about 5,000 lisu people in India .

Government discovery of Lisu [edit ]

On 7 May 1961, the 7th Assam Rifles expedition team led by Major Sumer Singh entered the Noa-dihing river valley and reached the largest village in the valley, Shidi ( now called Gandhigram ). They were accorded a warm reception by the villagers and were far told by the villagers that they were the first party to have visited the area since World War II. The Assam Rifles team assured the villagers that this virgin nation was indian territory and the people would be protected from enemy aggression. Till then the external border was not distinctly demarcated. In 1972, the Demarcation of International Border with Burma was done, with the aid of Lisu guides having a wide cognition of the area. During line, cement International Border Pillars ( IBP ) were erected at regular intervals. [ citation needed ] initially, the Indo-Burmese boundary line had been drawn based on surveys conducted under the Topographical Survey of british India arsenic early as 1912, following the highest ridge from the Hkakabo Razi ( elevation. 5,881 molarity ( 19,295 foot ) ; the highest point in Myanmar ) at the junction with the chinese margin in the north, to the Chittagong Hills in Bangladesh according to a “ combination of ridges, watershed and highest crests ”. [ 14 ] Later, during World War II, G.D.L. Millar ‘s diary recalls the escape of a party of 150 european, indian and Kachin officials and civilians fleeing the advance of the Japanese in May 1942. They went from Putao ( Kachin ) to Margherita ( Assam ) via the Chaukan Pass, and followed the valley of the Noa-dihing river. Millar records that over a hundred miles of the Chaukan Pass, “ there was no trace of man ” either Lisu or any early tribe. [ 15 ] The margin negotiations with China that led to the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and the intrusion of taiwanese troops into the indian State of Arunachal Pradesh, propelled the Government of India to secure its external borders in the North East region, defined as per the Topographical Survey of British India. The Assam Rifles Regiments who took control of the surround area hired labourers from versatile tribes, including Lisus, to built the vent strip at Vijoynagar. In 1969–70, 200 families were settled in the area. [ 16 ] In 2010, the population was estimated at 5500 including Gorkhali Jawan ( Ex-Assam Rifles Pensioners and Lisus/Yobin. [ citation needed ]

Arrival via the Ledo Road [edit ]

Some groups of Lisu arrived in India via the Ledo Road. Some of them worked as ember miners under British ( One certificate that primitively belonged to one Aphu Lisu is a british coal miner ‘s certificate from 1918, preserved by the Lisu ). The certificate bears the notice of the then governor who ruled the region from Lakhimpur, Assam ( the section of Ledo road between Ledo and Shingbwiyang was only opened in 1943. Most of the Lisu who lived in Assam went back to Myanmar. however, some are inactive found in the Kharangkhu area of Assam, Kharsang Circle of Arunachal Pradesh. While most have lost their mother clapper, some have preserved the linguistic process and culture about integral. [ 17 ] [ 18 ]

political and social issues [edit ]

In the early 1980s, the Lisu people living in India did not have indian citizenship as they were considered refugees from Myanmar. In 1994, indian citizenship was granted to them, but not Scheduled Tribe condition. This is presently the subject of a claim to the Government. Except for the arrival of a flit of jeeps in the late 1970s, the area has been without roads and vehicles for 4 decades. The area is isolated, hence some describing the people as “ prisoners of geography ”. [ 19 ] Lisu were evicted from their villages in 1964 under the command of A.S. Guarya, the deep Governor General of Arunachal Pradesh. He settled indian ex-servicemen in their villages. Those villages still retain their original names. The Lisu were chased out of their villages down to Gandhigram villages and other areas. These villages suffered from floods and lost a lot of their rice paddies and had to find newly anchor. In fact, Namdapha was primitively declared a Wildlife Sanctuary in 1972, then a National Park in 1983. The authorities demarcated the southerly limit near Gandhigram greenwich village. Since then the Lisus settle in the National Park are considered as “ encroachers ” as per the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. [ 20 ] Between 1976 and 1981, a 157-kilometre ( 98 nautical mile ) road was made between Miao and Vijoynagar ( MV road ) by the Public Works Department following the leave deposit of the Noa-dihing river through Namdapha National Park but proved unmanageable to maintain due to extreme rain and frequent landslides. It was besides felt that a road would far facilitate wildlife poach and land invasion in the National Park. renovation of the MV road was announced in 2010 and 2013. [ 21 ]

culture [edit ]

Lisu villages are normally built close to water system to provide easy access for wash and drink. [ 8 ] Their homes are normally built on the grind and have dirt floors and bamboo walls, although an increasing number of the more affluent Lisu are now building houses of woodwind or even concrete. [ 3 ] Lisu subsistence was based on paddy fields, batch rice, fruit and vegetables. however, they have typically lived in ecologically flimsy regions that do not easily support subsistence. They besides faced constant convulsion from both physical and social disasters ( earthquakes and landslides ; wars and governments ). therefore, they have typically been dependent on deal for survival. This include oeuvre as porters and caravan guards. With the insertion of the opium poppy as a cash crop in the early nineteenth hundred, many Lisu populations were able to achieve economic constancy. This lasted for over 100 years, but opium production has all but disappeared in Thailand and China due to interdiction of production. identical few Lisu ever used opium, or its more common derivative heroin, except for medicative use by the elders to alleviate the pain of arthritis. [ 22 ] The Lisu practiced swidden ( slash-and-burn ) agribusiness. In conditions of depleted population concentration where nation can be fallowed for many years, swiddening is an environmentally sustainable human body of gardening. Despite decades of swiddening by mound tribes such as the Lisu, northern Thailand had a higher proportion of integral forest than any other separate of Thailand. however, with road build by the state, logging ( some legal, but largely illegal ) by Thai companies, [ 23 ] [ 24 ] enclosure of domain in national parks, and inflow of immigrants from the lowlands, swidden fields can not be fallowed, can not re-grow, and swiddening results in large swathes of deforest mountainsides. Under these conditions, Lisu and other swiddeners have been forced to turn to new methods of agribusiness to sustain themselves. [ 25 ] The Thai Lisu traditional costume shown hera is a lot different from the main Lisu traditional costume being wide used in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China and Putao, Danai, Myitkyina, Northern Myanmar. [ 3 ]

religion [edit ]

christianity [edit ]

Beginning in the early-20th century, many Lisu people in India and Burma converted to Christianity. Missionaries such as James O. Fraser, Allyn Cooke and Isobel Kuhn and her conserve, John, of the China Inland Mission ( now OMF International ), were active with the Lisu of Yunnan. [ 26 ] Among the missionaries, James Outram Fraser ( 1880–1938 ) was the first missionary to reach the Lisu people in China. Another missionary who evangelized Lisu people in Myanmar was Thara Saw Ba Thaw ( 1889–1968 ). James Fraser and Saw Ba Thaw together created the Lisu alphabet in 1914. [ 27 ] There were many other missionaries who brought Christianity to Lisu people. David Fish says, “ There were over a hundred missionaries who committed their life for spreading the Gospel among the Lisu people. They came from unlike denominations and mission ; China Inland Mission, Disciples of Christ ( Church of Christ ), Assembly of God, Pentecostal Churches, and so on. The Lisu people accepted those missionaries and their teaching the Gospel so that they converted into Christianity cursorily to be followers of Christ. [ 28 ] The first missionaries in China and Myanmar were Russell Morse and his wife, Gertrude Erma Howe, who became Gertrude Morse after marriage with Russell Morse. The Missionaries of christian Churches or Church of Christ in Myanmar were Morse families. [ 29 ] Their mission record notes that the Morse class started their mission in China in 1926 but, due to political agitation, they traveled to Burma and began teaching among Lisu tribe in 1930. [ 30 ] The Lisu people ‘s conversion to Christianity was relatively fast. many Lisu and Rawang converted to Christianity from animism. Before World War II, the Lisu tribes who lived in Yunnan, China and Ah-Jhar River valley, Myanmar, were evangelized by missionaries from Tibetan Lisuland Mission and Lisuland Churches of Christ. many Lisu then converted to Christianity. [ 31 ] The missionaries promoted education, farming, and health care. The missionaries created the Lisu written speech and fresh opportunities. David Fish reports that, “ J. Russell Morse brought many kinds of fruit such as Washington, Orange, Ruby, King-Orange, and grapefruit. Fruit cultivation spread from Putao to other parts of Myanmar and become an crucial national asset. He besides trained the people the art of carpentry and the construction of buildings. And the Lisu people had besides learned the strategy of Church planting from them. ” [ 32 ] The missionaries studied lisu culture so they could quickly spread Christianity. They used versatile kind of methods, including teaching hymn, sending medicines and doctors, helping the destitute, and providing the funds for domestic missionaries and evangelists. They besides helped in developing Lisu agriculture.

The chinese politics ‘s Religious Affairs Bureau has proposed considering Christianity as the official religion of the Lisu. [ 33 ] As of 2008, there were more than 700,000 christian Lisu in Yunnan, and 450,000 in Myanmar ( Burma ). only the Lisu of Thailand have remained unchanged by christian influences. [ 34 ] [ 35 ]

Animism/shamanism/ancestor worship [edit ]

Before Christianity was introduced to Lisu people, they were animists. Archibald Rose points that the religion of the Lisus appears to be a bare form of animism or nat-worship, sacrifices being offered to the spirits of the mountains. [ 36 ] Most important rituals are performed by shamans. The main Lisu festival corresponds to Chinese New Year and is celebrated with music, feasting and drink, as are weddings ; people wear bombastic amounts of flatware jewelry and wear their best clothes at these times as a means of displaying their success in the former agricultural year. In each traditional village there is a hallowed grove at the exceed of the village, where the flip liveliness or, in China, the Old Grandfather Spirit, are propitiated with offerings ; each house has an ancestor altar at the rear of the house. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] [ 39 ]

language [edit ]

linguistically, Lisu belong to the Yi linguistic process or Nuosu outgrowth of the Sino-Tibetan class. [ 40 ] There are two scripts in use. The chinese Department of Minorities publishes literature in both. The oldest and most widely used one is the Fraser rudiment developed about 1920 by James O. Fraser and the cultural Karen evangelist Ba Thaw. The second script was developed by the chinese government and is based on pinyin. Fraser ‘s handwriting for the Lisu lyric was used to prepare the first published works in Lisu which were a catechism, portions of scripture, and a complete New Testament in 1936. In 1992, the chinese government officially recognized the Fraser alphabet as the official handwriting of the Lisu terminology. [ 41 ] merely a small dowry of Lisu are able to read or write the script, with most determine to read and write their local language ( chinese, Thai, Burmese ) through primary education. [ citation needed ]

See besides [edit ]

References [edit ]

Sources [edit ]

  • Bradley, David (November 1999). Hill Tribes Phrasebook. Lonely Planet. ISBN 0-86442-635-6.
  • Bradley, David (2008). Southern Lisu Dictionary. STEDT. ISBN 978-0-944613-43-6.
  • Bradley, David, 1997. “What did they eat? Grain crops of Burmic groups”, Mon–Khmer Studies 27: 161-170.
  • Dessaint, Alain Y, 1972. Economic organization of the Lisu of the Thai highlands Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology, University of Hawaii.
  • Durrenberger, E. Paul, 1989. “Lisu Religion”, Southeast Asia Publications Occasional Papers No. 13, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University.
  • Durrenberger, E. Paul, 1976. “The economy of a Lisu village”, American Ethnologist 32: 633–644.
  • Enriquez, Major C.M., 1921. “The Lisu”, Journal of the Burma Research Society 11 (Part 2), pp. 70–74.
  • Forbes, Andrew, and Henley, David, “Chiang Mai’s Hill Peoples” in: Ancient Chiang Mai Volume 3. Chiang Mai, Cognoscenti Books, 2012. ASIN: B006IN1RNW
  • Fox, Jefferson M., 2000. “How blaming ‘slash and burn’ farmers is deforesting mainland Southeast Asia”, AsiaPacific Issues No. 47.
  • Fox, Krummel, Yarnasarn, Ekasingh, and Podger, 1995. “Land use and landscape dynamics in northern Thailand: assessing change in three upland watersheds”, Ambio 24 (6): 328–334.
  • George, E.C.S., 1915. “Ruby Mines District”, Burma Gazetteer, Rangoon, Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma.
  • Gros, Stephane, 1996. “Terres de confins, terres de colonisation: essay sur les marches Sino-Tibetaines due Yunnan a travers l’implantation de la Mission du Tibet”, Peninsule 33(2): 147–211.
  • Gros, Stephane, 2001. “Ritual and politics: missionary encounters in local culture in northwest Yunnan”, In Legacies and Social Memory, panel at the Association for Asian Studies, March 22–25, 2001.
  • Hanks, Jane R. and Lucien M. Hanks, 2001. Tribes of the northern Thailand frontier, Yale Southeast Studies Monographs, Volume 51, New Haven.
  • Hutheesing, Otome Klein, 1990. Emerging Sexual Inequality Among the Lisu of Northern Thailand: The Waning of Elephant and Dog Repute, E.J. Brill, New York and Leiden.
  • McCaskill, Don and Ken Kampe, 1997. Development or domestication? Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
  • Scott, James George and J.P. Hardiman, 1900–1901. Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, Parts 1 & 2, reprinted by AMS Press (New York).

far reading [edit ]

  • Tribes of the northern Thailand frontier, Yale Southeast Studies Monographs, Volume 51, New Haven, Hanks, Jane R. and Lucien M. Hanks, 2001.
  • Emerging Sexual Inequality Among the Lisu of Northern Thailand: The Waning of Elephant and Dog Repute, Hutheesing, Otome Klein, E.J. Brill, 1990
  • The economy of a Lisu village, E. Paul Durrenberger, American Ethnologist 32: 633–644, 1976
  • Lisu Religion, E. Paul Durrenberger, Northern Illinois University Southeast Asia Publications No. 12, 1989.
  • Behind The Ranges: Fraser of Lisuland S.W. China by Mrs. Howard Taylor (Mary Geraldine Guinness)
  • Mountain Rain by Eileen Fraser Crossman
  • A Memoir of J. O. Fraser by Mrs. J. O. Fraser
  • James Fraser and the King of the Lisu by Phyllis Thompson
  • The Prayer of Faith by James O. Fraser & Mary Eleanor Allbutt
  • In the Arena, Kuhn, Isobel OMF Books (1995)
  • Stones of Fire, Kuhn, Isobel Shaw Books (June 1994)
  • Ascent to the Tribes: Pioneering in North Thailand, Kuhn, Isobel OMF Books (2000)
  • Precious Things of the Lasting Hills, Kuhn, Isobel OMF Books (1977)
  • Second Mile People, Kuhn, Isobel Shaw Books (December 1999)
  • Nests Above the Abyss, Kuhn, Isobel Moody Press (1964)
  • The Dogs May Bark, but the Caravan Moves On, Morse, Gertrude College Press, (1998)
  • Transformations of Lisu social structure under opium control and watershed conservation in northern Thailand, Gillogly, Kathleen A. PhD thesis, Anthropology, University of Michigan. 2006.
  • Fish Four and the Lisu New Testament, Leila R. Cooke (China Inland Mission, 1948)
  • Honey Two of Lisu-land, Leila R. Cooke (China Inland Mission, 1933)
  • Handbook of the Lisu Language, James O. Fraser (1922)
  • Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure, E. R. Leach, (London School of Economics and Political Science, 1954)
  • Peoples of the Golden Triangle, Paul Lewis and Elaine Lewis, (Thames and Hudson, 1984)
  • J. O. Fraser and Church Growth Among the Lisu of Southwest China, Walter Leslie McConnell (M.C.S. Thesis, Regent College, 1987)