Anthropological communities of interpretation for Burma: An overview

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 39, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 239-254

  Hlaing, U Chit ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANTHROPOLOGY; ETHNIC GROUP;

ASIA; EURASIA; MYANMAR; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 43149112794     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463408000192     Document Type: Review

References (124)

1. Ethnic adaptation and identity: The Karen on the Thai frontier with Burma, ed. Charles F. Keyes (Philadelphia: A Publication of the Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1979).
2. In this connection, see my remarks on certain nominal Siamese 'kingdoms' in the western mountains found in my contribution, 'Who are the Karen, and if so, why. Karen ethnohistory and a formal theory of ethnicity', Ethnic adaptation and identity: The Karen on the Thai frontier with Burma, ed. Keyes, pp. 215-53.
3. On Pagan archaelogy, refer to Bob Hudson, 'The origins of Bagan: The archaelogical landscape of upper Burma to A. D. 1300' (Ph.D. diss., University of Sydney, 2004);
4. On Pyu archaelogy, refer to Janice Stargardt, The ancient Pyu of Burma (Cambridge: Publications on ancient civilization in South East Asia, 2003): 24-39.
5. For the connection between social science and history, reier to: Recent developments in the archaelogy of Myanma Pyay (Burma): An introduction: An article from Asian perspective, ed. Michael Aung-Thwin and Miriam T. Stark (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005).
6. 'Non-state centred' history is emphasised in The maritime frontier of Burma: Exploring political, cultural and commercial interaction in the Indian Ocean world, 1200-1800, ed. Jos J. L. Gommans and Jacques Leider (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002).
7. Adolf Bastian, Die Volker des Oeslichen Asien, Studien und Reisen: Reisen in Birma in den Jahren 1861-1862 (Adamant Media Corporation, 2001); facsimile reprint of a 1866 edition bv Otto Wigand, Leipzig.
8. Max Ferrars and Bertha, Ferrars, Burma (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1900; 2nd edn 1901).
9. G. E. R. Grant Brown, Upper Chindwin Disfrict, Burma Gazetteer, Volume A (Union of Burma: Superintendent, Government, Printing and Stationery, 1960, reprinted from 1911).
10. Harry Ingatius Marshall, The Karen peple of Burma, Athens: Ohio State University Bulletin, 26, 13 (1992), contributions in history and political science, no. 8.
11. Rev. J. Wade, Thesaurus of Karen knowledge: Comprising traditions, legends or fables, poetry, customs, superstitions, demonology, theraputics, etc. alphabetically... illustrating the usages of every word (Burma: Karen Mission Press, 1847).
12. Ola Hanson, The Kachins (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1913).
13. Chester U. Strait 'A history and interpretation of Chin sacrifice' (Ph.D. diss., Berkeley Divinity School, 1933).
14. Robert Halliday, The Talaings (Rangoon: Government Printing, 1917).
15. Ruth M. Armstrong, The Kachins of Burma (Bloomington, IN: Eastern Press, 1997).
16. Mandy J. Sadan, 'History and ethnicity in Burma: Cultural contexts of the ethnic category "Kachin: In the colonial and post-colonial state, 1824-2004' (Ph.D. diss., University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2004).
17. Paolo Manna, 'I Gekho Milan', trans. (1966) Charles Frank Emmons (M.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1922).
18. Fr. Charles Gilhodes, The Kachins: Religion and customs (Calcutta, 1922).
19. Leslie Milne, The home of an eastern clan (Oxford University Press, 1924)
20. Leslie Milne, Shans at home: With two chapters on Shan history and literature by the Rev. Wilbur Willis Cochrane (London: J. Murray, 1910).
21. Also on the Shans, refer to: Archibald Ross Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans New York: Paragon Book Reprint, 1970).
22. Wilber Willis Cochrane, The Shans (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government, Printing and Stationery, 1915).
23. There is more to say here, really, because American Baptist missionaries amongst several of the upland peoples of far northern Burma did in fact practised a good deal of systematic ethnography, even when it was not official. And much of this work, some published, some only in the form of extensive notebooks and archives, had been fundamental to anthropological work on these same peoples across the Thai and China borders. Thus, for example, recent ethnographic work on the Akha, by my student Cornelia Kammerer, and by the late Leo Althing von Geusau, carried out in Thailand during the 1980s, made considerable use of the summary of Akha data by Paul Lewis when the latter lived with the Akha (the 2 volume HRAF 1969-70). Also, for example, the work on the Lahu by the Young family (who were missionaries in Burma, China and Thailand, and published both popular and more scholarly works - e.g. Young (Gordon Young, Tracks on an intruder (London: Souvenir Press, 1967) was used.
24. In particular, see the recent monumental work on the social and religious culture of the Lahu in Thailand and China by the anthropologist Anthony R. Walker (Anthony R. Walker, Merit and the millennium: Routine and crisis in the ritual lives of the Lahu people (New Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corporation, 2003). This work also made considerable use of Lahu connections with the Shan in all three countries, and is a major contribution to our understanding of the system of inter-ethnic relations throughout mainland Southeast Asia, and Burma's position in that regional system.
25. James George Scott, The Burman: His life and notions by Shway Yoe (Arran, Scotland: Kiscadale Publications, 1989), reprint of revised edition published (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1910).
26. James George Scott and J. P. Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States in five volumes compiled from official paper part 2, vol 2 (AMS Press: New York: AMS Reprint from the 1901 First Rangoon edition).
27. William James Sherlock Carrapiett, The Kachin tribes of Burma: For the information of officers of the Burma Frontier Service (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 2004).
28. Henry Noel Cochrane Stevenson, The economics of the central Chin tribes (Bombay: Times of India Press, 1943).
29. In fact, Leach's 1946 doctoral thesis was a fairly comprehensive overview of the 'tribal' minorities of Burma with regard to cultural change. It was really the first modern anthropological overall perspective on this subject, and thus a serious attempt at establishing an anthropological interpretation of Burma as such. See Edmund Ronald Leach, 'Cultural change with special reference to the hill tribes of Burma' (Ph.D. diss., University of London, London, 1946).
30. Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, World conqueror, world renouncer: A study of Buddhism and polity in Thailand against a historical background (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
31. See Michael Aung-Thwin, Pagan: The origins of modern Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985);
32. O. W. Walters, History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian perspectives, rev. edn. (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1999).
33. F. K. Lehman, 'Kayah society as a function of the Shan-Burma-Karen context', in Contemporary change in traditional socities, vol., ed. Julian Haynes (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967.
34. Jon Fernquest, 'Crucible of war: Burma and the Ming in the Tai frontier zone (1382-1454)', Bulletin of Burma Research, 4, 2 (2007).
35. David E. Pfanner, 'The Buddhist monk in rural Burma', in Anthropological studies in Theravada Buddhism (papers by) Manning Nash (and others) (New Haven, Yale University [distributor: Cellar Book Shop, Deroit, 1966). pp. 77-96.
36. William Dunn Hackett, 'The Pa-O people of the Shan state, Union of Burma: 'A sociological and ethnographic study of the Pa-O' (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1954).
37. John. K. Musgrave, A Burmese voluntary association (Rangoon: United States Educational Foundation in Burma, 1955), 29 pp.; mimeographed.
38. Lucien M. Hanks, Jr, 'The quest for individual autonomy in Burmese personality', Psychiatry 12 (1949): 285-300.
39. Information according to Hazel Marie Hitson, 'Family patterns and paranoid personality structure in Boston and Burma' (Ph.D. diss., Radcliffe College, Harvard University, 1959).
40. June C. Nash, 'Living with the Nats: An analysis of animism in Burman village social relations', in Anthropological studies in Theravada Buddhism, ed. Manning Nash et al., Cultural Report Series no. 13 (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1966), pp. 117-36.
41. M. Nash, 'Ritual and ceremonial cycle in Upper Burma', in Anthropological studeis in Theravada Buddism, pp. 97-115;
42. M. Nash, The golden road to modernity: Village life in contemporary Burma (New York: Wiley, 1965).
43. Denise Bernot, Bioliographie Birman, Années 1950-1960e (Paris: CNRS, 1968);
44. D. Bernot, Bibliographie Biirmane, Années 1960-1970 (Paris. CNRS, 1982);
45. D. Bernot and Lucien Bernot, Les Khyang des Collines de Chittagong (Pakistan Oriental): Materiaux pour l'étude linguistique des Chins (Paris: Plon, 1958);
46. L. Bernot, 'Ethic groups of the Chittagong Hill tracts', Social Research in East Pakistan, 1 (1960): 113-40;
47. L. Bernot, Les Cak (Paris, 1967);
48. L. Bernot, Les paysans arakanais du Pakistan Oriental (Paris and The Hague Mouton, 1967).
49. See E. R. Leach, 'Cultural change with special reference to the hill tribes of Burma';
50. E. R. Leach, Political systems of highland Burma: A study of Kachin social structure (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).
51. Mandy J. Sadan, 'Leach and the integration of historical and anthropological data' in Social dynamics in the highlands of Southeast Asia: Reconsidering political systems of highland Burma by E. R. Leach (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2007).
52. François Robinne, 'Transethnic social space of clans and lineages: A discussion of Leach's concept of common ritual language', in Social dynamics in the highlands of Southeast Asia.
53. F. K. Lehman, The structure of Chin society: A tribal people of Burma adapted to a non-western civilization (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963);
54. F. K. Lehman, 'Kayah society as a function of the Shan-Burma-Karen context';
55. U Chit Hlaing, 'Remarks on the ethnography of the Chinese in Burma' from the China Burma Studies Conference, Northern Illinois University, 2004;
56. U Chit Hlaing, 'The China-Burma cross-border multi-ethnic (gem) trade', field research project, 1 Feb. to 21 Nov. 2003);
57. U Chit Hlaing, 'Some remarks upon ethnicity theory and Southeast Asia, with special reference to the Kayah and the Kachin', in Burma: Ethnic diversity past and present, ed. Mikael Gravers (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, in press).
58. Mikael Gravers, 'Cosmology, prophets, and rebellion among the Buddhist Karen in Burma and Thailand', Mussons, 4 (2001): 3-31.
59. LaRaw Maran, 'On the continuing relevance of E. R. Leach's political systems of highland Burma to Kachin studies', in Social dynamics in the highlands of Southeast Asia.
60. It may be worth mentioning that Maran has been a considerable contributor to the development of Tibeto-Burman linguistics, both phonological and syntactic. He was originally trained at Rangoon University in mathematical economics (the foundation for his algebraic work on Kachin ethnicity and marriage systems), went on to be Cultural Affairs Officer in the Kachin State where he began his first extended ethnographic fieldwork. In 1962, he arrived in the United States for graduate work, completing a 1971 Ph.D. dissertation on Jinghpaw and comparative Tibeto-Burman phonology.
61. Ho Ts'ui-ping [He Cuiping], 'Rethinking Kachin wealth ownership [references to her other papers on Kachin-Shan relations and the system of Manao feasting]', in Social dynamics of the highlands of Southeast Asia: Reconsidering political systems of highland Burma, ed. François Robinne and Mandy Sadan (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2007).
62. M. E. Spiro, Buddhism and Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982).
63. E. Paul Durrenberger and Nicola Tannenbaum, Analytical perspectives on Shan agriculture and village economics (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Apr. 1991).
64. Nancy Eberhardt, Imagining the course of life: Self-transformations in a Shan Buddhist community (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006).
65. Gehan Wijeyewardene, 'The little world of Dehong', in The Tai world ed. Nicholas Tapp and Andrew Walker (Canberra: Australian National University, Tai Yunnan Project, Department of Anthropology, 2001).
66. Zhu Liangwen, The Dai, or, the Tai on their architecture and customs in south China (Bangkok: D. D. Books, 1992);
67. Yos Santasombat, Lak Chang: A reconstruction of Tai identity in Daikong (Canberra, Australia: Pandanus Books, 2001).
68. E. Michael Mendelson, 'Religion and authority in modern Burma', World Today, 16 (1960): 110-18;
69. E. M. Mendelson, 'The King of the weaving mountain', Royal Central Asian Journal, 48 (1961a): 229-37;
70. E. M. Mendelson, 'The uses of religious skepticism in Burma', Diogenes, 41 (1963): 94-116.
71. Juliane S. Schober, 'Cosmology and religious domains in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of upper Burma' (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1988);
72. Juliane Schober, Sacred biography in the Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997);
73. J. S. Schober, 'Religious merit and social status among Burmese Buddhist lay associations', in Merit and blessing in mainland Southeast Asia in comparative perspective, ed. Cornelia Ann Kammerer and Nicola Tannenbaum (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1996).
74. John Ferguson, 'The symbolic dimensions of the Burmese Sangha' (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1975).
75. E. Michael Mendelson, Sangha and state in Burma: A study of monastic sectarianism and leadership (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975);
76. John P. Ferguson and E. Michael Mendelson, 'Masters of the Buddhist occult: The Burmese Weikzas', Contributions to Asian Studies, 16 (1981): 62-8.
77. Michael Aung-Thwin, Myth and history in the historiography of early Burma: Paradigms, primary sources, and prejudices (Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, Monographs in International studies, Southeast Asian Studies no. 102, 1998);
78. Michael Aung-Thwin, The mists of Ramañña: The legend that was lower Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005).
79. Emmanuel Guillon, The Mons: A civilization of Southeast Asia, trans. James V. Di Crocco (Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1999).
80. Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, 'Le nom personnel Birman: Son choix et ses usages', l'Homme, 1999;
81. De la Perrière, 'Le cycle de fêtes de naq en Birmanie central: Une circumambulation de l'espace birman', in Études birmanes, ed. P. Pichard and F. Robinne, (Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 2000);
82. De la Perrière, 'Chamanisme et bouddhisme en Asie', in Denise Aigle, B. Brac de la Perrière and Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, eds., La Politique des Esprits: Chamanismes et religions universalistes (Nanterre: Société d'Ethnologie, 1999), pp. 17-25;
83. De la Perrière, 'Les rituels de consécration des statues de Bouddha et de naq en Birmanie, Purusartha, 25 (2006): 201-36.
84. Guillaume Rozenberg, 'How giving sanctifies: The birthday of the Thamanya Hsayadaw in Burma', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10, 3 (2004): 495-516;
85. Rozenberg, 'What is a "weikza"?', 2004 manuscript;
86. Rozenberg, 'On believing in the land of Buddhism', 2005 manuscript;
87. Rozenberg, 'Le saint qui ne voulait pas mourir: Notes autour du décès du grande moine de Thamanya en Birmanie' 2006 manuscript.
88. F. K. Lehman, 'Burmese religion', in The encyclopedia of religion, vol. 2, ed. M. Eliade et al. (New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 574-80.
89. Sarah M. Bekker, 'The Burmese concept of A-Nade: Its function and meaning in interpersonal relations' (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1963).
90. François Robinne, 'Habitat et parenté: Essai d'analyse combinatoire entre différentes pratiques sociales des birmans', Technique et Cultures, 19 (1992):103-37;
91. François Robinne, 'La notion de reste dans la choix du nom personnel en Birmanie (Myanmar)', Aséanie, 1(1998): 91-105.
92. François Robinne, Savoirs et saveurs: L'identité culinaire des birmans (Paris: EFEO, Monographie no. 175, 1994).
93. Guy Lubeigt, 'Ancient peninsular trade roads and rivalries over the Tenasserim coasts', in Commerce et navigation en Asie du Sud-Est, XIVe-XIXe sieècle, ed. Nguyen The Anh and Y. Izhizawa (Paris: Harmattan, 1999), pp. 44-76;
94. Guy Lubeigt, La Birmanie: L'Age d'Or de Pagan (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2005).
95. It is somewhat interesting to note that the first introduction to Southeast Asia as an ethnological subject by my teacher, Professor Heine-Geldern, in many ways the academic founder of the ethnology of Southeast Asia, was his brief look at the Moken from shipboard at the start of the twentieth century (see his foundational work Südostasien in 1923, the very first general anthropology of the Southeast Asian area).
96. Études birmanes en hommage à Denise Bermot, ed. Pierre Pichard and François Robinne (Paris: EFEO, Études Thématiques no. 9, 1998).
97. Michael W. Charney, 'Beyond state-centered histories in western Burma: Missionizing monks and intra-regional migrants in the Arakan littoral, c. 1784-1860', in The maritime frontier of Burma: Exploring political, cultural and commercial interaction in the Indian Ocean world, 1200-1800, ed. Jacques Leider and Jos Gommanser (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002).
98. Jason A. Carbine, 'An ethic of continuity: Shwegyin monks and the Sasana in contemporary Burma/Myanmar' (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2004).
99. Patrick Pranke, 'Treatise on the lineage of elders (Vamsadipani): Monastic reform and the writing of Buddhist history in eighteenth-century Burma' (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2004). In this dissertation, Pranke explores the Burmese-Pali literature in the context of the history of Burmese Buddhism.
100. Ingrid Jordt, 'Bhikkuni, Thilashin, Mae-Chii: Women who renounce the world in Burma, Thailand and the classical Pali Buddhist texts', Crossroads, Special Burma studies issue, 4, 1 (1988): 31-9;
101. Ingrid Jordt, 'The mass lay meditation movement and state-society relations in post-independence Burma' (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2001).
102. S. J. Tambiah, World conqueror, world renouncer: A study of Buddhism and polity in Thailand against a historical background (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
103. Gustaaf Houtman, 'Traditions of Buddhist practice in Burma' (Ph.D. diss., University of London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1990);
104. Gustaaf Houtman, Mental culture in Burmese crisis politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999).
105. Gustaaf Houtman, Burmese personal names: A critical survey of choice, Tyes and some functions of names (Rangoon: Department of Religious Affairs, 1982);
106. Gustaf Houtman, 'The novitiation ceremony in Theravada Buddhist Burma: A "received" and an "interpreted" version', Journal of South Asia Research, 1984.
107. Josef Silverstein, Burmese politics: The dilemma of national unity (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980).
108. Lorenz Georg Löffler, 'A note on the history of the Marma chiefs of Bandarban', Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 13, 2 (1968): 189-201;
109. Lorenz Georg Löffler, 'A diachronic view of Burmese kinship terminologies', Proceedings of the 8th international congress of anthropological and ethnological sciences, 2 (1970): 99-102.
110. S. L. Pardo and Lorenz Löffler, Shifting cultivation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, East Pakistan, Jahrbuch des Südasient-Instityuts der Universität Heidelberg, 1968/ 69, Bd. 3: 66.
111. Spielmann continued to do ethnographical work amongst the Lahu Sheleh in northern Thailand.
112. Paul E. Durrenberger and Nicola Tannenbaum, Analytical perspectives on Shan agriculture and village economics (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, Southeast Asia Studies Monograph series, 1991).
113. Nancy Eberhardt, Imagining the course of life: Self-transformation in a Shan Buddhist Community (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006).
114. Nicola Tannenbaum, Who can compete against the world? Power-protection and Buddhism in Shan worldview (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, Monograph and Occasional Paper Series no. 1995);
115. Nicola Tannenbaum, 'Blessing and merit transfer among lowland Shans of northwestern Thailand', in Mainland Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph no. 45, 1996), pp. 181-96.
116. Wang Zhusheng, The Jingpo: Kachin of the Yunnan Plateau (Tempe: Arizona State University Program, Southeast Asian Studies Monograph Series, 1997).
117. Zhang Wenyi, 'The circulatory marriage: Kinship systems of the Jingpo in Jinzhuzhai, Yunnan, China' (MA thesis, Peking University, China, 2003); 2006.
118. Ethnic adaptation and identity, ed. Keyes.
119. F. K. Lehman, 'Ethnic categories in Burma and the theory of social systems', in Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and Nations, vol. 1, ed. P. Kunstadter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 93-124.
120. Theodore Stern, 'Language contact between related languages: Burmese influences upon Plains Chin', Anthropological Linguistics, 4, 4 (1962): 1-28;
121. Theodore Stern, 'Ariya and the Golden Book', Journal of Asian Studies 27, 2 (1968): 297-328;
122. Theodore Stern, 'The cult of the local lord among the Karen' (Paper for the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, 1968);
123. Theodore Stern, 'Drum and whistle languages: An analysis of speech surrogates', American Anthropologist, 59, 3 (1976): 487-506.
124. Walter Yuan Jianwei, 'Assimilation and reconstructing a Chinese ethnic identity in contemporary Myanmar', 2006 manuscript.