Jingpo

The people Jingpo or Kachin ; (Chinese: 景颇族 pinyin: Jǐngpōzú; or Tsaiva or Lechi) is a Ethnicity, of a population estimated at: 450000 individuals, who lives mainly in the north of the Myanmar (State de Kachin). They form one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the Popular republic of China with: 132143 representatives listed in 2000.

They are close to people in India called Singpho.

In China

Jingpo live mainly in the autonomous Préfecture dai and jingpo of Dehong, in the province of the Yunnan, with the minorities De' ang, Lisu, Achang and Han. One finds some in the autonomous Préfecture of them lisu of Nujiang. Jingpos live mainly covered mountains of forests around: 1500 meters of altitude, where the climate is hot. Many ways connect the Jingpo villages which are made houses on two floors in Bambou within dense forests and of thickets of bamboo.

The zone is rich in wood rare and medicinal herbs. Among the principal cultures, one finds rubber, the, the coffee, and cotton. The local mineral resources are iron, copper lead, gold, the money and the invaluable stones. In the forests of the area one finds tiger S, leopard S, Ours, python S, Faisan S and Perroquet S.

History

According to the local legends and the files, the ancestors of Jingpo lived in the southernmost part of the Xizang (plate Tibetan). They emigrated gradually towards the south in the western northern part of Yunnan, in the west of the Nujiang river.

During the Yuan dynasty, the imperial court establishes an administrative provincial office in Yunnan which supervised the zone of Xunchuan. With the development, various Jingpo groups amalgamated in two great tribal alliances: Chashan and Lima. They were directed by noble hereditary called “shanguan”. The free men and the slaves formed two other classes. Deprived of any freedom, the slaves bore the name of their Masters and made a forced labor.

During the first part of the 15th century, the Dynasty Ming, which instituted a system of nomination of local hereditary chief in the zones of minority, set up of the administrative offices and named noble Jingpo as administrators. During the Qing dynasty the inhabited areas by Jingpos were placed under the jurisdiction of prefectures and counties organized by the Qing court.

At the beginning of the 16th century of many Jingpo moved in the zone of Dehong. Under the influence of Han and Dai which had more advanced techniques, Jingpos started to use steel tools like the plow and later learned how to cultivate rice in paddy. This evolution was accompanied by a transition towards a feudal mode. The slaves revolted and fled. The slave system disappeared at the 19th century.

Culture and lifestyle

The basic unit of the Jingpo company was made up of the husband and his wife. Some “shanguans” practiced polygamy. The family was directed by the father. A family with only of the girls could have a son-in-law who lived with it, but the son-in-law did not change a name and his/her children took to his name instead of that of sound beautiful father. A family without child could adopt a son, who was obliged to nourish his adoptive parents but who could inherit their property. The elderly without child were dealt with by their parents. The system of heritage among Jingpo supported young person wire. Whereas the oldest son trained a family, puîné dealt with his/her parents and inherited most of the property. Puîné a statute higher than that of his/her brothers had definitively. The statute of the woman in the Jingpo company was a lower statute.

Jingpo practiced a system of mixed marriage hierarchical, i.e. marriages between families “shanguans” and families of peasants. Whereas the young people could freely meet people, their marriage, often implying gifts of engagement, was arranged by their parents. The removal of the wives was frequent. When people died they were buried, except those which died for nonnatural causes and which were then incinerated.

The Jingpo people lived in houses of bamboo and wood except for some “shanguans” or chiefs who had brick houses and tiles. Their maisonnettes of oblong form had two stages. The ground floor, approximately a meter with the top of the ground, made it possible to keep the animals, while on the first floor, divided into four to ten parts with walls of bamboo, lived the family. All the seven or eight years the maisonnettes were to be rebuilt. The rebuilding was done with the assistance of the villagers in several days.

Rice is basic food, although the corn is important in certain places. The vegetables, the beans and the potatoes are cultivated in the Jingpos gardens. Jingpos collect also wild grasses and fruits like food.

Religion

Although there exist some Christian and Buddhist groups, the majority of Jingpo is polytheist. They adore various gods as well as the spirit of the ancestors.

They believe that the spirits are everywhere, of the ground in the animals and that they communicate the good one or misfortune with the men. For Jingpo, all the alive creatures have a heart. They make the ritual ones to be protected from all the daily activities, harvests with the war.

Languages

The people listed under Jingpo nationality in China speak at least two different languages, the Jinghpo and Tsaiva.

Jinghpo

Jinghpo is spoken by 900.000 speakers in Myanmar and 40.000 speakers in China. It is classified like language sino-Tibetan, pertaining to the subfamily Jinghpo-bodo-konyak. The speakers of Jinghpo are included/understood by the speakers of Tsaiva.

Tsaiva

Tsaiva (also spelled Tsaiwa ; Atsi in Jinghpo; ; Zi in Burmese) is spoken by 80.000 speakers in China and approximately 30.000 speakers in Myanmar. It is classified like language sino-Tibetan, pertaining to the subfamily of the Langues tibéto-Burmeses. After the establishment of the Popular republic of China, a written language based on the dialect of the village of Longzhun (District of Xishan in the County of Luxi) and using a Latin alphabet was created and introduced officially in 1957.

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