Ethnic origin of Jingpho in Myanmar

Introduction

The ancestors of Jingpho (景頗) were called Gaoligong (高黎貢) people. 'Gong' (貢) means 'mountain' in the Jingpho language. Today, their descendants are called Jingpho in China and Myanmar but Singpho in Northeast India.

The Jingpho is the main Kachin tribe and live mainly in Kachin state in Myanmar and also the adjoining Dehong (德宏) and Nujiang (怒江) prefectures in Yunnan province.

Homeland

During the 7th to 9th century, the Jingpho trekked along the Gaoligong Mountains of the Hengduan Mountain Range and migrated southwards into both sides of the Mekong River in north-western part of Yunnan province. So their early homeland is in Yunnan.

During the 17th century, the Jingpho people who live in the east of Mekong River migrated in large numbers to the west of the Mekong River specifically into Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan and Hukong aka Hukawng Valley in Kachin State.

The reason for this mass migration was most probably due to the Manchu invasion of Yunnan during the Southern Ming dynasty (1644-1683 AD).

Jingpho's original homeland

The Jingpho celebrate their most important festival called 'Soupong Yong Manao Poi' during the first lunar month. This festival contains important clues about their original homeland before migrating to Yunnan.

The Jingpho tribe first formed at Riyue Mountain (Ri-Yue means Sun-Moon) to the east of Qinghai lake.

The evidences are:

• Sun Moon Mountain

Their folklore narrates that the first time that they celebrated the Manao festival was in a place called 'Sun Moon Mountain'. There are sun and moon symbols at the top of the four pillars during the festival to support the folklore.

• Bird symbol

There are many seagulls living around the Qinghai lake and flew around the Jingpho when they celebrated the same festival thousand of years ago. The bird symbol on their hats and bird statue of the pillars support this.

• The Jingpho tribe name 

The name 'Jiong' means 'salt' and 'Pho' means 'to open or extract' i.e. Jingpho means 'to extract salt'. There is a massive salt lake named Chaka Salt Lake next to Qinghai lake.

Frozen Chaka Salt Lake during winter

Before they differentiated into the Jingpho tribe, there are several other cultural artifacts that indicate an even earlier homeland where they shared the same region with the ancestors of the Han Chinese near Xian in Shaanxi province. All these details were researched by an ethnic Jingpho historian in the documentary video below.

The complete migration path is depicted in the map below.

Migration path in red. Earlier migration path in cyan

Festival

The video below shows the Jingpho's most important festival held in Yunnan, China.

Migration to Northeast India

From Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, some Jingpho crossed the Patkai range into South Tibet and northeastern Assam around 1780-1794 AD.

Migration path of Singpho

They later became known as Singpho and live mainly in Tinsukia district in Assam and Lohit and Chanlang districts in Arunachal Pradesh.

These Singpho regions fell under British rule in 1826 AD and remained part of India ever since.

British colonization

Ethnic Jingpho is the main tribe in Kachin State, Myanmar and the Jingpho language was used as the lingua franca among the various Sino-Tibetan tribes in Kachin state before 1948 AD.

Upper Burma including Kachin State fell under British rule (1886-1947 AD). In 1947 AD, the Panglong agreement was signed between the ethnic Bamar and the Kachin leaders to set the conditions for independence from British rule as a single country.

Kachin Independence Army

However, after independence from the British, the ethnic Bamar didn't fully comply with the Panglong agreement which led to the formation of the Kachin Independence Army to seek for an independent Kachin country.

Jingpho language

The Jingpho language has 30% mutual intelligibility with Tibetan language.

English	Jingpho	Tibetan	Southern Min Chinese
Eye	A-Mik	Mik	Bak/Mak
Road	Lam	Lam	Lɔ
Older brother	Phu	Phu-bo	Hia
Younger brother	Ke-Nau	Nu-bo	Ti

A few linguists tried to group Jingpho language under the Sal branch based on five words such as 'sun' and 'fire' which is misleading because this is most probably due to areal contact with the Konyak tribes and not due to close genetic affiliation. Further research needs to be done to determine whether these five words are pronounced the same in all Jingpho dialects or just a few dialects.

The Bodo-Garo people are the earliest inhabitants of Brahmaputra valley and has been living there for around 9000 years whereas the Jingpho has been living in Yunnan for only around 1200 years so they both can't possibly be in the same Sino-Tibetan branch i.e. Sal. More research needs to be done to find the correct branch for the Jingpho languages.

Conclusion

Ethnic Jingpho are Sino-Tibetan people who originally came from Qinghai province on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau before migrating south towards Yunnan and Myanmar. A small group migrated recently to northeast India to become the Singpho tribe.

Related links

Main ethnicities in Myanmar

http://eastasiaorigin.blogspot.com/2017/07/main-ethnicities-in-myanmar.html

Origin of Sino-Tibetan tribes

http://eastasiaorigin.blogspot.com/2018/08/origin-of-sino-tibetan-tribes.html

Sources

• Jingpho migration history (Chinese). https://kknews.cc/zh-mo/travel/qngae5b.html
• The Singphos: A Socio-Cultural Study. Dr. Arpana Konwar. https://sites.google.com/site/journalpierian/home/articles---vol-002/the-singphos-a-socio-cultural-study
• Encyclopedia Britannica - Yunnan.
• A Cross-Border Community Strives to Protect Its Culture. The Washington Post. Mar 16, 2003.
• Gohain Boruah, Assam Buranji, Guwahati, 1963.

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