Ethnic origin of Chin Part 2

Introduction

This is Part two of 'Ethnic origin of Chin' to discuss the plausibility of the 'Lost tribes of Israel' theory implanted by the Christian missionaries and also how the Chin people became Christians.

Christian missionaries

Soon after the British invaded Myanmar and Northeast India in the late 19th century, Christian missionaries began to convert the Chin people into Christianity.

The Chin must have resisted conversion when the Christian missionaries first tried to convert them by fighting the British in the Anglo-Chin war.

The Christian missionaries expedited the conversion by claiming that the Chin were descended from the 'lost tribes of Israel' in 722 BC so that the Chin will be on the invaders' side and not fighting against the invaders.

Christian missionaries in Mizoram (right inset)

Let's look at which factors the Chin match in the table below.

Factor	Natives in China	Natives in Israel
Language family	Sino-Tibetan	Semitic
Race	East Asian aka Mongoloid	Caucasoid
Sub-race	Central East Asian	Arabic Caucasoid
DNA dominant haplogroup	O2a2b	J
Religion	Taoism and animism	Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian)
Distance to Myanmar	approx.1000 km	more than 6000 km

Before the British came, the Chin matches all factors in a homeland in China rather than a homeland in Israel. In addition to O2a2b haplogroup, some Chin people also have O1b1 haplogroup which indicated they assimilated or intermarried with some Austro-Asiatic tribes while in Myanmar making them darker skinned than their ancestors. However, this Austro-Asiatic racial admixture needs further evidence to confirm.

Let's look at how the Chin could have possibly travelled to Myanmar from Israel more than 2000 years ago.

Migration route through India

In ancient times, Chin didn't have access to airplane, long-distance huge ships, cars and even horses to travel such great distance to Myanmar. Why would they travel so far when they can settle somewhere nearer in Middle East or western India in ancient times?

Note that the complete migration path is much longer than the one shown in the map below which excluded the Middle East.

In fact, the actual lost tribes of Israel were found in other countries that fit the factors above and are much closer to Israel in terms of distance e.g.

• Jews of Kurdistan in Middle East
• Bene Israel tribe in western India
• Naphtali tribe in Iran

Migration route through Central Asia

If the lost tribes of Israel were to take the route through Xinjiang, they would have to go through endless hostile deserts and also meet hostile tribes such as Xiongnu. Would the Chinese even let them go through the Great Wall of China and stay in China for a long-term when they are foreigners who are of different race in ancient times?

Even the native Tocharians who lived in Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang around 2000 BC and is much nearer to China than the Israeli tribes didn't reach inside the Great Wall of China.

Some of these missionaries argued that is how Chin 'lost' their original Jewish language and adopted the Sino-Tibetan language but that would mean they would have reached China during the Eastern Zhou dynasty and Qin dynasty (770 BC-207 BC) at a time of great civil war inside China where the walls are heavily guarded.

Wouldn't the vast Central Asian steppe be a better place for the lost tribes of Israel to live if they really took this route? It just seems impossible for the Chin to traverse this difficult route just to go to China in ancient times when there were no airplanes, trains, cars and there was no history of them riding camels.

Intermarriage

After the airplane became common transportation in India at the end of the 20th century AD, a small group of Chin people i.e. Bnei Menashe flew to Israel to convert to Judaism.

Some of them married the real Jews in Israel and their mixed-race children have Jewish DNA but this is a very recent event and not because their ancestors were originally Jewish people more than 2500 years ago. However, some people took this opportunity to publish misleading DNA reports claiming that these mixed-race children's DNA proves that the earliest Chin ancestors was 'one of the lost tribes'.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Christian missionaries contrived a false origin for the Chin people to expedite their conversion into Christianity. In order words, the Christian missionaries brainwashed the Chin people to abandon their old beliefs and accept Christianity.

Today, 80 to 90% of Chin people, who wrongly believe they are the lost tribes of Israel, were converted to Christians but a few Chin tribes such as Mun Chin still practice their original animistic religion in Myanmar.

Related links

Ethnic origin of Chin part 1
http://eastasiaorigin.blogspot.com/2020/05/ethnic-origin-of-chin.html

Sources

• Tracking The Genetic Imprints of Lost Jewish Tribes Among The Gene Pool of Kuki-Chin-Mizo Population of India. Genome Biology. Jan 2005. By  Bhaswar Maity, T Sitalaximi, R Trivedi, V K Kashyap.

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