[430] The Burmese is the most mixed race in the province. "Originally Dravidians of some sort, they seem to have received blood from various sources—Hindu, Musalmān, Chinese, Shān, Talaing, European and others." W. Crooke, "The Stability of Caste and Tribal Groups in India," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLIV. 1914, p. 279, quoting the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906.
[431] J. G. Scott, Burma, etc., 1886, p. 115.
[432] Op. cit. p. 118.
[433] "The Taungbyôn Festival, Burma," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLV. 1915, p. 355.
[434] Amongst the Shans, etc., 1885, p. 233.
[435] Cf. the Shans of Yunnan, who are nearly all "tatoués, depuis la ceinture jusqu'au genou, de dessins bleus si serrés qu'ils paraissent former une vraie culotte," Pr. Henri d'Orléans, Du Tonkin aux Indes, 1898, p. 83.
[436] For recent literature on Burma and the Burmese consult besides the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906, and the Census Report of 1911, J. G. Scott, The Burman, 1896, and Burma, 1906; A. Ireland, The Province of Burma, 1907; H. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People, 1898, and A People at School, 1906.
[437] Probably for Shan-tsĕ, Shan-yen, "highlanders" (Shan, mountain), Shan itself being the same word as Siam, a form which comes to us through the Portuguese Sião.
[438] For the Laos see L. de Reinach, Le Laos, 1902, with bibliography.
[439] Carl Bock, MS. note. This observer notes that many of the Ngiou have been largely assimilated in type to the Burmese and in one place goes so far as to assert that "the Ngiou are decidedly of the same race as the Burmese. I have had opportunities of seeing hundreds of both countries, and of closely watching their features and build. The Ngiou wear the hair in a topknot in the same way as the Burmese, but they are easily distinguished by their tattooing, which is much more elaborate" (Temples and Elephants, 1884, p. 297). Of course all spring from one primeval stock, but they now constitute distinct ethnical groups, and, except about the borderlands, where blends may be suspected, both the physical and mental characters differ considerably. Bock's Ngiou is no doubt the same name as Ngnio, which H. S. Hallett applies in one place to the Mossé Shans north of Zimme, and elsewhere to the Burmese Shans collectively (A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, 1890, pp. 158 and 358).