[440] "Les Paï ne sont autres que des Laotiens" (Prince Henri, p. 42).
[441] One Shan group, the Deodhaings, still persist, and occupy a few villages near Sibsagar (S. E. Peal, Nature, June 19, 1884, p. 169). Dalton also mentions the Kamjangs, a Khamti (Tai) tribe in the Sadiya district, Assam (Ethnology of Bengal, p. 6).
[442] Much unexpected light has been thrown upon the early history of these Ahoms by E. Gait, who has discovered and described in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1894, a large number of puthis, or MSS. (28 in the Sibsagar district alone), in the now almost extinct Ahom language, some of which give a continuous history of the Ahom rajas from 568 to 1795 A.D. Most of the others appear to be treatises on religious mysticism or divination, such as "a book on the calculation of future events by examining the leg of a fowl" (ib.).
[443] Op. cit. p. 309.
[444] A. R. Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, 1885, Introduction, p. lv.
[445] Op. cit. p. 328.
[446] Temples and Elephants, p. 320.
[447] "Der Gesichtsausdruck überhaupt nähert sich der kaukasischen Race" (Im fernen Osten, p. 959).
[448] Low's Siamese Grammar, p. 14.
[449] R. G. Woodthorpe, "The Shans and Hill Tribes of the Mekong," in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 16.