Don’t you just love nature? Are the sceneries of flowing rivers, mountain ranges and forests always winning your heart over? Do you love to explore the beauty of mother earth? Do you love your natives and your motherland? If you answer yes to all, let’s take a trip to the land of Manaw where you can see different races such as Ka-Chin, Chin, Bamar, Shan, and Nar-Ga living in unison and where you can seek the mysterious histories and fables of Myanmar.

Ka-Chin

The word ‘Ka-Chin’ is commonly called by Myanmar people and it is not a word defined by Ka-Chin people. There are mainly six ethnic groups of Ka-Chin people, namely Jane-Phot, Ah-Zee (Zyne-War), La-Shee (La-Chan), Li-Suu, Ya-Won and Ma-Yu (Law-Paw).

The history of the Ka-Chin people is quite fabled. The Ka-Chin elders have said that their people’s history came from a mountain called MajoiShngra which is a word from the Ka-Chin language. There was no exact specification of the location of that mountain but it was assured the mountain is not quite far from the land of Tibet people. Some Ka-Chin people believe their race came from the father of the very first humans. Nowadays, some hold the thought that the Ka-Chin people moved from the plateaus of Tibet to the higher parts of Myanmar around the 15^th and 16^th centuries. For the people who landed below the mountains, they were called Jane-Phot and for the ones who live above, they were named Kha-Khu.

It was Jane-Phot people who made Ka-Chin to recognize and be well-known by the world. Not only that it was also them who established the very first Ka-Chin language and literature. The rest of Ka-Chin peoples’ leaders also used the language of Jane-Phot before originating their own. By the belief of Jane-Phot people, the word ‘Jane-Phot’ means ‘human’. It is pronounced as ‘Ma-Sha’ in their language. Some also called ‘Jean-Sine’ or ‘Phaw-Sine’ which means being settled permanently and being knowledgeable. So, you can say that the people of Jane-Phot are in an established and settled state and also experienced and knowledgeable. Pardon me if I mentioned some wrong information as I researched about them within my reach.