シャンの行方(<特集>東南アジア大陸部における民族間関係と「地域」の生成)

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to present a perspective for ethnological analysis of Shan people living in Burma. "Shan" was originally used to refer to Tai-speaking people by the Burmese. The Shan have been politically and culturally influenced by the Burmese through historical contacts between them, and I will refer to this process as "Burmanization." In parallel with this phenomenon, the Shan must have experienced a kind of "Shanization" that seems to have raised their own ethnic self-consciousness. When we study about the inter-ethnic relationship between the Shan and the Burmese, "Ko Shan Pyi" (Nine Shan States) emerges as one of the keyterms, for both sides have records of nine legendary chiefdoms or mong of the Shan. According to some records, Mogaung (Mong Kawng) was the leader among the chiefdoms, having been founded by a legendary hero who came from Mong Mao. Mong Mao is thought to be the earliest site of the Shan in Burma. But Mogaung is now located not in Shan State but in Kachin State and is merely an imagined centre of the Shan. The Shan who migrated to Kachin State have been more Burmanized than those in Shan State. Therefore, the latter seem to have preserved their own culture. They must have adjusted to the enviromental conditions of the Shan plateau, through which the Irrawaddy and Salween Rivers pass. This area, historically called "Kambawza, " may have been the cradle of Shanization.