The Imperial Gazetteer of India
Meyer, William Stevenson, Sir, 1860-1922.
Burn, Richard, Sir, 1871-1947.
Cotton, James Sutherland, 1847-1918.
Risley, Sir Herbert Hope, 1851-1911.
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New edition, published under the authority of His Majesty's secretary of state for India in council.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-1931 [v. 1, 1909]

234 NORTHERN SHAN STATES
the Hkun and the Lii of Kengtung, and a host of other communities
in the interior of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, such for instance as the
Muongs of Tongking, are all the descendants of the primitive hordes
which swarmed down from the northern uplands in those early ages.
The Shans proper settled first in the valley of the Shweli or Nam Mao
in the extreme north of the existing Shan States; and in course of time
a powerful Shan kingdom, known as Mong Mao Long, was established
in this region, with its capital at Selan in the north of North Hsenwi,
about 13 miles east of Namhkam, where the remains of fortifications
are still to be seen. From this centre the movement of the people
was westwards and southwards, so that, in process of time, not only
had the greater part of the present Southern Shan States been overrun
by a Tai folk, but Shans had also occupied a considerable portion of
the country lying between the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin (Hkamti,
Mogaung, Hsawnghsup, &c.), and had extended into what is now
Assam. The ancient chronicles relate that the Mao kingdom, estab-
lished about the seventh century, was a considerable political force
up to the time of Anawrata, the most distinguished monarch of the
Pagan dynasty. During the reign of this king the Mao Shan ruler
appears to have been his vassal, but the suzerainty was temporary.
The Shans regained their independence later; and the break-up of the
Pagan dynasty in the thirteenth century was to a large extent caused
by a so-called Chinese invasion from the north-east, which, if not
wholly, was, at any rate, partially Shan. After this the Shans were a
power in Burma for several centuries, and the early rulers of Sagaing,
Pinya, and Myinzaing were of Tai descent. But while these monarchs
were making their mark in Upper Burma, the remnants of cohesion
among the Tai peoples of the east and north gradually disappeared,
the Siamese and Lao dependencies broke off from the main body and
united to form a separate kingdom, and the Shans eventually split up
into a swarm of petty principalities, which, by the beginning of the
seventeenth century, had been subjugated by the Burmans and never
wholly threw off the Burmese yoke. Sir George Scott has observed in
the Upper Burma Gazetteer that the Tai race came very near to being
the predominant power in the Farther East. How close they were to
this achievement will never, probably, be known with any degree of
precision. What is certain, however, is that on the annexation of
Upper Burma the British found the Shan States subject to the Bur-
mese crown, but administered by their own rulers, and decided to
treat them on their existing footing, and not to bring them under
direct administration. From the time of the annexation onwards the
histories of the different Northern Shan States are distinct, and will be
found in the articles on HSIPAw, NORTH and SOUTH HSFNWI, MnNG-
LON, and TAWNGPFNG. The most important events were the disturb-

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