Kachin - Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. See under "Settlements" and "Marriage and Family"

Political Organization. There are several versions of the system. Gumchying Gumtsa chiefs are the ritual models of chiefdom and the base for this kind of organization is the Red-Earth country. Their authority derives from their monopoly of priests and bardic reciters of genealogical myths, through which ritual specialists they control access to the spirits who make human occupancy of the land possible. They claim the right to various services and dues from their subjects, notably a hind quarter of all animals (wild and domestic) that are killed in the tract, and so are called "thigh-eating chiefs." Gumlao communities reject on principle the hereditary privileges of chiefs. In particular, they believe that all aristocrats of the community are equal, that is, all householders who can get someone to sponsor the essential Merit Feasts and sacrifices. It is a mistake to call this a "democratic" system, since its principle is wider access by aristocrats to chieflike privileges (though they reject the thigh-eating dues) ; a Gumlao man is called magam, which signifies an aristocrat though not a chief ( duwa ) by strict succession. Gumlao is based on the idea that a noninheriting son who can find wealth and a place to set himself up may try to get an important Gumchying Gumtsa chief to sponsor him in a feat that will raise him to standing as a full chief; but first he must temporarily renounce all claims to standing ( gumyu, which literally means "to step down from privilege") while he awaits the sponsoring rites. When local and historical circumstances conspire to make wealth more generally accessible, there are aristocrats who will not bother with sponsorship at all, since sponsorship becomes expensive and has to be postponed proportionally to the demand for it. They simply assume the ritual attributes, although not the thigh-eating privileges, of chiefdom. This seems to be the root of the Gumlao movement. Not surprisingly, as conditions ease there will be gumlao magam who again seek sponsorship as full chiefs, at which point Gumlao tracts turn again into Gumchying Gumtsa domains. The oscillation is fueled by a perennial ideological debate about the allowable sources of ritual privilege, as well as by the combined effects of the principle of lineage segmentation and the tendencies toward disaffection brought about through primogeniture. When a Kachin chief in close contact with Shan becomes more like a Shan prince ( sawbwa, or tsao-fa ), often because he has taken over lowland Shan territories or because he desires political recognition on the part of other sawbwas, he will try to assert even greater power over his "subjects" and may even abandon Kachin priestly services and the closely connected reliance on upland farming. Such a chief is called "Gumsa duwa," a Gumsa chief. In tending toward becoming Shan and asserting a sharp distinction between "rulers" and "subjects" incompatible with the claims and intricacies of the Kachin marriage-alliance system (a Shan prince, of course, simply takes and gives wives as tribute) , and in giving up the ritual basis of his authority, he will tend to lose the allegiance of the Kachin manpower on which his real power depends. The alternative is the compromise status of Gumrawng Gumsa (pretentious chiefs), who claim exclusive right over a village and maintain enough upland swiddens to satisfy the Kachin priests who must serve them, but remain unconnected with the hierarchy of Kachin authority deriving from the rules of strict succession and sponsorship, have no authority outside the village, and are not recognized outside the village as thigh-eating chiefs. Traditional Kachin chiefs, not being absolute rulers, rarely acted apart from the wishes of the council of household elders. In Yunnan, where Kachin chiefs have long had a place within the Tusi system in the context of Shan principalities, it is not unknown for agents ( suwen, probably a Chinese title) to usurp much of the power of the chiefs, even though these administrative agents may be commoners.

Conflict. Suppressed upon the extension of British rule, Kachin warfare was mainly guerilla action, raiding, and ambush, with sporadic instances of cannibalism and headhunting reported.