24
44
66
113
132
150
172

189
200


INTRODUCTION

Apparently  at  the  instance  of  the  British  Association
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  in  general,  and  of  the
Anthropological  Institute  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  in
particular,  a  series  of  monographs  is  in  course  of  preparation,
presumably  on  all  of  the  races  and  tribes  of  the  Indian
Empire.  This  book  is  one  of  the  series,  written  at  the
request  of  His  Honour  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Burma,

The  Shans,  as  we  may  see  from  the  quotations  below,
are  a  people  numerous,  widely  spread,  and  with  a  history
reaching  back  far  into  the  past.  Manifestly,  in  writing
a  monograph  on  the  Shans,  these  facts  must  be  taken  into
account.  The  subject  cannot  be  treated  in  exactly  the
same  way  that  one  might  write  of  a  small  tribe  of  the
Melchizedec  order,  "  without  father,  without  mother,  with-
out genealogy,"  whether  that  tribe  be  a  recent  intruder
or  the  ragged  relic  of  a  vanishing  race.  Certain  matters
and  things  must  be  looked  at  from  the  historical  point  of
view  somewhat  more  than  is  common  in  purely  anthro-
pological accounts  of  small  tribes.  But,  after  all,  human
history  is  only  another  name  for  anthropology  written  large.
