Dissertation, Chapter 2

Part 4

Black and White Ethnic Designations
Incorporation of people into the tusi system implied a specific relationship to the Chinese empire. Those tribal groups with tusi were practically imperial subjects and those without were ‘bandits’ or ‘barbarians’ and therefore legitimate targets of imperial pacification. Chao points out that such ethnic markers were actually markers of state control and prestige, indicating one’s place as a subject of the Chinese Empire. The scale of ‘civilization’ corresponded to degrees of state control {!Chao 1995: 37, 42-3}.
There were considerable differences in Lisu social organization depending upon political conditions. Forrest wrote that the Lisu:
... on the upper Salwin north of Hsia-ku-dé were utter savages. Up to and including Cheng-ka in lat. 26 12' N., the Lissoo who are nominally controlled by Chinese chiefs are quiet and friendly enough. Then there is the Hsia-ku-dé group of villages under their headman, but not recognizing any Chinese authority, and resisting any attempt of the Chinese chiefs to exercise it. From Yako northwards up to the limits of Lissoo country [Black Lisu], about 27 35', there is no sort of government or control of any sort of kind, by any Chinese or other chief. Most of the villages have not even a regular headman; nearly every village, too, speaks a [different] dialect ... There are also a number of tribal subdivisions, a source of constant feuds. The Chinese official theory that the country belongs to the hereditary Minchia chief Lo, who resides at Tu-wo, lat. 26 8' N. on the Mekong, has no foundation whatever; in fact, on the contrary, no sort of official person would dare to go anywhere near the country {Forrest 1908: 261}.
Similarly, Rose & Brown noted that Lisu north of 26 15' were independent and often without chiefs; towards the Mekong tended to be allied with chiefs; under Lisu tusi further south; and under direct Chinese administration around Tengchong {!Rose & Brown 1911: 255}.
These statuses and relationships toward the Chinese state were indicated by the designations of “White” and “Black” Lisu. For instance, we can look at the population of Lisu ranging from south to north along the Salween, as discussed previously. In the region of Chengjia (about 26 10') and south, Lisu men dressed in Chinese style clothes; women retained Lisu jewelry and adopted Chinese cotton cloth for clothing in the Lisu style {Forrest 1908: 244, 246, 248, 254}. Between Chengjia and Tengchong, Lisu were often under direct Chinese administration. Village headmen were paid a small annual subsidy, in return for which they were responsible for protecting travelers and caravans passing through their territory {Rose & Brown 1911: 264}. It appears that these were generally “Flowery” Lisu.
Further north, there were non-Sinified Lisu populations. They wore hempen clothes. The tusi and their families spoke Chinese; they were generally Lisu or claimed to be part Chinese. There was little feuding or robbery, but Lisu did have the obligation of paying tax or tribute to the tusi who collected this on behalf of the Chinese authorities. A Chinese clerk assisted the tusi in collecting taxes, but otherwise the village regulated its own affairs and Chinese officials did not intervene. They also had to cut and clear local roads annually. These were the populations referred to as “White” Lisu. They themselves referred to this as Chinese territory (“Han-ti”) and the people referred to themselves as Chinese, as opposed to the ‘wild’ tribes or “Black” Lisu further north up the river. There was much resentment and jealousy between these two groups, the civilized and the barbarian {Forrest 1908: 244, 246, 248, 254; Ch'en 1947: 258}. On the Upper Salween, Tibetan or Naxi tusi held authority, as discussed previously {Rose & Brown 1911: 264} but the Lisu on the Mekong were peaceful White Lisu more under Chinese control.
Further north and west, tusi control was nominal. No one spoke Chinese, there was frequent lineage-based feuding among villages, and many villages did not have a headman {Forrest 1908: 250, 254}. These are the Independent or “Black” Lisu. “Black” Lisu were labeled as the group that liked to fight compared to “White” Lisu {Ch’en 1947: 258}. Forrest found the Independent Lisu who lived further north to be, in his words, lazy, drunk, cowardly, feuding, and completely wild {Forrest 1908: 261}. What this appears to mean is that they did not cooperate with him in his exploratory travels. He contrasted them with the Lisu under the control of Chinese chiefs, who were quiet and friendly; those Lisu under British rule were “amenable to civilization … and … more docile than the Kachins” {Forrest 1908: 261}.
The distinction between “Black” and “White” extended to Lolo as well, which further illustrates the element of state relations in such ethnic categories, although the characteristics of each are not completely consistent. A Lolo told Baber that he was “Black-bone,” a freeman or noble to the Lolo, but to the Chinese meaning independent. “White-bones” were commoners in this distinction. The Lolo went on to claim “I serve nobody. I receive the Great Emperor’s pay, and keep the peace.” These Lolo also spoke of their wealth and security {Baber 1882: 64}. This indicates the existence of tusi, a great deal of autonomy, and chiefs on the model of which Gros writes with a large number of dependents and/or slaves. Black-bone Lolos, however, were blamed by the Chinese for carrying out banditry. Although declaring his innocence, this Black-bone Lolo tusi made payments to the Chinese to prevent punishment by them {Baber 1882: 106}. Thus, “Black” groups were not so much completely outside of Chinese control as they were on its margins, maintaining autonomy through a degree of accommodation to their role as buffers for the Chinese against foreign polities.
James George Scott’s take on this was that the H , Hei or Black Lolo were those who had succeeded in maintaining their independence from the Chinese, which attributed to their never intermarrying with the Chinese. They were tall, handsome, and great hunters. On the other hand, the Pai or White Lolo mixed with the Chinese, the men had adopted the pigtail, received Chinese official rank and appointments, and some of the women even had bound feet (Scott & Hardiman 1983 I: (1)614).
Another take on this were colonial British and French ideas of the purity of people in their homeland. Black Lolo in their ‘homeland’ were considered admirable people; similarly, the Lahu of the north were strong and had fought “pertinaciously” against the Chinese for years, but those of the south were spoken of as wretched – timid, cowardly, of miserable mien and inferior physique (Scott & Hardiman 1983 I: (1) 613, quoting French and British explorers of the late nineteenth century). Many Lolo moved south from Ch’ing-ch’i-hsein after losing a war with the Chinese {Johnston 2001: 120}. Similarly, Goullart, considered the Black Lisu and Black Lolo to be among the energetic and “upcoming” groups, that is, assertive, forthright, and independent. The White Lisu and White Lolo were among those he considered “outgoing, dying race[s]” {Goullart 1955: 115, 190}. Of the White Lisu, he wrote that “When hedged in by their aggressive neighbours they surrender their lands passively and just retreat quietly and shyly into deeper recesses of the protective mountains. They resist feebly and ineffectually the efforts of governments and missionaries to draw them into the vortex of civilized life” {Goullart 1955: 114}. In Goullart’s understanding, the White groups were the serfs and the Black ones the nobility {Goullart 1955: 82}. Yet much of Fraser’s missionary work was among the White and Flowery Lisu, some of whom actively sought out this connection with western missions. There were by no means shy and retiring, but did seek education, medical care, and protection against corrupt officials.
There was an increasing Chinese presence in the north as time went on, albeit specific to particular locales; Kingdon-Ward reported that at Sukin, just south of Tra-mu-tang (28 ) on the Salween, and barely twenty miles from the Mekong, there was a large village of 100 households (mostly Lisu) that was the residence of a Chinese official in the 1920s. The Chinese temple was used as a barn {!Kingdon-Ward 1986: 219}. Tra-mu-tang, however, was Tibetan {!@Kingdon-Ward 1986: 222}. The Chinese fort at Latsa was just a small barracks that barely kept the Black Lisu along south of this part of the Salween in check {!@Kingdon-Ward 1986: 240-1}. I expect that more detailed local history would show an oscillation between White and Black and transformations in the meanings of these categories over time as Chinese hegemony increased and Tibetan influence waned. In this, we see the progression from Flowery Lisu in the south, White Lisu around Tengchong and in other administered, peaceful, territories to the north and east; and Black Lisu in the northernmost points of Lisu distribution; White and Flowery Lisu being Sinified to different degrees, while the Black were not {Rose & Brown 1911: 255} or were more marked by Tibetan characteristics {Kingdon-Ward 1986: 176}.
Clothing, frequently used by westerners to classify branches of racial stock, was more likely to signal peoples’ linkages to political economy, access to cotton cloth or thread and bright dyes, and degree of ‘civilization’ or submission to Chinese authorities. Lisu further north or where in less contact with Chinese or their markets wore hempen clothes consisting of a long coat, pants, and gaiters; those more in contact with the east wore shorter, brighter coats made of cotton likely to have been manufactured elsewhere. The women’s clothes were often elaborately parti-colored on a blue background, decorated with narrow strips of embroidery {Rose & Brown 1911: 258-9}. Dress is also of little help in ethnic classification because Lisu men seemed to adapt much of the style of the people around them. Women’s dress varied by locale and lineage {Fraser 1922: iv}, except for the women’s turbans and jewelry, generally consisting of huge quantities of necklaces of beads, large ornamented turbans, and a profusion of cowries. The dress of the women on the China-Burma frontier near Sadon and Hta-gaw was exceptionally ornate {Fraser 1922: iv}, perhaps indicating wealth and status, and, except for the use of cowries as decoration, seems similar to the dress of Lisu women in Thailand today.
The designations of Black, White and Flowery to this day are commonly said to refer to the color of people’s clothing {Dick 1987: 80; Bian n.d.; Zhao 1999; Zhengyou 2000; USA-China Nujiang River Expedition 1999} and for a picture of men in long white coats, see {Sinohost 1999}. I find this suspect. How often would farmers in the mountains wear pure white outfits? It would have been incredibly impractical. The Flowery Lisu do, indeed, wear brighter clothes, but even this indicates access to different types of material for clothing and decorations and thus economic conditions as much as conscious self-identification. Today in northern Thailand, Lisu from Burma are marked by women’s dress of much more muted tone and simpler design than those of Thailand, and these do indeed mark difference, but in access to markets rather than named ethnic categorizations. However, the color designations have taken on a sort of life of their own in the literature and Lisu in China today dress accordingly, as if these are primordial ethnic markers. Lisu also mark social and personal characteristics according to this designation. White Lisu told a Chinese researcher in 1946 that one branch of Lisu had divided themselves into ‘Black’ and ‘White’ groups when members became too numerous and those who liked fighting separated to become the ‘Black’ group {Ch’en 1947: 258}. British in Yunnan accepted these designations are corresponding to descent. But this ‘descent’ was in fact a matter of difference in political economy and ethnic relations from north to south. I think that color designations probably first marked people according to their political relation to the Chinese and only secondarily became a matter of self-identification and dress. Similar processes were occurring in Thailand in the late twentieth century as upland ethnic minority peoples of different groups took on the Thai lowland designation of them as a single group and acted in accordance with it.

Summary
The variable and fluctuating nature of social forms in northern mainland Southeast Asia was a point of comment even before Leach theorized it. It is one of the highlights of many mainland Southeast Asian societies and, apparently, of western Yunnan upland societies. Early colonial observers took such transformations as evidence of pollution, contact, or racial inter-mixing; Chinese imperial observers took them as evidence of developing civilization or reversion to barbarism. Leach theorized it in terms of an inherent instability, oscillating along the poles of egalitarian and hierarchical societies, but again saw it as a matter of acculturation toward a more developed or sophisticated society, that of the Shan princes. In this case, the main point of oscillation was between egalitarian and hierarchical societies (gumlao/gumsa). Others such as La Raw {!La Raw 1967}, Friedman {!Friedman 1979}, and Nugent {!Nugent 1982} countered with discussions of the ways in which British colonial tribal policy and new economic relations created chiefs in society, rigidly separating groups according to what had previously been flexible sociopolitical forms; and how control of natural resources such as jade mines or mountain passes supported the rise of chiefs who could support a large number of clients (affines) and dependents (including slaves) or introduction of opium cultivation enabled egalitarian society.
Looking at the historical material from western Yunnan expands the points to be considered, the poles of difference. It also expands the cultural influences to be considered; not only the model of Shan chiefdoms, but those of Naxi chiefdoms and Tibetan states; not only British but Chinese colonial policies and extension of administrative control. Based on the previous historical ethnographic information, I argue that we must consider the following elements: the short-term vs. the long-term nature of power; the role of debt and dependency; Sinification vs. non-assimilation or Tibetan influence; and control of natural resources. British colonial hegemony is, of course, significant, but it occurred as an overlay upon already existing tendencies and relationships.
We can consider these poles of social and political structure of Lisu:
▸ Egalitarian vs. hierarchical: Hierarchical societies occurred where chiefs arose, usually under the auspices or patronage of Naxi chiefs, or perhaps Tibetan rulers, and/or when they controlled a valuable trade route. However, this was not a permanent context and structure oscillated between permanent and temporary depending on the political economy that existed. Far northwestern Lisu tended to be egalitarian and more peripherally associated with Tibetan or Chinese states. Further south, Lisu societies tended toward a predominantly egalitarian pattern supported by lineal segmentation, migration and opium, except where Lisu were tied into Kachin or Shan structures of hierarchy. In more central areas, they had closer relationships with Naxi, Tibetan, or Chinese states and there is more evidence of hierarchical social structure through engagement in relations of patronage and dependency as well as the shared upland/lowland rituals illustrated in Gros (1996).
▸ Temporary or short-term vs. permanent or long-term: Of those societies that were hierarchical – with chiefs, and dependents or slaves – the social structure may be of short- or long-term duration. Temporary or short-term hierarchical structures can be so because of the influence of another power forcing them into a subordinate status without chiefs, such as the southern Lisu who were more fully incorporated into the Chinese empire and under direct Chinese imperial administration. In the intermediate conditions, imperial officials invested local leaders as tusi with quite a bit of autonomy as long as there were no uprisings and the tusi provided safe transit for trade caravans, soldiers for protection of the state, and paid taxes or tribute. This would be an example of more permanent or long-term chieftainships in existence because of the support of a powerful state. Other leaders could arise for some period of time but fail to create a permanent structure of chieftaincy because they were unable to control the resources necessary to maintain such a structure. Examples of this might be mines, with the resources taken over by another power or the mine itself played out, or ephemeral control of a mountain pass critical to trade. Maintaining wealth based on this would have depended on a number of factors: the value of the items typically traded along that route; the ebb and flow in use of different routes depending on safety, warfare, or ability to maintain exclusive control. One way to do this was to prey upon on trade caravans; thus the reputation of Black Lisu for being robbers and brigands. Another way for a leader to maintain relations of debt and dependency was to acquire slaves through warfare, and another was to work as mercenaries for Naxi, Tibetans, and Chinese. Gros also points out that a chief’s ritual role, acts of authority over the land and control of local spiritual power, underlay political centralization (1996, 2001a). However, chiefs required exclusive control of resources in order to maintain relations of debt and dependency and make displays of wealth and generosity. This does not appear to have been common given the shifting political and economic conditions typical of western Yunnan at this time. Remember, Gros (1996) said that the Lisu were rarely wealthy enough to maintain long-term chieftainships or in a position to maintain control of such resources. Where Lisu had chiefs, it appears to have been in association with Naxi leaders. There is a continuum here between degree of permanency and the influence of external states as it was generally only through state influence that a “permanent” chieftainship could come about.
▸ Sinification or Tibetan influence: Those who are non-Sinified were often heavily influenced by Tibetan and indigenous ideologies of ritual power (I find it impossible to distinguish between the two given the material available). Examples are the northern Black Lisu villages who did not have headmen and who appear to have been radically egalitarian with a high degree of feuding as opposed to the Black Lisu chiefs occasionally cited. This idea of Black Lisu chiefs needs to be explored. It is not clear to me that these ever existed outside of a context of subordination to Naxi leaders who practiced leadership on indigenous and Tibetan models. As we have seen, these wang or tusi positions were increasingly supported by investment as tusi in the Chinese system. There were other factors in Lisu culture that militated against debt and dependency and towards egalitarianism, closely tied in with migration and opium, which will be discussed in a later chapter. Where the Lisu population was acculturated to Chinese imperial culture, as in the southern part, they were loyal to tusi or local headmen, were reported as “docile” people, and there was no banditry or feuding.
In summary, Lisu social structure throughout its distribution could be either hierarchical or egalitarian depending on a leader’s access to slaves and dependents, made possible by the access to the wealth available through trade (or brigandage), control of mines, work as mercenaries, or patronage by external states, and his perceived ability to control ritual forces through feasting. Thus, we see tendencies in transformations in Lisu society over a wide geographical and temporal range due to the range of political and economic conditions under which each particular population lived, which then appeared oscillatory.

[CHART NOT INCLUDED] Border Politics and Lisu in Burma
As Lisu moved south and west, they encountered somewhat different conditions than they had faced in Yunnan. Initially, their neighbors would have been people familiar to them from Yunnan—Kachin, Tai – and somewhat similar ecological conditions. They also encountered very different political conditions in the form of British colonial authorities. Within the limits of available data, I estimate that at least 4,677 Lisu were in Upper Burma and the Northern Shan States by the late 1890s. I compiled this figure from the Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States {Scott & Hardiman 1983 I; !Scott & Hardiman 1983 II}, originally published in 1900. In the Gazetteer, James George Scott compiled colonial reports of the previous 20 years and enumerated all known villages in three long volumes. I collected the names of all the villages that were mentioned as having Lisu residents. Not all of the villages listed had information on both village population and the number of households. I therefore figured the average number of people per household from those enumerations where both population and household numbers were available. The average of this was 6.11 (leaving out one instance in which household population was 2.6 people/household, which seemed improbable). Then for other villages with only numbers of households listed, I was able to estimate the population numbers for those villages. This number is likely an undercount for two reasons. One is that Lisu were mentioned as living in some places but no population or household numbers given; thus, they are not included in this figure. Second, the Gazetteer gives less information for the region north and northwest of Putao, the Kachin States, where a population of Black Lisu probably lived.
By the mid-twentieth century, Burma had a larger population of Lisu. According to Leach’s amalgam of censuses from 1917, 1931, and 1947, there were 3,500 Lisu in Putao and Nam Tamai; 5,000 in Htawgaw; 500 in Sinpraw (Bh mo); and 6,000 in the Northern Shan States (excluding Lisu in the Chinese Shan States), for a total of 15,000 {Leach 1965: 309}. In none of these districts were Lisu anywhere near the majority.
Conditions in Yunnan for Lisu in the early twentieth century were severe enough to cause problems that leaked over the nascent Burmese border. A number of incidents illustrate the political and economic position of the Lisu in the early twentieth century and the ways in which the British colonial presence in Upper Burma affected it, both as they took action or advantage, and as some Lisu sought British patronage in their efforts to free themselves from onerous Chinese control. These incidents varied from ongoing resistance to the rule of a corrupt tusi to revitalization and millennial movements. They were all a continuum of rebellion against Chinese immigration and official control.
British interest in controlling or taking advantage of unrest on the border with Yunnan came from their economic interests in the Myitkyina District. The Myitkyina District was comprised of the Shan State of Hkamti Long and what the British called the Sana Tract. The territory ranged from 24 37' and 28 north latitude and 96 and 98 20' east longitude, thus abutting on Lisu territory in its northern range; Myitkyina itself was nearly across from and a little to the north of Bh mo/Tengchong. The people inhabiting the area were Shan, Kachin, and Lisu. Kachins migrating into the territory in the mid-nineteenth century had challenged Shan primacy of 600 years – thus, the Kachin Hills. Lisu were widely distributed along both sides of the Burma-Yunnan frontier, in larger numbers on the Yunnan side. British had little control in the area but were attempting to assert it. The territory was valuable in two senses. First, it was potentially agriculturally productive as parts of it permitted irrigated hill terraces. Second, British interest lay in it being an area with gold, jade, rubies, and amber mines {Hertz 1912: 1-2, 16, 20}. In fact, the Burmese ruby mines of Mogok and British private companies’ desire to control them were significant in the political decision to annex the region {Turrell 1988}. Miners from Yunnan and China had worked in this area for centuries (see Chapter 1, Trade and Economy: Economic Development and Expansion, p. 41).
The District Commissioner (D.C.) of Myitkyina District in the second decade of the twentieth century recounted the problems his predecessor D.C. Townsend had faced particularly with the Lisu and armed rebellion. If this rebellion among the Lisu in Chinese territory in 1901 presented a problem – preventing a similar uprising in a district in which the British had control – it simultaneously provided an opportunity – asserting a more outright control. The British interests in intercession were largely economic: “If we had not kept our Yawyins from joining their rebellious brethren across the frontier and our Kachins from aiding them, the rising would have assumed formidable proportions, and the rich Chinese villages near the frontier would have fared badly” (D.C. Townsend, quoted in Hertz 1912: 72).
The uprising took the form of a revitalization movement provoked by the increased penetration of imperial Chinese control. About May, a Lisu near Paknoi Prang in a village called Puyapa announced that he had been visited by a spirit in a vision who taught him the art of writing. His writings were in characters resembling Chinese that he said were messages from heaven calling on Lisu to assemble and resist any action that might be taken against him by the Chinese. These writings were widely distributed throughout the uplands and copies of these letters were sent to the Lisu headman on the British Burma side, who passed them on to the British colonial authorities at Sadon and Sima in order to find out whether the British would join the Lisu in a move against the Chinese. By November, the prophet or leader of the movement had a following of about 200 men. They planned to mine precious metals and were afraid that the Chinese would interfere {Hertz 1912: 72-3}. Despite the millennial elements of this movement (visions, writing in ersatz Chinese), the goal of mining seems feasible given economic strategies common in the region. Their fear of Chinese interference also seems realistic given the contemporary history in Yunnan of conflict between Han immigrants and indigenous miners.
D.C. Townsend, however, feared that the Lisu were really looking for land as they had become extremely constricted for cultivable land in the last few years. These expanding pioneering migratory patterns were, he believed due to the increasing population of Lisu in Yunnan, where there was no room for expansion {Hertz 1912: 73}. This community of Puyapa had been driven to the hills from the rich grassy plains of a place called Mongtein Pa. It seems as if they had been in a lower-lying, flatter area, more agriculturally productive, and lost it to immigrant Chinese. Alternatively, Townsend believed, their goal was to recover the land from which they had been ousted and that their leader sought to raise “the whole of his tribe” against the Chinese in an attempt to gain it back.
By January of 1902, the uprising at Puyapa numbered 400-500 men. The leader called himself ‘prince’ and ‘leader,’ (and the British referred to him as ‘prophet’) and collected tribute and supplies {Hertz 1912: 73}. The constant passing of armed Lisu back and forth across the border caused unrest. The Kachin of Paknoi on the Yunnan side became alarmed and built stockades for protection. Chinese officials at Tengchong were warned of the threatened uprising but took no action. The British in Burma, however, sent troops to Sima in case the disturbances passed to the Burma side of the frontier. On February 13, 1902, a quarrel resulted in a fight between some local Chinese and trans-Paknoi Kachins, and the Lisu joined in on the side of the Kachins. Finally the Chinese brought in troops to quell this disturbance, and then to take action against Puyapa. They were successful. The trans-Paknoi Kachins, who had approached British officials to ask for advice, refrained from attacking the Chinese. The Lisu fled and their “camp” was burned down {Hertz 1912: 73}.
This, however, was not the end of the uprising. The Lisu leader moved further north and got another following together. He attacked a Chinese outpost on the Kuyon-Wawchon road and drove out its garrison. The British heard rumors that the Chinese garrison had suffered considerable losses. After this, Lisu who were apparently under another leader withdrew to a place called Teintang Pa, still further north. The Chinese then sent a second expedition against them. D.C. Townsend received notice of this by telegram from Yunnan and sent troops to the border to observe, where they learned that a fight had taken place in which two Chinese and nine Lisu were killed and many more wounded. In retaliation, the Chinese troops burned local villages and killed the inhabitants.
Chinese troops then crossed the border into the Irrawaddy Basin on the Burmese side of the border and destroyed six Lisu villages there. At this point, the British became concerned in part because, although the Chinese troops returned to Yunnan, they garrisoned a fort from which they intended to cross the border again and attack Lisu {Hertz 1912: 73-4}. The British used this opportunity to assert their control over the unadministered territories of Northern Burma and delineate what they considered proper Chinese administration. The Chinese agreed to pay a fine for the acts of Chinese subjects in British territory, more because their actions were an outrage against British sovereignty than because of atrocities committed against the Lisu; post Chinese troops in the Kachin Hills at points designated by British officers so as to control the worst Kachin villages on the Chinese side of the border; abolish taxes the British considered illegal on the main trade route between Bh mo (Burma) and Tengchong (China); open the Taping Valley route to trade; and expeditiously pacify a portion of the route to Tengchong. The British had used the incident to effectively advance their economic and political interests.
This was not the end of Lisu uprisings in this period. In October of 1905, British travelers exploring the Salween made contact with Lisu north of Chengjia, a town nearly 100 kilometers north of Tengchong. They were met by a group of Lisu warriors well armed with their huge crossbows headed by a local ni pa from Mi-wo (a ni pa is the Lisu term for shaman, but the British again translated this as “prophet”). The leader carried a piece of paper covered with Chinese style characters and stated that these were instructions from heaven to go and kill somebody, in this case the headman of Chengjia. Other warriors escorted the British caravan and on seeing their twelve-shot repeating Winchester rifle, asked for their help. The British tried to discourage them {Forrest 1908: 248}. On their return many weeks later, the British heard rumors of a slaughter of huge numbers of Lisu by Chinese troops from Chengjia. They learned that a number of young men from the leader’s and surrounding villages had raided the paddy plains of Chengjia in an attempt to take the uncle of the chief of Chengjia hostage. He escaped, but the Lisu raided the pig pens and feasted. The chief of Lao-wo, 60 kilometers south along the Salween, who was the tusi responsible for these Lisu, attacked and dispersed the raiders. Following that, the sub-prefect from Yung Lung (Shimen), east of the Mekong, also hurried to defend Chengjia. The Lisu people fled north; the Chengjia people (many of whom might also have been Lisu) fled south.
The precipitating incident was rooted in contestation of the Lao-wa tusi’s control of the region north of Chengjia. The Lao-wa tusi had attempted to levy double tribute from these villages. The headman of one of these villages rustled twelve of the tusi’s cattle in reprisal; in return, the Lao-wo chief kidnapped the headman’s son and seized his salt. In general, the Lisu people refused to recognize the tusi’s authority. Feuds were settled independently of the tusi and not even reported to him; villages refused to pay tribute to him {Forrest 1908: 248-249}. This particular uprising followed a severe famine (1904-1905). The British party noted a dearth of livestock and adequate food, much of which they put down to famine in the previous agricultural season {!Forrest 1908: 244, 258}. Conditions were unsettled and administration insecure. A number of ‘prophets’ arose in response to these troubles, “after the usual manner of a frontier case where there are no British officers to settle it” {Forrest 1908: 260; entire story, 258-260}. Lisu and other local headmen made ceremonial offerings to the British traveling party, explained their grievances against the tusi and requested their patronage {!Forrest 1908: 248-249}. In short, the Lisu were attempting either to hold off Chinese control or, in keeping with the pattern of disputes over spheres of authority, were disputing taxation privileges, especially in conditions of poverty following famine when people expected a proportionate lifting of taxation.
There were also two serious raids into Burma in 1905-06, in which raiders from Chinese territory took hostage several women and children from British Kachin villages near the Chinese frontier. The British approached Chinese authorities and got the people returned and an “indemnity” paid to British authorities – quite the opposite to the usual outcome, which was that the hostages would be ransomed or left as debt slaves with the raiders. Later, when there were disturbances in a Shan state in Chinese territory, the young prince and his mother took refuge in British territory {Hertz 1912: 75}. These episodes indicate the social disruption and difficult conditions experienced by Lisu people in western Yunnan.
On the more millennial/religious movement end of the continuum of uprisings was trouble that occurred in the early 1920s among a village of Hua (Flowery) Lisu in Upper Burma. A spirit calling itself “Jesus” revealed itself to a village through illness and divination, the usual way in which spirits made themselves and their demands known. It imposed laws similar to those of Christianity – forbidding the worship of other spirits, bearing false witness, drinking of wine, for instance – but also decreed that the villagers should not work. The Jesus spirit said that it would provide for the villagers. It promised wealth and great herds of livestock if the villagers would follow its laws. Among its edicts was one to abandon cultivation and wait for it at a mountain top. Those who refused would be burned alive. After a week of fasting and praying at the mountain top with no results, the villagers returned home to find their crops destroyed by birds, weeds, and wild animals. They were left hungry and without the promised wealth. Some time later, the spirit told them not to plant crops at all and the people starved. This went on for several years. In 1934, representatives of the village sought out Protestant missionaries in the Upper Salween/Mekong to find out more about this Jesus spirit. They were among Isobel Kuhn’s early converts {Dick 1987: 80-84}. There were also stories of a Lisu king who would come and return them to their rightful place {Fraser 1922: xi}.
It is of interest that many of the Lisu and other tribal peoples greeted British explorers enthusiastically, especially on the frontier between Yunnan and Burma. Aside from the fact that the British undertook this exploration to discover the dividing range between the Irrawaddy and Salween to establish their territorial claims both topographically and ethnographically (Forrest 1908: 239), and thus may have been biased to see their own rule recognized as superior, it is not unlikely that local people actively sought to put themselves under British rule. At Pien-ma Pass, eventually taken by the British from the Chinese, the local chief – a boy of ten – and his mother – the regent – greeted the British party very warmly {Forrest 1908: 242}. Kachin/Lashi villages complained of the Chinese officials of Tengchong seizing their cattle and young women as tribute. They requested that the British government take over the territory “and provide means for settling disputes, suppressing feuds, and regulating taxation” {Forrest 1908: 241-2}. On his trip north of Chengjia, a British expedition was ceremonially offered gifts of rice, eggs, and/or honey by village deputations {Forrest 1908: 244, 247, 248-249, 254, 262}. It also seems that in the two cases above, Lisu and other groups were attempting to set up alliances with the British.
Chinese suzerainty had extended to much of Eastern Tibet by the 1920s, although in many places the Chinese still contended – unsuccessfully – with Tibetans for control of significant passes such as that of Menkung north of Tra-mu-tang. At points in his trip into far northern Lisu territory, Kingdon-Ward had difficult finding porters because the Tibetans at Tra-mu-tang anticipated an immanent British invasion and forbade the Lisu west of Sukin to carry for them. On the other hand, he had a great deal of trouble getting the Black Lisu to porter for him whenever the Chinese military were with him. These Lisu people clearly distrusted the Chinese. One story circulating at the time held that a Tibetan girl forced to porter for the Chinese had died of exhaustion and exposure. For their part, the Chinese garrisons, just small barracks, at Latsa and Sukin, had stories of annual battles with the Lisu, who were said to hide in the jungle and shoot poisoned arrows at them. The Chinese hated and feared the Lisu; in turn the Chinese were hated and despised by local people {Kingdon-Ward 1986: 222, 224, 228, 240-1, 253}.
The British had become players on the stage of Northern Mainland Southeast Asian politics. At this point, they were viewed as but one among many in the scene of multiple spheres of authority but apparently an attractive alternative to some people. British rule appeared of pragmatic utility to people accustomed to seek out the best deal in rulership, the most fair, the most potent and efficacious authority to which to attach themselves. The extension of the Chinese state further into western Yunnan while it simultaneously suffered the weakening of central administration and consequent corruption made the British in Burma look like a good alternative authority. In the British, people sought patrons similar to others they knew – Tibet, China, Lijiang, and so on – but in so doing submitted themselves not to a somewhat autonomous tributary relationship based on shifting alliances and control of people through demonstration of ritual potency, but to a permanent subject status based on control of territory. The British colonial government sought to maintain a status quo and prevent uprisings and population movements that would upset their district budgets, resource allocations, and commerce. They were threatened by activities such as those of Lisu 'prophets' that could upset their policy toward the Chinese government or, most especially, trade and economic relations. Their goals were to maintain the Pax Britannica for the purposes of expansion of trade; the prospect of economic gain overrode other considerations, as in the case of the opium trade.
Under Pax Britannica in Burma, Lisu were described in quite different terms than were Black or Independent Lisu in Yunnan. By the 1920s, the Lisu of Burma and southern Lisu of Yunnan were said to not engage in any raiding or inter-tribal warfare; nor were they known to rob {Fraser 1922: iv; see also Enriquez 1922}. They were considered affable, docile, and mild people, timid because of their small numbers and subordination to the Chinese and Kachin, and usually very friendly to Europeans {Fraser 1922: iv, xi}. Such characteristics were believed by the British to be due to the civilizing influence of British administration; Lisu living under the poor economic and political conditions of Yunnan were tough and capable, but aloof, surly,”‘given to and attracting suspicion” {Stevenson 1981: 346}. Lisu in contact with Europeans quite justifiably saw them as rivals to other polities from whom the Lisu could gain if they threw their lot in with them. Lisu interpreted British actions in accordance with the framework of political culture extant at the time – it was not until later they felt the consequences of the very different British model of political culture.
The British valued the Lisu for their ability to trek long distances and skill in hunting {Rabinowitz 2001: 17}. Lisu were used in local forces and fought in Mesopotamia in WWI. By the end of 1920, about 70 Lisu men were serving in British forces. Enriquez wrote that they fought well despite the fierce heat, and won promotion and distinction beyond the proportion to their numbers. He attributed their utility as soldiers to their health and good physical condition, which he attributed to their living at high elevations {!Enriquez 1921: 70}. But their abilities might also have been a continuation of a tradition of soldiering for pay and conditions of poverty.
Missionization was also an important element in social transformation for some Lisu communities, but by no means most. Conversion to Christianity initially was more common among the Lisu living to the south, especially in Burma and to the east and southeast of Tengchong, where Protestant missions such as the China Inland Mission worked. Isobel Kuhn, for instance, worked with Black Lisu but south of their core area, and many of her converts came to seek them from Burma {Dick 1987}.

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