Reconstruction of the Nu as an Ethnic Group in Northern Myanmar

Ats, an American Anung¹ pastor living in Thailand, first visited his ancestral home, the Anung-inhabited Mugujia and Guquan Villages of Shangpa Town, Fugong County, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province in September 2005. It was in 1932 that Ats’s grandfather migrated from Guquan Village² to Myanmar on the western side of the Gaoligong Mountains. When communicating with the local Anung Church leaders in Mugujia, Muleng, and Anicha, three natural villages under the jurisdiction of the Mugujia Village Committee, Ats burst into tears three times.

An Anung Ma Pha³ in Mugujia said that he could understand the agony in Ats’s heart, because most of the Anung people in the village could no longer speak the Anung language.⁴ Ats was fluent in Lisu and eight other languages, yet he insisted on speaking Anung instead of Lisu, a commonly spoken local language, with Anung people on this visit and his subsequent visits as well. The Anung in Mugujia were also surprised at Ats’s request, because they were accustomed to speaking Lisu in most cases. When meeting with the author in Chiang Mai in November 2010, Ats also expressed his concern regarding the loss of the Anung language and cultural traditions, but he was more concerned about the future and destiny of the Anung people as an ethnic group in Myanmar. As discovered by the author during his previous investigations in northern Myanmar, all of these concerns boil down to the yearning of a people (the Anung) for a sense of belonging. An ethnic group is what its members belong to and identify themselves with (Barth 1999). However, the contemporary Anung people in Myanmar are facing the tough fact that they have not only lost their identity as an ethnic group of a nation, but that they are also rapidly losing the entity to which they belong. The population of Anung people in Myanmar has even exceeded that of their compatriots in China. The Anung language is so well preserved that it is still considered the mother tongue of the majority of families who call themselves Anung, Khopang, or Khinphang. In terms of frequency of use and applicability, however, the Anung language has fallen behind Lisu and Rawang. Like their Chinese compatriots living in the Nujiang River valley, the Anung people in Myanmar have long lost their own cultural traditions, such as costumes, songs, dances, diet, living customs, and village-based social system, or have cultural traditions no different from those of their Lisu or Rawang neighbors. More importantly, the Anung in Myanmar has already lost its status as an individual legal ethnic group in the country’s contemporary ethnic construction. Although Anung or Nung⁵ was previously an umbrella name for a major ethnic group inhabiting northern Kachin State, they did not appear in the table of ethnic groups in the country’s census, nor were they listed as one of the six “branches” of the Kachin ethnic group. In most cases, those who call themselves Anung are marked as either Lisu or Rawang on their ID cards. Aside from the names by which they call their ethnic groups or families, such as Anung, Nung, Nu, Khopang, or Khinphang, the only symbols or characteristics that can be used to distinguish them from Lisu, Rawang, and other ethnic groups are their mother tongue, which is on the verge of extinction, and the increasingly obscure migration history of their families (or clans). “Who on earth are we?” This question puzzles them from time to time, though how they refer to themselves, their language, the history of their contemporary ethnic migration, and the pattern of ethnic appellations in northern Myanmar that have formed in modern times are sufficient to identify the Anung as a distinct ethnic group. WP, an Anung pastor currently living in Myitkyina, said, “Since our ancestors were poorly educated, we have no record of our own history. Some people say we are Lisu, not Rawang. Living together, we are mixed up … We don’t have our own costumes, songs, dances, or etiquette. We are the same as Lisu in some places and Rawang in other places. The Rawang call us their ‘little brother,’ and the Lisu say that we are of the same ethnic group as them. We have indeed become a ‘lost’ ethnic group.” A potential consequence of this is that the Anung can be eventually assimilated by the Lisu, Rawang, and other ethnic groups, with which they were previously equal, or part of, or even be completely integrated into these ethnic groups as their next “branch.” By this time, it will not be long before “Anung” or “Nung” completely disappears as the name of an ethnic group. This is also the bleak outlook that Anung elites in Myanmar are most concerned about. On the eastern side of the Gaoligong Mountains, the Anung people live as part of the Chinese Nu people. They share the legal ethnic name “Nu Zu” (Nu Ethnic Group) with those who call themselves Anu, Nusu, and Zozo. Their language and cultural traditions have faced or are currently facing the same problem. However, they have fully acquired an ethnic name as the political identifier of their ethnic group and have retained their ethnic identity, thus they do not feel as strong an emotional shock regarding the de facto assimilation of their ethnic group. The overseas Anung diaspora had high expectations for their ancestral land. According to WP, they hoped to discover something from historical records and field investigations of Anung villages in China to help restore the cultural traditions of the Myanmar Anung people, such as costumes, songs, dances, and folklore. Their visits to Mugujia and Guquan villages, however, proved to be rather disappointing, making the loss of their ethnic identity even more painful. The Nusu, a branch of the Chinese Nu people who migrated to Myanmar later than the Anung, and the Lemo (Bani)⁶ who moved to Myanmar earlier, share the same fate as the Anung. The Nusu and Lemo, who live alongside the Nusu, are unexceptionally identified as “Lisu” when it comes to their official ethnic identity. The Anung in Myanmar self- deprecatingly call themselves a “lost” people.

Whether in Myanmar or China, almost all descriptions of the Nu⁷ originate from the process of its “being constructed,” as demonstrated by records in Chinese literature, Chinese ethnic identification, how other Myanmar ethnic groups refer to them, Western definitions, and Myanmar’s national censuses, while the Nu have been virtually voiceless as to how they call themselves. In the author’s view, the Nu’s loss of ethnic identity and its reconstruction have been driven by their imaginings of their own ethnic group and their interaction with the process of “being constructed.” According to Anderson (2003), an ethnic group can be described as an “imagined political community,” and its people’s imaginings—a cognitive process integral to the formation of any ethnic identity—can evoke a strong sense of historical destiny in their minds (9–13). Whether these sentiments are evoked and whether their desires can be expressed depends on an external factor, that is, the outcome of an ethnic group “being constructed”: If the outcome roughly conforms to the inter-ethnic boundaries and the laws governing how these boundaries are formed and maintained in the ethnic group’s imaginings, or if the outcome agrees with the ethnic group’s demands and choices, then “being constructed” will have a positive impact on the ethnic group, otherwise, a negative impact. For example, after the Rawang had their demands fulfilled and became a legitimate ethnic group in Myanmar in 1964, the loosely organized clans and kinship groups in northern Kachin State who spoke Mawang and similar languages were further integrated and gradually evolved into an ethnic entity that is complete in form and structure. They are called the Rawang, and their languages, cultural traditions, the Rawang Christian theological system, and more were sustained and further improved. In contrast, the Anung, who lost their ethnic identity marked by “Nung” and were “incorporated” by Lisu, Rawang, and other ethnic groups during the same period, had their language and cultural traditions rapidly assimilated. With their ethnic entity on the verge of disappearing, the Anung showed strong ethnic sentiments from within and launched a movement of ethnic reconstruction. The Nu’s ethnic imaginings of itself does not rely on words or reading to be realized. As with other ethnic groups, the imaginings is a limited social psychological fact (ibid.) with factors such as language, history of ethnic origin, legends, cultural customs, and living locations as references or auto-suggestions, and the key lies in the ethnic boundary marked by the terms (such as Anung and Nusu) by which this ethnic group call themselves since ancient times. These terms are the easiest and most effective indicators to distinguish this ethnic group from other ethnic groups, such as Lisu and Jingphaw. As a minority ethnic group, the Nu tribes must always maintain this ethnic boundary during their migration and settlement. It is a flexible boundary, because the cultural characteristics that maintain this boundary can be changed, its members’ cultural characteristics can also be transformed, and, in fact, even the organizational form of the ethnic group is subject to change (Barth 1999). The Nung ethnic boundary was previously a one-way semi-open system. At first, the Nung, highly inclusive, accommodated and absorbed other ethnic groups that had similar languages and cultures but were not considered by the Anung to be of their own ethnic group, such as the Rawang and Daru. However, the Nung were unwilling to be referred to by the name of any other ethnic group that is equal or inferior to itself within their cognitive system. This is also a common phenomenon among the Lisu, Jingphaw, Rawang, and other ethnic groups. In Chinese literature, people who live in the Nujiang River valley and are identified as Anu, Anung, and Nusu, as well as those who live in the Lancang River valley and call themselves Zozo, are collectively referred to as the Nu, despite their differences in history and culture. This practice is in fact inconsistent with the “imaginings” of these ethnic groups, because such Chinese literature is unfamiliar to the Nu. The Chinese ethnic identification has continued and legalized this classification method and result. The Nu people became the Nu ethnic group. Now, four ethnic groups who previously called themselves by different names share the same ethnic name, political name, and ethnic identity. While maintaining their original ethnic boundaries, these ethnic groups also share a constructed and expanded ethnic boundary that has been basically accepted by both the elites and ordinary people of the Nu. In Myanmar, both the Jingphaw and Westerners refer to the Myanmar Anung, Rawang, and Nu (naturally including Nusu and other groups) living in the Nujiang River valley collectively as “Nung.” This construction method was acquiesced by the Anung, but opposed by the more populous clans such as Rawang. The efforts of the Rawang in the 1960s caused the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to declare the Rawang as a “legal” ethnic group in 1964. This result left the ethnic name of Nung in a rather awkward situation. Compared with the fact that people were already accustomed to the existing scope of ethnic groups, the Nung completely “lost” their name and identity as an ethnic group in the country’s ethnic structure and were “reduced” to a clan of the Rawang or Lisu. In addition, living together with the Rawang, Lisu, and other ethnic groups, and influenced by their dominant religion and culture, the Anung people are in fact being divided between and absorbed into the Rawang, Lisu, and other ethnic groups. This poses a severe threat for both the existence and form of the Anung ethnic boundaries, whether “Anung” means the Nungish peoples in the broad sense or the Anung in the narrow sense, thus the Anung elites’ concerns are understandable. When a boundary is subject to pressure, it becomes important to maintain a distinct form of the boundary (Erickson 2002). The “negative” construction made the Anung elites feel “lost” and evoked their strong sentiments, namely the yearning and motivation to restore and maintain the original ethnic boundary. The Anung elites now living in Myitkyina do not expect to restore the ethnic boundary of the Nung or Nungish peoples in the broad sense, but they still believe that it is possible to maintain the form of Nung in the narrow sense, namely to have the Anung recognized by the Myanmar government as a “legal ethnic group” and a branch of the Kachin people. They also believe that they will be able to obtain the recognition and support of “brother and sister” ethnic groups, such as the Rawang and Lisu, and even the government in their endeavor. Therefore, the Anung have made efforts in this direction, and have achieved some progress since the 1970s. Their contact with the Nusu in 2007 accelerated this process. The Anung are mainly distributed in Putao and other areas of northern Kachin State. They previously had no inter-ethnic exchanges with the Nusu living around Myitkyina, but a fortuitous contact led to their cooperation. Both the Anung and Nusu are referred to as “Nu” in Chinese literature and belong to the Nu Zu (Nu Ethnic Group) in the greater family of the Chinese nation, thus they have perfect reasons to join hands. Upon contact, the two sides began to cooperate and expressed willingness to reconstruct the Myanmar Nu people with reference to the Chinese ethnic construction mode, and to achieve, with the support of the Chinese Nu people, the ideal of establishing an ethnic community sharing the same name (namely Nu in English, in both pronunciation and writing), consisting mainly of Anung and Nusu branches, with differences in language, history, and cultural traits. This Myanmar Nu ethnic community would be constructed on the basis of Christian beliefs, as follows: (1) The ethnic origin history would be reshaped on the basis of the contents of the Bible, along with the ethnic migration history that had been orally passed down; (2) The cultural traditions (such as costumes, songs and dances, and etiquettes) would be regulated according to the practices of Christian beliefs and the current pattern of customs; (3) The two sides would jointly create a writing system based on the Latin alphabet to represent both the Anung and Nusu languages; (4) A Nu theological system (covering theological classics, the church system, theological training institutions), comprising the Anung and Nusu sub-systems, would be developed on the basis of the script or writing system; (5) Finally, a Myanmar Nu entity with the same cultural, social, linguistic, and theological status as the current Kachin branches would be constructed, in a bid to acquire State recognition, and in turn, an identity as a complete ethnic community.

In a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural context, maintaining a distinct form of ethnic boundary is particularly important, even more important than other relationships such as religious identity, for a small ethnic group like the Nu, and how the ethnic group refers to itself is the core indicator of the ethnic boundary. How and how strongly the ethnic boundary is maintained depends on the interaction between how the ethnic group is constructed and the ethnic group’s imaginings of itself. In other words, if the result of “being constructed” is inconsistent with the “imaginings” and subjects the latter to pressure, then the process of “maintaining” the ethnic boundary will show strong motivation and great momentum, even by means of ethnic restructuring. For the Myanmar Nu, we must not ignore their Christian beliefs that undoubtedly constitute the basis of their ethnic restructuring.

1 Anung is one of the four branches of the Chinese Nu Zu (Nu Ethnic Group or Nu People) and a part of what is collectively referred to as “Nu Man” in some Chinese literatures.

2 Guquan is the Lisu pronunciation of an Anung place name. Today, it is called Guquan Village, or Khopang in the Anung language. In Putao Township of northern Myanmar, a group of Anung people from Guquan Village have established Khinphang Village, and all of the Anung people in Myanmar who had migrated from Guquan are surnamed either Khopang or Khinphang.

3 Ma Pha is the Lisu word for “teacher.” It refers to a preacher in the local Christian church system, where Lisu is spoken as the main theological language.

4 There are approximately 6,000 Anung people in Fugong County. According to Kailaibu of Mugujia Village, however, only about 400 of them who live in alpine villages such as Mugujia and Guquan can speak Anung. Lisu has become the most commonly spoken language and the Christian theological language throughout the region.