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Concept
Wa States
Résumé
The Wa States was the name formerly given to the Wa Land, the natural and historical region inhabited mainly by the Wa people, an ethnic group speaking an Austroasiatic language. The region is located to the northeast of the Shan States of British Burma, in the area of present-day Shan State of northern Burma (Myanmar) and the western zone of Pu'er Prefecture, Yunnan, China.
Practically the whole Wa region is rugged mountainous territory with steep hills and deep valleys. There were no urban areas. A section of the historical Wa territory was included in the state of Manglon, one of the Shan States. Sir James George Scott visited the Wa States around the turn of the century and wrote about the place, taking pictures of the people and the houses of the area as well. Considered a distant and inaccessible border area by former empires, the British census of 1901 did not include the Wa States, so statistics regarding a population over 50,000 in 1911 are estimates.
The oral tradition of the Wa people claims that their territory had been much larger in the distant past, an assertion that is confirmed both by Shan and Yunnan Chinese sources. The Wa also regard their ancestral territory as being at the centre of the inhabited world. Nowadays part of the area of the former Wa States is included in Wa State, an autonomous polity within Myanmar.
There are no historical records on the Wa States before the 19th century. Northern Thai legends claim that before the advent of Buddhism the Lanna territory was founded by nine Wa clans. According to Wa oral tradition the area where they live, with the Nam Hka flowing across it, as well as the areas further to the south between the Mekong and the Salween down to Chiang Mai, had been their ancestral territory since time immemorial. This view is supported by remains of fortified towns on the hills now covered by jungle, as well as by the traditions of the Shan, according to which the territory of Kengtung State further to the south had formerly belonged to the Wa people who were displaced around 1229 and were later defeated by King Mangrai.
Source officielle
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