ABSTRACT
Ambiguity and consequences of the censuses The extreme linguistic complexity prevailing in continental South-East Asia encouraged the categorial approach which did not become established, systematically at least, until the second half of the nineteenth century in the circles influenced by colonial policies. For want of more recent material, to my knowledge the most accurate estimations of the current population – in terms of ethnic division – are based on the 1911 and 1931 censuses; the principle, used notably by Smith (1999: Map 2) and by Michaud (2000: 15), consists in applying the general demographic evolution index to the ethnic categories. It was thus possible to establish the following average proportions on the basis of a total population of about 14,647,497 inhabitants according to the 1931 census (Smith 1999: 30), compared to a total of about forty-five million inhabitants at the beginning of the 2000s: the Burmese and the Arakanese would nowadays seem to represent 65 percent of the population, the Karen 9 percent, the Shan 7 percent, the Indians 7 percent, the Chin 2 percent, the Môn 2 percent, the Kachin 1 percent, the Palaung-Wa 1 percent and the Chinese 1 percent. Although the overall proportions are probably close to reality, the great weakness of current estimations lies in the question of the criteria prevailing formerly for the identification of ethnic groups. As in India, to which Burma was still attached at the end of the nineteenth century, the British organized several censuses. Rujaya Abhakorn (1999: 188) has stressed the difficulties the British faced in mapping out the ‘ethnolinguistic’ landscape. Contemporaneous with the annexation of Burma, which took place in three successive stages, three population surveys were undertaken by the British in 1872, 1881 and 1891. The last one mentions eight ‘races’ in what was then the Burmese Province of the Indian Empire: the Burmese, the Shan, the Môn, the Karen, the Malay, the Chinese, the Europeans and the Eurasians (Abhakorn 1999: 187-188). Grierson, the author of Specimen Translations in Various Indian Languages, published in 1897, then of the monumental Linguistic Survey of India, published in 1927, elaborated a three-point methodology: the selection of a passage from the parable of the Prodigal Son to be translated into several languages, the translation into English of a vernacular text, and the elaboration
of vocabulary lists. Though the linguists made it possible to define the complexity of the main linguistic families (Matisoff 1983) and to draw up maps (Condominas 1978; Michaud 2000), the categorial process had begun, and it continues to be in this ethnicizing sphere that, for the past fifteen years, the National Convention’s negotiations, whose purpose is to create a third Constitution, have failed; the theme of national unity on this ethnic basis is at the centre of the ‘four political objectives’ of which people are reminded at the beginning of every publication and television broadcast, in a text made obligatory by the junta. In Burma, there are officially considered to be a hundred and thirty-five ethnic groups divided into ‘8 major ethnic national Races’.1 These are divided up as follows: twelve Kachin groups are distinguished, as well as nine Kayah groups, eleven Kayin groups, fifty-three Chin groups, nine Bamar (Burmese) groups, one Môn group and thirty-three Shan groups. But this classification is not based on anything tangible apart from, it would appear, a vague territorial grouping according to the administrative division of the country on an ethnic basis; on the linguistic level, for example, the Austro-Asiatic Wa, Danaw and Palaung are classed among the Shan – that is to say the Tai-Kadai family – while the panKachin movement only considers itself as having six subgroups, without counting the surprising amalgams associating, for example, the Naga with Chin subgroups; the latter, like the Kachin, are sometimes presented according to their ethnic membership and sometimes according to their clan referent, when the two are not confused. Like this official classification, the many Burmese monographs devoted to the minorities are confined to the accumulation of cultural characteristics presented without links of continuity or articulations. This folk setting is the counterpart of the image the minorities themselves cultivate. During the big Kachin ritual called manau, which was held in December and January 2000/2001 at Myitkyina, and was the largest since the signing of the ceasefire in 1994, many Kachin women made a detour via the market to buy a ‘traditional’ costume, while acknowledging that the only thing traditional about it was its name. The Burmese authorities made an appearance alongside members of the Kachin Christian elite, some of whom were wearing ritual hats, which used to be reserved for shamans, for the occasion: a basketwork hat coiffed by peacock feathers, a toucan’s head and wild pigs’ tusks for the Rawang officiants. In the Burmese context, where the slogan of national unity and ethnic claims mutually correspond, the folk elements act as a foil in this power struggle. In Burma, it is interesting to note that the consensus around folklore manages to unite the central government and the minorities, without, however, their interests coinciding:
Since both cultural state nationalism and ethnic ideology employ the same type of cultural markers (race, language, religion and territory) in depicting the respective communities, then ethnic ideology must necessarily define itself as a reaction to, or a constituent of, the state-national ideology.
