Chin State Myanmar

Chin fashion guys

A pretty lake called "Reh" near to the Indian border can be reached from Falam by a four wheel drive off-road vehicle. The border pass at Chikha is for local people only. Shifting cultivation and some attempts to terrace cultivation can be spotted. Rice, corn, wheat and coffee beans are raised.

Oranges, apples and other fruits suitable for this climate are grown. Chin textiles are very well known and have a good reputation for their good quality. Sometimes hand weaving is still used. Ethnic groups are Chin, Bama, Lai, Cho, Siyin, Matu , Simbhrin, Kumi.

The major income source is agriculture but since this is developed on a very low level only life is hard here is some ladies fashion.

The Chin are doing quite some tattooing

 as pictured here. People think tattooing started around two million years ago when our ancestors lost their fur and soon after used their 

skin as canvas. With body painting they pursued mainly two aims: to impress the opposite sex or to demonstrate group membership. Women use body paint and decoration to make themselves more attractive by impressing visually. But while bones for a long time get skin goes relatively quickly - and so is the detection of permanent and temporary tattoos paintings to provide difficult.

Somehow luckily the rough terrain makes it difficult for poachers to cut the trees that means there is still some forest left and not so heavy cutting has been done like in other areas of Myanmar. 

Teak and other hardwoods are below about 1000 meters. Above are oaks and pines. Since the people are dependent on wood for cooking 'there is no electricity or gas- the forests degrade continuously.

Roads are cut into the mountain sides

and the rugged nature of the landscape makes difficult anyway to move around easily.

Of the Chin who lie upon the mountains

which separate Myanmar proper from Arakan and Assam there are two great divisions—the Northern and the Southern.

Of these the Southern Chin, living as they do upon the narrowest portion of their country, are of the least consequence. They have yielded most to the pressure of the Burmese on each side of them and they are a sparse and disorganized people.

Chin have a wider territory, known administratively as " The Chin Hills." It consists of a much broken and contorted mass of mountains intersected by deep valleys and it is utterly devoid of plains and tablelands.

The Northern Chin have a strong tribal organization and time has developed in each of their tribes a separate idiosyncrasy. The Chin is of interest

because he reveals the material out of which Buddhism and civilization between them have evolved the Burmese people ; the Chin in short is the rough wood out of which the Burman has been carved.