Multi-Centred Tai Principalities: “Consensus-Based Systems”

During the pre-colonial period, Tai societies were run by several independent principalities, based on fluid, “consensus-based systems” (Davis, 2006: 92). Those systems reflected both independence and interdependence of each Tai principality and showed diplomatic relationships between numerous capitals (96). Within these systems, they created alliances, split or reformed new partnerships. Although they paid tribute to neighbouring empires, these small kingdoms still maintained, to some degree, their own independent governance, as they were not fully incorporated into larger countries. They were also tied together by a range of aspects which allowed their interdependence: kinship, trade and monastic networks, which facilitated to create a multi-centred region (92-96).

As to the origins of the Tai, nowadays, this is still unclear, but some believe that Tai people originally emerged in south-western China as a distinctive ethnic group. Their migration was ongoing as theymoved to new places where there were tender greens and clean water, but sometimes their movement could be very large due to wars, invasion or new immigrants from the north (Sai Aung Tun, 2009). There is an increasing consensus from various literatures that from the 12th _{century onwards, a unique Tai}

culture was emerging in the upland region that spanned across the modern territories of north-eastern Burma, northern Thailand, north-western Laos, and China’s Yunnan

Province (Giersch, 2006:26). In particular, when Nan-chao35 _{was defeated by the}

Mongol troops in 1253, a southwardly movement of the Tai people was instigated (Cadchumsang, 2011: 37; Sai Aung Tun, 2009). They followed the big rivers and their tributaries and came down from the mountains of southern Yunnan into Mao valley of the Shweli River to form a beachhead to migrate into Assam, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia (Sai Aung Tun, 2009:4). Meanwhile, since the Bagan36

Kingdom (Bagan had been the capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma) was conquered by the Mongol army in 1287, some Tai people were freed from the Bagan Kingdom so that the Tai kingdoms started to establish themselves as a number of small states (Coedès 1966:129-30, cited in Cadchumsang, 2011: 37). Sir George Scott’s late 19th_{-century records list the major Shan states in the form of principalities. Among}

them there were 17 ruled by Shan princes (saopha), 17 governed by senior officials (myosa) and 8 run by hill chiefs (ngwegunhmu). In addition, Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1987) mentions that there were 11 Shan states in Yunnan.

Even though there are some debates whether Nan-chao was a Tai kingdom or not (see also Leach, 1954: 36; Sai Aung Tun, 2009:8-12; Cadchumsang, 2011:35), in the ancient period several proverbs were revised and used to support Tai unity and the common good,and also to promote reviving the former glory and achievements of Nan-chao, which led to achieving greatness in the later kingdom of Muang Mao Long (a glorious and powerful kingdom of Tai Mao) in 13th _{century (Sai Aung Tun, 2009: 14-15). Even}

during my fieldwork, I could often see the current Shan resistance force, SSA-S or the ex-Shan resistance army, like MTA, used Nan-chao and Sao Sua Kha Fa (the greatest Tai

35_{According to Leach, Nan-chao is the empire of the Shan (Leach, 1954:36). But there are various}

disputes and challenges about Nan-chao was built up by Tai or its branch Ai-Lao (Ngai Lao). Sai Aung Tun (2009:8) mentioned that in AD 650 the Ai Lao rulers united and organised six Chao states into one powerful confederated state named Nan-chao. Nan-chao State was the creation of the Ai Lao (Ngai Lao) branch of Tai people. But some hold different viewpoints, they argue the name given in the list of Nan- chao rulers do not sound like Tai names, because the Tai had no rule for using the last element of the father’s name as the first element of the name of the son. This argument does not have much merit, because such a system prevailed among Tai Mao or Dehong Tai in the past. They also used family names. Moreover, a check on the names on the list of Nan-chao rulers makes it apparent that the rule linking the names of the father and son applies only to a few, not to all the rulers (Sai Aung Tun, 2009: 12). But Backus (1981) reveals that the dialect spoken by Nan-chao leaders is Lolo, which is classified as a dialect in Tibeto-Burman language family (Cadchumsang, 2011: 35).

36_{Bagan was located in the dry central plains of the country, on the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady}

ruler of Muang Mao Long) as symbols in different forms of pictures or statues to provoke Shan-ness and unify displaced Shan.

According to Conway (2009), the Tai muang (mong) system was widely used for the politics of inland Southeast Asia before 19th _{century. The rulers of muang were known}

as saopha which could refer to the Tai princes, or the chiefs dwelling in hills of exterior extents. A Muang could mean a township, a city or a state, which displayed a basic unit for a political and social administration, and functioned through “mutually beneficial relationships in defence, trade and social interaction” (31). Within this system, primary affiliations were to the village and township; however, they could also “form alliances, or split and re-ally in new federations” (Davis, 2006: 95). Based on research in Sipsongpanna, Hsieh (1995) addresses that in pre-modern period four Tai speaking groups, such as Tai Yuan in Lan Na (Thailand), Tai Khün (Shan) in Keng Tung (northeastern Burma), Tai Lao in Lan Zhang (Laos) and Tai Lüe in Sipsongpanna (Yunnan, China) often interacted with one another, both in interstate affairs and in prevalent contact.With similar speaking dialects, ordinary people freely moved back and forth. In particular when any of the four Tai states were attacked, they could flee to other states to seek refuge temporarily. It formed a kind of “tacit alliance” as “political unification” (306), although these four states independently received different official titles from China, Thailand, Burma and Laos and also established their own regimes with numerous principalities (307).

There is evidence from one of the informants, whose grandfather was a Saopha Muang

Wan37 _{(a Tai prince of Wan state). He recalled that in the past, Tai states in both Yunnan}

and Shan State interacted closely and frequently, and most of them had kinships. The

Saophas among those states usually held meetings regularly every year to share

various affairs within their Tai states and discussed how to maintain their security and manage affairs under the control of British and Chinese rules. Both sides of the Tai states did not think they belonged to different countries, for themselves, they called those Tai who lived in Tai states Yunnan as Tai Nüe (which means Northern Tai, in

37 _{Muang Wan is one of the traditional Shan states located in Yunnan Province, China, different from}

“upper course of the Salween River”; the Burmese call them Chinese Shan or Shan Tayok) and other Tai states in Burma as Tai Tau (which means Southern Tai, in “lower course of the Salween River”)(see also Hasegawa, 1996: 84-86, cited in Michio, 2007: 188). The former refers to Shan in Yunnan of China, whereas the latter specifies Shan people living in Shan State of Burma and both usages are applied near the Sino-Shan border.

In order to maintain autonomous rights, some of these Tai Nüe states used to be tributaries to the Burmese kings. But after the delineation of the border between the British and the Chinese, all these states were conceded to China and a great number of

Tai Nüe moved to Shan states of Burma (see the relationships of Tai tributaries in next

section). The rulers of Tai Nüe could speak Chinese while the commoners stayed distinctively Tai and ethnologically belonged to the Tai Long, the largest Tai- speaking group in Burma (Sai Aung Tun, 2009: 24; see also Lebar et al, 1964:191). In 1949, when the battles between the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) and KMT38 _(Kuomintang,

Chinese Nationalist Party, also National People’s Party) took place in China, many Tai royal families and their followers escaped from Yunnan for seeking refuge in their Tai brother states in Shan State of Burma.

For this kind of multi-centred Tai political system, Davis (2006:96) uses the metaphor of the “Indra’s Net”, from the Buddhist thinker Sivaraksa Sulak (1990) to see the capital of a federation as the centre of a spider’s web, a hub on the network. He describes as below,

a social model, “Indra’s Net,” that could be used here to describe the Tai system. Indra’s Net is “a spider’s web in which at each node appears a mirror which reflects all the other mirrors and vice versa indefinitely. In this way, each infinitesimal part encodes the entire whole within it [,]….a form of political organisation that emphasises….[i]nter and independence in which power is not centralised but exists equally in every node…..Relationship and connection between groups is thus vital” (Sulak, 1990:37).

38 _{KMT led by Chiang Kai-Shek lost the civil war against the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong in}

However, being squeezed between adjacent empires, the Tai states ceded multiple sovereignties to several larger empires at various times, including China, Lan Na39_,

Siam40 _{and Burma. They sometimes made alliances between some polities or through}

royal marriages. The power relations were based on the ownership of people rather than land; I will address this in the subsequent section.