“Gumlau”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

E. R. Leach in the book Political Systems of Highland Burma^[2] described the gumlau system and contrasted it with the gumsa system. Leach's "ideal model" of a gumlau system noted that gumlau villages tended to cluster in a confederation with no village being superior, and that there was no heredity class system with the associated customary tributes from villagers to chiefs. Leach also wrote that Mayu-Dama was not essential to gumlau and that where it was, differences in rank were minimised by keeping the bride price low or by forming circles. However, Maran La Maw ^[3] notes that although Leach claimed that gumlau societies formed marriage circles within the mayu-dama system in order to minimize class relations, he did not find evidence of this in the areas Leach described, but did find that marriage circles were also a part of gumsa societies.

In gumlau societies, justice was delivered by a council of elders which were not necessarily heredity.The Gumlau system acted as a mechanism against states as its ideology rejected chiefs or even killed those who tried to claim dominant positions.^[1] During the British colonial period, gumlau villages often termed "republics" by the colonials^[2] made navigating Kachinland difficult and the area difficult to govern,^[1] hence the British aimed to suppress gumlau rebellions or systems.^[4] While Gumlau is not today used as a word to mean social system, many of the ideals described by Leach and others can be found in gumrawng gumtsa or zaw gumsa system.^[4]

History

The origins of gumlau are described in Kawlu Ma Nawng's 1942 book The History of the Kachins of the Hukawng Valley which describes origin stories occurring 300–400 years before its publication. In one of the accounts, Dumsa La Lawn makes an offering to a sky spirit called Sinlap who shows him a bird's eye view of gumlau and gumsa villages, explaining that in gumlau villages all men were equal and unlike gumsa villages, men did not have to make customary offerings of animal thighs to chiefs. Following his return to the world, the Dumsa and the chief of the village begin a feud which culminates in the Dumsa killing the chief and beginning a gumlau rebellion. A second origin story describes the "Blacksmith-Priest" rebellion started by the N'Dup Dumsa lineage who rebelled against their treatment from their relatives who saw them as lower status due to the circumstances of their birth.^[5] In 1820s Assam, J.B. Neufville used the term not to describe a system but individual men who were living in their Mayu's house.^[13] In the 1860s, violent Gumlau rebellions occurred in Kachinland, emanating from the Triangle region.^[6]

Causes

Leach believed that the Gumlau and the Gumsa systems formed an oscillatory model and that gumsa polities would eventually become gumlao and vice versa. However this model has been criticized as being overly theoretical and not taking into account historical events.^[7] Friedman saw political and economic situations such as debt resulting from Bride price payments or increasingly low returns on farming yields as being factors contributing to gumlau upheavals.^[8]

References

1. ^¹²Scott, James (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. Yale University Press. p. 8. {{ISBN|9780300156522}}.
2. ^¹²³Edmund Ronald Leach, 1954 "Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure"
3. ^Maran Law Raw (2007) ON THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF E. R. LEACH’S POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF HIGHLAND BURMA TO KACHIN STUDIES in Sadan, M and Robinne, F. (eds) 2007. Social Dynamics in the Highlands of Southeast Asia, Reconsidering Political Systems of Highland Burma by E. R. Leach. Brill. Leiden, Boston.
4. ^Seekins, D. M. 2017. Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar). Rowman and Littlefield. p.286
5. ^Kawlu Ma Nawng. 1942. The History of the Kachins of the Hukawng Valley. translated by J.L. Leyden. Bombay.
6. ^¹Sadan, M. (2013) Being and Becoming Kachin. Oxford University Press
7. ^¹²Sadan, M. 2007. Translating Gumlau. in Sadan, M and Robinne, F. (eds) 2007. Social Dynamics in the Highlands of Southeast Asia, Reconsidering Political Systems of Highland Burma by E. R. Leach. Brill. Leiden, Boston.
8. ^Wolf. E, R. 1982. Europe and the People Without History. UNiversity of California Press. p345