Vol. IX, No. 3.] The A-ch’ang (Maingtha) Tribe. 145 
[N.S.] 
tendency however is to regard Mr. Errol Grey’s Tarengs, 
Turengs or Turungs as Chingpaw pure and simple.! 
While I am unable to admit the identity of the Tarengs 
or Tarens with the A-ch’ang, it is interesting to note that the 
western borders of the Chinese-Shan State of Santa in Yiinnan, 
are peopled for the greater part by Zis, a very closely allied 
people. 
In a more recent work (1910), Mr. C. C. Lowis reiterates 
his previous opinion, that the Maingtha are probably merely 
Chinese-Shans, and that there is a far fainter Tibeto-Burman 
element in their language than was at one time supposed. He 
therefore no longer regards them as having a place in the same 
dubious category as the Hpons, who are now proved to be a 
Tibeto-Burman race which is in the last stages of absorption 
by the surrounding Shans.’ 
In the last Burma Census Report (1911), Mr. Morgan 
Webb, I.C.S., only places the A-ch’ang speech in the same 
compartment as that of the Zi, Lashi and Maru, as a tentative 
easure, and remarks that the ‘‘ Maingthas have adopted the 
admits that it is probable that their ancestry is a complex of 
h 
administered and enumerated areas in Burma, over which the 
poorer stragglers from the headquarters of the race have to 
er, owing to circumstances beyond their own control. 
This surplus population in any case is less likely to approximate 
closer to the original ancestors of the race, than the settled 
members, living in their own country, and bound together by 
all the ties of communal interest. Beyond a doubt the race 
is fast disappearing, its manners and customs well nigh 
absorbed in those of the Shans, and its language rapidly becom- 
ing extinct, owing to the supremacy of the tongues of numer- 
i i The process however has not 
suppose ,— otherwise a 
nearly vanished. 
1 (12). In this connection see also (12), pp- 16, 17, where the views of 
re mentioned. This valuable work was not avail- 
able until this paper was in the press. 
2 (11). 3 3 
