LISU TRIBES OF THE BURMA-CHINA FRONTIER. 
251 
north-west it reached Thibet, to the south it is supposed to have extended into Cam- 
bodia whilst its boundaries to the east and north-east are not known. After varying 
fortunes the Tali State was finally won by the all-conquering Mongol Khan, the great 
Kublai, in 1254, an d a few years after the establishment of Mongol power Marco Polo, 
the Venetian, travelled through the province. From the descriptions of Ser 1 Marco 
it is clear that the wilder tribes fringed the valleys much as they do to-day, and the 
marches of the more civilized Shans and Chinese were doubtless constantly harried 
by bands of their lawless but disorganized neighbours. In the intervening centuries 
the Chinese have gradually strengthened their influence, but their hold is still of the 
lightest, and theLisu of the Upper Salween are even to-day entirely independent of their 
power and influence. As far as authentic records go, therefore, we find little change 
in the position of the tribesmen, and the date of their arrival in these frontier mountains 
must be sought in other places than the pages of history. One thing is certain however, 
disunited and unorganized as is the Uisu Tribe to-day, it adheres to its simple animism 
or n at- worship , in which the ancestral ghost plays a most important part , and no branch 
shows any trace of Buddhist thought or legend. There seems little doubt therefore 
that the date of their departure from their northern home must have preceded the 
wave of Indian thought which swept across Thibet and into Kastern Asia, leaving an 
unmistakable influence on the simple creeds with which it came in contact. 
But let us climb to the mountain tops, to the sources of the frontier streams at a 
height of eight or nine thousand feet, and see these people 
in their homes. Nestling in some mountain cleft will be 
found a village of bamboo- wattled houses, thatched with grass and betrayed only by 
the smoke curling upwards through the thickets of fir and dwarf bamboo. The first 
thought of the inhabitants is a shy terror of the invader, the suspicion natural in a race 
living in a land where every man’s hand is against them. Reassured as to the inten- 
tions of their visitors, however, the first instinct of the I v isu is one of hospitality and a 
ready welcome is extended by the oldest lady in company to enter, to sit round the fire 
on the rough stone hearth, and to drink the spiced country spirit, fermented from 
millet or from maize. In the houses there is little to suggest the industry of their 
Chinese neighbours, a few bamboo baskets and a rough loom for weaving their hempen 
clothes being the only evidences of the labours of the Uisu day, whilst the children toy 
with their tiny cross-bows and notch the fuel billets with their dahs. 
It is soon evident that the men are more congenially employed in the adventures 
of the chase than in cultivating their roughly-tilled fields 
for a scanty supply of grain, and a hunt is suggested with 
fire-side tales of bears and panthers and the little barking deer. At the first grey of 
dawn we are awakened by our wild neighbours and told that we must be moving, a 
motley gathering assembling outside the tents, every man armed with a cross-bow 
and a dah — the big two-handed sword in a section of a wooden-sheath — whilst their families 
swell the gathering and every child turns out who is big enough to carry his bow. 
Stories of the Chase. 
1 The “Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian.’’ 
