LISU TRIBES OF THE BURMA-CHINA FRONTIER. 
267 
any man and the offering thus rendered unacceptable. Whilst the Chingpaws (Ka- 
chins) make offerings to ancestors who have been dead for many generations, the Eisu 
confine their offerings to those with whom they have been personally acquainted, and 
in all times of trouble or danger their first appeal is to MAKWA the Heavenly Lord , 
who can deliver them from every evil. There is no priestly caste among the Eisu, 
and any man or boy who is willing to learn the priestly language may act as intermedi- 
ary in the appeals and sacrifices to the spirit world. 
Chinese historians 1 with a regard for detail and a wealth of imagination which is 
staggering to the western mind have divided the tribes 
Position of the Iasu in the pre- . 
sent classification of the tribes of of this area into numberless groups of no value to the 
investigator, or have passed them by with the general 
application of “ savage” or “ barbarian.” 1 
All attempts at scientific classification up to the present have been based on re- 
semblances of language, but, in the study of questions of comparative philology, — es- 
pecially in a country with the geography and history of the Burma-China Frontier.- — it 
is too often forgotten that a resemblance of language is not necessarily a proof of close 
racial connexion. The reasons are obvious to the student and need not be discussed 
here. As to whether the evidences of history and customs, tradition and folklore, 
coupled with detailed and comprehensive anthropometrical research, will eventually 
bridge the gulf, which philology is always liable to leave, and will reduce order from 
the present chaos, is a question which cannot be answered at the present stage of the 
enquiry. Major Davies has said — ” It can be asserted with confidence that nothing 
has been written on this subject that does not contain errors ’ ’ ; and with him we also 
agree that ‘ ‘ The present attempt will doubtless be found equally open to such criticism. ’ ’ 
Mr. Eales in the first volume of the ‘ ‘ Report on the Census of Burma of 1891 ’ ’ 
has placed the Eishaw (presumably Eisu) vernacular in 
Earlier Classifications. 
the Kachin-Naga group of the Thibeto-Burman family 
of the Poly tonic division, in his detailed classification. 
Sir George Scott does not attempt to classify the Eihsaws in his tentative grouping 
(Gazetteer of Upper Burma, p. 481) but he says — ” the linguistic test points almost 
irresistibly to the conclusion that the Lihsaws are practically identical with the Eahu, 
or at any rate form only an earlier or later swarm from the main stock from which the 
Eahu came.” M. Bons D’Anty is satisfied that the Eahu are a half-breed race. It is 
possible, he says, that the Eihsaws are so also, but as to the connexion of the two 
there can be no manner of doubt. 
Captain H. B. Walker, Mr. E. C. S. George, Major (now General Fenton) and others 
class the ‘ ‘ Eihsaws or Yaoyens ’ ’ with the Kachins. Eieutenant Pottinger, who speaks 
of them as Yawyins, says that in appearance they are more like Chinese than 
Kachins. Prince Henri d’ Orleans would connect the Eisu with the Eolos. 
Major Davies, in a classification which shows some agreement in its broader groups 
1 “ Yunnan T’ung Chili,” Volumes 32 and 33. 
