Wa States

This article is about the historical region. For the present-day autonomous region in Myanmar (Burma), see Wa State.
Wa States
ဝနယ် / 佤邦
Meung Vax
Before 500 BC–c. 1950
View of the rugged mountains of the Wa country with the valleys covered in mist.
View of the rugged mountains of the Wa country with the valleys covered in mist.
The Wa States in an Imperial Gazetteer of India map. Note the border with China marked with a discontinuous darker pink line —unlike Kengtung State to the south and North Hsenwi to the north.
The Wa States in an Imperial Gazetteer of India map. Note the border with China marked with a discontinuous darker pink line —unlike Kengtung State to the south and North Hsenwi to the north.
StatusSelf-governing group of States,
then Native States under nominal control of the British Empire
GovernmentPetty kingdoms and village fiefdoms
History 
• Wa ancestral territories
Before 500 BC
• Incorporation into Shan State (Yunnan Prov. areas annexed by China earlier)
c. 1950
 Succeeded by
Shan State
Yunnan
Today part ofChina
Myanmar
A Wa Khaox Si Gang y-shaped post where the ceremonial sacrifice of a buffalo was performed in special occasions
A Wa woman carrying her child
Traditional Wa female dress and bangles. Yunnan Nationalities Museum.
Rope knot writing system of the Wa.
The Wa States and Manglon in a map of the Shan States.

The Wa States was the name formerly given to the Wa Land, the natural and historical region inhabited mainly by the Wa people, an ethnic group speaking an Austroasiatic language. The region is located to the northeast of the Shan States of British Burma, in the area of present-day Shan State of northern Myanmar (Burma) and the western zone of Pu'er Prefecture, Yunnan, China.

Practically the whole Wa region is rugged mountainous territory with steep hills and deep valleys. There were no urban areas. A section of the historical Wa territory was included in the state of Manglon, one of the Shan States. Sir James George Scott visited the Wa States around the turn of the century and wrote about the place, taking pictures of the people and the houses of the area as well.[1] Considered a distant and inaccessible border area by former empires, the British census of 1901 did not include the Wa States, so statistics regarding a population over 50,000 in 1911 are estimates.[2]

The oral tradition of the Wa people claims that their territory had been much larger in the distant past,[3] an assertion that is confirmed both by Shan and Yunnan Chinese sources.[4] The Wa also regard their ancestral territory as being at the centre of the inhabited world.[5] Nowadays part of the area of the former Wa States is included in Wa State, an autonomous polity within Myanmar.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference JGS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 24, p. 344.
  3. ^ Donald M. Seekins, Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar), p. 251
  4. ^ Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy, Harvard University Press. p. 44
  5. ^ M. Fiskesjo, On the Ethnoarchaeology of Fortified Settlements in the Northern part of Mainland Southeast Asia