THE TAI PHAKES OF ASSAM
S.F . Hanny : Notes on the Shans or Tai Nation, 1847-48.
The Tai Phakes are of the few tribes of the Tai race who have come into
Assam within last 300 years. The Phakes or Phakeals, as, they are
designated by the Assamese , are of longest standing, as their advent
appears to have followed the subjugation of the Northern Tai Kingdom by
Alomphra.
Their first settlement within the Assam Frontier seems to have been at a place called Mueangkong Tat, a short distance above the present post of Ningroo, on thr Burhi Dehing river; their chief , called "Chow Ta Muaeng Khuen Muaeng", is said to have been of the Royal line of Mueangkong, but the clan or tribe had been long in possession of lands on the banks of the Nam Turung, a tributary of the Chindwin river in Hukawng.
Their first settlement within the Assam Frontier seems to have been at a place called Mueangkong Tat, a short distance above the present post of Ningroo, on thr Burhi Dehing river; their chief , called "Chow Ta Muaeng Khuen Muaeng", is said to have been of the Royal line of Mueangkong, but the clan or tribe had been long in possession of lands on the banks of the Nam Turung, a tributary of the Chindwin river in Hukawng.
After being settled on the Upper Burhi Dehing for about 10 years, the
Captain Gohain, an officer of the Ahom Government, who visited the
Eastern Districts with a small force early in the nineteenth century for
the purpose of repelling the encroachments of the Singphos, brought
them from thence with thr concurrence of his master, and they settled
down in the vicinity of Jorhat, the whole tribe and their dependants,
consisting of about 150 houses. At Jorhat they remained until the
invasion of Assam by the Burmese, when this tribe , as well as other of
the Tai race, were ordered to return to Mueangkong by the Burmese
authorities, and the Tai Phake were thus found so far on their return
(by the British force on the frontier in 1825), again settled near their
former position on the Burhi Dihing. At the present there are three
settlements , one in the Dibrugarh district of Assam, the second one in
the Tinsukia district and the last one in Changlang district of
Arunachal Pradesh. Today their population are said to be only 5000 in
numbers.
Edited and shared by : C.K Tunkhang.
© TAI Community & Buddhism.
Edited and shared by : C.K Tunkhang.
© TAI Community & Buddhism.
No comments