UMD 02 A Threatened Identity

"Social Structure and Traditional Leadership in Cho Chin Society before Christianity"

In this second volume of the "Understanding Myanmar's Development" series, Salai Myochit—himself an ethnic

Chin—conducted a focused ethnographic study on several Cho communities in Chin state. With direct access to community elders and steeped in the cultural context that is the subject of his research, he set out to record the oral history of the Cho Chin people prior to their conversion to Christianity in the 1960’s and 1970’s. More than just cultural archival, this research provides fascinating insight into the social structure and leadership rituals of a subsistence, community-based society and people with unique practices of status and power, conferred by the possession of the ox-like mithun. This research is especially precious now as these rituals and practices are under serious threat from modernization, globalization, and the government policies of today’s Myanmar.