[In 1274, the Burmese attacked Yung ch’ang, whose inhabitants were known under the name of Kin-Chi (Golden-Teeth). (E.  Rocher, Princes du Yun-nan, p. 71.) From the Annals of Momein, translated by Mr. E.H.  Parker (China Review, XX. p. 345), we learn that:  “In the year 1271, the General of Ta-li was sent on a mission to procure the submission of the Burmese, and managed to bring a Burmese envoy named Kiai-poh back with him.  Four years later Fu A-pih, Chief of the Golden-Teeth, was utilised as a guide, which so angered the Burmese that they detained Fu A-pih and attacked Golden-Teeth:  but he managed to bribe himself free.  A-ho, Governor of the Golden-Teeth, was now sent as a spy, which caused the Burmese to advance to the attack once more, but they were driven back by Twan Sin-cha-jih.  These events led to the Burmese war,” which lasted till 1301.

According to the Hwang-tsing Chi-kung t’u (quoted by Deveria, Front. p. 130), the Pei-jen were Kin-chi of Pa-y race, and were surnamed Min-kia-tzu; the Min-kia, according to F. Garnier, say that they come from Nan-king, but this is certainly an error for the Pei-jen.  From another Chinese work, Deveeria (p. 169) gives this information:  The Piao are the Kin-Chi; they submitted to the Mongols in the 13th century; they are descended from the people of Chu-po or Piao Kwo (Kingdom of Piao), ancient Pegu; P’u-p’iao, in a little valley between the Mekong and the Salwen Rivers, was the place through which the P’u and the Piao entered China.

The Chinese geographical work Fang-yu-ki-yao mentions the name of Kin-Chi Ch’eng, or city of Kin-Chi, as the ancient denomination of Yung-ch’ang.  A Chinese Pa-y vocabulary, belonging to Professor Deveria, translates Kin-Chi by Wan-Chang (Yung-ch’ang). (Deveria, Front. p. 128.)—­H.C.]

It has not been determined who are the representatives of these Gold-Teeth, who were evidently distinct from the Shans, not Buddhist, and without literature.  I should think it probable that they were Kakhyens or Singphos, who, excluding Shans, appear to form the greatest body in that quarter, and are closely akin to each other, indeed essentially identical in race.[1] The Singphos have now extended widely to the west of the Upper Irawadi and northward into Assam, but their traditions bring them from the borders of Yunnan.  The original and still most populous seat of the Kakhyen or Singpho race is pointed out by Colonel Hannay in the Gulansigung Mountains and the valley of the eastern source of the Irawadi.  This agrees with Martini’s indication of the seat of the Kin-Chi as north of Yung-ch’ang.  One of Hannay’s notices of Singpho customs should also be compared with the interpolation from Ramusio about tattooing:  “The men tattoo their limbs slightly, and all married females are tattooed on both legs from the ankle to the knee, in broad horizontal circular bands.  Both sexes also wear rings below the knee of fine shreds of rattan varnished black” (p. 18).  These rings appear on the Kakhyen woman in our cut.