SHANS, shanz. A numerous group of tribes on the frontiers of China, Burma, and Siam, extending considerably to the south. Physically and linguistically they belong, together with the Laotians, the Thos-Nuong tribes of the Chinese Tongking frontier, and the civilized Siamese of the southwest, to the Thai, one of the great stocks of Farther India. The Shims are dis tributed among several semi-independent States subject to Burma, Siam, and China. Their own method of government is more or less democratic, the chiefs being not at all absolute, while the women have practically the same privileges as the men, something noteworthy in Indo-China. Situated as they are in the upland river valleys, half-way between the cities of Southern China and the commercial ports of Burma and Siam, the Shams take part in the extensive trade. The culture of the Shares varies from the condition of the wild Palings to that of the people of Zimme and sonic of the other States who are little in ferior to the other civilized and semi-civilized tribes of ludo-China. Many of the Shuns are mountainous hunter-tribes of great courage and honesty.; others are agriculturalists of a rather
high order, and cattle-breeders. Tea is a chief object of cultivation. Others are timber-cutters and wood-workers; others again skillful workers in iron, gold-beaters, etc. The religion of many of the Shan tribes is Buddhism, but the more in dependent tribes retain their ancient, customs to a very large extent. In the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth century the greater part of the peninsula was under the rule of the Empire of Man, developed from one of toe north ern Shan States. Another remarkable Shan State was Zimme, famous in the sixteenth cen tury, subdued by Siam in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and still subject to that em pire. The numerous ruins of cities and towns existing in the Shan country are thought to indi cate great political activity in the period noted above, and perhaps long before then. Consult: Anderson, Mandalay to Moulmein (London, 1876) ; Colquhoun, the Shuns (ib., 1885) ; Fournereau, Le Siant ancien (Paris, 1S95).