The Kachins: Their Customs and Traditions

Ola Hanson (1864–1927) was a Swedish-American missionary from Minnesota, posted to northern Burma in 1890. He lived with the Kachin people and became fluent in their language, compiling a word-list and eventually producing a Kachin–English dictionary. Their own culture and complex belief system were orally transmitted: Hanson therefore devised an alphabetical transcription for his translation of the Bible into Kachin, and this writing system later became widespread in Burma. First published...