Readers with interests in the Shan peoples of northern Thailand, Burma, and southern China will find a new website on the Mangrais of Kengtung rewards a visit. Its owners describe it as:
a space for all those connected with the Kengtung Mangrais to put forward suggestions for the Chiangmai winter reunion in 2008 and also post their pictures, comments and blog contributions of a non-political nature and which are related to aspects of personal and family life & culture – past and present and most importantly provide an avenue for all Mangrai family members and friends to keep in touch and get to know a little more about each other while we remain scattered in this global diaspora.
The site is updated regularly. For a start, readers looking for an introduction to this princely family of Kengtung will find much useful information in this short biography of Sao Sāimöng Mangrāi. Sudents of Shan history and culture will find much else of interest in this evolving website.
2 responses so far ↓
1 jonfernquest // Aug 7, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Thanks for the link.
And the biography of Sao Sāimöng Mangrāi would not be complete without the letters he exchanged with Luce in the 1950s which he asks for advice on studying Shan history which may actually have inspired Luce to write his two papers on Syam in JSS (or vice versa).
I wonder whether Sao Sāimöng Mangrāi papers are stored in a library collection somewhere. Someone told me they were lost. Bibliographical entries from my paper for the letters:
Luce, Gordon Hannington (1957). Letter to Sao Saimong Mangrai, extracts are given in (Mangrai, 1965), cited in (Witthayasakphan, 2001c). [Written in response to a letter written to Luce in August 1957 asking for advice on writing a history of the Shan States]
Mangrai, Sao Saimong (1965). The Shan States and the British Annexation. Data Paper No. 57 Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.
P.S. the index to Scott’s Shan manuscripts at Cambridge are supposedly available online now. Does anyone have an URL?
It’s frustrating to use Scott’s Gazetteer and Elias from the 19th century as secondhand sources for the Hsenwi and Mong Mao chronicles. Does anyone know where the manuscripts are or whether they will be published in the future?
2 Khai // Aug 8, 2007 at 1:05 am
Write to me for info on Sao Saimong and G. H. Luce correspondence.
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