Hkamti Lông

Hkamti Lông (called Kantigyi by the Burmese, and Bor Hkampti by the peoples on the Assam side), a collection of seven Shan states subordinate to Burma, but at present beyond the administrative border. Estimated area, 900 sq. m.; estimated pop. 11,000. It lies between 27° and 28° N. and 97° and 98° E., and is bordered by the Mishmi country on the N., by the Patkai range on the W., by the Hukawng valley on the S. and E., and indeed all round by various Chingpaw or Kachin communities. The country is little known. It was visited by T. T. Cooper, the Chinese traveller and political agent at Bhamo, where he was murdered; by General Woodthorpe and Colonel Macgregor in 1884, by Mr Errol Grey in the following year, and by Prince Henry of Orleans in 1895. All of these, however, limited their explorations to the valley of the Mali-hka, the western branch of the Irrawaddy river. Hkamti has shrunk very much from its old size. It was no doubt the northernmost province of the Shan kingdom, founded at Mogaung by Sam Lōng-hpa, the brother of the ruler of Kambawsa, when that empire had reached its greatest extension. The irruption of Kachins or Chingpaw from the north has now completely hemmed the state in. Prince Henry of Orleans described it as “a splendid territory, fertile in soil and abundant in water, where tropical and temperate culture flourish side by side, and the inhabitants are protected on three fronts by mountains.” According to him the Kiutze, the people of the hills between the Irrawaddy and the Salween, call it the kingdom of Moam.