Chapter 6 of 9

Faith & Literacy

Within two generations, most Zo communities moved from an oral religious world to a Christian, literate one. That transformation produced new scripts, new institutions — and new identities.

Traditional religion Scholarly interpretation

Before Christianity, Zo religious life centred on rituals performed by village priests to secure the favour of spirits and of the supreme being, with sacrifices tied to the agricultural year. In Zomi tradition, Pasian (Pathian) was a benevolent creator to whom no sacrifices were offered. ^[2] The fullest scholarly study of how this system shaped Chin identity is Lian Sakhong’s In Search of Chin Identity, which uses the term Sakhua for the traditional religion. ^[1] Festivals such as Mim Kut were more ritual than celebration, and village priests (siampu) played a central role. ^[8]

The missionaries arrive Documented

American Baptist missionaries Arthur and Laura Carson, helped by Karen missionaries, arrived in Hakha on 15 March 1899. ^{[3] [9]} The first Haka baptism came six years later; Laura Carson translated the Gospel of Matthew and many hymns. ^[10] After Arthur Carson died in 1908, Herbert Cope served in Tedim for about 30 years. ^[11]

The Chin Hills Baptist Association, covering Falam, Hakha and Tedim, formed in 1907. ^[9] Karen teachers and evangelists helped the mission from its first years. ^[3] Who was the first Chin convert is remembered differently: Hakha honours Saya Shia Khaw, while the Siyin community of Thuklai says the first convert came from their village. ^[12] Foreign missionaries who arrived after 1947 were expelled by the Ne Win government in 1966. ^{[13] [12]}

The Bible and written Zo Documented

Missionaries adapted the Latin alphabet for Zo languages. The Bible Society of Myanmar dates the first full Tedim Bible to 1977. ^[5] Dates given for the Tedim New Testament differ: 1932 in one reference work ^[14] and 1935 in a missions database. ^[11] Today, most Zo are Protestant Christians. ^[4]

Pau Cin Hau and the Zo script Documented

Pau Cin Hau (1859–1948) of the Tedim area founded the Laipian religious movement and created its scripts. ^[15] His home village of Siangsawn in Tedim Township is still called the “Holy Land” of Chin State. ^[16] He devised a logographic script in 1902 — reported at around 1,050 characters — and later an alphabetic form with 57 characters; his final revision dates to 1931. ^{[6] [15]} Neither script has a known genetic relationship to any other writing system. ^[6] It is called Pau Cin Hau lai or tual lai (“local script”). ^[15]

The script was used for some early Christian literature too, but as communities converted the Latin alphabet replaced it. ^[17] The alphabet entered the Unicode Standard in version 7.0, announced on 16 June 2014 ^[7], in the block U+11AC0–U+11AFF ^[18], and is supported by the free font Noto Sans Pau Cin Hau. ^[19] The logographic form is not yet encoded. ^[17]

Sample (Unicode): 𑫀𑫁𑫂𑫃𑫄𑫅 (renders if your device has a Pau Cin Hau font)