Zomia

Union of Zomia ပြည်ထောင်စု သျှမ် (Lue) Pyidaunzu Hsan
Flag Coat of arms
Capital	Yotkuy
Largest city	Jattasey
Recognised regional languages	Lue Chanwan Kasine Kachai Oegun Ukilen
Ethnic groups	19.2% Oegun 13.6% Chanwan 11.3% Hsan-Lue 10.1% Ukilen 8.9% Isan-Kasi 7.2% Kyu 3.3% Nanpkat 2.5% Tcho 1.8% Kin 22.1% Other (112 recognised tribes)
Religion	41% Badi 32% Zohism 18% Traditional 9% Irfan
Demonym(s)	Zomi
Government	Federal Elective Absolute Monarchy
• Prince Paramount	Nyapkthe III Uo Sthe
• Viceregnant	Badithirat I Na Israt
Legislature	All-Union Assembly
Formation
• Demarcation of the Trucial Territory of the Northern Chieftaincies	30th May 1883
• Independence of the Confederal Zomi State	14th October 1952
• Formation of the United Zomi Councils	11th June 1958
• Declaration of the Union	17th March 1970
Area
• Total	694,772 km2 (268,253 sq mi)
Population
• June 2021 estimate	19,357,609
• Density	32.3/km2 (83.7/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2020 estimate
• Total	$85.824 billion
• Per capita	$3,734
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	$29.830 billion
• Per capita	$854
HDI (2020)	0.531 low
Currency	Kyaw (ƙ)
Driving side	left
Internet TLD	.hs

Zomia, officially the Union of Zomia (Lue: ပြည်ထောင်စု သျှမ်, Pyidaunzu Hsan) is a landlocked state in Southeast Coius, bordered by Shangea in the Northwest, Kuthina in the Southwest, and Lavana in the Northeast. Though predominated by arid highlands, Zomia has a highly diverse geography, including seasonal tropical forest, subalpine forest, fertile intermontane valleys and open steppe along its Northern borders. It is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural state, with no official language and over a hundred recognised tribal minorities.

The Union is an elective monarchy formed from a federation of nine princely states and thirteen chieftaincies. Each principality is governed by a hereditary Sah, and each chieftaincy by a Thôsi, elected by a regional assembly. Together they constitute the All-Union Assembly, the unicameral legislature of the Union. An advisory panel elected by direct popular vote serves a consultative role.

Since the collapse of the United Zomi Councils in the 1970s, an ethnic Kyu socialist insurgency has been active in the Southeast, and in the early 2000s a political Irfanic movement developed in the predominantly Oegun Northwest. Since its inception the Union has ranked highly on international watchlists for terrorism and corruption, and there have been allegations by foreign observers of civil rights abuses by Hsan-Lue army units. The Hsan-Lue minority hold the great majority of royal, civil and military offices, and Zomia is annually ranked 'not free' by the International Council for Democracy.

Etymology

Zomi is a word for 'highlander' common to many Chanwan and Kasine dialects in bordering regions of Kuthina, Shangea and Phet. When Weranian colonial agents reached the highland interior of Southeast Coius in the late 19th century, this exonym was the name under which they grouped its diverse peoples.

Hsan, the endonym used by the Union government, is believed to be Chanwan in origin, a corruption of the Kasine Isan, meaning 'Northeast'. This etymology is lent credence by the current understanding that the ancestors of the Hsan-Lue minority were originally displaced into the Zomi highlands by tribal warfare in the Lue State region of modern-day Kuthina, directly Southwest of Zomia.

History

Intermontane Period (800-1300)

Coinciding roughly with the Medieval Warm Period, during which the coasts of Southeast Coius were dominated by malarial wetlands and jungle - while the intermontane valleys of the interior became temperate - this period saw a series of Zomi city-states extend their hegemony far south and east into modern day Phet and Lavana. Though the narrow valleys of the highland region could not sustain large populations, complex irrigation and terracing techniques mitigated this disadvantage, and they did not suffer from the erratic seasonal flooding that increasingly left lowland polities weakened and vulnerable to incursions from highland peoples. Failing irrigation systems and waterborne epidemics spread by these floods led to the collapse of the Alvari Empire of Southwestern Lavana into warring states in the late 8th century, just as Nanpka, first of the major intermontane valley-states, arose at the confluence of the Kung and Qorl rivers. During the Classical Kungian Period of Lavanan history, many Alvari successor states paid tribute to Nanpkat warlords.

The Zomi Hegemonies were not empires in the same sense as the lowland polities of the Alvari, or later the Aguda, and the Chanwan during the reign of Intharatcha the Great. Rather they were loose tributary networks sustained only by the personal clout and military success of the Zomi princes. Inter-valley warfare, highland slave raiding and seasonal incursions into the lowland states were continuous throughout the Intermontane Period, and the obeisance of resentful Kungian and Phet tributaries, whose cultures conceived of the highlanders as barbarians, always hung in the balance when their overlords suffered humiliations or defeats. By the advent of the Late Kungian Period, the Nanpkat civilisation had been weakened from invasion by the Oegun steppe tribes, and eclipsed by the younger southwestern valley-states of Yotkuy and Ayyutjep. Zomi tributaries in modern-day Lavana gradually broke away, and Zomi hegemony would henceforth be confined to Phet and the uppermost valleys of modern-day northwest Kuthina.

Zomi Collapse (1300-1500)

The Zomi Collapse was attributed by early Euclean historians of the region to the dramatic migrations of displaced steppe peoples, which substantially altered the ethnic makeup of Northern Zomia. Indeed the impact of this period is highly visible: Oegun and Ulkilen descended peoples today constitute the majority. However the most significant Zomi civilisations developed in the valleys of the South, sheltered from steppe incursion by impenetrable highlands. A reversal of climatological factors which had previously favoured the interior and disadvantaged southern and coastal peoples is considered the principle factor in the decline of Yotkuy and Ayyutjep.

The onset of the Little Ice Age drastically altered annual monsoon patterns, causing rapid aridification across the Zomi highlands. Whereas the Zomi monsoons of the Medieval Warm Period had been gentle and distributed across much of the year, the Little Ice Age in Zomia was characterised by long periods of drought interspersed with sudden deluges. The erratic flooding that had been the bane of polities in Kuthina, Phet and Lavana abated, concurrently with the increased climatological instability in Zomia. These changing climate patterns were perceived as cosmic judgement on unworthy rulers, causing the fragile tributary networks of the intermontane-states to disappear almost entirely within a century. The archaeological record demonstrates a massive drop-off in temple and stele building at the turn of the 14th century, and the depopulation and abandonment of Yotkuy by the early 15th - formerly the pre-eminent Zomi city-state.

Shangean records describe with contempt the desultory tribute sent by the petty Zomi princes of this era. Whereas previously the jade, sapphires, rubies, aromatic wood and resins of the region had been praised, Collapse era tribute missions were scorned for the paucity of their offerings: mostly eunuchs and other slaves, plentiful during the endemic, exterminating warfare of this period.

Tributary Period (1500-1883)

The shift in power set in motion by climatological changes was cemented by the emergence of global trade and gunpowder. Though new Zomi civilisations arose out of the tumultuous invasions of Oegun steppe tribes and hill peoples such as the Lue, they could never regain the intermontane states' pre-eminence over the Southwestern world. Contact with Euclean merchant companies may have prefigured colonialism, but for a time it brought unprecedented wealth, prestige and military power to the kingdoms of the coasts. Booming maritime trade divested the ancient overland routes through the mountains of their importance, and Zomi peoples that had served as caravaneers and mercenaries for generations were reduced to banditry and primitive swiddening. The fractious, impoverished tribal confederations of this period inevitably became tributaries of the Aguda or the Khaunban Empire of Intharatcha the Great, if not both, in order to survive.

The ancient ruin of Yotkuy was refounded as a regional capital by the Aguda Empire in the the late 16th century, their monumental architecture unlike anything built in Zomia for almost four hundred years. The Throne of Ages, a vast Badi temple to Time where Lue Princes were coronated, would stand for another four hundred until its destruction by the People's Republican Army in 1960.

Trucial Period (1883-1951)

As Aguda lands were partitioned between the Euclean powers, Weranian and Estmerish colonial agents came into contact with the Zomi tribes. Yet Zomia was too far inland, too mountainous and too diverse to ever be directly administered by colonial governments, particularly in the war-torn aftermath of the Aguda Empire's fall. Seasonal raiding constantly shifted borders and alignments, and amorphous tribal units were constantly dividing and reconfederating, making even a system of native proxy rule impossible. Semi-migratory tribes practicing slash-and-burn agriculture were particularly troublesome for would-be Euclean administrators, as they could melt into the forests at the slightest provocation

However it was still necessary to establish control over the highland trade in exotic goods, which had been revived under Agudan stewardship, and so Werania and Estmere jointly mediated a series of treaties between Southerly Hsan-Lue tribal leaders, securing peace throughout the major intermontane trade routes. The Trucial Territory of the Northern Chieftaincies was declared in 1883. Gradually, those tribes that did not co-operate, or fled at Trucial encroachment, became increasingly marginalised, those tribes that served colonial interests more settled and stable, propped up by Euclean arms and gunpowder, even symbolic tokens of legitimacy such as charters, seals and grandiose titles. The regional Aguda governorship in Yotkuy was co-opted and retitled the Paramountcy, the local Prince given nominal overlordship over a largely imaginary territory known increasingly by its geographical exonym 'Zomia'.

For many decades thereafter the Trucial Territory remained little more than a peripheral Euclean commercial presence and a political fig leaf. But the long term effects of this policy were profound. It ultimately entrenched a privileged Hsan-Lue minority as a dominant ethnic clique throughout Zomia, creating an autocratic, nepotistic regime which would eventually rule over seventeen million unwilling foreign subjects.