The Daai are an ethnic group living in Chin State, Myanmar. The Daai consist of 32 Chin tribes, which have been registered by the Government of Burma since 1890. The recent Military Regime’s census mentions the Daai tribe as the 62nd of 135 tribes of Burma. Researchers refer to them as the Daai group in the ethnic survey book of Burma. The Daai Chin appear to be of Mongolian, Indo-Chinese, and Tibeto-Burman descent.
The Daai people live in the Mindat, Paletwa, Matupi and Kanpetlet townships of Southern Chin State in Burma. There are more than 180 Daai villages with a total population of somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000. Their population makes the Daai-Chin the majority tribe of the Southern Chin Hills. The Daai land was an independent country until the British expedition in 1890, and later annexation in 1897 by the United Kingdom. Approximately thirty years ago, Daai people practised animism. Since then, most Daai people have converted to Christianity within the last two decades. Currently about 99% of the Daai people are Christian.
As all Chin tribes, in the past women wore tattoos on their faces. The Burmese socialist government banned the practice of face tattooing during the 1960s as part of their programme of getting rid of the old and ushering in modernisations, with missionaries in the Chin also criticizing it as barbaric. These women are the last generation to all bear facial tattoos; when they die, a chapter of Chin history will be relegated to the textbooks. The six Chin tribes wear an array of different tattoos and the Daai tribes feature long vertical-line tattoos across the entire face, including the eyelids. The tattoos are made using leaves, grass shoots and soot. The leaves give colour, the soot acts as a disinfectant and the grass shoots are added at the end, acting as a bandage and natural healing cover.
