The Kadu were the dominant ethnic group in the
Chindwin River valley at the beginning of the early 2nd millennium A.D. until the
Chin people and subsequently the
Shan people migrated into the Chindwin Valley. The Kadu likely descended from the (邛都), a sub-group of 'southwestern barbarians' described in Sima Qian's
Records of the Grand Historian. They settled in present-day Myanmar during the
Tang dynasty, becoming a dominant group in the
Tagaung Kingdom. Scholars like
Gordon Luce posit that the
Pyu people were converted to Buddhism by the Sak-Kadu peoples. With the rise of the
Pagan kingdom, by the 12th and 13th centuries, the Kadu inhabited the border areas between the present-day Sichuan and Yunnan provinces of China and Burma. By the 13th century, they had largely assimilated into more dominant Tibeto-Burman speaking groups in both China and Burma. By the mid-13th century, the Kadu had diverged from the Sak (or Thet people), who now reside in southwestern Myanmar's
Rakhine State. By the early 20th century, most Kadu had assimilated and adopted
Burmese customs, including Theravada Buddhism. == Population ==