British Burma and its people

Front matter

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PRINCETON, N. J.

Preface

The following pages owe their origin to a remark in the Report on the Census of British Burma in 1872, page 27 :

c There are similarities of language, physical type, and traditions, which establish an ethnical affinity between all the races situated among the immense sweep of mountain country, which hems in Burma on three sides. But the evidences of this relationship have never yet been compendiously collated ; and the industry, displayed in this direction by individual officers, whose duty has brought them into contact with one or other of the several tribes, has not yet borne fruit in the form of a general inquiry. A systematic examination of the dialects, or even a scientific comparison of the vocabularies which have already been compiled, would probably throw much light upon their mutual relationship ; hut, as it is, a

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great deal of the speculation on the subject is necessarily guesswork.’

The first intention of the writer was to endeavour in some degree to supply the want above alluded to, but in a form suitable only to the pages of a scientific journal, such as that of the Asiatic Society ; but, since his return to Europe, he has been so much struck with the fact that while Burma, and the Chinese trade route through Burma, are often mentioned, the English public, even the educated and reading class, have as a rule the faintest possible idea of the country, or of the people.

It is considered generally to be a part of India, inhabited by a people only slightly differing from, and in fact being one of, the many races of Hindustan. It may seem presumptuous to endeavour to convey information upon some subjects, such as Buddhism and its origin, which have been so learnedly and completely treated of by able Orientalists, both English and Continental ; but there are two reasons, which seem to render it necessary for our purpose in this little work : first, it would be impossible to give a complete idea of Burma and the Burmese without including a clear account of their religion,

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as this explains much of their character and customs ; secondly, Buddhism has not been considered, in special connection with Burma, in books now generally accessible to the public, although in the opinion of the Burmese this widespread religion in its purest form is now to be found in that country, and not in China, Tibet, or even in the sacred Isle of Ceylon.

As an instance of the want of accurate knowledge respecting Burma, we may mention that not many years ago, the £ Illustrated London News’ named Martaban, a pretty village of about 200 houses, as one of the three great seaports of Burma, doubtless mistaking it for the neighbouring city of Maulmain. Again, the same generally well-informed paper, in the number for October 21, 1876, in a description of some sketches in Burma, contains the following : ‘ Pagodas erected on square terraces, rising one above the other, beneath which are vaults inhabited by the priests. Near the ancient city of Paghan, which flourished 1,000 years ago, the bank of the river for a length of eight miles is lined with remains of this quaint architecture and sculpture. It is not known by what nation of old times they were constructed, for

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Burman history is apocryphal.’ This is a most incorrect description of the Burmese pagodas ; and, moreover, the priests, or rather monks, never live in or under the pagodas, but in regular monasteries ; and the builders of the temples of Paghan are well known.

A province such as British Burma, which, during the twenty years between 1855 (that is, two years after its annexation) and 1875-76, has increased in annual revenue from 532,100?. to 1,527,296?. ; in its commerce from 4,856,400?. to 14,665,286?. ; and in its population from 1,274,640 to 2,896,368 souls : a province, which is now looked on by the commercial world as the trade high-road into the vast regions of Western China, we think deserves to be a little better known to all classes.

Of the works which have been published on Burma since our occupation, there are four of the highest value. First comes Colonel Yule’s magnificent folio, ‘ An Embassy to the Court of Ava ; ’ but this only records the manners and customs of the people, as they struck the traveller in Upper Burma during a stay of a month or so, and, interesting and most valuable as it is, contains little allusion to our own provinces.

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Dr. F. Mason’s ‘ Burmali ; its People and Natural Productions,5 is a scientific rather than a popular descriptive work, and is more a book of reference than of general reading.

Bishop Bigandet’s ‘ The Life or Legend of Gaudama, with Annotations,5 contains a clear and almost exhaustive summary of Burman Buddhism, but, naturally, treats of no other subject.

Lastly, Sir A. Phayre’s valuable ‘ Histories of the Burman Bace,5 ‘ of Arracan,5 and 4 of Pegu,5 give all that is known of these nations, in an historical point of view, from their own and from foreign records ; but these are hidden away in the pages of a scientific journal, and are, moreover, too diffuse for the ordinary reader.

I trust, therefore, that it will be allowed, that there is room for such a book as 1 have attempted. It is offered as the result of an experience derived from thirteen years of close intercourse with the people of Burma, both officially and privately . How far it will supply the want above alluded to, must be left to the indulgent verdict of my readers.

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CONTEXTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Physical Geography 1

n. The Races of British Burma 26

III. Social Life and Manners 44

IV. Social Life and Manners— continued . . . . 74

V. Agriculture, Trades, and Manufactures . . 108

VI. Amusements 135

VII. Festivals and Feasts 164

Vin. Superstitions, Folk-lore, etc 221

LX. Wild Tribes of British Burma .... 248

X. Burman Buddhism 29!)

XI. The Burman Phoongyees, or Monks . . . 324

XII. Language and Literature of Burma . . . 338

INDEX .

. 357

BRITISH BURMA.

Chapter I. Physical Geography

Burma, including under this designation both the British province and the independent Kingdom of Burma, extends along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal from the Chittagong division of Lower Bengal to the Isthmus of Kraw. It is bounded on the east by the Empire of Siam and the Kingdom of Cambodia to about 21° 30' N. lat., and thence to its northernmost extremity by the Chinese province of Yu-nan. Its northern boundary can hardly be defined; it apparently runs up into an angle among the Snowy Ranges of Eastern Tibet, in about 28° N. lat. Thence it stretches westerly, bordering on Upper Assam, Munipur, the Lushai Hills, and the Chittagong division of Bengal to the Naaf River.

Omitting the long narrow strip of mountainous

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country and sea-coast which forms the Tenasserim Province below Maulmain, British Burma may, roughly speaking, be said to consist of three broad mountain ranges, having outside them on the west the seaboard province of Arracan, enbracing between them the two great valleys of the Irrawaddy and the Sittoung, which form south of Rangoon one vast plain, the centre range of the three mountain chains being shorter than are the other two.

The whole of the seaboard is exclusively British territory; and the mighty Empire of Burma, that once stretched from Dacca to the Gulf of Siam, and was, even at the commencement of the present century, regarded by the European Powers in the East with the feelings of wonder and fear due to the vague and the unknown, has shrunk into an inland State, without a single avenue or outlet for her trade except at the will of a foreign Power. Even within the boundaries above given, her authority on the more northern, eastern, and western frontiers is but nominal.

The division between the independent Kingdom of Burma and the British territory is formed on the west by the great chain of mountains that runs down from Sylhet and Cachar, in Lower Bengal, to CapeNegrais ; this portion is known as the Arracan Yoma (or ‘Ridge’). A stone pillar on the Kyee-

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doung Peak of this range in 19° 29' 3" N. lat., and thence an arbitrary line, marked at certain distances by pillars and cairns, continues to define the northern boundary in a straight line to the range of mountains east of the Sittoung River. There the independent State of Karennee intervenes, completing the boundary between Upper Burma and the British province, which marches on the west with the Siamese Empire.

British Burma is both naturally and geographically separated into five divisions — namely, Arracan, the Irrawaddy Valley, the Sittoung (or Sittang) Valley, the Salween Valley, and Tenasserim. Of these, the first three are formed by the Arracan, Pegu, and Poungloung ranges, which traverse the country in a north and south direction, and form the watershed of the Irrawaddy and Sittoung Rivers. The valleys of these two streams unite in their southern portions into an enormous littoral plain stretching from the southern end of the Arracan mountains (near Cape Negrais) along the whole coast to Martaban, at the mouth of the Salween.

The province contains politically three ‘ Divisions,’ Arracan, Pegu, and Tenasserim. The total area is 93,664 square miles, being about 4,000 square miles larger than Great Britain.

Of the whole, about 36,204 square miles are

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cultivable, but in 1875 only 3,450 were actually under cultivation.

The Arracan division consists chiefly of more or less mountainous tracts ; and lying between the hills and the sea is a narrow strip of country which is intersected by a perfect labyrinth of tidal creeks of all sizes, that afford safe navigation for the country boats the whole length of the coast, during the flood tides, without their ever risking the open sea. The chief town is Akyab, which is known at home as one of the rice ports of Burma, rice being the chief article both of produce and export from this tract.

The two valleys of the Irrawaddy and the Sittoung are similar in character, though the latter is the narrower. Both commence above the British boundary line, the noble and fertile Irrawaddy V alley opening out widely as it trends southward until, at the extremity of the Pegu range (on the last spur of which is situated the great golden pagoda of Rangoon), it joins the Sittoung Valley, the two forming the great coast plain. Both these valleys are more or less cultivated, rice being the chief staple ; but it is in the great plain that stretches from the south-eastern slopes of the Arracan range to the promontory of Martaban that the larger portion of the enormous rice crop is raised. From the Pegu

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o division alone the annual export exceeds 570,000 tons, valued at over two-and-a-half millions sterling.

The extraordinary development of the rice trade of Burma is a singular and interesting question. Not to go as far back as we might, and taking only the twelve years from 1862 to 1874, we find that the export of rice from British Burma was in the former of these years 284,228 tons; in the latter, 811,106 tons ; and there seems to be every sign that as fast as Burma, with its limited population, can increase the outturn, it will be absorbed by commerce. The question naturally presents itself, whence arises this enormous increase in the world’s consumption of rice, as there was twelve years ago no other source of supply now closed, the place of which has been occupied by Burma ?

The great Irrawaddy River ( of which the sources, though unknown, are placed in the Snowy Range of Eastern Tibet), after draining the great plain of Upper Burma, enters, as it approaches the British frontier, a narrow valley lying between the spurs of the Arracan and Pegu ranges, and extending below the city of Prome. Thence the mighty stream rolls on through the widening vale, until, about ninety miles from the sea, it bifurcates ; one branch flows to the westward and forms the Bassein River, while the main channel in the lower part of the delta subdivides

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and finally enters the sea by ten mouths. It is navigable for river steamers for 840 miles from the sea; hut it is during the rainy season (or monsoon) that it is seen in its full grandeur. The stream then rises forty feet above its summer level, and, flooding over the hanks, presents in some places, as far as the eye can reach,' a boundless expanse of turbid waters, the main channel of which rushes along with a velocity of five miles an hour.

The Sittoung Eiver, which drains the valley to the east of the Pegu range, is very far inferior to the Irrawaddy both in the length of its course and in its size ; but it possesses similar characteristics. Its chief peculiarity is the great tidal wave or ‘ bore,’ that renders its navigation in the lower part very dangerous. At about forty miles from its mouth it takes an exaggerated bend, like a gigantic C/3, from which ‘ it widens so rapidly into the Gulf of Martaban that it is difficult to decide where the river ends and the gulf begins. Owing to the meeting in this gulf of the great tidal wave of the Indian Ocean from the south-west, and the currents along the Tenasserim coast from the south-east,’ when the spring tides make an enormous wave, the ‘ boi*e,’ with a curling crest of foam from nine to twelve feet high, rushes up the funnel-like channel, dashes and breaks first on one bank, then gathers itself toge-

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ther again, rushes on at a speed of at least twenty miles an hour, and dashes and breaks against the opposite side ; and woe betide boat or vessel that it meets in its path ! Three waves succeed each other in this manner ; the boats that have been lying sheltered in some side creek then push out, and are safely and swiftly borne along upon the rushing stream. But still accidents constantly occur, and some years ago a whole wing of a native Sepoy regiment was lost in this dangerous locality.

The Tenasserim division of British Burma is very nearly equal in area to both the other divisions together; it alone contains 46,730 out of the total of 93,664 square miles. But of this area over 24,000 square miles, or more than half, are occupied by the ramifications of several mountain chains, which contain here and there a few clearings and villages of the wild Karen tribes ; but the greater part of the lower and all the higher ranges are pathless and impenetrable jungle, without sign of human habitation. These mountain ranges run up into peaks, from 3,000 to 6,000 feet high. The highest point in British Burma is the ‘Nat-Toung’ Peak, which attains an elevation of near 8,000 feet. The Tenasserim division touches the Shan States of Siam, to about the latitude of Maulmain (16° 25' N.), and thence runs down the northern part of the Malayan

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Peninsula to the Isthmus of Kraw, being divided from Siam Proper by the great mountain chain that cuts the peninsula longitudinally into two nearly equal halves.

The Salween River, which empties itself into the sea at Maulmain, rivals the Irrawaddy in length but not in importance. Owing to the rapids in its bed, at a comparatively short distance from its mouth it ceases to he navigable ; and, as far as is known, it flows for nearly the whole of its course through a narrow, thickly-wooded valley, very sparsely populated by semi-savage tribes.

The great Pegu and Martaban plain forming the sea-coast is barely above the high-water mark of spring tides ; in some parts, in fact, the face of the country sinks away from the river banks, until it is actually below the level of high water. Its formation is comparatively recent, and the coast line has in some places advanced twelve miles within the memory of living man, and is every year gradually stretching itself into the shallow waters of the Martaban Gulf. Strauge to say, although the great drainage rivers yearly bring down with them vast quantities of detritus, and the -whole country is flooded, the interior plains are not in the slightest degree affected nor silted up by it. The cause of this has been thus graphically explained : —

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‘ The first showers of rain fill the numerous “ engs ” or depressions scattered over the country, and these, gradually enlarging, submerge the country before the turbid floods of the rivers have risen to a similar height (forty feet above their summer level). In default of any effective drainage, the ground adjoining the rivers being higher than the flooded interior, the ordinary rainfall is usually adequate to produce this effect ; but the low land skirting the hills receives in addition considerable though irregular supplies through streams which, pouring out from the hills, diffuse themselves over the country, and lose themselves in the plains. The turbid waters of the Irrawaddy (or other rivers) now rising, top their banks ; but their course is soon arrested by the limpid water of the plains, which opposes a perfect barrier to the spread of the river water, charged with sediment, over the low country.’ 1

This regular and complete inundation of a whole country from one range of hills to another, not as an accidental occurrence, but as a yearly recurring event, affords one of the most singular phenomena of Burma. With the exception of high knolls standing up here and there, and a strip of high ground at the base of the hills, the whole country, fields, roads, bridges, are under water from one to twelve feet or

Theobald, Geology of Pegu.

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more in depth. Boats are the only means of locomotion for even a few yards. Yon sail across the country, ploughing through the half-submerged long grass, piloting a way through the clumps of brushwood or small trees, into the streets of large agricultural villages, where the cattle are seen stabled up in the houses, sometimes twelve feet from the ground ; the children are catching fish with lines through the holes in the floor ; the people are going about their everyday concerns, if it is only to borrow a cheroot from their next-door neighbour, in canoes ; in short, all the miseries and laughable contretemps sometimes pictured in the illustrated papers as caused by floods in Europe may be seen — with this difference, that every one is so accustomed to them that they never create a thought of surprise.

Though in some ways unpleasant, this heavy monsoon is the great blessing and source of prosperity to British Burma. There may be too much or too little rain in certain districts to ensure a good, full crop, but we have no fear of famine; nothing but an absolute blight passing over the whole land could produce it. The rice fields are not prepared, as in China, Italy, and elsewhere, in terraces carefully levelled for irrigation ; but the grass and weeds are raked and pulled out with a huge harrow, and the young plants from the nurseries are set in the

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i r soft ground a foot deep in -water. In a large plain there are of course inequalities, if even of only a few inches, in the surface, so that if the waters subside too quickly the crops on the higher ground are moi'e or less injured ; if the monsoon is a late and heavy one, the paddy plants in the low grounds are rotted while the outturn of the higher land is increased. In ordinary years, the high lands being first planted, the danger on both sides is guarded against.

There are three seasons in Burma — the rains, which begin about the middle of May (sometimes in the end of April) and cease about the middle of October ; the cold weather till about the middle of February, though the really cold months are December, J anuary, and February ; and the hot weather, from February till the rains set in.

As may be supposed, during five months of almost constant rain, the rainfall in Burma is very large, but there is a wide difference between that of the inland and of the littoral zones, ranging from forty inches in the season at Thayetmyo, our west frontier military station, to 184 inches at Maulmain, or even, in an exceptional year, to 228 inches at the latter place. The commencement and the end of the rains are both unpleasant and unhealthy ; there is a great sultriness and an oppressive electricity in the air, and fevers are prevalent, while (except for the universal mois-

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ture and damp) the rainy months, when the monsoon has well set in, are pleasant.

The thermometer in July, about the middle of the rains, ranges from 76° F. at sunrise to 84° F. at midday. In May (the hottest month) the average temperature in the shade at midday is 90° F. ; in December, at the same time of day, 81° F. Of course these approximate figures vary in different years. The climate is equable, and there are no specially sickly localities, excepting the dense forests upon the mountains during and for some time after the end of the rains. But this might be expected, and few are called on to face this danger; and about January, the thermometer registering 29^° F. on the hills, the cold clears off all malaria even there. Though free from serious maladies, the European finds the very equability of the climate, with the thermometer standing at so high a range, to be enervating and depressing. As with a machine constantly at work without rest or intermission, although each part of the system may be radically sound and without a flaw, the constant vibration loosens and disorganises their action. To this may be added outside the seaport towns the want of a varied and nourishing diet for Europeans, who consequently, after some years, without actual disease, suffer much from weakness and nervous depression, requiring a change

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to a bracing climate. On tbe question of a sanatorium for Europeans many proposals have been made ; but stations on tbe bigb mountain ranges in Burma, however pleasant in summer, would have to be abandoned to the jungle beasts and the elements during the rains, for not even natives could remain to take care of the buildings, and so incredibly rapid and luxurious is vegetation there that the very next year a forest would have to be cleared away to find the houses again.

The excellence of the Burman climate is, I think, clearly shown by comparing it with that of any other country in the same latitude. The inhabitants of Burma are robust and healthy looking ; they attain the average length of human life, and children especially thrive in the country. The infantile diseases — measles, chicken-pox, whooping-cough — which

cause such a mortality among the young in England exist in Burma in so mild a form as to excite little or no apprehension. The registration returns show that in Burma the deaths of children under five years of age are in the proportion of 2 7 ’85 of the total deaths at all ages, whereas in England they are 40 per cent. The percentage of children under twelve years of age is 35 -8 of the whole population. The proportion of persons over sixty years of age to the whole population was 4*40 according to the census

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of 1872. All these facts prove that Burma is not, as it was once considered, one of the most unhealthy climates in the East.

Mention has been made of the great alluvial plain which forms the southern seaboard of British Burma. Without going too deeply into scientific details it may he interesting to explain how this plain, together with the three great valleys of Burma, afford an instance of the extensive growth of fluviatile deltas in historic and even recent times. If any one will take the map of Burma, he will at once observe the three great mountain ranges that run north and south through the country, the Arracan, Pegu, and Salween ranges. Let him imagine the plains covered with water, and it will be seen that these three ranges would form long peninsulas, enclosing between them two great estuaries. This was doubtless the condition of the country in not very remote times, according to the threefold evidence of ancient tradition, scientific investigation, and the analogy of existing facts.

The Burrnan Badza-win, or history, states that when Gaudama visited the Upper Burrnan country, he arrived at a hill on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, nearly opposite Prome ; before him to the south stretched out the sea. He looked upon it, and prophesied that 100 years afterwards a violent earth-

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quake should shake the whole land, and then the sea covering it should he dried up. In the time of Dwottaboung, the founder of the city of Prome, 544 b.c., the history afterwards relates that these events occurred, and that the country around Prome and to the south formerly beneath the sea became dry land. The prophecy without doubt is as mythical as Gaudama’s visit to this region ; but is it not most probable that the actual occurrence of such a convulsion of nature was the origin of the prophecy? In fact, across the whole breadth of the delta, from Cape Hegrais to Martaban Point, every local village tradition, every fairy tale, points to a time when the sea covered all the country of Martaban and of Lower Pegu.

History affords us the following facts, which there is no reason to suppose untrue.

At least 600 years after Christ, Thatone, now twelve miles from the sea, was a seaport, and ships traded thence to the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon. In 1191, Narapadiseethoo, King of Pugan, in Upper Burma, came down with a fleet of war boats to Rangoon, and, going round by the sea, he sailed up the Sittang River and founded the city of Tonghoo. He then returned down the river and sailed across to Martaban. Ho mention is made of the dreaded ‘ bore,’ which would effectually prevent such an i6

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expedition in the present day ; and this shows that the mouth of the Sittoung must have then been under different conditions to those of later times. The geological evidence, as given in the Government Geological Survey Report, is even stronger and more complete.

The older alluvial clay deposit comprises the entire level plains of Pegu within the valley of the Irrawaddy, and the alluvial plans of the Sittoung Valley also, the two deltas so blending to the south that no distinction can be made between the deposit in either. I am not aware of any fossils having been found in the alluvium of Pegu.

During the south-west monsoon the whole of the Gulf of Martaban opposite the mouths of the Irrawaddy and Sittoung is a sea of muddy water, from which at the subsidence of the monsoon a considerably widespread and homogeneous deposit must take place. All, then, that the supposition of the marine origin of the older clay of the Irrawaddy Valley requires is, that a gradual elevation should have taken place, whereby the sea was forced to recede to its present limits, and the estuary to yield to the encroachments of the land.

‘ The now deserted military station of Sittoung was situated on a steep bluff of rock overlooking the river. This rock is laterite, and runs with a slightly

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sinuous and somewhat indented outline to Kyketo and thence to Martaban. At the time of its formation the waters of the Gulf of Martaban stretched up what now forms the Irrawaddy, Sittoung, and Salween Valleys. The coarse gravels which underlie the clay towards the frontier in the upper portion of the delta (above Prome) are clearly of marine origin.’

Thus the scientific conclusions drawn from the present geological features of the country concur with native tradition and history in pointing to a time when the great plains of Pegu and Sittoung to Martaban were still submerged beneath the waters of the Gulf of Martaban, which at that time extended far inland, even above the latitude of Prome, and formed deep estuaries between the three great mountain ranges.

But it may be said that the phenomena here presented are not unique, and that the upraising and extension of low coast lines is going on at present in many other parts of the world. This is true ; but perhaps no other locality shows this process in operation on so recent, so extensive, and so rapid a scale.

An old phoonygee of my acquaintance, about eighty years of age, remembers, when a lad, the whole of the plain south of Kyketo about fifteen miles from

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the sea, and now covered with villages, being then, as he expressed it, the ‘ pinlay gyee,’ or broad sea ; that is to say, at every high tide the whole land was covered, except high knolls that formed islands here and there, while the receding tide left exposed a vast expanse of miles of mud and sand flats. This old man also remembered, some sixty years ago, seeing the timbers of a foreign-built ship, which hadbeen found buried at the foot of a bold rocky bluff on which formerly stood the ancient town of Tike-kolah, which is now twelve miles in a straight line from the present sea-coast. He could give no intelligible description of the vessel : the timbers, of course, have long since vanished, but the trench, out of which they were dug, still remains.