A Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan States

1. In his ‘New Studies of Religious History,’ Ernest Renan points out that the ruins of Ancor, in Southern Indo-China, “are now ascribed with certainty to the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of our era. In them Sivaism and Buddhism are blended; and Sivaism appears here before Buddhism.” There can be no doubt that Sivaism, or the worship of the hero-gods of the hills, in China and Indo-China, is connected with the ancient religion of the non-Aryan Himalayan hill tribes. Siva was not incorporated by the Brahmans into their pantheon until about the commencement of our era.

2. Milton, “Comus,” act i.

3. Peh Muang merely means the division or boundary of the States, and is applied to all ranges that form boundaries.

4. Siam and Laos, p. 544.

5. During the present lawka, or existence of the world, four Buddhas are said to have appeared. The dispensation of each lasts 5000 years. Gaudama Buddha was the last of the four, and his death, according to the Ceylon histories, occurred B.C. 543, but according to Professor Muller, B.C. 477, or a year after that of Confucius. A lawka is a whole revolution of nature. The world, according to Buddhists, is continuously destroyed and reproduced, but each lawka lasts an incalculable length of years.

6. A Dewah, or inhabitant of Indra’s heaven.

7. Mr Archer gives the Siamese pronunciation of the names; I give that of my Burmese Shan interpreters.

8. Most Chinese and Indo-Chinese cities are under tutelary deities, as the cities in Egypt and Babylonia were in ancient times. The same custom prevails in India, where many cities are presided over by incarnations of one or other of the gods.

9. The great masses of the common people are marked and designated as Prai-luang. These are scattered all over the country. The provincial or the city authorities can demand of those thus marked three months’ personal services each year, and there may be extra demands if there is a seeming need. The usual mode is to require service one month, and then allow them three months to carry on their own pursuits. The only derangement to this plan is the extra service. No pay is allowed for this service. For failure to perform the service he must pay $3.60 each month.—Extract from ‘The Siam Repository.’

10. Committed by themselves or by their relations. The law frequently adjudges, besides punishment to the man, that his family and descendants shall for the future be slaves of the Government. The descendants of captives in war are classed and treated as Government slaves.

11. “The abolition of the system of corvée, which weighs very heavily on the people, would be a boon of infinite benefit to the country. It is not only that the service lawfully due is heavy, but the opportunity for imposing vexatious and severe labour, with a view to receiving a bribe for dispensing with it, is eagerly taken advantage of by unscrupulous officials. A poll-tax of reasonable amount would probably bring in a greater sum to the Royal revenues, and would bear but lightly on the people.”—Consular Report, Siam, No. 1, (1886).

12. Up to August 1885, when George Washington, the second King of Siam, died, a duplicate king reigned in Siam in conjunction with the supreme monarch, and had much the same power as a Chow Hona has in the Shan States.

13. During my various journeys I passed through or near 222 villages in the portion of the Zimmé plain lying between the entrance of the Meh Teng, into the Meh Ping on the north and the junction of the Meh Hkuang with the Meh Ping on the south—including those on the various branches of the river.

14. The prince at the head of the Gem City.

16. Butea frondosa.

17. The province of Kiang Hsen, not the city; the latter was only reoccupied in 1881.

18. The kwun among the Shans has a resemblance to the ka-la or guardian angel believed in by the Karens. The Karens believe that everything living, vegetable or animal, possesses a ka-la, which still remains with the soul of the plant or animal after its body is destroyed, and accompanies a man to his future abode of bliss or punishment. Its place is on the head or neck of every human being. As long as it remains seated in its place the Karen is safe from all attacks of evil spirits; but if it is enticed away by others, or jumps down and wanders away during the body’s sleep, then follow sickness and death. If a man is sick or pining away, his spirit is supposed to be wandering, and has to be enticed back with an offering of good.

19. Siam Repository, 1869.

20. The Karens sometimes bury an infant alive with its mother; and amongst the Kakhyens, a wild tribe in the north of Burmah, if a woman dies within seven days of childbirth, the corpse, living child, house, and every article in the house, are burnt. The child may be adopted by a stranger, but it must not remain in the village, and no Kakhyen will have anything to do with it.

21. It is strange to find a custom in vogue many centuries ago in Egypt still practised amongst the Shans in Indo-China. In Egypt frequently the whole skin of the embalmed body was covered with gold-leaf; in other cases the face, the eyelids, and sometimes only the nails.

23. The Pee Song Nang, if belonging to the primitive Turanian spirits, so generally believed in by the Shans, are neither male nor female spirits. All such spirits, unlike the ancient Chaldean deities, have neither husbands, wives, nor children, and are utterly devoid of any of the good points appertaining to human beings. They know neither law nor kindness, do not listen to prayer and supplication, and are merely objects of dread to the people. They are sacrificed to only to keep them in a good humour, and to prevent them wreaking their vengeance and spite upon the people.

24. The length of the branch line is estimated at 160 miles, the cost at one and a half million sterling, which is equivalent to Rs. 136,363 a mile, taking exchange at 1s. 4¼d. The 108 miles opened in Upper Burmah up to December 31, 1888, cost, according to the last “Administration Report on the Railways in India,” only Rs. 50,349 per mile.

25. Two hundred and seventy-five British steamers and 16 British sailing-vessels visited Bangkok in 1888, and only 17 French steamers and no French sailing-vessels. The gross sea-borne trade of Bangkok in the same year was valued at over four millions sterling, the imports at £1,657,708, and the exports at £2,598,901. The import of cotton manufactures was valued at £302,746, and cotton yarns at £40,936.

26. In 1888, 27,118 bullocks were exported from Bangkok, and according to the last Consular Report, “the export of cattle overland to Burmah is said to be about double that from Bangkok.” One hundred thousand head of cattle—buffaloes and bullocks—have died in a single year of cattle-disease in Burmah, and a large portion of the area of our province would have been thrown out of cultivation if it had not been for the supplies we were able to draw from Siam.

27. A superstitious belief that the ancient trade-routes must necessarily be the best has always influenced Indian officialism. It overlooks the important fact that routes which were well adapted for caravan traffic may be quite unsuitable for railway communication; and also that the character and localities of commerce have changed since the ancient routes were opened up.

28. The son of the late regent was then Kalahom, or Prime Minister of Siam, and the Kalahom’s daughter is the king’s first wedded wife, but without the rank of queen. The present queens, right and left, are half-sisters of the king, and full sisters of Prince Devawongse. The Kalahom, the Kromatah or Foreign Minister—who was a half-brother of the ex-regent—and the uncle of the king, who were the heads of the nobles that opposed progress, have been removed by death or resigned since my visit, and the king has no longer a pretence for delaying to propagate measures for the improvement of his administration and the welfare of his people.

29. These railways, with the exception of the branch from Maulmain, are now being surveyed by English engineers, under Sir Andrew Clarke’s syndicate, for the King of Siam.