DACOITY IN THE MINBU AND MYINGYAN DISTRICTS
The disorder in the Minbu district was similar to that in Sagaing, but
I doubt if it had been of such long standing.
It differed in other respects from Sagaing. In that district the Bos
formed a confederation. Each had his own village or district, from
which he drew his supplies, and his exclusive rights which the others
recognized. They communicated with each other and were ready to
join forces when it was necessary. In Minbu the government was more
autocratic, and centralized in the hands of Ôktama, who had seven or
eight lieutenants under his orders. There was also another point of
difference. The leaders in Sagaing and generally elsewhere, were local
men, and for the most part professional robbers. Ôktama had been a
Pongyi some years before, in a monastery a few miles north-west of
Minbu. He professed to have a commission from some obscure prince, but
laid no claim to royal blood.
He made his first appearance in Minbu in February, 1886, and induced
the headmen of many villages to join him.
The people at this time were like sheep without a shepherd. They had
heard of the destruction of the wolf they knew, and to whose ways they
had become accustomed. Of the new-comers, the _Kalas_, or barbarians,
they had had no experience, and they had as yet no reason to believe in
their power to protect them. Naturally, therefore, they looked about
for some one to help them to work together in their own defence.
Ôktama no doubt had a capacity for organization and command, and the
people recognized him as a leader of men; otherwise it is difficult
to conceive how in so short a time he secured their allegiance. His
attack on Sagu, a town on the right bank of the Irrawaddy nearly
opposite Magwè, has been mentioned before. He burnt the town, which was
held by a handful of troops, and then laid siege to Salin with a force
said to have numbered five thousand men. The deaths of the two British
officers in action against him increased his prestige, and from that
time until a few weeks before his capture on the 20th of July, 1889, he
was at the head of a large confederacy which had more power in Minbu
than the British.
Ôktama assumed the title of Commissioner (Mingyi), and created a
regular system of government. He had five lieutenants under him, to
whom defined portions of the country were entrusted. His intelligence
department was perfect. If the British troops showed a sign of
movement, warning was sent from village to village and reached Ôktama
in time for him to shift his camp. The organization was very strong.
It could not have lived and grown as it did if my officers in Minbu
had not been weak, and their rule "placidius quam feroci provincia
dignum." They were not of the stuff that can bring a turbulent people
to submission.
When I was at Minbu, in the early part of the year, I wished to march
through the district and speak to the people. Both the Commissioner
and the Brigadier-General, Sir Robert Low, strongly opposed my wish,
as they thought it likely that my party would be fired on, the effect
of which would be bad. However, I gave my instructions regarding the
measures to be taken.
In the June following I rode through the valley of the Môn. The country
seemed to me prosperous and well cultivated; betel-vine gardens and
plantations of bananas were frequent near the villages, and I saw no
sign of distress or armed disorder.
Nevertheless the people were even then under the feet of the dacoits. I
changed the district officials as soon as possible.
The improvement of the district dated from the appointment as Deputy
Commissioner of Mr. H. S. Hartnoll, who brought to the work the
necessary energy, activity, and judgment. He was assisted by Mr. G. G.
Collins and Mr. W. A. Hertz, who were as zealous and active as their
chief. In May, 1888, being assured that the people were getting weary
of the brigands, I issued a proclamation offering a free pardon to all
the rank and file on condition that they surrendered and engaged to
live peaceably in their villages. The leaders, eight in number, were
excepted by name. They were to be pursued until they were captured or
killed.
As two years and a half had elapsed since the annexation, the fact that
Burma was part of the British Empire must have penetrated to the most
remote village. Warning, therefore, was given that the full rigour of
the law would be enforced against all who were taken fighting against
the Government, or who aided or abetted the leaders excepted from
pardon. The terms of this proclamation were explained to the headmen
and villagers assembled at suitable places, and the severe penalties
that would follow disobedience were explained to them. A period of one
month was allowed for surrenders, and the pursuit of the gangs was
pressed unceasingly all through the rains and open season of 1888-9.
The sequel I will give in Mr. Hartnoll's words:--
"His [Ôktama's] power had gradually grown less and less from time to
time, but the difficulty has always been to get information of him and
his leaders. The villagers would give no aid or information. They began
to turn at the beginning of this year (1889) when certain fines were
imposed on the worst of the villages, yet they did not give us all the
help they could. In April, though his power was much broken and many
of his lieutenants killed and captured, yet he had a fairly strong
gathering; and Maung Ya Baw, Maung Kan Thi, Ôktaya, Nga Kin, and Byaing
Gyi were still to the fore.
"From May 1st the relations of dacoits were removed from their villages
and a fortnightly fine imposed on all harbouring villages. On this the
villagers gave him up. He and all his principal men except Maung Kin
are dead or captured. He had at the end only one boy with him....
"Our success has been entirely achieved by bringing the villagers to
our side by imposing a periodical general fine on them until they
helped us, by removing the relations and sympathizers of the dacoits,
by holding certain points fairly close together throughout the district
till the leader troubling the point held was caught, and by having
constant parties of troops and police always on the move."
The capture of Ôktama was effected in this wise. Maung An Taw Ni, an
Upper Burman, the township officer of Legaing, a little town with
a population of about three thousand people, some fifteen miles
north-west of Minbu, received information that the dacoit chief was
near the Chaungdawya Pagoda, a short way from Legaing. Maung An Taw
Ni, who had borne a very active part in all the measures taken against
the dacoits, started at once with some military police. They came upon
Ôktama sitting despairingly by the pagoda with only one follower. It
was a tragic picture. When Burmans shall paint historical scenes for
the galleries at Rangoon or Mandalay, or write on the events following
the fall of their king, "Ôktama at the Golden Pagoda" will be a
favourite theme for ballad or drama (_pyazat_).
Another example of dacoity in Upper Burma may be taken from the
Myingyan district. I will give the case of Ya Nyun, which gained some
notoriety at the time. It is remarkable also for the fact that Ya Nyun
is probably the last great leader who is still alive. And that he
owes his life to the extraordinary conduct of some very subordinate
officials, who, in the loyal desire, it may be supposed, to secure his
apprehension, took upon themselves to induce him by vague words to hope
for his life if he surrendered. It is certain that no man in Burma ever
deserved to be hung more than Ya Nyun. If the voice of the blood of the
murdered cries from the ground, the cries for vengeance must still be
echoing through the villages and woods round Popa.
[Illustration: BURMESE DACOITS BEFORE TRIAL--WORST CHARACTERS AND
NATIVE POLICE GUARD.]
Ya Nyun was the Myingaung (literally Captain of the Horse) of the
Welaung sub-district of Myingyan, bound at call to furnish one hundred
mounted men to the king's army. He had thirty headmen of villages under
him. His father, who had been Myingaung before him, was a murderer and
a scoundrel. He had been dismissed by King Mindon's Government and
tattooed as a bad character with the Burmese words meaning: "Beware,
cease to do evil," on his forearm.[27] The son, however, was at Court
a hanger-on of the Yaw Mingyi, one of the big ministers. He obtained
his father's post. He returned to Welaung and kept a large following of
thieves and robbers, and lived on the people.
His oppression became intolerable, and two years before the war a
deputation of the Thugyis (village headmen) went up to Mandalay to beg
protection, but as the Taingda Mingyi, the most powerful and the worst
man about the Court, took Ya Nyun's part, they could get no redress.
Two years afterwards a second deputation was sent, and Ya Nyun was
summoned to Mandalay. The matter was under inquiry when the British
advance became known. Thereupon Ya Nyun was decorated with a gold
umbrella (equivalent to a K.C.B.) and sent back to Welaung to fight
against the British. So far his case resembles, to some extent, that
of Bo Swè, who was, however, a gallant gentleman and an honest citizen
beside Ya Nyun.
His first step was to gather around him his former followers, and he
started with about fifty ruffians as the leaders and stiffening of
his gang. They had to live, and his methods were the same as those of
other dacoit leaders. Money and food and women were demanded from the
villages, and those who refused supplies were unmercifully punished,
their property seized, their villages burnt, their women dishonoured,
and their cattle driven off by hundreds. Those who in any way assisted
the troops were the objects of special barbarities. If they could not
be caught, their fathers or brothers were taken. One of his followers
deposed that he was with Ya Nyun when three men who were related to a
man who had assisted the British were ordered to be crucified in front
of the camp. He says: "I saw the bodies after they were crucified.[28]
They were crucified alive and then shot, their hearts cut open," &c. In
another case "five men were caught. Nga Kè [one of Ya Nyun's men] rode
over them as they lay bound, and then shot them."
An Indian washerman, belonging, if I remember right, to the Rifle
Brigade, straggled from a column on the march. This same witness, who
acted as a clerk or secretary on Ya Nyun's staff, kept a diary and
wrote letters and orders, goes on: "Ya Nyun ordered Aung Bet to cut a
piece out of the Indian's thigh, morning and evening, and give it to
him to eat. The flesh was fried. This was done three days. Six pieces
were cut out, then Ya Nyun ordered him to be killed. He was killed. I
saw all this with my own eyes."
The ill-treatment of women by these gangs was not unknown. Sometimes
they were taken and ill-treated as a punishment to the village which
had set at naught the Bo's order. Sometimes they were taken as
concubines for Ya Nyun and his comrades. There is one case on record
where seven young girls were selected from a village "on account of
their youth," and after the dacoits had ill-used them, five were
deliberately slaughtered for fear of their giving information. Two
escaped. This occurred in January, 1890. The remains of the five girls
were found in the jungle afterwards by our men.
The Deputy Commissioner, who examined 136 witnesses as to the doings of
Ya Nyun's gang, concluded his inquiry in these words:--
"A perusal of the evidence shows that the organization, which had,
perhaps, its first origin in a desire to resist the British Government,
degenerated rapidly, as might have been expected from the disreputable
persons who played the part of leaders, into a band of marauders who
subsisted by terrorism, rapine, murder, dacoity, and other outrages.
While remaining in open defiance of Government, they soon ceased to be
political rebels, in any respectable sense, though they occasionally
gathered in sufficient numbers to resist the troops or police, even
so late as February, 1889. They showed no more mercy to their own
countrymen than to foreigners. They can have no claim to the title of
patriots, but merely to that of _damya_, dacoit, the title invariably
applied to them by their own countrymen."
So wrote the Deputy Commissioner who made the inquiry in 1890. Ya
Nyun has been in the Andamans ever since. I have been told that he
has shown there a capacity for command, and is in charge of a gang
of convicts. Then by all means let him stay where he is useful and
harmless.
I have given the history of Ya Nyun's rise to power and some
indications of the nature of his gang. In 1887 to 1888 it was
frequently encountered by troops and police, and was more than once
roughly treated, but the wilderness around Popa afforded a shelter from
which the small and scattered parties of dacoits could not be driven.
In March and April, 1888, a series of combined operations was
organized. Four columns of military police acted under Captain
Hastings, Commandant of the Myingyan battalion. Several of Ya Nyun's
men[29] were killed and many captured.
In the autumn murders, accompanied in some cases with atrocious
cruelties, began again. Early in 1889 Ya Nyun, collecting several other
leaders, mustered a strong force, and occupied a position near his
own village of Welaung. A body of military police failed to dislodge
him, and although the gang was met soon after by a party of the Rifle
Brigade, and dispersed with heavy loss, the power of the organization
was not destroyed.
After these events an experienced officer, with powers extending to
all the country in which Ya Nyun and his accomplices acted, was given
control of the operations against the brigands. At his suggestion a
pardon was offered to Ya Nyun if he would surrender. I consented with
much reluctance, but it seemed better to free the country from misery
at any price. The man would not avail himself of it. Throughout the
rains he and his men were more active than usual, and their raids were
marked by more wanton cruelty and bloodshed than before; a symptom, as
I have said before, that the people were becoming less submissive to
the dacoits, who on their part were striving to retain their hold on
them.
As little substantial progress was being made, I went to the Popa
subdivision in January, 1890. I called up an additional police force
and saw that the utmost pressure was put, under the Village Regulation,
upon the villages which harboured and assisted the dacoits. Some
success against the smaller leaders followed, but at the end of April
all the greater men, ten in number, for whose capture rewards had been
offered, were still at large.
In the middle of April the Commissioner, Mr Symes (the late Sir E.
Symes), advised that the time had come for adopting the procedure
followed so successfully in Sagaing, Minbu, and elsewhere. This was
done. Proclamations were issued much in the same terms as those used in
other districts, offering pardon to the rank and file, and warning all
concerned that villages assisting the gangs would be severely fined,
and that sympathizers and relatives would be deported to a distance.
The rewards offered for the capture of the leaders were doubled.
The success was extraordinary. The whole dacoit organization fell
to pieces. It collapsed as a tiger shot in the head falls in his
tracks. On the 30th of May, 1890, Ya Nyun surrendered. Eleven of his
lieutenants or comrades had fallen in action, and forty-two men of note
surrendered with him.
One very influential leader of the bands in the Myingyan district,
whose name was well known in the years preceding, was not caught.
Bo Cho had not shown himself since 1888, and was reported to have
disappeared. He lay low until 1896, when he managed to get together
some men and began his old game. But in 1896 the Government knew what
to do and did it. An officer with sufficient military police was at
once appointed and empowered to take action against him, the provisions
of the Village Regulation were put into effect, and in a few days he
was a prisoner. He was not given an opportunity for further mischief.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] This was the Burman substitute for finger-prints. I have often
seen men who have endeavoured to cut the brand out of the flesh.
[28] The usual practice was to kill the man and then tie the body to a
bamboo railing, with the arms and legs stretched out.
[29] Ya Nyun himself on this occasion had a narrow escape. His dah,
or sword, was taken and presented to me by the officers and men of
the Myingyan battalion. It is a handsome weapon, and was, I believe,
presented to Ya Nyun by village headmen of the Yamèthin district.