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SHAN FOLK LORE STORIES
FROM THE
HILL AND WATER COUNTRY
BY
WILLIAM C. GRIGGS, M. D.
TO MY FRIEND
J. N. Cushing, D. D., F. R. A. S.
_Principal of the American Baptist College, Rangoon, and Senior
Shan Missionary, the greatest authority upon
Shan literature, and the translator of the
Bible into that language, this
little book is dedicated by_
THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
The following stories have been taken from the great mass of unwritten
lore that is to the black-eyed, brown-skinned boys and girls of the Shan
mountain country of Burma what "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Cinderella"
are to our own children.
The old saw as to the songs and laws of a country may or may not be
true. I feel confident, however, that stories such as these, being as
they are purely native, with as little admixture of Western ideas as it
was possible to give them in dressing them in their garment of English
words, will give a better insight into what the native of Burma really
is, his modes of thought and ways of looking at and measuring things,
than a treatise thrice as long and representing infinitely more literary
merit than will be found in these little tales; and at the same time I
hope they will be found to the average reader, at least, more
interesting.
It may, perhaps, be not out of place to say a little of the "_hpeas_"
who appear so frequently in these stories. The _hpea_ is the Burman
_nat_, and is "a being superior to men and inferior to Brahmas, and
having its dwelling in one of the six celestial regions" (Doctor
Cushing's "Shan-English Dictionary"). They are universally worshiped by
the inhabitants of Burma. If a man has fever, the best thing to do is
to "_ling hpea_," that is, to feed the spirits, and the sufferer
therefore offers rice, betel-nut, painted sticks, etc. Some kinds of
_hpeas_ live in the sacred banyan trees, and frequently have I seen men,
after a long day's march in the jungle, sit shivering on the ground when
within an arm's length lay good dry fire-wood. It had fallen, however,
from a tree in which lived a _hpea_, and not a man would dare touch it.
Big combs of honey may be in the nests of the wild bees, but it is safe
from the hungry traveler if it is sheltered by such a tree. Some watch
over wells, tanks, and lakes, and it is notorious throughout the
Southern Shan States, that a promising young American missionary, who
was drowned while shooting, met his death by being dragged to the bottom
of the lake by the guardian spirit, who had become incensed at him for
killing a water-fowl on his domains.
In Shan folk-lore the hero does not "marry and live happy ever after,"
but he becomes the king of the country.
AMERICAN BAPTIST SHAN MISSION HOUSE,
BHAMO, BURMA, 1902.