LEAVE MAING LOONGYEE—A HUNDRED-FOOT WATERFALL—A BEAUTIFUL
HILL-TORRENT—A LUGUBRIOUS TALE—GIBBONS—GIGANTIC TREE-FERNS—SHANS
CRUEL ELEPHANT-DRIVERS—METHOD OF DRIVING—DROVES OF PIGS AND LADEN
CATTLE—LOI PWE—AN ACCIDENT—WILD RASPBERRIES—SHANS BARTERING
GOODS—THE MEH LAIK VALLEY—A FALL OF 2049 FEET—PATHS FOR THE
RAILWAY—LAWA VILLAGES—ABORIGINES—BURIAL CUSTOM—HUMAN SACRIFICES IN
THE SHAN STATES AND CHINA—LEGEND CONCERNING THE CONQUEST OF THE
LAWAS BY THE SHANS—THE VIRGIN OF THE LOTUS-FLOWER—GAUDAMA SACRIFICED
TO AS THE GODDESS OF MERCY—SACRIFICES TO ANCESTORS AND
DEMONS—SIMILARITY OF SUPERSTITIONS IN ANCIENT CHALDEA AND THE SHAN
STATES—PHOTOGRAPHING LAWAS—CLOTHING WORN FOR DECENCY’S SAKE—COSTUME
OF LAWAS—COLD NIGHTS—VIEW OF THE HILLS—BAU-GYEE—IRON-MINES GUARDED
BY DEMONS—A YOUNG BLACKSMITH.
On the 13th of February the elephants were brought leisurely in one by
one from the forest, where they had been tethered for the night, the
last arriving about ten o’clock. A few minutes later everything was
packed, and, facing eastwards, we were again off over the hills and far
away.
After fording the Meh Sa Lin near the town, and passing through Yain Sa
Lin, we crossed the Meh Gat, and proceeded along a good road over a
spur, where limestone, slate, and claystone, veined with quartz, cropped
up, to the Meh Ka Ni. This stream, turning to the north at the point we
first crossed it, tumbles over a couple of falls, one 70 feet, the other
100 feet high, and flows through a ravine into the Meh Sa Lin.
[Illustration:
MAINGLOONGYEE TO MAUNG HAUT
]
The valley of the Meh Ka Ni, up which we ascended, is narrow, the crests
of the hills on either side being barely two miles apart. The
hill-slopes are well wooded with large and valuable timber. Many of the
trees give a splendid shade, and are evergreen. Down the valley, in a
bed of granite 30 feet broad, strewn with great granite boulders, leaps
and dashes a foaming torrent in the rainy season. At the time of our
visit it was but a rivulet falling in little cascades, dancing round the
rocks, sparkling in the sunlight, and flowing gently through pleasant
pools, delightful to bathe in. For five miles we journeyed through the
deep shade of the forest, frequently crossing the stream, and then
halted for the night at Pang Hpan. On our way we passed several parties
of Kamooks and Karen villagers, and met large caravans of laden oxen
conveying paddy and betel-nut to Maing Loongyee.
The camping-ground, situated in an open plain near the meeting-place of
several side valleys, lies 105 miles from Hlineboay, and 1753 feet above
the sea. The highest shade-temperature during the day had been 73°, and
our ride up the pretty glen had been extremely pleasant.
After dinner, in the course of conversation, Dr Cushing, thinking,
perhaps, that I was a Mark Tapley, and that a lugubrious tale might
cheer me up, told me that he was a most unlucky companion to travel
with. All his former comrades had died on the journey, or soon
afterwards. He then backed up his statement with three instances. Kelly,
a missionary, was drowned one day’s journey from Moné; Lyon, another
missionary, had died of consumption at Bhamo; and Cooper had been killed
by one of his guard at Bhamo. I instanced his wife, who was then in
America, as an exception. It was of no use—she was his better half—I was
a doomed man.
Next morning the thermometer stood at 48°, the same as it had been at
Maing Loongyee. The trees, however, were shedding their leaves far less
in the upper valley than in the lower country. Starting about eight
o’clock, accompanied by the mournful wailing of gibbons, who were
practising the trapeze from tree to tree far above our heads, and making
astounding leaps, we continued up the glen, passing large droves of
Karen pigs, and caravans of laden cattle, until the stream forked, and
we ascended the intermediate spur to the crest of Loi Kom Ngam—the
Beautiful Golden Mountain—the hill-range dividing the drainage of the
Meh Sa Lin from that of the Meh Laik.
[Illustration:
_View looking west down Pass at 10.53 A.M. 14th February._
]
Gigantic tree-ferns, and the first chestnuts we had seen, were passed as
we clambered the spur; and we noticed trees in bloom bearing a red
flower, and a large periwinkle-blue creeper which, spreading over the
largest trees, spangled them with blossoms. Before reaching the summit
we had a magnificent view down the nine miles of valley we had been
ascending, extending across the Meh Mum valley to the hills beyond the
Salween river. The pass, which is 109 miles from Hlineboay, is 3609 feet
above sea-level.
A short descent of 70 feet brought us to a little valley, which we
crossed; then following a spur, we descended to the Meh Hau, a small
stream draining into the Meh Laik here at a level of 2638 feet above the
sea. We had fallen nearly 1000 feet in less than three miles. Crossing
the spur which separates the Meh Hau from the Meh Lye, we halted for the
night near some springs at the 115th mile.
Left the next morning at seven o’clock and descended for a mile to the
Meh Lye, passing on our way 109 laden cattle. The Meh Lai—River of
Variegated Water—is 20 feet wide and five feet deep; sandstone and
quartz outcrop in its bed. Looking down-stream to the south, we had a
pretty view, bounded by pine-clad spurs, into the Meh Laik valley.
Our Karen mahouts had been replaced by Shans at Maing Loongyee. The
Shans proved much more cruel drivers than the Karens. The latter seldom
used the cruel-looking hammer-hook, or _ankus_, they all carry, but coax
and talk to the elephants; whilst the Shans correct the slightest
misdemeanour by a blow that draws blood, and seek for obedience solely
by bullying the beasts. The drivers, both Shan and Karen, urge their
elephants on by a continuous irritation of the creature’s ears with
their toes, which are worked in an incessant pendulous movement at the
back of them. They likewise assume all sorts of attitudes on the
animal’s head. Squatting on one leg with the other dangling down,
lolling over the bump on its forehead, straddle-legged, and side-saddle
fashion, but for ever with one set of toes or the other, or both,
titillating the brute’s ears.
[Illustration:
_Loi Pwe seen over a spur at 9.57 A.M. 15th February._
_Note._—<6° and <16° imply angles to the east of north, north being 0°
and 360°—90° is east, 180° is south,
and 270° west from the point whence they are taken.
]
From the Meh Lai we ascended a small glen for a little more than a mile,
and shortly afterwards entered a narrow defile, where we halted for a
few minutes to allow 135 laden cattle and a drove of 40 pigs to pass.
Leaving the defile, a magnificent panorama spread out before us. Looking
west, the eye ranged over the spurs we had crossed since leaving the
pass. To the north about eight miles distant, over the hills bordering
the Meh Sa Lin valley, stood out clear against the sky the bald-headed
and partly precipitous summit of Loi Pwe. Here was a chance, not to be
lost, for taking sketches and photographs and fixing the lie of the
country.
Loi Pwe is the nucleus from which many of the spurs and minor ranges
stretching into the valleys of the Meh Nium and Meh Laik have their
origin. It is joined on to the Bau plateau by spurs some 15 miles in
length, radiating in straight lines. Most of the hills in this region
are approximately of similar elevation, their crests seeming to be the
remains of a great rolling table-land eaten into valleys by centuries of
erosion in the stream-beds.
On remounting the elephant, the howdah, owing to the slackness of the
girth, commenced to lose its equilibrium, and I should have been
precipitated to the ground, a distance of 11 feet, if I had not stepped
on to the head of the beast and saved myself from falling by clinging to
the greasy perspiring mahout. I had presence of mind sufficient to
pocket my watch and instruments, or they would have inevitably been
ruined.
Ten minutes after restarting we reached the summit of Loi Tone Wye, or
Loi Tong Wai, situated 118 miles from Hlineboay and 3885 feet above the
sea. Great fern-trees, 50 feet in height, the highest I have ever seen
or heard of, adorned the crest of the hill. Portow brought me a handful
of wild white raspberries he had just picked for me to eat. Before
reaching the summit we noticed a Lawa village nestling on a hill-slope
to the north of us.
On the narrow plateau forming the summit of the hill, we found a large
encampment of Shans with many laden cattle. Some of the men had opened
their packs and were bartering their merchandise with a number of Karens
who had come from the neighbouring villages. Startled by our sudden
appearance, most likely never having seen a white-face before, the
latter took to their heels, fleeing as if the devil was after them, and
did not venture from their hidingplaces until after our breakfast, when
we were preparing to resume our march. Then they came, as shy and
inquisitive as cattle, and had a good look at us from a respectful
distance.
[Illustration:
_Meh Laik valley and gorge at 1.3 P.M. 15th February._
]
From Loi Tong Wai we had a magnificent view of the hills in all
directions. The great plateau of Bau, 15 miles to the east, and about
the same level as the ground we were standing on, was clearly outlined
against the sky; and the great trough of the wave between it and us was
filled with a multitude of great spurs, crested with fine timber and
divided from each other by steep-sided narrow valleys.
To the south-west, 10 miles distant, was the gorge where the Meh Laik
passes through Loi Kom Ngam on its way to the Meh Nium; beyond was a sea
of hills stretching as far as the eye could reach to the high peak lying
to the south-east of our pass over the Karroway Toung. The cliff-faced
gap through which the river rushes, tumbling hundreds of feet at a time,
is impassable even to the sure-footed Karens. In the 24 miles’ course of
the stream between our two crossings its bed falls 2049 feet. The
greater part of this drop is said to occur in this short gorge, which
must be one of the wildest and grandest scenes in the world.
If the railway from Maulmain is carried up the valley of the Meh Laik,
gradually rising along the hill-spurs, a gallery cut in the face of the
gorge would enable the line to proceed towards Zimmé without passing,
_viâ_ Maing Loongyee, over the hills we have been crossing since we left
the city. A better path, however, most likely exists up one of the
valleys to the north of Loi Pwe, which would cross the Zimmé hills,
descending by the valley of the Meh Sai, which lies between Loi Kom and
the Bau plateau.
A gradual descent for four and a half miles brought us to the Meh Laik.
Sandstone and quartz, and claystone veined with quartz, cropped up on
the sides of the plateau and its spurs, but the bed of the river, 15
feet broad and 4 feet deep, is composed of black-speckled white granite.
Our crossing lies 123 miles from Hlineboay and 2508 feet above the sea.
Leaving the stream, we ascended a few feet, and, continuing for half a
mile through pine-forest, descended to a rice-plain, where the road
traversed in 1879 by Colonel Street and Mr Colquhoun, when on their
mission to Zimmé, joins our route. Crossing the Meh Tha Ket, a small
stream which flows through the plain, and two dry streams which exposed
a great depth of soil, we passed to the north of the Lawa village of Bau
Sa Lee, and, fording the Meh Hto, camped for the night on its bank, 125
miles from Hlineboay. A thousand feet down-stream from our camp the Meh
Hto is joined by the Meh Tyen. Both streams flow in a bed of granite
boulders, and the village is situated at their junction.
In the evening I enticed two of the head-men to the camp, and gained
some information about them and the features of the country. They told
me the Lawas still occupied the village sites held by them before the
Shans and Karens settled in the country. They had no written language,
and were now Buddhists like the Shans, and had the same manners and
customs. Their villages are scattered through the hills and plateaux as
far south as the latitude of Bangkok, and they believed themselves to be
the aborigines of the country.
The only difference between their customs and those of the Ping Shans
lay in their always burying their dead, whereas the Ping Shans, except
in cases of death from infectious diseases or in childbirth, burn them.
Burial, however, is still observed by the British Shans. When a Lawa
dies, a coffin is made by scooping out the log of a tree, and the corpse
is placed in it and covered with a stout lid. After three days the
priest is called and the body buried. As amongst the Karens, the
personal property of the deceased is interred with the corpse.
The practice of burning their dead amongst the Shans must be of recent
date, for in the middle of the sixteenth century, when they first became
feudatory to Burmah, burial was the rule—elephants, ponies, and slaves
being interred with the chiefs. The Burmese emperor Bureng Naung
strictly prohibited the continuance of the custom. Similar observances
were usual in olden times amongst the Turkish or Hiung Nu and Scythian
tribes in Asia, and with the Tsin dynasty in China as well as amongst
the ancient Greeks, as evidenced by Homer’s ‘Iliad.’ The latest record
of such human sacrifices in China concerns the obsequies of the Emperor
Chi Hwang, B.C. 209, when all the members of the harem having no sons
had to follow him in death.
The following legend concerning the conquest of the Lawas by the Shans
was told me by Chow Oo Boon, the sister of the Queen of Zimmé, who was
the spirit-medium and historian of the Royal Family.
LEGEND OF NAN CHAM-A-TA-WE.
Nan Cham-a-ta-we, a virgin of the lotus-flower, had two sons, who were
born at Lapoon. At that time the whole of the country was occupied by
the Lawas. The Lawa king met and fell desperately in love with the
virgin, and for many years urged his suit. She, being unwilling to
accept him as her husband, pleaded the youth of her children making it
necessary for her to be constantly in attendance on them, as an excuse.
When the lads became young men, the king still tormenting her with his
wooing, she promised to become his bride if he proved able to cast three
spears from the top of Loi Soo Tayp, a hill to the north-west of Zimmé
rising 6000 feet above the plain, into the centre of the city of Lapoon,
a distance of 18 miles. His first cast being successful, she determined
to foil him in his further attempts, and accordingly wove a hat out of
her cast-off garments and coaxed him to wear it, saying it would greatly
add to his strength. His next throw fell short of the city, and, his
strength decreasing through the magical powers of the hat, his third
spear fell at the foot of Loi Soo Tayp.
The king becoming weaker and weaker, the two sons of the virgin, named
A-nan-ta-yote and Ma-nan-ta-yote, being enraged at the Lawa monarch for
his pursuit of their mother, determined to drive him from the country.
This they were enabled to do through the great merit accruing to them
from their birth, which gave them magical powers.
As soon as the elder was born, a large white elephant came and
voluntarily served as his domestic animal. Leaves thrown from him turned
into fully equipped soldiers, and handfuls of kine-grass became armies
as he breathed on them. Having created a great host, he mounted his
white elephant, and forced the Lawa king to flee, and pursued him.
On reaching Kiang Hai, the elephant being heated and excited with the
chase, the people of the place fled like sheep chased by a dog, shouting
out “Chang Hai,” wild elephant. Continuing the chase through Kiang Hsen,
the elephant roared so loudly that the people scattered in all
directions screaming “Chang Hsen,” roaring elephant.
Having banished the Lawa king from the country, the kine-grass soldiers
founded the city of Muang Poo Kah, the kine-grass city, the remains of
which are still visible some distance to the north of Kiang Hsen. The
virgin of the lotus-flower became ruler of Lapoon, and her eldest son
went to Pegu, where he is still worshipped at festivals with dancing,
mirth, and music.
Lapoon is named from La, or Lawa, and _poon_, a spear; Kiang Hai from
the elephant being vicious; and Kiang Hsen from its trumpeting.
The virgin of the lotus-flower is depicted by the Shans and Siamese as a
mermaid holding a lotus-flower in her left hand, presumably in
connection with the belief amongst the Chinese that Kwan-yin, the
goddess of mercy, the offspring of the lotus-flower, terminates the
torments of souls in purgatory by casting a lotus-flower on them.
[Illustration:
_A virgin of the lotus-flower._
]
In China, miniature offerings are laid before images of this goddess as
a hint for her to convey the articles implied by their likenesses to the
spirits of friends or relations. The offerings, frequently accompanied
by a scroll stating who the articles are for, consist of miniatures cut
out of paper, of money, houses, furniture, carts, ponies, sedan-chairs,
pipes, male and female slaves, and all that one on this earth might wish
for in the way of comfort. In Siam and the Shan States there being no
temple to this goddess, Buddha, who is generally depicted as sitting on
a lotus-flower, is besought to do her work, and similar articles are
heaped on his altar—but cut out of wood, or formed of rags or any kinds
of rubbish, as paper is not so easily obtainable.
The same miniature images are offered by the Shans and hill tribes to
the spirits of their ancestors and the ghosts and demons which haunt
their neighbourhood, and food and flowers are left in the little dolls’
houses which are erected for them. If neglected and uncared for, the
spirits become spiteful, and bring disease, misfortune, or death to
those living in or passing through their neighbourhood.
To any one travelling with his eyes open in China and Indo-China, it
becomes evident that Buddhism is merely a veneer, spread over the
people’s belief in ancient Turanian and Dravidian superstitions. The
belief in divination, charms, omens, exorcism, sorcery, mediums,
witchcraft and ghosts, and in demons ever on the alert to plague and
torment them individually, is universal, except perhaps amongst the
highly educated classes, throughout the country. Comparing these beliefs
with those appearing in the Accadian literature of Chaldea, _B.C._ 2230,
as given by George Smith in his History of Babylonia, one is astonished
at the perfect sameness of the superstitions.
The next morning, as one of the elephants had strayed away during the
night and had to be tracked and brought back, I visited the village of
Bau Sa Lee to take photographs of the people. The men had not the
slightest objection to being taken; but the women, particularly the
younger ones, skurried off as soon as they heard what I was about, and
hid themselves in their houses. At length, by the gift of a necklace and
a few small silver coins, I persuaded an old woman to fetch two little
girls and stand for her portrait with them.
The Lawa women are the only natives in Indo-China whom I have seen
wearing their hair parted in the middle, in the mode general amongst
women in England a few years ago. Their hair is gathered up and tied in
a knot at the back of the head, like that of the ladies amongst the
Burmese and Shans. Unlike the Siamese and Zimmé Shans, the Lawa women
wear upper clothing for decency’s sake, and not solely for the sake of
warmth. Their dress consists of a short skirt reaching to their knees,
and a black tunic having a darkred stripe on the outer edge. Some of the
elder women wear a piece of cloth on their heads folded into a sort of
turban.
The nights were rapidly getting colder; at five in the afternoon the
thermometer showed 70°, at six in the morning it had fallen to 38°. We
had to sleep dressed in our clothes under our plaids to keep warm; and
the men sat huddled up, chatting and toasting themselves by the fires,
for many hours towards the morning.
[Illustration:
_View across the Meh Hto and Meh Laik valleys at 10.54 A.M. 15th
February._
]
Leaving the Meh Hto, we ascended 1150 feet by an easy spur, through a
nearly leafless forest of hill-eng and teak, to the top of Loi Kaung
Hin—the Hill of the Stone-heap—so called from a cairn on its summit.
Cresting the hill, we were again amongst the fragrant pine-forest. The
air was deliciously cool, and the view was superb; I therefore decided
to halt and sketch the country from an orchid-covered crag above a
precipice several hundred feet in depth. Across the valleys of the Meh
Hto, Meh Lyt, and Meh Sa Lin, nearly due north-east and distant 13
miles, we could see Loi Pwe, giving rise to numerous valleys. Between it
and due north, on the slope of a great flat-topped spur in the valley of
the Meh Tyen, lay the Lawa village of Bau Kong Loi, and beyond the Zimmé
hills stretched away till lost in the haze. The whole country looked
like a chopping sea of hills, in which it would be impossible, without
actual survey, to settle the direction of the drainage. The main range
was so cut up by cross-valleys that any one of the valleys I had not
visited might drain either into the Meh Ping or the Meh Nium.
After continuing for two miles along the crest of the hill, we descended
to the Meh Tyen, and halted for the night on its banks in some
rice-fields near the junction of one of its branches. Our camp was
situated 131 miles from Hlineboay, and 2831 feet above the sea.
The bed of the Meh Tyen is 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep, and is composed
of boulders of quartz and granite.
The following morning at six o’clock the thermometer stood at 36½°. The
breeze as we ascended a spur, through the hill-eng and scanty
pine-forest, to Bau Koke, chilled us to the bone. Bau Koke is a small
catch-pool on the crest of the Bau plateau, 3400 feet above the sea,
draining into the Meh Tyen.
The air every moment became hotter as the sun rose and darted its rays
through the clear sky, the soil of the plateau was of a deep red colour,
and the glare where the forest had been cleared soon became distressing.
Continuing along a ridge bordering the northern edge of the plateau, we
reached Bau-gyee at eleven, and halted to inspect the village and for
breakfast.
Bau-gyee, as the Burmese call it, or Bau Hluang as it is termed by the
Shans—“Hluang” and “gyee” both meaning “great”—is situated 137½ miles
from Hlineboay and 3704 feet above sea-level. It is in three
divisions—two of 30 houses each, and one of 21 houses. The villagers are
Lawas, and gain their livelihood as blacksmiths and miners, procuring
and smelting the ore at a hill lying to the north of Loi Pwe, two days’
elephant journey from the village.
The mines are said to average 50 feet in depth, and to be guarded by
demons who have to be propitiated by offerings of pigs or fowls. If the
ore dug up is poor, the sacrifices are repeated so as to persuade the
_pee_, or demon, to allow it to yield more iron. The ore is smelted at
the Lawa village of Oon Pai, situated near the mines. No stranger is
allowed to watch the process lest the _pee_ should be offended; and the
ingots are carried on elephants to the Lawa villages, where it is
manufactured into various articles which find a sale throughout the
country. The ore mined is the common red oxide of iron.
Whilst breakfast was being prepared we went into the village to have a
chat with the people and watch them at their work. The houses are of the
ordinary pattern occupied by the Zimmé Shans, built on posts, with the
floor raised several feet from the ground, the sides of the building
slightly inclining outwards as they rise towards the roof, which is
steep and high. Many of the houses are small and dirty, and have
pig-pens beneath them.
We found several of the men at work making chains, but they stopped as
we appeared. After we had talked with them for a little while, a lad, of
about twelve years of age, heated some iron, and seizing a hammer,
forged several links of a chain as skilfully and quickly as any man of
mature age could have done. An old man showed us several specimens of
the ore, but would not allow us to take them away for fear the demons of
the mine should be offended.
Their bellows and other implements are curious; the anvil is three
inches square and two inches high, formed of a large spike driven into a
log of wood. Another implement shaped like a triangular hoe at the top,
five inches long and one and a half inch at the base, was likewise
spiked into a log of wood, exposing six inches of the spike; this was
used for forging hooks and elephant chains.
The bellows, two on each side of the charcoal fire, consisted each of a
slightly sloping bamboo four inches in diameter, rising two feet from
the ground, with a rag-covered piston working inside it and forcing the
air out of a small hole. Each pair was placed three feet apart, and
worked by a lad.
There is a dip in the plateau near the village where paddy is grown on a
slip of land about two miles long and 150 feet broad. It is irrigated by
small springs, the water being led to the fields through bamboo pipes.