DINNER AT THE PRINCESS’S—ARRANGEMENTS FOR START COMPLETED—A
PASSPORT—OUR PAVILION—THE ZIMMÉ PLAIN—LEAVE ZIMMÉ—CANAL
IRRIGATION—HALT AT MUANG DOO—THE CHOWS ASTRAY—CAMP-DINNERS AND
COOKERY—EXCELLENT MADRAS SERVANTS—ALTERATION IN JEWAN—COURTSHIP,
MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE—KUMLUNG, OR FAMILY PATRIARCH AND PRIEST—PRICE
OF SLAVES—SLAVE-BONDAGE—FOREIGN MARRIAGES—SERFDOM IN ZIMMÉ—FORMATION
OF CLANS—GOVERNMENT MASTERS IN SIAM—CROWN COMMONERS.
Chow Oo-boon made great preparations for her dinner, which she had
served in European style, on a table beautifully decorated with flowers.
Mrs M‘Gilvary furnished the crockery, cutlery, and table-linen, and our
Madras servants superintended the cookery. Among the guests were the
daughters of the queen and princess, three princes, and Phra Udon and
Chow Don, the two Siamese assistant-commissioners. Fingers, for the
nonce, gave way to knives and forks, and even Phra Udon, the Singhalese
buffoon, showed that he could behave himself before ladies.
There was no apparent anxiety on the part of the hostess as to whether
or not the dinner would turn out a success. All were affable, courteous,
and pleasant, and appeared bent upon adding to the general enjoyment.
The princess informed me that arrangements had been made for our
starting early on Monday, as, to prevent further delay, she and some of
the princes had agreed to supply us with elephants, and a letter had
been signed by the Court calling upon the governors of the various
provinces to afford us their aid.
A similar passport issued for one of my later journeys was translated
for me by Dr M‘Gilvary, and ran as follows: “The Proclamation of Chao
Phya San Luang and Chao Phya Saw Lan, and all the officers, old and
young, at the Court, to Tow Rat of Chiang Dow (Kiang Dow), and Phya
Khenan Phek of Chiang Ngai, and Phya Kuan of Muang Pow, and Phya Soo Ree
Ya Yot of Muang Fang, greeting. You are informed that now there has been
a Royal Order that Nai Hallett and the teachers M‘Gilvary and Martin,
the three Nais and their servants and personal attendants, nineteen
persons, twenty-two persons in all, with six elephants and one horse and
eight guns, may go to Chiang Hsen, Muang Ngai, Muang Pow, and Muang
Fang. When the foreign Nais have arrived and wish to go in any direction
at any time, you are ordered to levy good and reliable men that are
conversant with the roads, the brooks, and the mountains to escort them,
according to the custom of the country, from one city and province to
another, to whatever place or village the foreign Nais shall wish to go.
Again, if the foreign Nais are in need of provisions of any kind, you
are ordered to provide supplies and look after them. Let them not be
destitute of anything whatever. This is given by the Royal Order on the
thirteenth day of the waxing moon of the eighth month of the year twelve
hundred and twenty-six” (7th May 1884).
This passport, as is usual, was scratched with a stile upon a narrow
strip of palm-leaf which coils up into a ring and has a stamp embossed
on it at each end. This stamp determines the real authority of the
document, and is examined before reading the document. These strips of
leaves are tough and unaffected by water, and are therefore, for the
purpose, superior to paper. When the writing grows dim it is easily made
legible by wetting the finger and rubbing it over the leaf, thus
cleansing the smooth surface and filling the scratches with the dirt so
removed.
On Monday, the 3d March, we had everything packed early in the morning,
but were delayed until nearly one o’clock before the last elephant came
in. We were to be conducted to Kiang Hai by Chow Nan Kyow Wong, the
eldest son of Chow Hoo-a Muang Kyow, the fourth of the joint rulers of
the Zimmé State. Chow Nan Kyow Wong had left the city the night before,
accompanied by his six followers and his young son, in order to prepare
the first encampment for us. He took with him four large elephants, one
of which was loaded with our baggage, and a small one, and eight
elephant-drivers and attendants.
The party with me, besides the Chow and his company, comprised forty-one
persons—viz., Dr Cushing, Dr M‘Gilvary, two Shan interpreters, three
Shan servants, three Madras servants, Moung Loogalay, eight Shan
elephant-men, and twenty Shan porters with four large elephants. As a
shelter from the night-dews we carried a tent, so capacious and so
convenient for carriage that it reminded me of the one in the ‘Arabian
Nights’ which would shelter an army and yet could be put in one’s
pocket. Ours was formed of a roll of longcloth, 30 feet long and 15 feet
wide, that packed into a roll 21 inches long and 7 inches in diameter.
The great Zimmé rice-plain is divided into more or less extensive fields
by orchards containing beautiful clumps of bamboos and mango, tamarind,
palmyra, cocoa-nut, areca-nut, and other trees; and in these orchards,
and in pretty groves scattered about the plain, nestle numerous villages
and detached houses. Until the hills are reached the country is one
ceaseless succession of orchards and rice-fields, all of which, nearly
up to the east bank of the Meh Ping, are irrigated by canals and
channels drawing their water from the Meh Hkuang, the river on which the
capital city of the Shan State of Lapoon lies.
Starting from the bridge a little before one o’clock, we proceeded in a
north-easterly direction, and halted for the night in the fields of
Muang Doo, having passed within view of nineteen villages in the seven
and a half miles’ march. We were disappointed at finding that the Chow
and his son had not passed through the village, and that nothing was
known there of his movements. As soon as the elephants were unloaded
some of the Shans commenced cutting bamboos for the erection of our
pavilion, and before we had finished bathing, it was completed and our
dinner was ready.
Our dinner-table consisted of a cane-covered howdahseat placed on the
top of two wooden spirit-cases set on end and some distance apart. A
couple more cases, set one on the other, served as my seat, and my
companions were enthroned on their folding camp-chairs. The long arms of
my chair, although adding greatly to my comfort, and being handy for
writing, prevented it from being drawn up to our improvised table.
The rapidity with which a hot dinner was served by our Madras servants
would astonish stay-at-home people. Soup being in tins, takes very
little time to cook, as it has only to be heated; bacon takes but a
minute or two; and vegetables, curry, chickens, tapioca, and
rice-puddings having been prepared and more than half cooked at our last
halting-place, are quickly served. But even so, the boys deserved great
credit for their readiness and good management.
Whilst the cooking things and things to be cooked were being unloaded,
men were despatched in search of water and firewood, and the boys were
preparing their fireplace; and however tired they might be after a long
tramp, they always prided themselves upon their cookery, and the
celerity with which our meals were served. All this they did merrily and
with light hearts; and hardly once during the journey, even when they
were suffering from frequent attacks of fever, have I seen them out of
temper. They knew that we all had our work to do, and they took a pride
in doing theirs to the best of their ability.
It was pleasant to watch the continuous improvement in Jewan’s
_physique_. When hired for me by Go Paul, a Madras boy who had been with
me for many years, he looked a mere stripling, with legs little better
than broomsticks in appearance, and a chest that spoke very little for
his capacity for travel. Every day his calves were getting bigger, his
chest was expanding, and he seemed to become more vigorous. Travel was
certainly rapidly making a man of him.
In the evening Dr M‘Gilvary called up some of the most intelligent of
the Shans to give me information about their customs, commencing with
courtship and marriage. They told us that a youth was allowed to visit a
girl either in private or in the family circle, and that courting-time
is known as _Bŏw ow-ha sow_ (_Bow_, a bachelor; _ow-ha_, to visit;
_sow_, a virgin or maid). A lad, when courting without witnesses, places
himself entirely in the power of the girl, as it is the custom to take a
woman’s word as conclusive proof of any alleged breach of delicacy, and
for such breaches the spirit-fine required by the ancestral spirits of
the family can be levied.
The amount of the spirit-fine varies, according to the custom of the
family, from a bunch of flowers to nine rupees. Such fines are due, not
merely as a solatium for indelicate acts towards the females of the
family, but for accidentally coming into contact with them. Even in
general company, if a woman is touched to call her attention, and she
reports the fact to the _kumlung_, the patriarch and priest of her
family, the fine can be levied. If the girl neglects to report the
occurrence at once, and sickness, caused by the anger of the unappeased
ancestral spirits, happens subsequently in her family, her word is still
taken, and the fine is levied.
The practice of the patriarch or head of the family being the priest, is
a survival from ancient times, and was customary amongst Aryan tribes,
as is evidenced by the Vedas. Mr Kingsmill, in his ‘Ethnological
Sketches from the Dawn of History,’ says that the Djow, or Chau, who
founded the first historical empire in China, B.C. 1122, were an Aryan
race, and their ruler, “the Djow Wang,” was not so much supreme ruler as
supreme priest. He alone could perform sacrifices to the memory of the
mystical ancestors of the house. In each State a similar position of
affairs was to be noticed. The Emperor of China is the high priest of
the State religion as well as the ruler of the empire.
At times a youth serenades a girl alone, accompanying himself upon a
peculiarly shaped two-stringed banjo; at other times he is accompanied
by the village band. If the lad considers that he has won the lady’s
affection, he asks his parents, or the _kumlung_ of his family, to
obtain the consent of her relations, and to arrange for the marriage.
If an illegitimate child is born, twenty-four rupees as well as the
spirit-fine has to be paid to the _kumlung_ of the girl’s family, and
the man must likewise provide a sacrifice of an ox, or pig, or fowl,
according to the requirement of the spirit of the woman’s family. No
other claim can be made on the man, and the woman has to support the
child.
According to Dr M‘Gilvary, the custom of levying the spirit-fine is
strictly adhered to amongst the nobility as well as amongst the people.
As an instance, he told me that on sickness occurring in the palace at
Zimmé inquiry is at once made, and if any breach of delicacy has
occurred, the male culprit is fined, and the spirits of the royal family
are appeased. In case of the act having been a breach of the seventh
commandment and the act has been between a serf and a slave of the
palace, the man must either pay the spirit-fine and seventy-two rupees,
the legal redemption price of the woman, or marry her and become a
slave. The culprit, if a noble, is merely mulcted in the spirit-fine
required by the spirits of the family, and is free from other charge. In
cases of adultery, forty rupees has to be paid to the injured husband,
as well as the spirit-fine. If the husband refuses to receive his wife
back after her misconduct, he must hand the forty rupees received by him
to her family, who must receive her. The Zimmé Shans, as a rule, are a
chaste people, and the few soiled doves in Zimmé have flown there from
Siam.
The marriage ceremony consists of paying the spirit-fee in the presence
of the _kumlung_ of both families, and drawing out an agreement for the
payment of the _ngeun kŭn soo_, the sum a man has to forfeit if he
divorces his wife. Both women and men amongst the Shans can divorce each
other at will; but divorces without ample cause are looked upon with
disapproval by the people, and the ease with which the marriage-tie can
be broken has not led to experimental marriages as it did amongst the
ancient Romans. If a woman divorces her husband, she has first to
purchase the _soo-han_, or right of divorce, which seldom costs more
than fourteen rupees; and in case of a divorce, the children pertain to
the woman, except in the case where the husband is a slave, when the
master has a right to one male child, or, in the absence of male
children, to one of the other sex.
In the case of a woman marrying a slave, the master has a right to one
male child, or, if there is no male, a daughter. If the slave of one man
marries the slave of another, it is the custom for the master of the
wife to purchase the husband. If the husband’s master refuses to part
with him he can claim his freedom.
The judicial price of a man slave is fifty-four rupees, and of a female
slave seventy-two rupees. Amongst the warlike races of the hills the
opposite rules, the value of the male being greater than that of the
female; but in the Shan States, where the woman does most of the work,
the woman is decidedly as a worker worth more than the man.
In cases of debt, a man can either pay the debt, the interest of the
debt, or serve his creditor in lieu of the interest. It is optional for
a man to serve or pay the interest, unless a special agreement has been
made. If a man owes more than he, his family, and possessions are worth,
or having sufficient, will not pay, the creditor informs the court,
which enforces the claim by putting the debtor in chains until the debt
and court fees are paid. Men often linger out their existence in
slave-bondage.
Any person may settle in and cultivate land in the Shan States that is
not already under cultivation, and does not become a serf to the chiefs
unless he marries a woman of the State; and even then he can remain
free, with his wife, and any family that may be born to them, if he pays
seventy-two rupees for her redemption. Unless this redemption money is
paid, no woman is allowed to remove from the country.
All the Zimmé Shans, except the nobles, are serfs, but have the right to
change their allegiance from one lord to another. This right is a great
check against oppression, as the more serfs a prince has, the more
powerful he is, and the more chance he has of becoming the future king
of the State. On his marriage a male serf changes his allegiance to the
lord of his wife’s parents, and resides near the wife’s family. Thus in
the old days clans were formed, patriarchs became chiefs, and relations
serfs. Captives likewise strengthened the community, for although they
themselves were treated as slaves, their descendants would in time merge
into the body of serfs. Slaves taken as wives must tend to influence the
breed of the people, otherwise it is difficult to account for the
difference in type between the Burmese Shans and the Siamese.
In Siam the right of changing their lord has been taken away from the
people, the majority of whom are classed as _prai-luangs_, or Crown
commoners, and all of whom, outside the Chinese and subjects of foreign
Powers, are serfs of the Government, and are placed in classified gangs
under grinding Government masters. A _prai-luang_ must either serve for
a month thrice in a year, or pay an exemption tax of ten dollars and
eighty cents each year. The hardship and oppression that accrue to the
people under this rule is thus referred to by the Rev. S. J. Smith in
the preface to his translation of the Siamese ‘Laws on Slavery’:—
“The present system of requiring annually the personal services of the
common people, without reward or provision for food and home during
service or exposure, making them the helpless victims of the too often
merciless, heartless, and exorbitant exactions of unscrupulous and
tyrannical Government masters, is a crying evil that demands beneficent
legislation.”