THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS
South Mongol Domain--Tibet, the Mongol Cradle-land--Stone Age in
Tibet--The Primitive Mongol Type--The Balti and Ladakhi--Balti Type
and Origins--The Tibetans Proper--Type--The Bhotiyas--Prehistoric
Expansion of the Tibetan Race--Sub-Himalayan Groups: the
Gurkhas--Mental Qualities of the Tibetans--Lamaism--The Horsoks--
The Tanguts--Polyandry--The Bonbo Religion--Buddhist and Christian
Ritualism--The Prayer-Wheel--Language and Letters--Diverse
Linguistic Types--Lepcha--Angami-Naga and Kuki-Lushai Speech--Naga
Tribes--General Ethnic Relations in Indo-China--Aboriginal and
Cultured Peoples--The Talaings--The Manipuri--Religion--The Game
of Polo--The Khel System--The Chins--Mental and Physical
Qualities--Gods, Nats, and the After-Life--The Kakhyens--Caucasic
Elements--The Karens--Type--Temperament--Christian Missions--The
Burmese--Type--Character--Buddhism--Position of Woman--Tattooing--
The Tai-Shan Peoples--The Ahom, Khamti and Chinese Shans--Shan
Cradle-land and Origins--Caucasic Contacts--Tai-Shan Toned
Speech--Shan, Lolo, and Mosso Writing Systems--Mosso Origins--
Aborigines of South China and Annam--Man-tse Origins and
Affinities--Caucasic Aborigines in South-East Asia--The Siamese
Shans--Origins and Early Records--Social System--Buddhism--The
Annamese--Origins--Physical and Mental Characters--Language and
Letters--Social Institutions--Religious Systems--The Chinese--
Origins--The Babylonian Theory--Persistence of Chinese Culture
and Social System--Letters and Early Records--Traditions of the
Stone and Metal Ages--Chinese Cradle and Early Migrations--
Absorption of the Aborigines--Survivals: Hok-lo, Hakka,
Pun-ti--Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism--Fung-shui and Ancestry
Worship--Islam and Christianity--The Mandarin Class.
CONSPECTUS.
#Present Range.# _Tibet; S. Himalayan slopes; Indo-China to the Isthmus
of Kra; China; Formosa; Parts of Malaysia._
#Hair#, _uniformly black, lank, round in transverse section_; _sparse or
no beard, moustache common_. #Colour#, _generally a dirty yellowish
brown, shading off to olive and coppery brown in the south, and to lemon
or whitish in N. China_. #Skull#, _normally brachy (80 to 84), but in
parts of China sub-dolicho (77) and high_. #Jaws#, _slightly
prognathous_. #Cheek-bones#, _very high and prominent laterally_.
#Nose#, _very small, and concave, with widish nostrils (mesorrhine),
but often large and straight amongst the upper classes_. #Eyes#, _small,
black, and oblique (outer angle slightly elevated), vertical fold of
skin over inner canthus_. #Stature#, _below the average, 1.62 m. (5 ft.
4 in.), but in N. China often tall, 1.77 m. to 1.82 m. (5 ft. 10 in. to
6 ft.)_. #Lips#, _rather thin, sometimes slightly protruding_. #Arms#,
#legs#, _and_ #feet#, _of normal proportions, calves rather small_.
#Temperament.# _Somewhat sluggish, with little initiative, but great
endurance; cunning rather than intelligent; generally thrifty and
industrious, but mostly indolent in Siam and Burma; moral standard low,
with slight sense of right and wrong._
#Speech.# _Mainly isolating and monosyllabic, due to phonetic decay;
loss of formative elements compensated by tone; some (south Chinese,
Annamese) highly tonic, but others (in Himalayas and North Burma) highly
agglutinating and consequently toneless._
#Religion.# _Ancestry and spirit-worship, underlying various kinds of
Buddhism; religious sentiment weak in Annam, strong in Tibet; thinly
diffused in China._
#Culture.# _Ranges from sheer savagery (Indo-Chinese aborigines) to a
low phase of civilisation; some mechanical arts (ceramics, metallurgy,
weaving), and agriculture well developed; painting, sculpture, and
architecture mostly in the barbaric stage; letters widespread, but true
literature and science slightly developed; stagnation very general._
Main Divisions.
#Bod-pa.# _Tibetan; Tangut; Horsok; Si-fan; Balti; Ladakhi; Gurkha;
Bhotiya; Miri; Mishmi; Abor._
#Burmese.# _Naga; Kuki-Lushai; Chin; Kakhyen; Manipuri; Karen; Talaing;
Arakanese; Burmese proper._
#Tai-Shan.# _Ahom; Khamti; Ngiou; Lao; Siamese._
#Giao-Shi.# _Annamese; Cochin-Chinese._
#Chinese.# _Chinese proper; Hakka; Hok-lo; Pun-ti._
* * * * *
The Mongolian stock may be divided into two main branches[375]: the
_Mongolo-Tatar_, of the western area, and the _Tibeto-Indo-Chinese_ of
the eastern area, the latter extending into a secondary branch, _Oceanic
Mongols_. These two, that is, the main and secondary branch, which
jointly occupy the greater part of south-east Asia with most of
Malaysia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Formosa, will form the subject
of the present and following chapters. Allowing for encroachments and
overlappings, especially in Manchuria and North Tibet, the northern
"divide" towards the Mongolo-Tatar domain is roughly indicated by the
Great Wall and the Kuen-lun range westwards to the Hindu-Kush, and
towards the south-west by the Himalayas from the Hindu-Kush eastwards to
Assam. The Continental section thus comprises the whole of China proper
and Indo-China, together with a great part of Tibet with Little Tibet
(Baltistan and Ladakh), and the Himalayan uplands including their
southern slopes. This section is again separated from the Oceanic
section by the Isthmus of Kra--the Malay Peninsula belonging ethnically
to the insular Malay world. "I believe," writes Warington Smyth, "that
the Malay never really extended further south than the Kra
isthmus[376]."
From the considerations advanced in _Ethnology_, Chap. XII., it seems a
reasonable assumption that the lacustrine Tibetan tableland with its
Himalayan escarpments, all standing in pleistocene times at a
considerably lower level than at present, was the cradle of the Mongol
division of mankind. Here were found all the natural conditions
favourable to the development of a new variety of the species moving
from the tropics northwards--ample space such as all areas of marked
specialisation seem to require; a different and cooler climate than that
of the equatorial region, though, thanks to its then lower elevation,
warmer than that of the bleak and now barely inhabitable Tibetan
plateau; extensive plains, nowhere perhaps too densely wooded,
intersected by ridges of moderate height, and diversified by a
lacustrine system far more extensive than that revealed by the
exploration of modern travellers[377].
Under these circumstances, which are not matter of mere speculation, but
to be directly inferred from the observations of intelligent explorers
and of trained Anglo-Indian surveyors, it would seem not only probable
but inevitable that the pleistocene Indo-Malayan should become modified
and improved in his new and more favourable Central Asiatic environment.
Later, with the gradual upheaval of the land to a mean altitude of some
14,000 feet above sea-level, the climate deteriorated, and the present
somewhat rude and rugged inhabitants of Tibet are to be regarded as the
outcome of slow adaptation to their slowly changing surroundings since
the occupation of the country by the Indo-Malayan pleistocene precursor.
To this precursor Tibet was accessible either from India or from
Indo-China, and although few of his implements have yet been reported
from the plateau, it is certain that Tibet has passed through the Stone
as well as the Metal Ages. In Bogle's time "thunder-stones" were still
used for tonsuring the lamas, and even now stone cooking-pots are found
amongst the shepherds of the uplands, although they are acquainted both
with copper and iron. In India also and Indo-China palaeoliths of rude
type occur at various points--Arcot, the Narbada gravels, Mirzapur[378],
the Irawadi valley and the Shan territory--as if to indicate the routes
followed by early man in his migrations from Indo-Malaysia northwards.
Thus, where man is silent the stones speak, and so old are these links
of past and present that amongst the Shans, as in ancient Greece, their
origin being entirely forgotten, they are often mounted as jewellery and
worn as charms against mishaps.
Usually the Mongols proper, that is, the steppe nomads who have more
than once overrun half the eastern hemisphere, are taken as the typical
and original stem of the Mongolian stock. But if Ch. de Ujfalvy's views
can be accepted this honour will now have to be transferred to the
Tibetans, who still occupy the supposed cradle of the race. This veteran
student of the Central Asiatic peoples describes two Mongol types, a
northern round-headed and a southern long-headed, and thinks that the
latter, which includes "the Ladakhi, the Champas and Tibetans proper,"
was "the primitive Mongol type[379]."
Owing to the political seclusion of Tibet, the race has hitherto been
studied chiefly in outlying provinces beyond the frontiers, such as
Ladakh, Baltistan, and Sikkim[380], that is, in districts where mixture
with other races may be suspected. Indeed de Ujfalvy, who has made a
careful survey of Baltistan and Ladakh, assures us that, while the
Ladakhi represent two varieties of Asiatic man with ceph. index 77, the
Balti are not Tibetans or Mongols at all, but descendants of the
historical Sacae, although now of Tibetan speech and Moslem faith[381].
They are of the mean height or slightly above it, with rather low brow,
very prominent superciliary arches, deep depression at nasal root, thick
curved eyebrows, long, straight or arched nose, thick lips, oval chin,
small cheek-bones, small flat ears, straight eyes, very black and
abundant ringletty (_boucle_) hair, full beard, usually black and silky,
robust hairy body, small hands and feet, and long head (index 72). In
such characters it is impossible to recognise the Mongol, and the
contrast is most striking with the neighbouring Ladakhi, true Mongols,
as shown by their slightly raised superciliary arches, square and
scarcely curved eyebrows, slant eyes, large prominent cheek-bones, lank
and coarse hair, yellowish and nearly hairless body.
Doubtless there has been a considerable intermingling of Balti and
Ladakhi, and in recent times still more of Balti and Dards (Hindu-Kush
"Aryans"), whence Leitner's view that the Balti are Dards at a remote
period conquered by the Bhots (Tibetans), losing their speech with their
independence. But of all these peoples the Balti were in former times
the most civilised, as shown by the remarkable rock-carvings still found
in the country, and attributed by the present inhabitants to a long
vanished race. Some of these carvings represent warriors mounted and on
foot, the resemblance being often very striking between them and the
persons figured on the coins of the Sacae kings both in their physical
appearance, attitudes, arms, and accoutrements. The Balti are still
famous horsemen, and with them is said to have originated the game of
polo, which has thence spread to the surrounding peoples as far as
Chitral and Irania.
From all these considerations it is inferred that the Balti are the
direct descendants of the Sacae, who invaded India about 90 B.C., not
from the west (the Kabul valley) as generally stated, but from the north
over the Karakorum Passes leading directly to Baltistan[382]. Thus lives
again a name renowned in antiquity, and another of those links is
established between the past and the present, which it is the province
of the historical ethnologist to rescue from oblivion.
In Tibet proper the ethnical relations have been confused by the loose
way tribal and even national names are referred to by Prjevalsky and
some other modern explorers. It should therefore be explained that three
somewhat distinct branches of the race have to be carefully
distinguished: 1. The _Bod-pa_[383], "Bodmen," the settled and more or
less civilised section, who occupy most of the southern and more fertile
provinces of which Lhasa is the capital, who till the land, live in
towns, and have passed from the tribal to the civic state. 2. The
_Dru-pa_[384], peaceful though semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, who live in
tents on the northern plateaux, over 15,000 feet above sea-level. 3. The
_Tanguts_[385], restless, predatory tribes, who hover about the
north-eastern borderland between Koko-nor and Kansu.
All these are true Tibetans, speak the Tibetan language, and profess one
or other of the two national religions, _Bonbo_ and Lamaism (the Tibetan
form of Buddhism). But the original type is best preserved, not amongst
the cultured Bod-pa, who in many places betray a considerable admixture
both of Chinese and Hindu elements, but amongst the Dru-pa, who on their
bleak upland steppes have for ages had little contact with the
surrounding Mongolo-Turki populations. They are described by W. W.
Rockhill from personal observation as about five feet five inches high,
and round-headed, with wavy hair, clear-brown and even hazel eye,
cheek-bone less high than the Mongol, thick nose, depressed at the root,
but also prominent and even aquiline and narrow but with broad nostrils,
large-lobed ears standing out to a less degree than the Mongol, broad
mouth, long black hair, thin beard, generally hairless body, broad
shoulders, very small calves, large foot, coarse hand, skin coarse and
greasy and of light brown colour, though "frequently nearly white, but
when exposed to the weather a dark brown, nearly the colour of our
American Indians. Rosy cheeks are quite common amongst the younger
women[386]."
Some of these characters--wavy hair, aquiline nose, hazel eye, rosy
cheeks--are not Mongolic, and despite W. W. Rockhill's certificate of
racial purity, one is led to suspect a Caucasic strain, perhaps through
the neighbouring Salars. These are no doubt sometimes called
Kara-Tangutans, "Black Tangutans," from the colour of their tents, but
we learn from Potanin, who visited them in 1885[387], that they are
Muhammadans of Turki stock and speech, and we already know[388] that
from a remote period the Turki people were in close contact with
Caucasians. The Salars pitch their tents on the banks of the Khitai and
other Yang-tse-Kiang headstreams.
That the national name Bod-pa must be of considerable antiquity is
evident from the Sanskrit expression _Bhotiya_, derived from it, and
long applied by the Hindus collectively to all southern Tibetans, but
especially to those of the Himalayan slopes, such as the Rongs (Lepchas)
of Sikkim and the _Lho-pa_ dominant in Bhutan, properly _Bhot-ant_, that
is, "Land's End"--the extremity of Tibet. Eastwards also the Tibetan
race stretches far beyond the political frontiers into the Koko-nor
region (Tanguts), and the Chinese province of Se-chuan, where they are
grouped with all the other Si-fan aborigines. Towards the south-east are
the kindred _Tawangs_, _Mishmi_, _Miri_, _Abor_[389], _Daflas_, and many
others about the Assam borderlands, all of whom may be regarded as true
Bhotiyas in the wild state.
Through these the primitive Tibetan race extends into Burma, where
however it has become greatly modified and again civilised under
different climatic and cultural influences. Thus we see how, in the
course of ages, the Bod-pa have widened their domain, radiating in all
directions from the central cradle-land about the Upper Brahmaputra
(San-po) valley westwards into Kashmir, eastwards into China, southwards
down the Himalayan slopes to the Gangetic plains, south-eastwards to
Indo-China. In some places they have come into contact with other races
and disappeared either by total extinction or by absorption (India,
Hindu-Kush), or else preserved their type while accepting the speech,
religion, and culture of later intruders. Such are the _Garhwali_, and
many groups in Nepal, especially the dominant _Gurkhas_ (_Khas_[390]),
of whom there are twelve branches, all Aryanised and since the twelfth
century speaking the _Parbattia Bhasha_, a Prakrit or vulgar Sanskrit
tongue current amongst an extremely mixed population of about 2,000,000.
In other directions the migrations took place in remote prehistoric
times, the primitive proto-Tibetan groups becoming more and more
specialised as they receded farther and farther from the cradle-land
into Mongolia, Siberia, China, Farther India, and Malaysia. This is at
least how I understand the peopling of a great part of the eastern
hemisphere by an original nucleus of Mongolic type first differentiated
from a pleistocene precursor on the Tibetan tableland.
Strangely contradictory estimates have been formed of the temperament
and mental characters of the Bod-pa, some, such as that of Turner[391],
no doubt too favourable, while others err perhaps in the opposite
direction. Thus Desgodins, who nevertheless knew them well, describes
the cultured Tibetan of the south as "a slave towards the great, a
despot towards the weak, knavish or treacherous according to
circumstances, always on the look-out to defraud, and lying impudently
to attain his end," and much more to the same effect[392].
W. W. Rockhill, who is less severe, thinks that "the Tibetan's character
is not as black as Horace della Penna and Desgodins have painted it.
Intercourse with these people extending over six years leads me to
believe that the Tibetan is kindhearted, affectionate, and
law-abiding[393]." He concludes, however, with a not very flattering
native estimate deduced from the curious national legend that "the
earliest inhabitants of Tibet descended from a king of monkeys and a
female hobgoblin, and the character of the race perhaps from those of
its first parents. From the king of monkeys [he was an incarnate god]
they have religious faith and kindheartedness, intelligence and
application, devotion to religion and to religious debate; from the
hobgoblin they get cruelty, fondness for trade and money-making, great
bodily strength, lustfulness, fondness for gossip, and carnivorous
instinct[394]."
While they are cheerful under a depressing priestly regime, all allow
that they are vindictive, superstitious, and cringing in the presence of
the lamas, who are at heart more dreaded than revered. In fact the whole
religious world is one vast organised system of hypocrisy, and above the
old pagan beliefs common to all primitive peoples there is merely a
veneer of Buddhism, above which follows another and most pernicious
veneer of lamaism (priestcraft), under the yoke of which the natural
development of the people has been almost completely arrested for
several centuries. The burden is borne with surprising endurance, and
would be intolerable but for the relief found in secret and occasionally
even open revolt against the more oppressive ordinances of the
ecclesiastical rule. Thus, despite the prescriptions regarding a strict
vegetarian diet expressed in the formula "eat animal flesh eat thy
brother," not only laymen but most of the lamas themselves supplement
their frugal diet of milk, butter, barley-meal, and fruits with game,
yak, and mutton--this last pronounced by Turner the best in the world.
The public conscience, however, is saved by a few extra turns of the
prayer-wheel at such repasts, and by the general contempt in which is
held the hereditary caste of butchers, who like the Jews in medieval
times are still confined to a "ghetto" of their own in all the large
towns.
These remarks apply more particularly to the settled southern
communities living in districts where a little agriculture is possible.
Elsewhere the religious cloak is worn very loosely, and the nomad
_Horsoks_ of the northern steppes, although all nominal Buddhists, pay
but scant respect to the decrees supposed to emanate from the Dalai Lama
enshrined in Lhasa. Horsok is an almost unique ethnical term[395], being
a curious compound of the two names applied by the Tibetans to the
_Hor-pa_ and the _Sok-pa_ who divide the steppe between them. The
Hor-pa, who occupy the western parts, are of Turki stock, and are the
only group of that race known to me who profess Buddhism[396], all the
rest being Muhammadans with some Shamanists (Yakuts) in the Lena basin.
The Sok-pa, who roam the eastern plains and valleys, although commonly
called Mongols, are true Tibetans or more strictly speaking Tanguts, of
whom there are here two branches, the _Goliki_ and the _Yegrai_, all,
like the Hor-pa, of Tibetan speech. The Yegrai, as described by
Prjevalsky, closely resemble the other North Tibetan tribes, with their
long, matted locks falling on their shoulders, their scanty whiskers
and beard, angular head, dark complexion and dirty garb[397].
Besides stock-breeding and predatory warfare, all these groups follow
the hunt, armed with darts, bows, and matchlock guns; the musk-deer is
ensnared, and the only animal spared is the stag, "Buddha's horse." The
taste of these rude nomads for liquid blood is insatiable, and the
surveyor, Nain Singh, often saw them fall prone on the ground to lick up
the blood flowing from a wounded beast. As soon as weaned, the very
children and even the horses are fed on a diet of cheese, butter, and
blood, kneaded together in a horrible mess, which is greedily devoured
when the taste is acquired. On the other hand alcoholic drinks are
little consumed, the national beverage being coarse Chinese tea imported
in the form of bricks and prepared with _tsampa_ (barley-meal) and
butter, and thus becoming a food as well as a drink. The lamas have a
monopoly of this tea-trade, which could not stand the competition of the
Indian growers; hence arises the chief objection to removing the
barriers of seclusion.
Tibet is one of the few regions where polyandrous customs, intimately
associated with the matriarchal state, still persist almost in their
pristine vigour. The husbands are usually but not necessarily all
brothers, and the bride is always obtained by purchase. Unless otherwise
arranged, the oldest husband is the putative "father," all the others
being considered as "uncles." An inevitable result of the institution is
to give woman a dominant position in society; hence the "queens" of
certain tribes, referred to with so much astonishment by the early
Chinese chroniclers. Survivors of this "petticoat government" have been
noticed by travellers amongst the Lolos, Mossos, and other indigenous
communities about the Indo-Chinese frontiers. But it does not follow
that polyandry and a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded
polygyny and a patriarchal state. On the contrary, it would appear that
polyandry never could have been universal; possibly it arose from
special conditions in particular regions, where the struggle for
existence is severe, and the necessity of imposing limits to the
increase of population more urgent than elsewhere[398]. Hence to me it
seems as great a mistake to assume a matriarchate as it is to assume
promiscuity as the universal antecedent of all later family relations.
In Tibet itself polygyny exists side by side with polyandry amongst the
wealthy classes, while monogamy is the rule amongst the poor pastoral
nomads of the northern steppe.
Great ethnical importance has been attached by some distinguished
anthropologists to the treatment of the dead. But, as in the New Stone
and Metal Ages in Europe cremation and burial were practised side by
side[399], so in Tibet the dead are now simultaneously disposed of in
diverse ways. It is a question not so much of race as of caste or social
classes, or of the lama's pleasure, who, when the head has been shaved
to facilitate the transmigration of the soul, may order the body to be
burnt, buried, cast into the river, or even thrown to carrion birds or
beasts of prey. Strange to say, the last method, carried out with
certain formalities, is one of the most honourable, although the lamas
are generally buried in a seated posture, and high officials burnt, and
(in Ladakh) the ashes, mixed with a little clay, kneaded into much
venerated effigies--doubtless a survival of ancestry worship.
Reference was above made to the primitive Shamanistic ideas which still
survive beneath the Buddhist and the later lamaistic systems. In the
central and eastern provinces of Ui and Tsang this pre-Buddhist religion
has again struggled to the surface, or rather persisted under the name
of _Bonbo_ (_Boa-ho_) side by side with the national creed, from which
it has even borrowed many of its present rites. From the colour of the
robes usually worn by its priests, it is known as the sect of the
"Blacks," in contradistinction to the orthodox "Yellow" and dissenting
"Red" lamaists, and as now constituted, its origin is attributed to
Shen-rab (Gsen-rabs), who flourished about the fifth century before the
new era, and is venerated as the equal of Buddha himself. His followers,
who were powerful enough to drive Buddhism from Tibet in the tenth
century, worship 18 chief deities, the best known being the red and
black demons, the snake devil, and especially the fiery tiger-god,
father of all the secondary members of this truly "diabolical pantheon."
It is curious to note that the sacred symbol of the Bonbo sect is the
ubiquitous svastika, only with the hooks of the cross reversed, [Symbol]
instead of [Symbol]. This change, which appears to have escaped the
diligent research of Thomas Wilson[400], was caused by the practice of
turning the prayer-wheel from right to left as the red lamas do, instead
of from left to right as is the orthodox way. The common Buddhist
formula of six syllables--_om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum_--is also replaced by one
of seven syllables--_ma-tri-mon-tre-sa-ta-dzun_[401].
Buddhism itself, introduced by Hindu missionaries, is more recent than
is commonly supposed. Few conversions were made before the fifth century
of our era, and the first temple dates only from the year 698. Reference
is often made to the points of contact or "coincidences" which have been
observed between this system and that of the Oriental and Latin
Christian Churches. There is no question of a common dogma, and the
numerous resemblances are concerned only with ritualistic details, such
as the cross, the mitre, dalmatica, and other distinctive vestments,
choir singing, exorcisms, the thurible, benedictions with outstretched
hand, celibacy, the rosary, fasts, processions, litanies, spiritual
retreats, holy water, scapulars or other charms, prayer addressed to the
saints, relics, pilgrimages, music and bells at the service,
monasticism; this last being developed to a far greater extent in Tibet
than at any time in any Christian land, Egypt not excepted. The lamas,
representing the regular clergy of the Roman Church, hold a monopoly of
all "science," letters, and arts. The block printing-presses are all
kept in the huge monasteries which cover the land, and from them are
consequently issued only orthodox works and treatises on magic. Religion
itself is little better than a system of magic, and the sole aim of all
worship, reduced to a mere mechanical system of routine, is to baffle
the machinations of the demons who at every turn beset the path of the
wayfarer through this "vale of tears."
For this purpose the prayer-wheels--an ingenious contrivance by which
innumerable supplications, not less efficacious because vicarious, may
be offered up night and day to the powers of darkness--are incessantly
kept going all over the land, some being so cleverly arranged that the
sacred formula may be repeated as many as 40,000 times at each
revolution of the cylinder. These machines, which have also been
introduced into Korea and Japan, have been at work for several centuries
without any appreciable results, although fitted up in all the houses,
by the river banks or on the hill-side, and kept in motion by the hand,
wind, and water; while others of huge size, 30 to 40 feet high and 15 to
20 in diameter, stand in the temples, and at each turn repeat the
contents of whole volumes of liturgical essays stowed away in their
capacious receptacles. But despite all these everlasting revolutions,
stagnation reigns supreme throughout the most priest-ridden land under
the sun.
With its religion Tibet imported also its letters from India by the
route of Nepal or Kashmir in the seventh century. Since then the
language has undergone great changes, always, like other members of the
Indo-Chinese family, in the direction from agglutination towards
monosyllabism[402]. But the orthography, apart from a few feeble efforts
at reform, has remained stationary, so that words are still written as
they were pronounced 1200 years ago. The result is a far greater
discrepancy between the spoken and written tongue than in any other
language, English not excepted. Thus the province of Ui has been
identified by Sir A. Cunningham with Ptolemy's _Debasae_ through its
written form _Dbus_, though now always pronounced _U_[403]. This bears
out de Lacouperie's view that all words were really uttered as
originally spelt, although often beginning with as many as three
consonants. Thus _spra_ (monkey) is now pronounced _deu_ in the Lhasa
dialect, but still _streu-go_ in that of the province of Kham. The
phonetic disintegration is still going on, so that, barring reform, the
time must come when there will be no correspondence at all between sound
and its graphic expression.
On the other hand it is a mistake to suppose that all languages in the
Indo-Chinese linguistic zone have undergone this enormous extent of
phonetic decay. The indefatigable B. H. Hodgson has made us acquainted
with several, especially in Nepal, which are of a highly conservative
character. Farther east the _Lepcha_ (properly _Rong_) of Sikkim
presents the remarkable peculiarity of distinct agglutination of the
Mongolo-Turki, or perhaps I should say of the Kuki-Lushai type, combined
with numerous homophones and a total absence of tone. Thus _pano-sa_, of
a king, _pano-sang_, kings, and _pano-sang-sa_, of kings, shows pure
agglutination, while _mat_ yields no less than twenty-three distinct
meanings[404], which should necessitate a series of discriminating
tones, as in Chinese or Siamese. Their absence, however, is readily
explained by the persistence of the agglutinative principle, which
renders them unnecessary.
A somewhat similar feature is presented by the Angami Naga, the chief
language of the Naga Hills, of which R. B. McCabe writes that it is
"still in a very primitive stage of the agglutinating class," and
"peculiarly rich in intonation," although "for one Naga who clearly
marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so[405]." It follows
that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said to be
"distinctly monosyllabic" it really abounds in polysyllables, such as
_merenama_, orphan, _kehutsaporimo_, nowhere, _dukriwache_, to kill,
etc. There are also numerous verbal formative elements given by McCabe
himself, so that Angami must clearly be included in the agglutinating
order. To this order also belongs beyond all doubt the _Kuki-Lushai_ of
the neighbouring North Kachar Hills and parts of Nagaland itself, the
common speech in fact of the _Rangkhols_, _Jansens_, _Lushai_, _Roeys_
and other hill peoples, collectively called _Kuki_ by the lowlanders,
and _Dzo_ by themselves[406]. The highly agglutinating character of this
language is evident from the numerous conjugations given by
Soppitt[407], for some of which he has no names, but which may be called
_Acceleratives_, _Retardatives_, _Complementatives_, and so on. Thus
with the root, _ahong_, come, and infix _jam_, slow, is formed the
retardative _nang ahongjamrangmoh_, "will-you-come-slowly?" (_rang_,
future, _moh_, interrogative particle)[408].
The Kuki, the Naga and the Manipuri, none of which claim to be the
original occupants of the country, have a tradition of a common
ancestor, who had three sons who became the progenitors of the tribes.
The Kuki are found almost everywhere throughout Manipur. "We are like
the birds of the air," said a Kuki to T. C. Hodson, "we make our nests
here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year[409]?" The
following description is given of the Naga tribes, _Tangkhuls_, _Mao_
and _Maram Nagas_ (_Angami Nagas_), _Kolya_, or _Mayang Khong_ group,
_Kabuis_, _Quoirengs_, _Chirus_ and _Marrings_. "Differences of stature,
dress, coiffure and weapons make it easy to distinguish between the
members of these tribes. In colour they are all brown with but little
variety, though some of the Tangkhuls who earn their living by salt
making seem to be darker. Among them all, as among the Manipuris, there
are persons who have a tinge of colour in their cheeks when still young.
The nose also varies, for there are cases where it is almost straight,
while in the majority of individuals it is flattened at the nostril.
Here and there one may see noses which in profile are almost Roman. The
eyes are usually brown, though black eyes are sometimes found to occur.
The jaw is generally clean, not heavy, and the hair is of some variety,
as there are many persons whose hair is decidedly curly, and in most
there is a wave. Beards are very uncommon, and hair on the face is very
rare, so much so that the few who possess a moustache are known as
_khoi-hao-bas_ (Meithei words, meaning moustache grower). I am informed
that the ladies do not like hirsute men, and that the men therefore pull
out any stray hairs. The cheekbones are often prominent and the slope of
the eye is not very marked[410]." The stature is moderate varying from
the slender lightly built Marrings to the tall sturdy finely
proportioned Maos. The women are all much shorter than the men, but
strongly built with a muscular development of which the men would not be
ashamed. The land is thickly peopled with local deities and at Maram the
case is recorded of a Rain Deity who was once a man of the village
specially cunning in rain making. Among the points of special interest
in this region are the stone monuments still erected in honour of the
dead, and the custom of head-hunting, connected with simple blood feud,
with agrarian rites, with funerary rites and eschatological belief, and
in some cases no more than a social duty[411].
Through these Naga and Kuki aborigines we pass without any break of
continuity from the Bhotiya populations of the Himalayan slopes to those
of Indo-China. Here also, as indeed in nearly all semi-civilised lands,
peoples at various grades of culture are found dwelling for ages side by
side--rude and savage groups on the uplands or in the more dense wooded
tracts, settled communities with a large measure of political unity (in
fact nations and peoples in the strict sense of those terms) on the
lowlands, and especially along the rich alluvial riverine plains of this
well watered region. The common theory is that the wild tribes represent
the true aborigines driven to the hills and woodlands by civilised
invaders from India and other lands, who are now represented by the
settled communities.
Whether such movements and dislocations have elsewhere taken place we
need not here stop to inquire; indeed their probability, and in some
instances their certainty may be frankly admitted. But I cannot think
that the theory expresses the true relations in most parts of Farther
India. Here the civilised peoples, and _ex hypothesi_ the intruders, are
the Manipuri, Burmese, Arakanese, and the nearly extinct or absorbed
Talaings or Mons in the west; the Siamese, Shans or Laos, and Khamti in
the centre; the Annamese (Tonkinese and Cochin-Chinese), Cambojans, and
the almost extinct Champas in the east. Nearly all of these I hold to be
quite as indigenous as the hillmen, the only difference being that,
thanks to their more favourable environment, they emerged at an early
date from the savage state and thus became more receptive to foreign
civilising influences, mostly Hindu, but also Chinese (in Annam). All
are either partly or mainly of Mongolic or Indonesian type, and all
speak toned Indo-Chinese languages, except the Cambojans and Champas,
whose linguistic relations are with the Oceanic peoples, who are not
here in question. The cultivated languages are no doubt full of Sanskrit
or Prakrit terms in the west and centre, and of Chinese in the east, and
all, except Annamese, which uses a Chinese ideographic system, are
written with alphabets derived through the square Pali characters from
the Devanagari. It is also true that the vast monuments of Burma, Siam,
and Camboja all betray Hindu influences, many of the temples being
covered with Brahmanical or Buddhist sculptures and inscriptions. But
precisely analogous phenomena are reproduced in Java, Sumatra, and other
Malaysian lands, as well as in Japan and partly in China itself. Are we
then to conclude that there have been Hindu invasions and settlements in
all these regions, the most populous on the globe?
During the historic period a few Hinduized Dravidians, especially
Telingas (Telugus) of the Coromandel coast, have from time to time
emigrated to Indo-China (Pegu), where the name survives amongst the
"Talaings," that is, the Mons, by whom they were absorbed, just as the
Mons themselves are now being absorbed by the Burmese. Others of the
same connection have gained a footing here and there in Malaysia,
especially the Malacca coastlands, where they are called "Klings[412],"
_i.e._ Telings, Telingas.
But beyond these partial movements, without any kind of influence on the
general ethnical relations, I know of no Hindu (some have even used the
term "Aryan," and have brought Aryans to Camboja) invasions except those
of a moral order--the invasions of the zealous Hindu missionaries, both
Brahman and Buddhist, which, however, amply suffice to account for all
the above indicated points of contact between the Indian, the
Indo-Chinese, and the Malayan populations.
That the civilised lowlanders and rude highlanders are generally of the
same aboriginal stocks is well seen in the Manipur district with its
fertile alluvial plains and encircling Naga and Lushai Hills on the
north and south. The Hinduized Manipuri of the plains, that is, the
politically dominant _Meithis_, as they call themselves, are considered
by George Watt to be "a mixed race between the Kukies and the
Nagas[413]." The Meithis are described as possessing in general the
facial characteristics of Mongolian type, but with great diversity of
feature. "It is not uncommon to meet with girls with brownish-black
hair, brown eyes, fair complexions, straight noses and rosy
cheeks[414]." In spite of the veneer of civilisation acquired by the
Meithis, the old order of things has by no means passed away. "The
_maiba_, the doctor and priest of the animistic system, still finds a
livelihood despite the competition on the one hand of the Brahmin, and
on the other of the hospital Assistant. Nevertheless the _maibas_
frequently adapt their methods to the altered circumstances in which
they now find themselves, and realize that the combination of croton oil
and a charm is more efficacious than the charm alone[415]."
"It is possible to discover at least four definite orders of spiritual
beings who have crystallized out from the amorphous mass of animistic
Deities. There are the _Lam Lai_, gods of the country-side who shade off
into Nature Gods controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an
agricultural community; the _Umang Lai_ or Deities of the Forest Jungle;
the _Imung Lai_, the Household Deities, Lords of the lives, the births
and the deaths of individuals, and there are Tribal Ancestors, the
ritual of whose worship is a strange compound of magic and
Nature-worship. Beyond these Divine beings, who possess in some sort a
majesty of orderly decent behaviour, there are spirits of the mountain
passes, spirits of the lakes and rivers, vampires and all the horrid
legion of witchcraft.... It is difficult to estimate the precise effect
of Hinduism on the civilisation of the people, for to the outward
observer they seem to have adopted only the festivals, the outward
ritual, the caste marks and the exclusiveness of Hinduism, while all
unmindful of its spirit and inward essentials. Colonel McCulloch
remarked nearly fifty years ago that 'In fact their observances are only
for appearance sake, not the promptings of the heart[416].'"
It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo,
which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the
Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another
remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term _Khel_, which has
travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to
Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a
village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the
Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and
"it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war
with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village.
The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on
either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no
dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is
paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]."
There appears to be no trace even of a _jirga_, or council of elders, by
which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.
From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of
_Chins_ of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards
to the rude _Kakhyens_ (_Kachins_) about the Irawadi headstreams and
southwards to the numerous _Karen_ tribes, who occupy the ethnical
parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tenasserim.
For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey
and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes,
as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as
Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government,
method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all
point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the
Chinese _jin_, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call
themselves _Yo_ in the north and _Lai_ in the south, while in Lower
Burma they are _Shu_.
In truth there is no recognised collective name, and _Shendu_ (_Sindhu_)
often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and
Arakan frontier tribes, _Klangklangs_ and _Hakas_, who with the _Sokte_,
_Tashons_, _Siyirs_, and others are now reduced and administered from
Falam. Each little group has its own tribal name, and often one or two
others, descriptive, abusive and so on, given them by their neighbours.
Thus the _Nwengals_ (_Nun_, river, _ngal_, across) are only that section
of the Soktes now settled on the farther or right bank of the Manipur,
while the Soktes themselves (_Sok_, to go down, _te_, men) are so called
because they migrated from Chin Nwe (9 miles from Tiddim), cradle of the
Chin race, down to Molbem, their earliest settlement, which is the
Mobingyi of the Burmese. So with Siyin, the Burmese form of _Sheyante_
(_she_, alkali, _yan_, side, _te_, men), the group who settled by the
alkali springs east of Chin Nwe, who are the _Taute_ ("stout" or
"sturdy" people) of the Lushai and southern Chins. Let these few
specimens suffice as a slight object-lesson in the involved tribal
nomenclature which prevails, not only amongst the Chins, but everywhere
in the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese domain, from the north-western Himalayas to
Cape St James at the south-eastern extremity of Farther India. I have
myself collected nearly a thousand such names of clans, septs, and
fragmentary groups within this domain, and am well aware that the list
neither is, nor ever can be, complete, the groups themselves often being
unstable quantities in a constant state of fluctuation.
Most of the Chin groups have popular legends to explain either their
origin or their present reduced state. Thus the Tawyans, a branch of the
Tashons, claim to be Torrs, that is, the people of the Rawvan district,
who were formerly very powerful, but were ruined by their insane
efforts to capture the sun. Building a sort of Jacob's ladder, they
mounted higher and higher; but growing tired, quarrelled among
themselves, and one day, while half of them were clambering up the pole,
the other half below cut it down just as they were about to seize the
sun. So the Whenohs, another Tashon group, said to be Lushais left
behind in a district now forming part of Chinland, tell a different
tale. They say they came out of the rocks at Sepi, which they think was
their original home. They share, however, this legend of their
underground origin with the Soktes and several other Chin tribes.
Amid much diversity of speech and physique the Chins present some common
mental qualities, such as "slow speech, serious manner, respect for
birth and knowledge of pedigrees, the duty of revenge, the taste for a
treacherous method of warfare, the curse of drink, the virtue of
hospitality, the clannish feeling, the vice of avarice, the filthy state
of the body, mutual distrust, impatience under control, the want of
power of combination and of continued effort, arrogance in victory,
speedy discouragement and panic in defeat[419]."
Physically they are a fine race, taller and stouter than the surrounding
lowlanders, men 5 feet 10 or 11 inches being common enough among the
independent southerners. There are some "perfectly proportioned giants
with a magnificent development of muscle." Yet dwarfs are met with in
some districts, and in others "the inhabitants are a wretched lot, much
afflicted with goitre, amongst whom may be seen cretins who crawl about
on all fours with the pigs in the gutter. At Dimlo, in the Sokte tract,
leprosy has a firm hold on the inhabitants."
Although often described as devil-worshippers, the Chins really worship
neither god nor devil. The northerners believe there is no Supreme
Being, and although the southerners admit a "Kozin" or head god, to whom
they sacrifice, they do not worship him, and never look to him for any
grace or mercy, except that of withholding the plagues and misfortunes
which he is capable of working on any in this world who offend him.
Besides Kozin, there are _nats_ or spirits of the house, family, clan,
fields; and others who dwell in particular places in the air, the
streams, the jungle, and the hills. Kindly _nats_ are ignored; all
others can and will do harm unless propitiated[420].
The departed go to _Mithikwa_, "Dead Man's Village," which is divided
into _Pwethikwa_, the pleasant abode, and _Sathikwa_, the wretched abode
of the _unavenged_. Good or bad deeds do not affect the future of man,
who must go to Pwethikwa if he dies a natural or accidental death, and
to Sathikwa if killed, and there bide till avenged by blood. Thus the
vendetta receives a sort of religious sanction, strengthened by the
belief that the slain becomes the slave of the slayer in the next world.
"Should the slayer himself be slain, then the first slain is the slave
of the second slain, who in turn is the slave of the man who killed
him."
Whether a man has been honest or dishonest in this world is of no
consequence in the next existence; but, if he has killed many people in
this world, he has many slaves to serve him in his future existence; if
he has killed many wild animals, then he will start well-supplied with
food, for all that he kills on earth are his in the future existence. In
the next existence hunting and drinking will certainly be practised, but
whether fighting and raiding will be indulged in is unknown.
Cholera and small-pox are spirits, and when cholera broke out among the
Chins who visited Rangoon in 1895 they carried their _dahs_ (knives)
drawn to scare off the _nat_, and spent the day hiding under bushes, so
that the spirit should not find them. Some even wanted to sacrifice a
slave boy, but were talked over to substitute some pariah dogs. They
firmly believe in the evil eye, and the Hakas think the Sujins and
others are all wizards, whose single glance can bewitch them, and may
cause lizards to enter the body and devour the entrails. A Chin once
complained to Surgeon-Major Newland that a _nat_ had entered his stomach
at the glance of a Yahow, and he went to hospital quite prepared to die.
But an emetic brought him round, and he went off happy in the belief
that he had vomited the _nat_.
Ethnically connected with the Kuki-Naga groups are the _Kakhyens_ of the
Irawadi headstreams, and the _Karens_, who form numerous village
communities about the Burma-Siamese borderland. The Kakhyens, so called
abusively by the Burmese, are the _Cacobees_ of the early writers[421],
whose proper name is _Singpho_ (_Chingpaw_), i.e. "Men[422]," and whose
curious semi-agglutinating speech, spoken in an ascending tone, each
sentence ending in a long-drawn _i_ in a higher key (Bigandet), shows
affinities rather with the Mishmi and other North Assamese tongues than
with the cultured Burmese. They form a very widespread family,
stretching from the Eastern Himalayas right into Yunnan, and presenting
two somewhat marked physical types: (1) the true Chingpaws, with short
round head, low forehead, prominent cheek-bones, slant eye, broad nose,
thick protruding lips, very dark brown hair and eyes, dirty buff colour,
mean height (about 5 ft. 5 or 6 in.) with disproportionately short legs;
(2) a much finer race, with regular Caucasic features, long oval face,
pointed chin, aquiline nose. One Kakhyen belle met with at Bhamo, "with
large lustrous eyes and fair skin, might almost have passed for a
European[423]."
It is important to note this Caucasic element, which we first meet here
going eastwards from the Himalayas, but which is found either separate
or interspersed amongst the Mongoloid populations all over the
south-east Asiatic uplands from Tibet to Cochin-China, and passing
thence into Oceanica[424].
The kinship of the Kakhyens with the still more numerous Karens is now
generally accepted, and it is no longer found necessary to bring the
latter all the way from Turkestan. They form a large section, perhaps
one-sixth, of the whole population of Burma, and overflow into the west
Siamese borderlands. Their subdivisions are endless, though all may be
reduced to three main branches, _Sgaws_, _Pwos_ and _Bwais_, these last
including the somewhat distinct group of _Karenni_, or "Red Karens."
Although D. M. Smeaton calls the language "monosyllabic," it is
evidently agglutinating, of the normal sub-Himalayan type[425].
The Karens are a short, sturdy race, with straight black and also
brownish hair, black, and even hazel eyes, and light or yellowish brown
complexion, so that here also a Caucasic strain may be suspected.
Despite the favourable pictures of the missionaries, whose propaganda
has been singularly successful amongst these aborigines, the Karens are
not an amiable or particularly friendly people, but rather shy, reticent
and even surly, though trustworthy and loyal to those chiefs and guides
who have once gained their confidence. In warfare they are treacherous
rather than brave, and strangely cruel even to little children. Their
belief in a divine Creator who has deserted them resembles that of the
Kuki people, and to the _nats_ of the Kuki correspond the _la_ of the
Karens, who are even more numerous, every mountain, stream, rapid,
crest, peak or other conspicuous object having its proper indwelling
_la_. There are also seven specially baneful spirits, who have to be
appeased by family offerings. "On the whole their belief in a personal
god, their tradition as to the former possession of a 'law,' and their
expectation of a prophet have made them susceptible to Christianity to a
degree that is almost unique. Of this splendid opportunity the American
mission has taken full advantage, educating, civilising, welding
together, and making a people out of the downtrodden Karen tribes, while
Christianizing them[426]."
In the Burmese division proper are comprised several groups, presenting
all grades of culture, from the sheer savagery of the Mros, Kheongs, and
others of the Arakan Yoma range, and the agricultural Mugs of the Arakan
plains, to the dominant historical Burmese nation of the Irawadi valley.
Here also the terminology is perplexing, and it may be well to explain
that _Yoma_, applied by Logan collectively to all the Arakan Hill
tribes, has no ethnic value at all, simply meaning a mountain range in
Burmese[427]. _Toung-gnu_, one of Mason's divisions of the Burmese
family, was merely a petty state founded by a younger branch of the
Royal House, and "has no more claim to rank as a separate tribe than any
other Burman town[428]. "_Tavoyers_ are merely the people of the Tavoy
district, Tenasserim, originally from Arakan, and now speaking a Burmese
dialect largely affected by Siamese elements; _Tungthas_, like Yoma,
means "Highlander," and is even of wider application; the Tipperahs,
Mrungs, Kumi, Mros, Khemis, and Khyengs are all Tungthas of Burmese
stock, and speak rude Burmese dialects.
The correlative of Tungthas is _Khyungthas_, "River People," that is,
the Arakan Lowlanders comprising the more civilised peoples about the
middle and lower course of the rivers, who are improperly called _Mugs_
(_Maghs_) by the Bengali, and whose real name is _Rakhaingtha_, _i.e._
people of Rakhaing (Arakan). They are undoubtedly of the same stock as
the cultured Burmese, whose traditions point to Arakan as the cradle of
the race, and in whose chronicles the Rakhaingtha are called
_M'ranmakrih_, "Great M'ranmas," or "Elder Burmese." Both branches call
themselves _M'ranma, M'rama_ (the correct form of _Barma, Burma_, but
now usually pronounced Myamma), probably from a root _mro, myo_, "man,"
though connected by Burnouf with Brahma, the Brahmanical having preceded
the Buddhist religion in this region. In any case the M'rama may claim a
respectable antiquity, being already mentioned in the national records
so early as the first century of the new era, when the land "was said to
be overrun with fabulous monsters and other terrors, which are called to
this day by the superstitious natives, the five enemies. These were a
fierce tiger, an enormous boar, a flying dragon, a prodigious man-eating
bird, and a huge creeping pumpkin, which threatened to entangle the
whole country[429]."
The Burmese type has been not incorrectly described as intermediate
between the Chinese and the Malay, more refined, or at least softer than
either, of yellowish brown or olive complexion, often showing very dark
shades, full black and lank hair, no beard, small but straight nose,
weak extremities, pliant figure, and a mean height[430].
Most Europeans speak well of the Burmese people, whose bright genial
temperament and extreme friendliness towards strangers more than
outweigh a natural indolence which hurts nobody but themselves, and a
little arrogance or vanity inspired by the still remembered glories of a
nation that once ruled over a great part of Indo-China. Perhaps the most
remarkable feature of Burmese society is the almost democratic
independence and equality of all classes developed under an
exceptionally severe Asiatic autocracy. "They are perfectly republican
in the freedom with which all ranks mingle together and talk with one
another, without any marked distinction in regard to difference of rank
or wealth[431]." Scott attributes this trait, I think rightly, to the
great leveller, Buddhism, the true spirit of which has perhaps been
better preserved in Burma than in any other land.
The priesthood has not become the privileged and oppressive class that
has usurped all spiritual and temporal functions in Tibet, for in Burma
everybody is or has been a priest for some period of his life. All enter
the monasteries--which are the national schools--not only for general
instruction, but actually as members of the sacerdotal order. They
submit to the tonsure, take "minor orders," so to say, and wear the
yellow robe, if only for a few months or weeks or days. But for the time
being they must renounce "the world, the flesh and the devil," and must
play the mendicant, make the round of the village at least once with the
begging-bowl hung round their neck in company with the regular members
of the community. They thus become initiated, and it becomes no longer
possible for the confraternity to impose either on the rulers or on the
ruled. "Teaching is all that the brethren of the order do for the
people. They have no spiritual powers whatever. They simply become
members of a holy society that they may observe the precepts of the
Master more perfectly, and all they do for the alms lavished on them by
the pious laity is to instruct the children in reading, writing, and the
rudiments of religion[432]."
R. Grant Brown denies the common report which "has appeared in almost
every work in which religion in Burma is dealt with" that Burman
Buddhism is superficial. "The Burman Buddhist is at least as much
influenced by his religion as the average Christian. The monks are
probably as strict in their religious observances as any large religious
body in the world.... Most laymen, too, obey the prohibitions against
alcohol and the taking of life, though these run counter both to strong
human instincts and to animistic practice[433]."
Nor is the personal freedom here spoken of confined to the men. In no
other part of the world do the women enjoy a larger measure of
independent action than in Burma, with the result that they are
acknowledged to be far more virtuous, thrifty, and intelligent than
those of all the surrounding lands. Their capacity for business and
petty dealings is rivalled only by their Gallic sisters; and H. S.
Hallett tells us that in every town and village "you will see damsels
squatted on the floor of the verandah with diminutive, or sometimes
large, stalls in front of them, covered with vegetables, fruit,
betel-nut, cigars and other articles. However numerous they may be, the
price of everything is known to them; and such is their idea of probity,
that pilfering is quite unknown amongst them. They are entirely trusted
by their parents from their earliest years; even when they blossom into
young women, _chaperons_ are never a necessity; yet immorality is far
less customary amongst them, I am led to believe, than in any country in
Europe[434]."
This observer quotes Bishop Bigandet, a forty years' resident amongst
the natives, to the effect that "in Burmah and Siam the doctrines of
Buddhism have produced a striking, and to the lover of true civilization
a most interesting result--the almost complete equality of the condition
of the women with that of the men. In these countries women are seen
circulating freely in the streets; they preside at the _comptoir_, and
hold an almost exclusive possession of the bazaars. Their social
position is more elevated, in every respect, than in the regions where
Buddhism is not the predominating creed. They may be said to be men's
companions, and not their slaves."
Burma is one of those regions where tattooing has acquired the rank of a
fine art. Indeed the intricate designs and general pictorial effect
produced by the Burmese artists on the living body are rivalled only by
those of Japan, New Zealand, and some other Polynesian groups. Hallett,
who states that "the Burmese, the Shans, and certain Burmanized tribes
are the only peoples in the south of Asia who are known to tattoo their
body," tells us that the elaborate operation is performed only on the
male sex, the whole person from waist to knees, and amongst some Shan
tribes from neck to foot, being covered with heraldic figures of
animals, with intervening traceries, so that at a little distance the
effect is that of a pair of dark-blue breeches[435]. The pigments are
lamp-black or vermilion, and the pattern is usually first traced with a
fine hair pencil and then worked in by a series of punctures made by a
long pointed brass style[436].
East of Burma we enter the country of the _Shans_, one of the most
numerous and widespread peoples of Asia, who call themselves _Tai_
(_T'hai_), "Noble" or "Free," although slavery in various forms has from
time immemorial been a social institution amongst all the southern
groups. Here again tribal and national terminology is somewhat
bewildering; but it will help to notice that _Shan_, said to be of
Chinese origin[437], is the collective Burmese name, and therefore
corresponds to _Lao_, the collective Siamese name. These two terms are
therefore rather political than ethnical, Shan denoting all the Tai
peoples formerly subject to Burma and now mostly British subjects, Lao
all the Tai peoples formerly subject to Siam, and now (since 1896)
mostly French subjects[438]. The Siamese group them all in two
divisions, the _Lau-pang-dun_, "Black-paunch Lao," so called because
they clothe themselves as it were in a dark skin-tight garb by the
tattooing process; and the _Lau-pang-kah_, "White-paunch Lao," who do
not tattoo. The Burmese groups call themselves collectively
_Ngiou_[439], while the most general Chinese name is _Pai_ (_Pa-y_).
Prince Henri d'Orleans, who is careful to point out that Pai is only
another name for Lao[440], constantly met Pai groups all along the route
from Tonking to Assam, and the bulk of the lowland population in Assam
itself belongs originally[441] to the same family, though now mostly
assimilated to the Hindus in speech, religion, and general culture.
Assam in fact takes its name from the _Ahoms_, the "peerless," the title
first adopted by the Mau Shan chief, Chukupha, who invaded the country
from north-east Burma, and in 1228 A.D. founded the Ahom dynasty, which
was overthrown in 1810 by the Burmese, who were ejected in 1827 by the
English[442].
These Ahoms came from the Khamti (Kampti) district about the sources of
the Irawadi, where Prince Henri was surprised to find a civilised and
lettered Buddhist people of Pai (Shan) speech still enjoying political
autonomy in the dangerous proximity of _le leopard britannique_. They
call themselves _Padao_, and it is curious to note that both _Padam_ and
_Assami_ are also tribal names amongst the neighbouring Abor Hillmen.
The French traveller was told that the Padao, who claimed to be _T'hais_
(Tai) like the Laotians[443], were indigenous, and he describes the type
as also Laotian--straight eyes rather wide apart, nose broad at base,
forehead arched, superciliary arches prominent, thick lips, pointed
chin, olive colour, slightly bronzed and darker than in the Lao country;
the men ill-favoured, the young women with pleasant features, and some
with very beautiful eyes.
Passing into China we are still in the midst of Shan peoples, whose
range appears formerly to have extended up to the right bank of the
Yang-tse-Kiang, and whose cradle has been traced by de Lacouperie to
"the Kiu-lung mountains north of Sechuen and south of Shensi in China
proper[444]." This authority holds that they constitute a chief element
in the Chinese race itself, which, as it spread southwards beyond the
Yang-tse-Kiang, amalgamated with the Shan aborigines, and thus became
profoundly modified both in type and speech, the present Chinese
language comprising over thirty per cent. of Shan ingredients. Colquhoun
also, during his explorations in the southern provinces, found that
"most of the aborigines, although known to the Chinese by various
nicknames, were Shans; and that their propinquity to the Chinese was
slowly changing their habits, manners, and dress, and gradually
incorporating them with that people[445]."
This process of fusion has been in progress for ages, not only between
the southern Chinese and the Shans, but also between the Shans and the
Caucasic aborigines, whom we first met amongst the Kakhyens, but who are
found scattered mostly in small groups over all the uplands between
Tibet and the Cochin-Chinese coast range. The result is that the Shans
are generally of finer physique than either the kindred Siamese and
Malays in the south, or the more remotely connected Chinese in the
north. The colour, says Bock, "is much lighter than that of the
Siamese," and "in facial expression the Laotians are better-looking than
the Malays, having good high foreheads, and the men particularly having
regular well-shaped noses, with nostrils not so wide as those of their
neighbours[446]." Still more emphatic is the testimony of Kreitner of
the Szechenyi expedition, who tells us that the Burmese Shans have "a
nobler head than the Chinese; the dark eyes are about horizontal, the
nose is straight, the whole expression approaches that of the Caucasic
race[447]."
Notwithstanding their wide diffusion, interminglings with other races,
varied grades of culture, and lack of political cohesion, the Tai-Shan
groups acquire a certain ethnical and even national unity from their
generally uniform type, social usages, Buddhist religion, and common
Indo-Chinese speech. Amidst a chaos of radically distinct idioms current
amongst the surrounding indigenous populations, they have everywhere
preserved a remarkable degree of linguistic uniformity, all speaking
various more or less divergent dialects of the same mother-tongue.
Excluding a large percentage of Sanskrit terms introduced into the
literary language by their Hindu educators, this radical mother-tongue
comprises about 1860 distinct words or rather sounds, which have been
reduced by phonetic decay to so many monosyllables, each uttered with
five tones, the natural tone, two higher tones, and two lower[448]. Each
term thus acquires five distinct meanings, and in fact represents five
different words, which were phonetically distinct dissyllables, or even
polysyllables in the primitive language.
The same process of disintegration has been at work throughout the whole
of the Indo-Chinese linguistic area, where all the leading
tongues--Chinese, Annamese, Tai-Shan, Burmese--belong to the same
isolating form of speech, which, as explained in _Ethnology_, Chap. IX.,
is not a primitive condition, but a later development, the outcome of
profound phonetic corruption.
The remarkable uniformity of the Tai-Shan member of this order of speech
may be in part due to the conservative effects of the literary standard.
Probably over 2000 years ago most of the Shan groups were brought under
Hindu influences by the Brahman, and later by the Buddhist missionaries,
who reduced their rude speech to written form, while introducing a large
number of Sanskrit terms inseparable from the new religious ideas. The
writing systems, all based on the square Pali form of the Devanagari
syllabic characters, were adapted to the phonetic requirements of the
various dialects, with the result that the Tai-Shan linguistic family is
encumbered with four different scripts. "The Western Shans use one very
like the Burmese; the Siamese have a character of their own, which is
very like Pali; the Shans called Lue have another character of their own;
and to the north of Siam the Lao Shans have another[449]."
These Shan alphabets of Hindu origin are supposed by de Lacouperie to be
connected with the writing systems which have been credited to the
Mossos, Lolos, and some other hill peoples about the Chinese and
Indo-Chinese borderlands. At Lan-Chu in the Lolo country Prince Henri
found that MSS. were very numerous, and he was shown some very fine
specimens "enlumines." Here, he tells us, the script is still in use,
being employed jointly with Chinese in drawing up legal documents
connected with property. He was informed that this Lolo script comprised
300 characters, read from top to bottom and from left to right[450],
although other authorities say from right to left.
Of the Lolo he gives no specimens[451], but reproduces two or three
pages of a Mosso book with transliteration and translation. Other
specimens, but without explanation, were already known through Gill and
Desgodins, and their decipherment had exercised the ingenuity of several
Chinese scholars. Their failure to interpret them is now accounted for
by Prince Henri, who declares that, "strictly speaking the Mossos have
no writing system. The magicians keep and still make copy-books full of
hieroglyphics; each page is divided into little sections (_cahiers_)
following horizontally from left to right, in which are inscribed one or
more somewhat rough figures, heads of animals, men, houses, conventional
signs representing the sky or lightning, and so on." Some of the
magicians expounded two of the books, which contained invocations,
beginning with the creation of the world, and winding up with a
catalogue of all the evils threatening mortals, but to be averted by
being pious, that is, by making gifts to the magicians. The same ideas
are always expressed by the same signs; yet the magicians declared that
there was no alphabet, the hieroglyphs being handed down bodily from one
expert to another. Nevertheless Prince Henri looks on this as one of the
first steps in the history of writing; "originally many of the Chinese
characters were simply pictorial, and if the Mossos, instead of being
hemmed in, had acquired a large expansion, their sacred books might also
perhaps have given birth to true characters[452]."
Although now "hemmed in," the Mossos are a historical and somewhat
cultured people, belonging to the same group as the _Iungs_ (_Njungs_),
who came from the regions north-east of Tibet, and appeared on the
Chinese frontiers about 600 B.C. They are referred to in the Chinese
records of 796 A.D., when they were reduced by the king of Nanchao.
After various vicissitudes they recognised the Chinese suzerainty in the
fourteenth century, and were finally subdued in the eighteenth. De
Lacouperie[453] thinks they are probably of the same origin as the
Lolos, the two languages having much in common, and the names of both
being Chinese, while the Lolos and the Mossos call themselves
respectively _Nossu_ (_Nesu_) and _Nashi_ (_Nashri_).
Everywhere amongst these border tribes are met groups of aborigines, who
present more or less regular features which are described by various
travellers as "Caucasic" or "European." Thus the _Kiu-tse_, who are the
_Khanungs_ of the English maps, and are akin to the large _Lu-tse_
family (_Melam_, _Anu_, _Diasu_, etc.), reminded Prince Henri of some
Europeans of his acquaintance[454], and he speaks of the light colour,
straight nose and eyes, and generally fine type of the Yayo (Yao), as
the Chinese call them, but whose real name is _Lin-tin-yu_.
The same Caucasic element reappears in a pronounced form amongst the
indigenous populations of Tonking, to whom A. Billet has devoted an
instructive monograph[455]. This observer, who declares that these
aborigines are quite distinct both from the Chinese and the Annamese,
groups them in three main divisions--_Tho_, _Nong_, and _Man_[456]--all
collectively called _Moi_, _Muong_, and _Myong_ by the Annamese. The
Thos, who are the most numerous, are agriculturists, holding all the
upland valleys and thinning off towards the wooded heights. They are
tall compared to the Mongols (5 ft. 6 or 7 in.), lighter than the
Annamese, round-headed, with oval face, deep-set straight eyes, low
cheek-bones, straight and even slightly aquiline nose not depressed at
root, and muscular frames. They are a patient, industrious, and frugal
people, now mainly subject to Chinese and Annamese influences in their
social usages and religion. Very peculiar nevertheless are some of their
surviving customs, such as the feast of youth, the pastime of swinging,
and especially chess played with living pieces, whose movements are
directed by two players. The language appears to be a Shan dialect, and
to this family the writer affiliates both the Thos and the Nongs. The
latter are a much more mixed people, now largely assimilated to the
Chinese, although the primitive type still persists, especially amongst
the women, as is so often the case. A. Billet tells us that he often met
Nong women "with light and sometimes even red hair[457]."
It is extremely interesting to learn that the Mans came traditionally
"from a far-off western land where their forefathers were said to have
lived in contact with peoples of white blood thousands of years ago."
This tradition, which would identify them with the above-mentioned
Man-tse, is supported by their physical appearance--long head, oval
face, small cheek-bones, eyes without the Mongol fold, skin not
yellowish but rather "browned by the sun," regular features--in nothing
recalling the traits of the yellow races.
Let us now turn to M. R. Verneau's comments on the rich materials
brought together by A. Billet, in whom, "being not only a medical man,
but also a graduate in the natural sciences, absolute confidence may be
placed[458]."