BURMAH
Passing from India to Burmah is in many ways like going from darkness to
sunlight, from tears to gaiety. India is a land of tragedy; Burmah is a
land of comedy. In India you see faces sad, worried, harassed, and life
seems a bitter struggle for the great masses in their endeavour to keep
the hungry wolf from the door. But in Burmah you are greeted with
smiles, no one is serious, and no one except the Chinese seem to be
really working. The women in the little booths within the bazaars,
smoking their long cheroots, gossiping with their neighbours, and
flirting with the youth passing by, give one the impression that it is
not business in which they are interested, but that they are there for
their amusement and to pass a few hours with their friends.
The dress also shows the difference in the temperaments of the people.
In India the women’s saris are made of dark reds, dark blues, and heavy
purples. In Burmah the colours are light and gay; you rarely see a
darkly clad person. The long piece of silk wound tightly around the
woman’s body is always of light blue, or pink, or yellow, or else a gay
check composed of all three colours. The loose cotton or linen jacket is
spotlessly white, and around the neck is thrown carelessly a piece of
silk or a handkerchief of contrasting colour to the skirt. The hair, of
ebony blackness, is well oiled and twisted high upon the head and twined
with flowers. Their toes are tucked into small heelless slippers, which
take a certain amount of dexterity to keep in place; but all young girls
learn early in life to give that flirtatious outward jerk of the heels
which keep the slipper from falling, and also prevents the folds of the
skirt from opening in front. The city belle when she starts forth upon
the street has well powdered her nose and often touched her lips with
carmine, and goes forth boldly to claim the admiration of all, not like
the Indian woman, who is compelled to hide her charms behind the sari.
The man of Burmah also dresses in gaily coloured silks. He wears a long
silk cloth around his body, tucks it in with a twist in front, and the
remaining portion he allows to hang in folds or throws jauntily over his
shoulder. He wears a short white cotton jacket, over which another one
of darker cloth is worn for street wear. The old and wealthy when they
are paying visits of ceremony or going to worship at the pagoda wear
long white coats, closed only at the neck and reaching to the knee. Men
of all classes wear flowered silk handkerchiefs around their heads as
turbans, but when age comes these are exchanged for simple ones of white
muslin.
[Illustration:
BURMESE GIRL.
To face p. 180.]
The women of Burmah have unlimited freedom as compared with the women of
other Eastern countries. Unlike the women of India, China, or Egypt,
they may choose their own husbands and have a courtship such as we of
the Western world so thoroughly understand. From the time of the first
great event in a young girl’s life, the boring of her ears, which
announces to her world that she is no longer a child but a woman, until
her betrothal, the Burmese girl looks forward to the finding of a
husband as the one aim of her life. Until her ears are bored she is a
child and may run and play with her brothers upon the village street,
but finally the day arrives when her friends and relatives bring with
them the ear-borer and the soothsayer, and the frightened girl must pay
the price of gaining maidenhood. Her cries are drowned by the music and
the talk and laughter that seem so heartless; but the pain is soon over,
and she herself will make the hole larger by every means in her power,
because until the hole is large enough to receive the great round tube,
nearly half an inch in diameter, she does not feel that she is indeed a
woman. It is her initiation into womanhood, it corresponds to the
entrance into the monastery or the tattooing of his legs of her brother,
the sign that he is no longer a boy, but may sit with men and chew
betel-nut and discuss affairs of the world with wondrous wisdom.
After the ear-boring ceremony each man our maiden sees may be a possible
husband, and she copies the coquettish sway of the hips that is so
effective in her older sister as she walks down the street with mother,
aunt, or married friend, who carefully guards her from all improprieties
now that she has arrived at marriageable age.
When all these arts have had the desired effect and her roving eye has
alighted upon the man of her choice, the Burmese girl may have her days
of courtship. She can meet her sweetheart at pwés, those festive parties
that seem to occur every night in Burmah, at which she may have a stall
for selling tobacco, or long cheroots, or flowers. This keeping of a
stall is not lowering to a woman’s social status, and numbers of
well-to-do women set them up at all places where crowds are liable to
congregate. There may be a reason for this besides the economic one, as
it is said a stall or shop or booth within the bazaar is the quickest
way of attracting a desirable husband. In the smaller towns there is
scarcely a house where the women have not arranged a small shop for sale
of betel-nut, coco-nuts, little looking-glasses, toilet articles, or
cotton goods from Manchester. The profits of this little trade are given
as pin-money to the wife or daughters. The English say that the Burmese
woman is a better businessman than her husband, and that in driving a
sharp bargain her successes are far in advance of those of her less
aggressive husband.
[Illustration:
DANCING AT A VILLAGE FESTIVAL, BURMAH.
To face p. 183.]
Pagoda feasts offer exceptional opportunities for lovelorn swains, and
many young couples have found their future happiness when gazing into
Buddha’s eyes. Evening-time is courting-time in all the world,
especially in this country, which is too hot during the day to permit of
any useless expenditure of energy, even by an ardent lover. They also
say that the men of Burmah are influenced by the proverb that says: “In
the morning women are cross and peevish, in the middle of the day they
are testy and quarrelsome, but at night they are sweet and amiable.”
If the lover does not expect to meet his sweetheart at a festival or a
theatrical entertainment, he waits around until he thinks the old people
have retired for the night, and then with a friend or two as chaperons
he calls upon his adored one, and finds her with powdered face and
pretty dress awaiting him in the moonlit veranda. There is little
privacy in this courtship, because divisions between the rooms are often
only made of matting, and mothers in Burmah are proverbial for the
quickness of hearing when it concerns the courtship of their daughters.
There is no lovemaking as we know it—kissing, and holding of hands, and
embracing—which would be most shocking to the modest instincts of the
Burmese maiden. Yet love has signs, and finally father’s and mother’s
consent is asked, the dowry fixed, and the astrologer consulted, who
will tell them if a boy born on Monday and a girl on Wednesday may wed.
No matter how ardently the match is desired by the interested parties,
some unions, judged according to their birthdays, would be most unlucky.
For example:—
Friday’s daughter
Didn’t oughter
Marry with a Monday’s son;
Should she do it
Both will rue it,
Life’s last lap will soon be run.
Each day of the week is guarded by an animal, and it naturally follows
that if a man was born on a day that was ruled by a serpent and a woman
on a day ruled by a mongoose, the serpent’s deadly enemy, they would
surely not live happily together. But if the parent’s consent is given,
the combination of birthdays are lucky, the dowry is satisfactory to all
concerned, then the propitious day must be found from the horoscope for
the actual wedding to take place. During June, July, August, and
September, the Buddhist Lent, all marriages are barred to the strict
followers of Buddha, and it would be a very unregenerate son or daughter
who would shock his old father and mother by daring to ask to marry
during this time. Marriage is a very precarious proceeding, because if
it takes place in certain months the couple will be rich, in other
months they will always love each other, while there are unfortunate
months that bring sickness and death to those tempting Hymen at this
time. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all the obstacles that seem to be
placed in the way of marriage, there are few spinsters in Burmah, and
virtually every man over twenty years of age has a wife.
The marriage ceremony is a strictly civil affair, no religious rite
entering into the performance. The friends meet at the house of the
bride’s parents, where a great feast has been prepared at the expense of
the bridegroom’s father, and the eating and drinking and publicity of
the affair make the marriage as binding as are any marriages in Burmah.
Contrary to all Eastern usages, the young couple take up their abode
with the bride’s parents instead of going to the home of the groom’s
people, which is the custom in India, China, and Japan. If the home roof
is too small to shelter the new family, they may build a new home for
themselves. This is not an expensive affair, as the houses are extremely
simple. They are practically all of one story, because of the Burman’s
aversion to any one walking over his head. The house is built on posts,
thus raising the floor seven or eight feet from the ground, which is
very desirable in rainy weather. It consists of two or three rooms and
an open balcony, where the family may sit of an evening or where the
daughter of the house may receive her lover, and not interrupt the
slumbers of father and mother, who have spread their sleeping-mats upon
the floor of the main living-room.
In the rainy season the cooking is done in one of the rooms, but in the
long, dry months the yard at the back of the house serves as kitchen. In
the smaller towns the roofs are thatched with palm-leaves or with grass,
but in the cities the ugly iron roofs are now seen, with here and there
a more pretentious roof of tiling.
Moving is not a laborious process, as there is little necessary
furniture in a Burmese home. A few rush mats, which serve for beds, some
rugs and blankets for use when nights are cold, which during the day are
rolled up and placed in an unused corner of the room, a cooking-range,
which is simply a square box filled with earth on which the wood is
lighted, some earthen pots for making curries and the cooking of the
rice, a water-jar, ladles made of the half of a coconut placed on a
handle, the huge round lacquer tray, which serves as table, and the
bowls for the curries and deserts.
With nearly every house there is a small yard, in which are found
flowers if the wife is inclined to love the beautiful; but if she is
more practically inclined chickens hold sway within the small domain,
until the evil day arrives for them when they pass into the curry-pot.
The strict Buddhist does not utilize the eggs, believing that they hold
the germ of life which it would be sinful to destroy. These Burmese
roosters can take the place of clocks, as it is said that they crow
regularly four times a day—at sunrise, noon, sundown, and at midnight.
The story goes that in the olden time there was a great fire made of
books that contained unlawful teaching. Among these books were those of
a famous astrologer, and after the fire the cocks came and ate the
ashes, thus taking into their very being the knowledge of the stars and
the actions of the sun.
If the wife lives in the city, she does not have the weary task of
husking the rice, as it is bought ready for cooking, nor does she need
waste much thought in planning the menu for the day. The two meals are
practically the same—the plain boiled rice upon the table-tray, around
which sit the household, squatting upon their heels. No knives or forks
are needed, as each takes upon his plate from the central dish the rice,
pours over it curry, arranges on the top the vegetables and condiments
that he loves, and eats it with the forks with which Nature has provided
him—his fingers. The food is very good if too much dried fish, which is
a delicacy loved by Burmans, or garlic has not been incorporated in the
curries. Only water is drunk at mealtime. If the husband has acquired
the habit of tippling, which has come to Burmah with other foreign
customs, he must go to the shop where it is sold to indulge in what, to
every good householder, is still a thing of which to be ashamed.
After meals every one smokes—father, mother, and children. It is said
that baby learns while at his mother’s breast to take the long cigar
from between her lips and puff it between alternate draughts at Nature’s
font; but Burmese deny this most indignantly, and say that smoking is
forbidden the children until they have learned to walk. I can quite
believe this, because it would take a strong baby to manage the enormous
cheroot smoked by all Burmans, although they are so mild that they would
not affect the nerves even of a child. The cigar seen in the homes is
from six to eight inches in length and about an inch in diameter. It is
made of the pith of a plant mixed with chopped tobacco-leaves, wrapped
in the leaf of the teak-tree, the ends tucked in and tied by a piece of
red silk, where stiff pieces of pith keep the loose tobacco from the
mouth. It splutters and scatters its fine fire in all directions, and
cannot be smoked by an amateur without danger to himself and all about
him. These are often made within the home by the wife and daughters, yet
they may be seen in tiny booths at all festivities, where pretty girls
sell them to admiring swains who are too lazy to roll them for
themselves.
Chewing betel-nut is also indulged in by both man and wife, and the
stain it leaves upon the lips and tongue is not an addition to the
beauty of the mouth; yet it can be easily cleansed, as witness the
pretty teeth and rosy lips of the women one meets in the street. There
is no furniture to dust, few dishes to wash, and little clothing to be
sewn, and small care expended upon the children. Their daily bath
consists in throwing a few buckets of water over their naked bodies,
which they learn early to do for themselves, and often around a village
well the tiny babies, dressed in only an amulet string, may be seen with
coconut ladle throwing the cooling water over their bodies and shrieking
with delight. The children of the poor go naked until about eight or
nine years old, and those of the better class dress practically as do
their fathers and mothers while in the street, although, even in houses
of the rich, clothing is considered a useless luxury for the young.
The simple life leaves much time for the wife, which she employs in
gossiping with friends, in attending pagoda festivals and pwés until
that happy event arrives, the birth of the first child. From the moment
it is known that the wife is to become a mother she is the recipient of
much care and attention and presents from her family and from her
friends, and when she can say, “I am the mother of a son,” then, like
all Oriental women, she has attained the great crown of womanhood. But
because of the lack of medical skill in Burmah she has to face a most
dreadful ordeal. As soon as her child is born the mother is rubbed all
over with saffron, a fire lighted near her, and all the blankets that
can be begged or borrowed are heaped upon her. She is given a drink
prepared by the midwife for the purpose of making her perspire. This is
given her many times a day, and together with the large bricks that are
heated and wrapped in damp cloths and placed in her bed conspire to have
the desired effect, and the poor mother passes seven days in a Turkish
bath. Then on the seventh day, as a finish to this trying ordeal which
she has undergone, she is forced to go through a most elaborate steaming
process, and if this does not smother her completely, she is pronounced
well. The midwife receives her mats, her allotment of rice and her
shilling, and the woman returns to her household duties. In the larger
towns now the Burmese woman may call in the European-trained doctor, and
there are hospitals which answer the great need that the women have for
proper care at this critical time of their lives. Yet I am told that the
mortality at child-bearing is not so great as that in India and other
Eastern countries. The main effect upon the woman is to age her greatly;
at the birth of her first child she changes from the pretty girl-wife to
the middle-aged woman.
About two weeks after the birth of the child a great feast is given to
celebrate the naming of the new arrival, and on this day also the young
man’s head is washed for the first time. All the friends of the family
and the neighbours are invited, and they come, bringing presents with
them to help pay for the feast. The mother sits down with her child in
her arms, then some elder or relation of the parents suggests the name,
and everybody accepts it at once, whereupon all adjourn to the feast,
where they eat, chew betel, and smoke cheroots until nightfall. If the
people have sufficient means, there is a pwé, which lasts until morning.
It is a rule amongst families that a child’s name must begin with one of
the letters belonging to the day on which it was born, and they all
believe that the stars which were in evidence at the hour of birth
decide a man’s character. A man born on Monday will be jealous, on
Tuesday honest, on Wednesday bad-tempered, on Thursday quiet, on Friday
garrulous, on Saturday quarrelsome, and on Sunday stingy. Each day also
has a particular animal which represents it. Monday is represented by a
tiger, Tuesday, a lion, etc., and in temples one sees yellow and wax
candles made in the form of these animals, representing his birthday,
placed before the god by the man who wishes special benefits from lord
Buddha.
Swinging by a couple of ropes from the roof is a rude home-made basket,
which is used for baby’s cradle. Even this useful article of furniture
in which the Burmese baby passes his sleeping hours is subject to the
actions of belligerent spirits, and must be hung in such a manner as not
to tempt the nats to use it for a resting-place. Burmese mothers, like
mothers all over the world, croon lullabies to their babies as they
swing them back and forth while waiting for the sand-man to come. I give
a verse of one of the popular lullabies known generally to all babies in
Burmah—
Nasty, naughty, noisy baby,
If the cat won’t, nats will maybe
Come and pinch and punch and rend you—
If they do I won’t defend you.
Oh, now please,
Do not tease,
Do be good,
As babies should,
Just one tiny little while;
Try to sleep, or try to smile.
When the son is eight or nine years of age he goes as a matter of course
to the monastery school, which is open to all alike, the poor and rich,
and which is practically the only thing that the priests, which flood
this country, afford the people in return for the food which is placed
in their begging-bowls each day. Every Buddhist boy is taught to read
and write, and he learns many of the formulas connected with the tenets
of his religion and the stories relating to the existence and teachings
of Buddha. Until the English came, all little boys went to the monastery
schools, but now there are Government schools and Burmese laymen schools
and many private schools, to which the more advanced Burmans are sending
their sons; yet the schoolrooms in the monasteries are not vacant. The
young Burmese are not so forced by the economic conditions to acquire
the foreign education as is the Indian boy, where life is much more
difficult and the Government certificate simply a means to an
end—Government employment. Until lately it was not thought necessary to
educate the girls. To be pretty, to know how to take care of her
household, to smile sweetly, and be of a gay disposition were sufficient
for a woman; and as book knowledge would not help her in those
accomplishments, book knowledge was, therefore, dispensed with. But now
the larger towns provide educational facilities for girls, and in
Rangoon and Mandalay there are many private schools for the daughters of
the better class.
Until a Buddhist has entered the monastery, joining the noble order of
the yellow robe, if for no longer than a day, he is nothing more than a
mere animal. He has a name given him for worldly purposes, so has a dog,
a horse, or a cow; but until he has shown himself ready to leave the
world by retiring into the quiet and peace of the monasteries, he cannot
expect to reap the good that he has sown in the past life, nor would it
be possible for him to look forward to a happy future. At the beginning
of the Buddhist Lent, all Buddhist boys from the age of twelve to
fifteen don the yellow robe and carry the begging-bowl before the priest
on his daily rounds. On this most important day in his life his parents
give a feast, where the young novice, dressed in finest clothes, loaded
with all the family jewels, goes slowly through the village, preceded by
a band of music and his friends and relatives dressed in their gayest
clothing. He calls at the houses of his friends and pays respects to the
officials of his village. Returning to his home, he finds, seated upon a
raised daïs, several priests from the monastery to which he is soon to
retire. They hold before their faces the large lotus-leafed-shaped fans,
so as not to see the row of pretty women, dressed in their pinks and
blues and yellows, flowers in their hair, jewels and chains on necks,
and bracelets on arms, and pearl powder softening smiling faces. The
solemnity of the ceremony commences when the boy throws off his fine
clothing, and, binding a piece of white cloth around his loins, sits
down before the barber and permits that glory of his boyhood, his long
black hair, to be cut off close to his head. After he has been carefully
shaved, water is poured over his body, and, dressed again in his bright
clothing, he prostrates himself three times before the monks, begging in
Pali, which quite likely he does not understand, that he may be admitted
to the holy assembly. Then the yellow garments are given him, the
begging-bowl is hung around his neck, and he is formally a member of the
monastery. With the departure of the priests and the novice feasting
begins, which, according to many Burmese festivities, lasts until dawn.
[Illustration:
A BUDDHIST SCHOOL, MANDALAY (SHOWING BEGGING-BOWL).
To face p. 194.]
In many cases, if the boy is working and his services are needed, he
remains in the monastery only long enough to enable him to go once
around the village begging from door to door in the train of the
priests. Some stay seven days, some a fortnight, and others, if they are
able, remain throughout the four months of Lent. Of course many of them
enter the monastery for life, and there is no country in the world where
there are so many priests as in Burmah. The monasteries offer a refuge
for men in trouble, for those who desire to leave the cares of the world
and lead a life of meditation and repose. And it is said that this
departure from the world is made by many a man in this country, where
women are noted for the strength of their characters and the length of
their tongues.
The Burmese boy does not consider he has attained manhood until he has
been tattooed. When I was first in Burmah, being rather nearsighted, I
thought all Burmese men of the lower class wore short, dark, skin-tight
drawers, but when I became more courageous and examined them more
closely I found what I considered underclothing was the man’s own skin.
This had been tattooed from the waistline down to the kneecap with a
series of pictures so closely set together that they could not be
distinguished one from the other, and melted into a background of blue
and black, with here and there a softened red to accentuate the fading
colours of the darker dye. This is a sign of manhood, which, the Burmese
say, will probably not die out, because a Burman would be as ashamed to
have a spotless white skin without a mark of the tattooer’s needle as
would the American boy to find no manly hairs upon his chin at the age
when other boys begin to shave. And woe to the hapless youth if a
wind-blown paso should show the girl he was courting a white and
spotless leg; she would tell him that his place was in the women’s
quarters and offer him a woman’s dress! Each figure in this mosaic has a
meaning, and there are charms for protection of the body, for the
gaining of a loved one, thus assuring the wearer great riches, and,
mixed with these, are figures of all kinds—lizards, birds, and pictures
of the Buddha. Sometimes women who wish to ensnare the object of their
affection endure the pain of having a love charm tattooed upon the
tongue or upon the lips. Often a few round spots tattooed with the
prescribed formula repeated over it and placed between the eyes will be
enough to bring back a wandering lover to her side. If this is not
effectual or if the maiden sees herself drifting towards a lonely middle
age with no lover in her view, she cuts off the locks of hair hanging
over her ears, announcing to all the world that she is looking for a
lover. They say in Rangoon that if a woman is tattooed it means that she
desires an Englishman for her husband.
[Illustration:
BURMESE BOY WITH TATTOOED LEGS.
To face p. 196.]
In olden days Burmah shared with Japan in the number of its women given
in marriage _à la mode_ to men of alien races. Nearly every English
official and merchant had his house presided over by a little native
maiden. These arrangements were very happy and tragedies did not occur
until the Englishman, longing for home sights and sounds, and the
dignity of an English wife, went back home and returned to his station
with the woman of his choice. Then there was sorrow, and even the
English gold could not repay the little Burmese woman for the loss of
the love of the kindly, careless man who had been her master for the
many years. Often attempts were made to regain that master’s love, and
many a time the attempts succeeded, because in the formality and dignity
of his English home and the coldness of his English wife, the man
remembered the happy days and nights spent under the Burmese roof and
the pretty little Burmese girl who shyly slipped her hand in his and
called him master, lord of all her days and nights.
There is a story told of an English official in Upper Burmah who, when
time for leave of absence came, closed up his Burmese home, giving to
its little hostess money sufficient to make her rich for life. On his
return to Burmah he brought with him the girl from Devonshire to whom he
had been betrothed for many years. At dinner their first night soft
steps were heard upon the verandas, and curtains moved as if in the
swaying of an evening breeze, but nothing could be seen. The next
morning when starting for his office the frightened horse shied madly at
a little mound of silk lying by the side of the gateway. It was the
little Burmese wife, with a dagger through her heart. Pinned upon her
pretty dress was a letter for her lord, in which she said: “I have
looked upon thy newly wedded wife and found her good. If I had seen
within her eyes—and love would quick have told me—that she were not the
worthy one, that she were not fitted to be thy mate through all these
years to come, I would have plunged my knife deep in her heart, but now
I know it is better for me to go, as life without thee has no joy.”
One can understand the charm that these happy, smiling, care-free little
women have for the men who come from homes where levity and
_laissez-faire_ are things to be condemned. The Burmese wife makes no
demands upon her lord and master; she is obedient, attendant to his
every want, and never scolding and discontented. As far as material
wants are concerned, the native woman of any Eastern country makes an
ideal wife for the average European, yet they can never be real
companions one with the other. There is more than the bar of language
between them; there is the bar of instincts, customs, and traditions.
The entire life of each has been passed in different environments.
Practically always the woman has little or no education, and knows
nothing of the world outside the town where she was born. There is never
any question of equality between the foreign husband and the native
wife; he is always her lord, she is always his slave. To the
light-hearted Burmese woman, to whom the marriage tie even with a man of
her own race is not a binding cord, these “marriages for a day” are not
always things of tragedy, but the curse falls heavily upon the child if
there should be one. In all Eastern countries—Egypt, India, Burmah,
China, and Japan—the half-caste is a being set apart. Ostracized by the
members of his father’s race, unrecognized by his mother’s people, he is
a social pariah, and one almost feels that, if society could enforce it,
he would be compelled to call out, “Unclean, unclean!” as did the lepers
in the olden time.
[Illustration:
EN ROUTE TO A FESTIVAL, BURMAH.
To face p. 198.]