A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

CHAPTER V.

LEAVE MAING LOONGYEE—A HUNDRED-FOOT WATERFALL—A BEAUTIFUL HILL-TORRENT—A LUGUBRIOUS TALE—GIBBONS—GIGANTIC TREE-FERNS—SHANS CRUEL ELEPHANT-DRIVERS—METHOD OF DRIVING—DROVES OF PIGS AND LADEN CATTLE—LOI PWE—AN ACCIDENT—WILD RASPBERRIES—SHANS BARTERING GOODS—THE MEH LAIK VALLEY—A FALL OF 2049 FEET—PATHS FOR THE RAILWAY—LAWA VILLAGES—ABORIGINES—BURIAL CUSTOM—HUMAN SACRIFICES IN THE SHAN STATES AND CHINA—LEGEND CONCERNING THE CONQUEST OF THE LAWAS BY THE SHANS—THE VIRGIN OF THE LOTUS-FLOWER—GAUDAMA SACRIFICED TO AS THE GODDESS OF MERCY—SACRIFICES TO ANCESTORS AND DEMONS—SIMILARITY OF SUPERSTITIONS IN ANCIENT CHALDEA AND THE SHAN STATES—PHOTOGRAPHING LAWAS—CLOTHING WORN FOR DECENCY’S SAKE—COSTUME OF LAWAS—COLD NIGHTS—VIEW OF THE HILLS—BAU-GYEE—IRON-MINES GUARDED BY DEMONS—A YOUNG BLACKSMITH.

On the 13th of February the elephants were brought leisurely in one by one from the forest, where they had been tethered for the night, the last arriving about ten o’clock. A few minutes later everything was packed, and, facing eastwards, we were again off over the hills and far away.

After fording the Meh Sa Lin near the town, and passing through Yain Sa Lin, we crossed the Meh Gat, and proceeded along a good road over a spur, where limestone, slate, and claystone, veined with quartz, cropped up, to the Meh Ka Ni. This stream, turning to the north at the point we first crossed it, tumbles over a couple of falls, one 70 feet, the other 100 feet high, and flows through a ravine into the Meh Sa Lin.

MAINGLOONGYEE TO MAUNG HAUT

The valley of the Meh Ka Ni, up which we ascended, is narrow, the crests of the hills on either side being barely two miles apart. The hill-slopes are well wooded with large and valuable timber. Many of the trees give a splendid shade, and are evergreen. Down the valley, in a bed of granite 30 feet broad, strewn with great granite boulders, leaps and dashes a foaming torrent in the rainy season. At the time of our visit it was but a rivulet falling in little cascades, dancing round the rocks, sparkling in the sunlight, and flowing gently through pleasant pools, delightful to bathe in. For five miles we journeyed through the deep shade of the forest, frequently crossing the stream, and then halted for the night at Pang Hpan. On our way we passed several parties of Kamooks and Karen villagers, and met large caravans of laden oxen conveying paddy and betel-nut to Maing Loongyee.

The camping-ground, situated in an open plain near the meeting-place of several side valleys, lies 105 miles from Hlineboay, and 1753 feet above the sea. The highest shade-temperature during the day had been 73°, and our ride up the pretty glen had been extremely pleasant.

After dinner, in the course of conversation, Dr Cushing, thinking, perhaps, that I was a Mark Tapley, and that a lugubrious tale might cheer me up, told me that he was a most unlucky companion to travel with. All his former comrades had died on the journey, or soon afterwards. He then backed up his statement with three instances. Kelly, a missionary, was drowned one day’s journey from Moné; Lyon, another missionary, had died of consumption at Bhamo; and Cooper had been killed by one of his guard at Bhamo. I instanced his wife, who was then in America, as an exception. It was of no use—she was his better half—I was a doomed man.

Next morning the thermometer stood at 48°, the same as it had been at Maing Loongyee. The trees, however, were shedding their leaves far less in the upper valley than in the lower country. Starting about eight o’clock, accompanied by the mournful wailing of gibbons, who were practising the trapeze from tree to tree far above our heads, and making astounding leaps, we continued up the glen, passing large droves of Karen pigs, and caravans of laden cattle, until the stream forked, and we ascended the intermediate spur to the crest of Loi Kom Ngam—the Beautiful Golden Mountain—the hill-range dividing the drainage of the Meh Sa Lin from that of the Meh Laik.

View looking west down Pass at 10.53 A.M. 14th February.

Gigantic tree-ferns, and the first chestnuts we had seen, were passed as we clambered the spur; and we noticed trees in bloom bearing a red flower, and a large periwinkle-blue creeper which, spreading over the largest trees, spangled them with blossoms. Before reaching the summit we had a magnificent view down the nine miles of valley we had been ascending, extending across the Meh Mum valley to the hills beyond the Salween river. The pass, which is 109 miles from Hlineboay, is 3609 feet above sea-level.

A short descent of 70 feet brought us to a little valley, which we crossed; then following a spur, we descended to the Meh Hau, a small stream draining into the Meh Laik here at a level of 2638 feet above the sea. We had fallen nearly 1000 feet in less than three miles. Crossing the spur which separates the Meh Hau from the Meh Lye, we halted for the night near some springs at the 115th mile.

Left the next morning at seven o’clock and descended for a mile to the Meh Lye, passing on our way 109 laden cattle. The Meh Lai—River of Variegated Water—is 20 feet wide and five feet deep; sandstone and quartz outcrop in its bed. Looking down-stream to the south, we had a pretty view, bounded by pine-clad spurs, into the Meh Laik valley.

Our Karen mahouts had been replaced by Shans at Maing Loongyee. The Shans proved much more cruel drivers than the Karens. The latter seldom used the cruel-looking hammer-hook, or ankus, they all carry, but coax and talk to the elephants; whilst the Shans correct the slightest misdemeanour by a blow that draws blood, and seek for obedience solely by bullying the beasts. The drivers, both Shan and Karen, urge their elephants on by a continuous irritation of the creature’s ears with their toes, which are worked in an incessant pendulous movement at the back of them. They likewise assume all sorts of attitudes on the animal’s head. Squatting on one leg with the other dangling down, lolling over the bump on its forehead, straddle-legged, and side-saddle fashion, but for ever with one set of toes or the other, or both, titillating the brute’s ears.

Loi Pwe seen over a spur at 9.57 A.M. 15th February.
Note.—<6° and <16° imply angles to the east of north, north being 0° and 360°—90° is east, 180° is south,
and 270° west from the point whence they are taken.

From the Meh Lai we ascended a small glen for a little more than a mile, and shortly afterwards entered a narrow defile, where we halted for a few minutes to allow 135 laden cattle and a drove of 40 pigs to pass. Leaving the defile, a magnificent panorama spread out before us. Looking west, the eye ranged over the spurs we had crossed since leaving the pass. To the north about eight miles distant, over the hills bordering the Meh Sa Lin valley, stood out clear against the sky the bald-headed and partly precipitous summit of Loi Pwe. Here was a chance, not to be lost, for taking sketches and photographs and fixing the lie of the country.

Loi Pwe is the nucleus from which many of the spurs and minor ranges stretching into the valleys of the Meh Nium and Meh Laik have their origin. It is joined on to the Bau plateau by spurs some 15 miles in length, radiating in straight lines. Most of the hills in this region are approximately of similar elevation, their crests seeming to be the remains of a great rolling table-land eaten into valleys by centuries of erosion in the stream-beds.

On remounting the elephant, the howdah, owing to the slackness of the girth, commenced to lose its equilibrium, and I should have been precipitated to the ground, a distance of 11 feet, if I had not stepped on to the head of the beast and saved myself from falling by clinging to the greasy perspiring mahout. I had presence of mind sufficient to pocket my watch and instruments, or they would have inevitably been ruined.

Ten minutes after restarting we reached the summit of Loi Tone Wye, or Loi Tong Wai, situated 118 miles from Hlineboay and 3885 feet above the sea. Great fern-trees, 50 feet in height, the highest I have ever seen or heard of, adorned the crest of the hill. Portow brought me a handful of wild white raspberries he had just picked for me to eat. Before reaching the summit we noticed a Lawa village nestling on a hill-slope to the north of us.

On the narrow plateau forming the summit of the hill, we found a large encampment of Shans with many laden cattle. Some of the men had opened their packs and were bartering their merchandise with a number of Karens who had come from the neighbouring villages. Startled by our sudden appearance, most likely never having seen a white-face before, the latter took to their heels, fleeing as if the devil was after them, and did not venture from their hidingplaces until after our breakfast, when we were preparing to resume our march. Then they came, as shy and inquisitive as cattle, and had a good look at us from a respectful distance.

Meh Laik valley and gorge at 1.3 P.M. 15th February.

From Loi Tong Wai we had a magnificent view of the hills in all directions. The great plateau of Bau, 15 miles to the east, and about the same level as the ground we were standing on, was clearly outlined against the sky; and the great trough of the wave between it and us was filled with a multitude of great spurs, crested with fine timber and divided from each other by steep-sided narrow valleys.

To the south-west, 10 miles distant, was the gorge where the Meh Laik passes through Loi Kom Ngam on its way to the Meh Nium; beyond was a sea of hills stretching as far as the eye could reach to the high peak lying to the south-east of our pass over the Karroway Toung. The cliff-faced gap through which the river rushes, tumbling hundreds of feet at a time, is impassable even to the sure-footed Karens. In the 24 miles’ course of the stream between our two crossings its bed falls 2049 feet. The greater part of this drop is said to occur in this short gorge, which must be one of the wildest and grandest scenes in the world.

If the railway from Maulmain is carried up the valley of the Meh Laik, gradually rising along the hill-spurs, a gallery cut in the face of the gorge would enable the line to proceed towards Zimmé without passing, viâ Maing Loongyee, over the hills we have been crossing since we left the city. A better path, however, most likely exists up one of the valleys to the north of Loi Pwe, which would cross the Zimmé hills, descending by the valley of the Meh Sai, which lies between Loi Kom and the Bau plateau.

A gradual descent for four and a half miles brought us to the Meh Laik. Sandstone and quartz, and claystone veined with quartz, cropped up on the sides of the plateau and its spurs, but the bed of the river, 15 feet broad and 4 feet deep, is composed of black-speckled white granite. Our crossing lies 123 miles from Hlineboay and 2508 feet above the sea.

Leaving the stream, we ascended a few feet, and, continuing for half a mile through pine-forest, descended to a rice-plain, where the road traversed in 1879 by Colonel Street and Mr Colquhoun, when on their mission to Zimmé, joins our route. Crossing the Meh Tha Ket, a small stream which flows through the plain, and two dry streams which exposed a great depth of soil, we passed to the north of the Lawa village of Bau Sa Lee, and, fording the Meh Hto, camped for the night on its bank, 125 miles from Hlineboay. A thousand feet down-stream from our camp the Meh Hto is joined by the Meh Tyen. Both streams flow in a bed of granite boulders, and the village is situated at their junction.

In the evening I enticed two of the head-men to the camp, and gained some information about them and the features of the country. They told me the Lawas still occupied the village sites held by them before the Shans and Karens settled in the country. They had no written language, and were now Buddhists like the Shans, and had the same manners and customs. Their villages are scattered through the hills and plateaux as far south as the latitude of Bangkok, and they believed themselves to be the aborigines of the country.

The only difference between their customs and those of the Ping Shans lay in their always burying their dead, whereas the Ping Shans, except in cases of death from infectious diseases or in childbirth, burn them. Burial, however, is still observed by the British Shans. When a Lawa dies, a coffin is made by scooping out the log of a tree, and the corpse is placed in it and covered with a stout lid. After three days the priest is called and the body buried. As amongst the Karens, the personal property of the deceased is interred with the corpse.

The practice of burning their dead amongst the Shans must be of recent date, for in the middle of the sixteenth century, when they first became feudatory to Burmah, burial was the rule—elephants, ponies, and slaves being interred with the chiefs. The Burmese emperor Bureng Naung strictly prohibited the continuance of the custom. Similar observances were usual in olden times amongst the Turkish or Hiung Nu and Scythian tribes in Asia, and with the Tsin dynasty in China as well as amongst the ancient Greeks, as evidenced by Homer’s ‘Iliad.’ The latest record of such human sacrifices in China concerns the obsequies of the Emperor Chi Hwang, B.C. 209, when all the members of the harem having no sons had to follow him in death.

The following legend concerning the conquest of the Lawas by the Shans was told me by Chow Oo Boon, the sister of the Queen of Zimmé, who was the spirit-medium and historian of the Royal Family.