A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

CHAPTER XII.

DINNER AT THE PRINCESS’S—ARRANGEMENTS FOR START COMPLETED—A PASSPORT—OUR PAVILION—THE ZIMMÉ PLAIN—LEAVE ZIMMÉ—CANAL IRRIGATION—HALT AT MUANG DOO—THE CHOWS ASTRAY—CAMP-DINNERS AND COOKERY—EXCELLENT MADRAS SERVANTS—ALTERATION IN JEWAN—COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE—KUMLUNG, OR FAMILY PATRIARCH AND PRIEST—PRICE OF SLAVES—SLAVE-BONDAGE—FOREIGN MARRIAGES—SERFDOM IN ZIMMÉ—FORMATION OF CLANS—GOVERNMENT MASTERS IN SIAM—CROWN COMMONERS.

Chow Oo-boon made great preparations for her dinner, which she had served in European style, on a table beautifully decorated with flowers. Mrs M‘Gilvary furnished the crockery, cutlery, and table-linen, and our Madras servants superintended the cookery. Among the guests were the daughters of the queen and princess, three princes, and Phra Udon and Chow Don, the two Siamese assistant-commissioners. Fingers, for the nonce, gave way to knives and forks, and even Phra Udon, the Singhalese buffoon, showed that he could behave himself before ladies.

There was no apparent anxiety on the part of the hostess as to whether or not the dinner would turn out a success. All were affable, courteous, and pleasant, and appeared bent upon adding to the general enjoyment.

The princess informed me that arrangements had been made for our starting early on Monday, as, to prevent further delay, she and some of the princes had agreed to supply us with elephants, and a letter had been signed by the Court calling upon the governors of the various provinces to afford us their aid.

A similar passport issued for one of my later journeys was translated for me by Dr M‘Gilvary, and ran as follows: “The Proclamation of Chao Phya San Luang and Chao Phya Saw Lan, and all the officers, old and young, at the Court, to Tow Rat of Chiang Dow (Kiang Dow), and Phya Khenan Phek of Chiang Ngai, and Phya Kuan of Muang Pow, and Phya Soo Ree Ya Yot of Muang Fang, greeting. You are informed that now there has been a Royal Order that Nai Hallett and the teachers M‘Gilvary and Martin, the three Nais and their servants and personal attendants, nineteen persons, twenty-two persons in all, with six elephants and one horse and eight guns, may go to Chiang Hsen, Muang Ngai, Muang Pow, and Muang Fang. When the foreign Nais have arrived and wish to go in any direction at any time, you are ordered to levy good and reliable men that are conversant with the roads, the brooks, and the mountains to escort them, according to the custom of the country, from one city and province to another, to whatever place or village the foreign Nais shall wish to go. Again, if the foreign Nais are in need of provisions of any kind, you are ordered to provide supplies and look after them. Let them not be destitute of anything whatever. This is given by the Royal Order on the thirteenth day of the waxing moon of the eighth month of the year twelve hundred and twenty-six” (7th May 1884).

This passport, as is usual, was scratched with a stile upon a narrow strip of palm-leaf which coils up into a ring and has a stamp embossed on it at each end. This stamp determines the real authority of the document, and is examined before reading the document. These strips of leaves are tough and unaffected by water, and are therefore, for the purpose, superior to paper. When the writing grows dim it is easily made legible by wetting the finger and rubbing it over the leaf, thus cleansing the smooth surface and filling the scratches with the dirt so removed.

On Monday, the 3d March, we had everything packed early in the morning, but were delayed until nearly one o’clock before the last elephant came in. We were to be conducted to Kiang Hai by Chow Nan Kyow Wong, the eldest son of Chow Hoo-a Muang Kyow, the fourth of the joint rulers of the Zimmé State. Chow Nan Kyow Wong had left the city the night before, accompanied by his six followers and his young son, in order to prepare the first encampment for us. He took with him four large elephants, one of which was loaded with our baggage, and a small one, and eight elephant-drivers and attendants.

The party with me, besides the Chow and his company, comprised forty-one persons—viz., Dr Cushing, Dr M‘Gilvary, two Shan interpreters, three Shan servants, three Madras servants, Moung Loogalay, eight Shan elephant-men, and twenty Shan porters with four large elephants. As a shelter from the night-dews we carried a tent, so capacious and so convenient for carriage that it reminded me of the one in the ‘Arabian Nights’ which would shelter an army and yet could be put in one’s pocket. Ours was formed of a roll of longcloth, 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, that packed into a roll 21 inches long and 7 inches in diameter.

The great Zimmé rice-plain is divided into more or less extensive fields by orchards containing beautiful clumps of bamboos and mango, tamarind, palmyra, cocoa-nut, areca-nut, and other trees; and in these orchards, and in pretty groves scattered about the plain, nestle numerous villages and detached houses. Until the hills are reached the country is one ceaseless succession of orchards and rice-fields, all of which, nearly up to the east bank of the Meh Ping, are irrigated by canals and channels drawing their water from the Meh Hkuang, the river on which the capital city of the Shan State of Lapoon lies.

Starting from the bridge a little before one o’clock, we proceeded in a north-easterly direction, and halted for the night in the fields of Muang Doo, having passed within view of nineteen villages in the seven and a half miles’ march. We were disappointed at finding that the Chow and his son had not passed through the village, and that nothing was known there of his movements. As soon as the elephants were unloaded some of the Shans commenced cutting bamboos for the erection of our pavilion, and before we had finished bathing, it was completed and our dinner was ready.

Our dinner-table consisted of a cane-covered howdahseat placed on the top of two wooden spirit-cases set on end and some distance apart. A couple more cases, set one on the other, served as my seat, and my companions were enthroned on their folding camp-chairs. The long arms of my chair, although adding greatly to my comfort, and being handy for writing, prevented it from being drawn up to our improvised table.

The rapidity with which a hot dinner was served by our Madras servants would astonish stay-at-home people. Soup being in tins, takes very little time to cook, as it has only to be heated; bacon takes but a minute or two; and vegetables, curry, chickens, tapioca, and rice-puddings having been prepared and more than half cooked at our last halting-place, are quickly served. But even so, the boys deserved great credit for their readiness and good management.

Whilst the cooking things and things to be cooked were being unloaded, men were despatched in search of water and firewood, and the boys were preparing their fireplace; and however tired they might be after a long tramp, they always prided themselves upon their cookery, and the celerity with which our meals were served. All this they did merrily and with light hearts; and hardly once during the journey, even when they were suffering from frequent attacks of fever, have I seen them out of temper. They knew that we all had our work to do, and they took a pride in doing theirs to the best of their ability.

It was pleasant to watch the continuous improvement in Jewan’s physique. When hired for me by Go Paul, a Madras boy who had been with me for many years, he looked a mere stripling, with legs little better than broomsticks in appearance, and a chest that spoke very little for his capacity for travel. Every day his calves were getting bigger, his chest was expanding, and he seemed to become more vigorous. Travel was certainly rapidly making a man of him.

In the evening Dr M‘Gilvary called up some of the most intelligent of the Shans to give me information about their customs, commencing with courtship and marriage. They told us that a youth was allowed to visit a girl either in private or in the family circle, and that courting-time is known as Bŏw ow-ha sow (Bow, a bachelor; ow-ha, to visit; sow, a virgin or maid). A lad, when courting without witnesses, places himself entirely in the power of the girl, as it is the custom to take a woman’s word as conclusive proof of any alleged breach of delicacy, and for such breaches the spirit-fine required by the ancestral spirits of the family can be levied.

The amount of the spirit-fine varies, according to the custom of the family, from a bunch of flowers to nine rupees. Such fines are due, not merely as a solatium for indelicate acts towards the females of the family, but for accidentally coming into contact with them. Even in general company, if a woman is touched to call her attention, and she reports the fact to the kumlung, the patriarch and priest of her family, the fine can be levied. If the girl neglects to report the occurrence at once, and sickness, caused by the anger of the unappeased ancestral spirits, happens subsequently in her family, her word is still taken, and the fine is levied.

The practice of the patriarch or head of the family being the priest, is a survival from ancient times, and was customary amongst Aryan tribes, as is evidenced by the Vedas. Mr Kingsmill, in his ‘Ethnological Sketches from the Dawn of History,’ says that the Djow, or Chau, who founded the first historical empire in China, B.C. 1122, were an Aryan race, and their ruler, “the Djow Wang,” was not so much supreme ruler as supreme priest. He alone could perform sacrifices to the memory of the mystical ancestors of the house. In each State a similar position of affairs was to be noticed. The Emperor of China is the high priest of the State religion as well as the ruler of the empire.

At times a youth serenades a girl alone, accompanying himself upon a peculiarly shaped two-stringed banjo; at other times he is accompanied by the village band. If the lad considers that he has won the lady’s affection, he asks his parents, or the kumlung of his family, to obtain the consent of her relations, and to arrange for the marriage.

If an illegitimate child is born, twenty-four rupees as well as the spirit-fine has to be paid to the kumlung of the girl’s family, and the man must likewise provide a sacrifice of an ox, or pig, or fowl, according to the requirement of the spirit of the woman’s family. No other claim can be made on the man, and the woman has to support the child.

According to Dr M‘Gilvary, the custom of levying the spirit-fine is strictly adhered to amongst the nobility as well as amongst the people. As an instance, he told me that on sickness occurring in the palace at Zimmé inquiry is at once made, and if any breach of delicacy has occurred, the male culprit is fined, and the spirits of the royal family are appeased. In case of the act having been a breach of the seventh commandment and the act has been between a serf and a slave of the palace, the man must either pay the spirit-fine and seventy-two rupees, the legal redemption price of the woman, or marry her and become a slave. The culprit, if a noble, is merely mulcted in the spirit-fine required by the spirits of the family, and is free from other charge. In cases of adultery, forty rupees has to be paid to the injured husband, as well as the spirit-fine. If the husband refuses to receive his wife back after her misconduct, he must hand the forty rupees received by him to her family, who must receive her. The Zimmé Shans, as a rule, are a chaste people, and the few soiled doves in Zimmé have flown there from Siam.

The marriage ceremony consists of paying the spirit-fee in the presence of the kumlung of both families, and drawing out an agreement for the payment of the ngeun kŭn soo, the sum a man has to forfeit if he divorces his wife. Both women and men amongst the Shans can divorce each other at will; but divorces without ample cause are looked upon with disapproval by the people, and the ease with which the marriage-tie can be broken has not led to experimental marriages as it did amongst the ancient Romans. If a woman divorces her husband, she has first to purchase the soo-han, or right of divorce, which seldom costs more than fourteen rupees; and in case of a divorce, the children pertain to the woman, except in the case where the husband is a slave, when the master has a right to one male child, or, in the absence of male children, to one of the other sex.

In the case of a woman marrying a slave, the master has a right to one male child, or, if there is no male, a daughter. If the slave of one man marries the slave of another, it is the custom for the master of the wife to purchase the husband. If the husband’s master refuses to part with him he can claim his freedom.

The judicial price of a man slave is fifty-four rupees, and of a female slave seventy-two rupees. Amongst the warlike races of the hills the opposite rules, the value of the male being greater than that of the female; but in the Shan States, where the woman does most of the work, the woman is decidedly as a worker worth more than the man.

In cases of debt, a man can either pay the debt, the interest of the debt, or serve his creditor in lieu of the interest. It is optional for a man to serve or pay the interest, unless a special agreement has been made. If a man owes more than he, his family, and possessions are worth, or having sufficient, will not pay, the creditor informs the court, which enforces the claim by putting the debtor in chains until the debt and court fees are paid. Men often linger out their existence in slave-bondage.

Any person may settle in and cultivate land in the Shan States that is not already under cultivation, and does not become a serf to the chiefs unless he marries a woman of the State; and even then he can remain free, with his wife, and any family that may be born to them, if he pays seventy-two rupees for her redemption. Unless this redemption money is paid, no woman is allowed to remove from the country.

All the Zimmé Shans, except the nobles, are serfs, but have the right to change their allegiance from one lord to another. This right is a great check against oppression, as the more serfs a prince has, the more powerful he is, and the more chance he has of becoming the future king of the State. On his marriage a male serf changes his allegiance to the lord of his wife’s parents, and resides near the wife’s family. Thus in the old days clans were formed, patriarchs became chiefs, and relations serfs. Captives likewise strengthened the community, for although they themselves were treated as slaves, their descendants would in time merge into the body of serfs. Slaves taken as wives must tend to influence the breed of the people, otherwise it is difficult to account for the difference in type between the Burmese Shans and the Siamese.

In Siam the right of changing their lord has been taken away from the people, the majority of whom are classed as prai-luangs, or Crown commoners, and all of whom, outside the Chinese and subjects of foreign Powers, are serfs of the Government, and are placed in classified gangs under grinding Government masters. A prai-luang must either serve for a month thrice in a year, or pay an exemption tax of ten dollars and eighty cents each year. The hardship and oppression that accrue to the people under this rule is thus referred to by the Rev. S. J. Smith in the preface to his translation of the Siamese ‘Laws on Slavery’:—

“The present system of requiring annually the personal services of the common people, without reward or provision for food and home during service or exposure, making them the helpless victims of the too often merciless, heartless, and exorbitant exactions of unscrupulous and tyrannical Government masters, is a crying evil that demands beneficent legislation.”