LEGEND OF NAN CHAM-A-TA-WE.
Nan Cham-a-ta-we, a virgin of the lotus-flower, had two sons, who were born at Lapoon. At that time the whole of the country was occupied by the Lawas. The Lawa king met and fell desperately in love with the virgin, and for many years urged his suit. She, being unwilling to accept him as her husband, pleaded the youth of her children making it necessary for her to be constantly in attendance on them, as an excuse.
When the lads became young men, the king still tormenting her with his wooing, she promised to become his bride if he proved able to cast three spears from the top of Loi Soo Tayp, a hill to the north-west of Zimmé rising 6000 feet above the plain, into the centre of the city of Lapoon, a distance of 18 miles. His first cast being successful, she determined to foil him in his further attempts, and accordingly wove a hat out of her cast-off garments and coaxed him to wear it, saying it would greatly add to his strength. His next throw fell short of the city, and, his strength decreasing through the magical powers of the hat, his third spear fell at the foot of Loi Soo Tayp.
The king becoming weaker and weaker, the two sons of the virgin, named A-nan-ta-yote and Ma-nan-ta-yote, being enraged at the Lawa monarch for his pursuit of their mother, determined to drive him from the country. This they were enabled to do through the great merit accruing to them from their birth, which gave them magical powers.
As soon as the elder was born, a large white elephant came and voluntarily served as his domestic animal. Leaves thrown from him turned into fully equipped soldiers, and handfuls of kine-grass became armies as he breathed on them. Having created a great host, he mounted his white elephant, and forced the Lawa king to flee, and pursued him.
On reaching Kiang Hai, the elephant being heated and excited with the chase, the people of the place fled like sheep chased by a dog, shouting out “Chang Hai,” wild elephant. Continuing the chase through Kiang Hsen, the elephant roared so loudly that the people scattered in all directions screaming “Chang Hsen,” roaring elephant.
Having banished the Lawa king from the country, the kine-grass soldiers founded the city of Muang Poo Kah, the kine-grass city, the remains of which are still visible some distance to the north of Kiang Hsen. The virgin of the lotus-flower became ruler of Lapoon, and her eldest son went to Pegu, where he is still worshipped at festivals with dancing, mirth, and music.
Lapoon is named from La, or Lawa, and poon, a spear; Kiang Hai from the elephant being vicious; and Kiang Hsen from its trumpeting.
The virgin of the lotus-flower is depicted by the Shans and Siamese as a mermaid holding a lotus-flower in her left hand, presumably in connection with the belief amongst the Chinese that Kwan-yin, the goddess of mercy, the offspring of the lotus-flower, terminates the torments of souls in purgatory by casting a lotus-flower on them.
A virgin of the lotus-flower.
In China, miniature offerings are laid before images of this goddess as a hint for her to convey the articles implied by their likenesses to the spirits of friends or relations. The offerings, frequently accompanied by a scroll stating who the articles are for, consist of miniatures cut out of paper, of money, houses, furniture, carts, ponies, sedan-chairs, pipes, male and female slaves, and all that one on this earth might wish for in the way of comfort. In Siam and the Shan States there being no temple to this goddess, Buddha, who is generally depicted as sitting on a lotus-flower, is besought to do her work, and similar articles are heaped on his altar—but cut out of wood, or formed of rags or any kinds of rubbish, as paper is not so easily obtainable.
The same miniature images are offered by the Shans and hill tribes to the spirits of their ancestors and the ghosts and demons which haunt their neighbourhood, and food and flowers are left in the little dolls’ houses which are erected for them. If neglected and uncared for, the spirits become spiteful, and bring disease, misfortune, or death to those living in or passing through their neighbourhood.
To any one travelling with his eyes open in China and Indo-China, it becomes evident that Buddhism is merely a veneer, spread over the people’s belief in ancient Turanian and Dravidian superstitions. The belief in divination, charms, omens, exorcism, sorcery, mediums, witchcraft and ghosts, and in demons ever on the alert to plague and torment them individually, is universal, except perhaps amongst the highly educated classes, throughout the country. Comparing these beliefs with those appearing in the Accadian literature of Chaldea, B.C. 2230, as given by George Smith in his History of Babylonia, one is astonished at the perfect sameness of the superstitions.
The next morning, as one of the elephants had strayed away during the night and had to be tracked and brought back, I visited the village of Bau Sa Lee to take photographs of the people. The men had not the slightest objection to being taken; but the women, particularly the younger ones, skurried off as soon as they heard what I was about, and hid themselves in their houses. At length, by the gift of a necklace and a few small silver coins, I persuaded an old woman to fetch two little girls and stand for her portrait with them.
The Lawa women are the only natives in Indo-China whom I have seen wearing their hair parted in the middle, in the mode general amongst women in England a few years ago. Their hair is gathered up and tied in a knot at the back of the head, like that of the ladies amongst the Burmese and Shans. Unlike the Siamese and Zimmé Shans, the Lawa women wear upper clothing for decency’s sake, and not solely for the sake of warmth. Their dress consists of a short skirt reaching to their knees, and a black tunic having a darkred stripe on the outer edge. Some of the elder women wear a piece of cloth on their heads folded into a sort of turban.
The nights were rapidly getting colder; at five in the afternoon the thermometer showed 70°, at six in the morning it had fallen to 38°. We had to sleep dressed in our clothes under our plaids to keep warm; and the men sat huddled up, chatting and toasting themselves by the fires, for many hours towards the morning.
View across the Meh Hto and Meh Laik valleys at 10.54 A.M. 15th February.
Leaving the Meh Hto, we ascended 1150 feet by an easy spur, through a nearly leafless forest of hill-eng and teak, to the top of Loi Kaung Hin—the Hill of the Stone-heap—so called from a cairn on its summit.
Cresting the hill, we were again amongst the fragrant pine-forest. The air was deliciously cool, and the view was superb; I therefore decided to halt and sketch the country from an orchid-covered crag above a precipice several hundred feet in depth. Across the valleys of the Meh Hto, Meh Lyt, and Meh Sa Lin, nearly due north-east and distant 13 miles, we could see Loi Pwe, giving rise to numerous valleys. Between it and due north, on the slope of a great flat-topped spur in the valley of the Meh Tyen, lay the Lawa village of Bau Kong Loi, and beyond the Zimmé hills stretched away till lost in the haze. The whole country looked like a chopping sea of hills, in which it would be impossible, without actual survey, to settle the direction of the drainage. The main range was so cut up by cross-valleys that any one of the valleys I had not visited might drain either into the Meh Ping or the Meh Nium.
After continuing for two miles along the crest of the hill, we descended to the Meh Tyen, and halted for the night on its banks in some rice-fields near the junction of one of its branches. Our camp was situated 131 miles from Hlineboay, and 2831 feet above the sea.
The bed of the Meh Tyen is 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep, and is composed of boulders of quartz and granite.
The following morning at six o’clock the thermometer stood at 36½°. The breeze as we ascended a spur, through the hill-eng and scanty pine-forest, to Bau Koke, chilled us to the bone. Bau Koke is a small catch-pool on the crest of the Bau plateau, 3400 feet above the sea, draining into the Meh Tyen.
The air every moment became hotter as the sun rose and darted its rays through the clear sky, the soil of the plateau was of a deep red colour, and the glare where the forest had been cleared soon became distressing. Continuing along a ridge bordering the northern edge of the plateau, we reached Bau-gyee at eleven, and halted to inspect the village and for breakfast.
Bau-gyee, as the Burmese call it, or Bau Hluang as it is termed by the Shans—“Hluang” and “gyee” both meaning “great”—is situated 137½ miles from Hlineboay and 3704 feet above sea-level. It is in three divisions—two of 30 houses each, and one of 21 houses. The villagers are Lawas, and gain their livelihood as blacksmiths and miners, procuring and smelting the ore at a hill lying to the north of Loi Pwe, two days’ elephant journey from the village.
The mines are said to average 50 feet in depth, and to be guarded by demons who have to be propitiated by offerings of pigs or fowls. If the ore dug up is poor, the sacrifices are repeated so as to persuade the pee, or demon, to allow it to yield more iron. The ore is smelted at the Lawa village of Oon Pai, situated near the mines. No stranger is allowed to watch the process lest the pee should be offended; and the ingots are carried on elephants to the Lawa villages, where it is manufactured into various articles which find a sale throughout the country. The ore mined is the common red oxide of iron.
Whilst breakfast was being prepared we went into the village to have a chat with the people and watch them at their work. The houses are of the ordinary pattern occupied by the Zimmé Shans, built on posts, with the floor raised several feet from the ground, the sides of the building slightly inclining outwards as they rise towards the roof, which is steep and high. Many of the houses are small and dirty, and have pig-pens beneath them.
We found several of the men at work making chains, but they stopped as we appeared. After we had talked with them for a little while, a lad, of about twelve years of age, heated some iron, and seizing a hammer, forged several links of a chain as skilfully and quickly as any man of mature age could have done. An old man showed us several specimens of the ore, but would not allow us to take them away for fear the demons of the mine should be offended.
Their bellows and other implements are curious; the anvil is three inches square and two inches high, formed of a large spike driven into a log of wood. Another implement shaped like a triangular hoe at the top, five inches long and one and a half inch at the base, was likewise spiked into a log of wood, exposing six inches of the spike; this was used for forging hooks and elephant chains.
The bellows, two on each side of the charcoal fire, consisted each of a slightly sloping bamboo four inches in diameter, rising two feet from the ground, with a rag-covered piston working inside it and forcing the air out of a small hole. Each pair was placed three feet apart, and worked by a lad.
There is a dip in the plateau near the village where paddy is grown on a slip of land about two miles long and 150 feet broad. It is irrigated by small springs, the water being led to the fields through bamboo pipes.