Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

The Siamese Shans.

Reference was above made to the singular lack of political cohesion at all times betrayed by the Tai-Shan peoples. The only noteworthy exception is the Siamese branch, which forms the bulk of the population in the Menam basin. In this highly favoured region of vast hill-encircled alluvial plains of inexhaustible fertility, traversed by numerous streams navigable for light craft, and giving direct access to the inland waters of Malaysia, the Southern Shans were able at an early date to merge the primitive tribal groups in a great nationality, and found a powerful empire, which at one time dominated most of Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula.

Siam, alone of all the Shan states, even still maintains a precarious independence, although now again reduced by European aggression to little more than the natural limits of the fluvial valley, which is usually regarded by the Southern Shans as the home of their race. Yet they appear to have been here preceded by the Caucasic Khmers (Cambojans), whose advent is referred in the national chronicles to the year 543 B.C. and who, according to the Hindu records, were expelled about 443 A.D. It was through these Khmers, and not directly from India, that the "Sayamas" received their Hindu culture, and the Siamese annals, mingling fact with fiction, refer to the miraculous birth of the national hero, Phra-Ruang, who threw off the foreign yoke, declared the people henceforth T'hai, "Freemen," invented the present Siamese alphabet, and ordered the Khom (Cambojan) to be reserved in future for copying the sacred writings.

The introduction of Buddhism is assigned to the year 638 A.D., one of the first authentic dates in the native records. The ancient city of Labong had already been founded (575), and other settlements now followed rapidly, always in the direction of the south, according as the Shan race steadily advanced towards the seaboard, driving before them or mingling with Khmers, Lawas, Karens, and other aborigines, some now extinct, some still surviving on the wooded uplands and plateaux encircling the Menam valley. Ayuthia, the great centre of national life in later times, dates only from the year 1350, when the empire had received its greatest expansion, comprising the whole of Camboja, Pegu, Tenasserim, and the Malay Peninsula, and extending its conquering arms across the inland waters as far as Java[460]. Then followed the disastrous wars with Burma, which twice captured and finally destroyed Ayuthia (1767), now a picturesque elephant-park visited by tourists from the present capital, Bangkok, founded in 1772 a little lower down the Menam.

Siamese Social System.

But the elements of decay existed from the first in the institution of slavery or serfdom, which was not restricted to a particular class, as in other lands, but, before the modern reforms, extended in principle to all the kings' subjects in mockery declared "Freemen" by the founders of the monarchy. This, however, may be regarded as perhaps little more than a legal fiction, for at all times class distinctions were really recognised, comprising the members of the royal family—a somewhat numerous group—the nobles named by the king, the leks or vassals, and the people, these latter being again subdivided into three sections, those liable to taxation, those subject to forced labour, and the slaves proper. But so little developed was the sentiment of personal dignity and freedom, that anybody from the highest noble to the humblest citizen might at any moment lapse into the lowest category. Like most Mongoloid peoples, the Siamese are incurable gamblers, and formerly it was an everyday occurrence for a freeman to stake all his goods and chattels, wives, children, and self, on the hazard of the die.

Status of Woman.

Yet the women, like their Burmese sisters, have always held a somewhat honourable social position, being free to walk abroad, go shopping, visit their friends, see the sights, and take part in the frequent public feastings without restriction. Those, however, who brought no dower and had to be purchased, might again be sold at any time, and many thus constantly fell from the dignity of matrons to the position of the merest drudges without rights or privileges of any kind. These strange relations were endurable, thanks to the genial nature of the national temperament, by which the hard lot of the thralls was softened, and a little light allowed to penetrate into the darkest corners[461] of the social system. The open slave-markets, which in the vassal Lao states fostered systematic raiding-expeditions amongst the unreduced aborigines, were abolished in 1873, and since 1890 all born in slavery are free on reaching their 21st year.

Buddhism.

Siamese Buddhism is a slightly modified form of that prevailing in Ceylon, although strictly practised but by few. There are two classes or "sects," the reformers who attach more importance to the observance of the canon law than to meditation, and the old believers, some devoted to a contemplative life, others to the study of the sunless wilderness of Buddhist writings. But, beneath it all, spirit or devil-worship is still rife, and in many districts pure animism is practically the only religion. Even temples and shrines have been raised to the countless gods of land and water, woods, mountains, villages and households. To these gods are credited all sorts of calamities, and to prevent them from getting into the bodies of the dead the latter are brought out, not through door or window, but through a breach in the wall, which is afterwards carefully built up. Similar ideas prevail amongst many other peoples, both at higher and lower levels of culture, for nothing is more ineradicable than such popular beliefs associated with the relations presumed to exist between the present and the after life.