A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography

by Daniel McGilvary

One of the results of the change of government was that we were able to build permanent houses. For three years and more we had lived within basket-woven bamboo walls that a pocketknife could pierce, neither secure nor wholesome nor favourable for our work. They bore silent but steady testimony that we ourselves did not regard our stay as permanent. The results of our manner of living were already seen in the impaired health of the members of the mission. My wife surely could never have lived another decade in the old sālā with bamboo walls and ceiling, where the dust from the borers in the wood constantly filled the air and poisoned the lungs. Mrs. Wilson bore up bravely for five years, until there was just ready for her reception the permanent house which she was never to enjoy. As soon as they could, the family started for the United States on furlough, all thoroughly broken down. After two years of rest Mr. Wilson alone was able to return to the field, leaving Mrs. Wilson behind. She never regained her health, and they never saw each other again. Her departure was a great loss to the mission. She was a gifted lady, a fine vocal and instrumental musician, and a consecrated missionary. She left one literary work in Lāo, the translation of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which has since been published.

But as matters then were, there was much perplexing work to be done before we were at all ready to begin building. I was favoured in getting a lot of first class teak logs delivered at a very cheap rate. Then the trouble began. The logs must be hauled up from the river by elephants to the lot where they are to be sawn. The log is raised and mounted on two strong trestles. A black line to guide the saw is struck on either side. Two sawyers stand facing each other across the log, grasping the handles of a long framed saw with horizontal blade. Then the operation begins. The saw is pushed and pulled back and forth till the cut is carried through to the end of the log. This operation is repeated for every stick of timber put into the house.

But we are already too fast. Where are the sawyers to come from? There were then no good sawyers among the Lāo. No one dared to learn for fear of being appropriated by the Prince, or of being compelled to work on public buildings. There were, however, three pairs of sawyers, debtors to the Prince, whom he had brought up from Rahêng for his own work. Whenever not needed by him or by some other person of rank, they were allowed to seek employment elsewhere. So, at odd times, I was able to secure their services. But if the Prince needed them, they must at once drop everything and go. Scores of times our sawyers were called away, often for weeks at a time, and at the busiest stage of the work.

And now for the carpenter. The Lāo dared not be known as carpenters for the same reason as that given above in the case of the sawyers. They would have been constantly requisitioned for government work. There was in the place only one Siamese carpenter reputed to be a good workman. In order to get him, I had to advance him three hundred rupees, professedly to pay a debt, but most likely to gamble with. He was to build by contract. But he had already received his money, or so much of it that he was quite independent. He soon slashed and spoiled more timber than his wages were worth. So, to keep him from ruining the whole, I had to get rid of him, even at some sacrifice. Just then a Siamo-Chinese turned up, who took the job by the day under my direction, to be assisted by some Christians whom we trained thus as apprentices. The house was built on the plan of the East Indian bungalow—raised ten feet from the ground on posts, with single walls and a veranda all round. Its large lofty rooms, screened on all sides by the verandas, make it still one of the most comfortable houses in the mission. It was more than eight years from the time of our arrival when we entered it; and even then it was not finished.

Although the new government was friendly, yet some of the ruling spirits were in their hearts as hostile as the deceased Prince had ever been, and without his more noble qualities. There were two in particular who soon began to show that their secret influence would be against the mission—and their open hostility, too, so far as they ventured to let it appear. One was the adopted son of the late Prince, and the other the new ruler’s half-brother, who had been made Uparāt, or second in power, when the new Prince ascended the throne. Had these both lived, their combined influence would have been nearly as formidable as that of Kāwilōrot. Unfortunately, too, the actual business of the country was largely in their hands. Prince Intanon was not at all ambitious for power. He liked nothing better than to work without care or responsibility in his own little workshop, making fancy elephant-saddles, and let his half-brother rule the country. During the following year the adopted son went down to Bangkok to receive the insignia of his new rank, but never returned. His death was even more sudden than that of his foster-father. He was taken with the cholera, and died in a few hours. This left the elder of the two avowed enemies of Christianity, and the higher in rank and power. To give an illustration of the kind of spirit we had to contend with in him, I will anticipate an incident of a few years later.

Two native Karens, ordained ministers, were sent by the American Baptist Mission to initiate in Lāo territory a work among the Karens, a hill-people scattered sparsely throughout all the mountain region between Siam and Burma. The native evangelists brought with them letters from the missionaries in Burma, requesting us to aid them in getting Lāo passports. We went with them to the new Prince, and he very graciously gave direction to his brother to see that passports were issued, stating not only that the visitors were to be protected and aided as travellers, but also that they were to be allowed to teach the new religion, and that people were allowed to embrace it without fear.

I was specially interested that they should succeed in the first village which they were to visit, for it was the one where I had vaccinated the whole population during the first year of our mission. Since I had failed to make Christians of them—partly, as I supposed, on account of my ignorance of their language, but more on account of the persecution which followed so soon after—I hoped that when the message was delivered in their own tongue, with official permission to embrace it, the whole village might accept the Gospel. What was the astonishment of the preachers that, instead of being received with the characteristic hospitality of their race, they hardly found common civility! At last they learned the reason. The Chao Uparāt had secretly despatched a special messenger with a letter under his own seal, forbidding any Karen subject to embrace the new religion. All who did so were to be reported to him. What that meant, or what he wished them to infer that it meant, was well understood.

Our readers, therefore, will not be surprised that we found it necessary to keep an eye on the Chao Uparāt, and to use considerable diplomacy in counteracting his schemes against the church. It was my policy in those days to keep up as close an acquaintance as possible with the members of the ruling family. It was the misfortune of all of them that they were ignorant;[^[9]] and ignorance begets suspicion. Some of them were naturally suspicious of the missionaries. They could not understand what motive could induce men who were neither government officials nor merchants, to leave a great country and come to live in theirs.

[9]. This same Uparāt, whose word ruled the country, was unable to write his own orders.

Two objects were gained by keeping in contact with the rulers. They saw, then, with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, what we were doing. In nearly every interview our one great work was magnified alike to prince, priest, and people. I have heretofore specially mentioned princesses, too, as well as princes, in this connection, because the Lāo have a proud pre-eminence among non-Christian races in the position accorded to woman. In the family, woman’s authority is universally recognized. At the time we speak of it was much the same in the government also. The influence of women in affairs of state was doubtless greatly increased during the previous reign, when, there being no sons in the royal household, the daughters naturally became more prominent. They were trained to understand and to deal with public business.