A BUDDHIST SCHOOL, MANDALAY (SHOWING BEGGING-BOWL).
To face p. [194].
In many cases, if the boy is working and his services are needed, he remains in the monastery only long enough to enable him to go once around the village begging from door to door in the train of the priests. Some stay seven days, some a fortnight, and others, if they are able, remain throughout the four months of Lent. Of course many of them enter the monastery for life, and there is no country in the world where there are so many priests as in Burmah. The monasteries offer a refuge for men in trouble, for those who desire to leave the cares of the world and lead a life of meditation and repose. And it is said that this departure from the world is made by many a man in this country, where women are noted for the strength of their characters and the length of their tongues.
The Burmese boy does not consider he has attained manhood until he has been tattooed. When I was first in Burmah, being rather nearsighted, I thought all Burmese men of the lower class wore short, dark, skin-tight drawers, but when I became more courageous and examined them more closely I found what I considered underclothing was the man’s own skin. This had been tattooed from the waistline down to the kneecap with a series of pictures so closely set together that they could not be distinguished one from the other, and melted into a background of blue and black, with here and there a softened red to accentuate the fading colours of the darker dye. This is a sign of manhood, which, the Burmese say, will probably not die out, because a Burman would be as ashamed to have a spotless white skin without a mark of the tattooer’s needle as would the American boy to find no manly hairs upon his chin at the age when other boys begin to shave. And woe to the hapless youth if a wind-blown paso should show the girl he was courting a white and spotless leg; she would tell him that his place was in the women’s quarters and offer him a woman’s dress! Each figure in this mosaic has a meaning, and there are charms for protection of the body, for the gaining of a loved one, thus assuring the wearer great riches, and, mixed with these, are figures of all kinds—lizards, birds, and pictures of the Buddha. Sometimes women who wish to ensnare the object of their affection endure the pain of having a love charm tattooed upon the tongue or upon the lips. Often a few round spots tattooed with the prescribed formula repeated over it and placed between the eyes will be enough to bring back a wandering lover to her side. If this is not effectual or if the maiden sees herself drifting towards a lonely middle age with no lover in her view, she cuts off the locks of hair hanging over her ears, announcing to all the world that she is looking for a lover. They say in Rangoon that if a woman is tattooed it means that she desires an Englishman for her husband.
BURMESE BOY WITH TATTOOED LEGS.
To face p. [196].
In olden days Burmah shared with Japan in the number of its women given in marriage à la mode to men of alien races. Nearly every English official and merchant had his house presided over by a little native maiden. These arrangements were very happy and tragedies did not occur until the Englishman, longing for home sights and sounds, and the dignity of an English wife, went back home and returned to his station with the woman of his choice. Then there was sorrow, and even the English gold could not repay the little Burmese woman for the loss of the love of the kindly, careless man who had been her master for the many years. Often attempts were made to regain that master’s love, and many a time the attempts succeeded, because in the formality and dignity of his English home and the coldness of his English wife, the man remembered the happy days and nights spent under the Burmese roof and the pretty little Burmese girl who shyly slipped her hand in his and called him master, lord of all her days and nights.
There is a story told of an English official in Upper Burmah who, when time for leave of absence came, closed up his Burmese home, giving to its little hostess money sufficient to make her rich for life. On his return to Burmah he brought with him the girl from Devonshire to whom he had been betrothed for many years. At dinner their first night soft steps were heard upon the verandas, and curtains moved as if in the swaying of an evening breeze, but nothing could be seen. The next morning when starting for his office the frightened horse shied madly at a little mound of silk lying by the side of the gateway. It was the little Burmese wife, with a dagger through her heart. Pinned upon her pretty dress was a letter for her lord, in which she said: “I have looked upon thy newly wedded wife and found her good. If I had seen within her eyes—and love would quick have told me—that she were not the worthy one, that she were not fitted to be thy mate through all these years to come, I would have plunged my knife deep in her heart, but now I know it is better for me to go, as life without thee has no joy.”
One can understand the charm that these happy, smiling, care-free little women have for the men who come from homes where levity and laissez-faire are things to be condemned. The Burmese wife makes no demands upon her lord and master; she is obedient, attendant to his every want, and never scolding and discontented. As far as material wants are concerned, the native woman of any Eastern country makes an ideal wife for the average European, yet they can never be real companions one with the other. There is more than the bar of language between them; there is the bar of instincts, customs, and traditions. The entire life of each has been passed in different environments. Practically always the woman has little or no education, and knows nothing of the world outside the town where she was born. There is never any question of equality between the foreign husband and the native wife; he is always her lord, she is always his slave. To the light-hearted Burmese woman, to whom the marriage tie even with a man of her own race is not a binding cord, these “marriages for a day” are not always things of tragedy, but the curse falls heavily upon the child if there should be one. In all Eastern countries—Egypt, India, Burmah, China, and Japan—the half-caste is a being set apart. Ostracized by the members of his father’s race, unrecognized by his mother’s people, he is a social pariah, and one almost feels that, if society could enforce it, he would be compelled to call out, “Unclean, unclean!” as did the lepers in the olden time.
EN ROUTE TO A FESTIVAL, BURMAH.
To face p. [198].