A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

The floor of the uncovered portion of the verandah serves in the daytime as a drying-place for betel-nuts and fruit, and at night, after the heat of the day, furnishes a resort for a quiet lounge under the fast cooling sky. If the family is religiously disposed, it is to the verandah that the monks are invited to conduct a merit-making service for the prosperity and health of the household; and it is to the verandah that witch-finders, medicine-men, and sorcerers, as well as monks, are received to render their services for a small consideration in cases of sickness.

Look on the tops of the house-posts, under the rafters, and you will find cabalistic charms inscribed on fragments of cloth, which have been placed there to prevent the intrusion of malignant spirits who bring calamity, disease, and death.

The belief in the spirits of the earth, found in all the dark corners of the world, and at one time nearly universal, fetters its victims with the bonds of superstition. Superstition saps all manliness from them, makes them live in constant dread of their surroundings, and consider themselves akin in soul to spirits inhabiting the lower grades of creation and the vegetable and mineral kingdom.

The spirits in the unseen world, although considered to have previously inhabited human forms, according to the people are as malicious as monkeys, and can only be kept in good humour by constant coaxing. The very best—the spirits of their ancestors, and the spirits of deceased monks, the teachers of their youth—will certainly take vengeance if provoked by neglect.

Knowing that Shan dynasties reigned in Upper Burmah from A.D. 1298 to 1554, and in Lower Burmah from A.D. 1287 to 1540, and again from 1740 to 1746; that the people of Zimmé were tributary to, and at times directly ruled by Burmah, between A.D. 1558 and 1774; and that Talaings, the people of Lower Burmah, flocked to Zimmé and Siam, and settled there in the latter half of last century and in the first half of this century,—it is not surprising to find that many superstitions held by the Talaings and Burmese are common to the people of Zimmé. Thus the instructions given in the Burmese Dehttohn upon house-building, and choosing the site and materials, and also as to the lucky day for the commencement of the house, are generally applicable to Zimmé as well as to Burmah. Superstition takes under its guidance almost every detail; and when the house is completed, it still directs as to the day and the manner of moving in to take possession, and even as to the direction the people are to repose in at night. No door or windows are allowed in the eastern wall, and the family sleep with their heads to the east.

The flooring of the house is supported by posts forked at the top to carry the floor beams on which rest the bamboo joints for supporting the planking. The walls and roof of the house are supported by other posts let two feet into the ground, and reaching to the wall-plates or to the ridge of the house, according to their position. A peculiar feature in most of the Zimmé houses is the general practice of inclining the walls slightly outwards from the floor to the roof.

The posts of the walls are arranged in sets of threes, fives, sevens, &c., as odd numbers bring luck. The spaces between each set of posts have specific names. The door of the house and the verandah or platform in front of it are almost always at the south end. The post that is occupied by the spirits, “Pee,” is on the east side next to the corner post nearest the door. The guardian spirits of the house are supposed to occupy the portion of this post above the floor, and malignant or evil spirits the portion below it.

The Pee Hpōng, or ghoul spirit, who resides in the lower region of the earth, possesses people in the following manner: A person in communion with this spirit rises quietly from sleep at night, and stealing down-stairs, tips his (or her) nose thrice against the spirit post. This action makes the face lustrous, and by its light, as by a lamp, the possessed person seeks the vile food that he craves. When satisfied, he re-tips his nose, the ghoul vanishes, and he returns to bed. The ghoul, I presume, is inhaled when first tipping the nose, and exhaled when re-tipping it. Kissing amongst the Shans and Burmese is performed by inhaling through the nose, and not as with us through the lips. Another spirit rising from the centre of the earth is Phya Ma-choo Lat, the shadow spirit, that renders people prematurely careworn and old.

The house has its floor raised a few inches above that of the verandah, and the interior is divided into one, two, or more apartments, according to its size and the wants of its owner. The furniture of the houses is very simple. Mats and cushions are piled in a corner ready for use; the handsomest cushions being triangular in section and embroidered at each end. Simple mats made of fine strips of bamboos or of a species of rush, often worked into patterns, serve as mattresses in summer, and are replaced by home-made cotton mattresses in the colder months. The mattress is rolled up during the day, and placed on the floor at night, and over it is suspended a thick cotton mosquito-curtain, through which one would think it scarcely possible to breathe. Curtains made of book muslin would be much more conducive to health, and would be equally serviceable, as they would keep out the sand-flies as well as the mosquitoes, which an ordinary mosquito-net does not do, as I found out before I had been many days in Burmah.

The fireplace consists of a wooden frame about four feet square and six inches deep, filled with earth or sand. On this is placed a light iron tripod, or what equally serves the purpose, three pieces of brick or stone to rest the pot on when the fire is kindled. In the dry season cooking is carried on in the garden, but in the rains in a compartment of the house, the smoke finding its way out through the door, windows, interstices in the mat walls, and through the roof. The utensils consist, besides the water-jars, of a few pots, pans, baskets made waterproof by coatings of thyt-si or wood-oil to serve as buckets, dippers to scoop the water from the jars made of half a cocoa-nut shell fitted with a carved wooden handle, spoons, and a few china bowls.