A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

Many of the cities bore a strong resemblance to the ancient Celtic fortresses found by Cæsar in Britain, which are described as fastnesses in the woods, surrounded by a mound and trench, calculated to afford the people a retreat and protection during hostile invasion of their territory. The Venerable Bede, who was born in the seventh century of our era, described the mode of erecting fortified Celtic camps as follows: “A vallum, or rampart, by which camps are fortified for repelling the attack of enemies, is made of turf cut regularly out of the earth and built high above the ground like a wall, having a ditch before it, out of which the turf has been dug, above which stakes made of very strong timbers are fixed.” This exactly describes many of the fortified cities and camps in the Shan States.

There is likewise a resemblance between the appearance, customs, and habits of the Shan tribes, and those of the earliest known inhabitants of Britain, who are said to have belonged to the tawny, black-haired section of mankind. Both were divided into numerous petty tribes and sections of tribes, often at war with one another, and generally devoid of everything like unity or cohesion, even under pressure of foreign invasion; both were given to offering up human sacrifices in order to appease the wrath of local deities; and both races tattooed their bodies. The Shan house-architecture likewise resembles that of the ancient Britons, whose houses and cattle-sheds were formed with reeds and logs, surrounded by stockades constructed of felled trees. Houses built of bamboo matting and logs, with palisaded enclosures, are the ordinary type of architecture in the Shan States.

At one time the principality of Hsen or Tsen (some Shans aspirate the initial, and some do not) was far more extensive than it is at present. From B.C. 330 to B.C. 221, when the kingdom of Tsoo was conquered by the Emperor of Ts’in, Tsen was tributary to Tsoo; and at the time the Chinese conquered South-western Yunnan (B.C. 108), Tsen, then a state of Ma Mo (a Shan kingdom in the upper part of the Irrawaddi valley) confederation, extended southwards from the Yunnan lake, and eastwards to Nanning. It probably comprised the Shan States of Tsen-i-fa or Kiang Hung, Tsen-i or Theinni, and Kiang Tsen amongst its muangs, which became feudatory to Burmah between A.D. 1522–1615.

The upper part of the old principality of Tsen, when formed into a separate State, was known to the Chinese as Chan Li (Chang Li), and later as Che-li. This principality was broken up by the Chinese in A.D. 1730, when they forced the chief to pay tribute for the six pannas (or districts) lying to the south of Ssumao and to the east of the Meh Kong, and annexed the portion of his territory lying to the east of the Meh Kong, that extended as far north as half-way between Puerh and Chen Yuan Fu, and as far south as and comprising Ssumao. Thus the chief of Che-li (the Kiang Hung of the Shans, and the Kaing Yung-gyi of the Burmese) became tributary to China, as well as feudatory to Burmah.

In conversation with the Chow Hluang of Kiang Hsen, he told us that he was descended from the ancient line of Kiang Hsen, as well as from the ruling line of Zimmé. The present capital, according to him, was built in 1699, and destroyed by the Ping Shans in 1804. In giving the history of its destruction, he said that in 1778, four years after the Ping Shans had thrown off their allegiance to Burmah and become feudatory to Siam, the Lao Shans of Vieng Chang and Luang Prabang became tributary to Siam, and, urged on by Siam, besieged Kiang Hsen from 1794 to 1797.

During the siege the Lao forces were commanded by Phya Anoo, the chief of Vieng Chang, who, enraged at the long resistance, issued a proclamation declaring that every male found in the city should be put to death on its capture. This made the resistance of the besieged desperate. The Lao finally succeeded in undermining and breaching the middle of the southern wall, when a storming-party under Phya Tap Lik made an entrance; but so fiercely were they met by the defenders, that they were not only driven back, but their leader was captured, and subsequently drowned in the Meh Kong. A month later the Lao forces gave up the siege, being unaware of the fact that famine was raging in the city, and would, if the siege had continued, soon have forced its inhabitants to surrender.

Between 1779 and 1803, according to the history of Zimmé, Kiang Hsen was attacked six times by the Ping Shans, and only taken by them in 1804. During the siege by the Lao in 1797, a body of 300 Ping Shans established themselves as an army of observation near the city, but did not take part in the operations. An agreement is said to have been made with their commander, that if he would return with 3000 troops, the inhabitants would kill the Burmese troops and open the gates.

Previous to its fall in 1804, the commander of the Ping troops, which included the joint forces of Zimmé, Lakon, Nan, and Pheh, secretly informed the chief of Kiang Hsen that they had only come to accede to his former proposal, and merely wished Kiang Hsen to throw off the Burmese yoke and become feudatory to Siam, as the Ping Shans had already done; and he promised that, if the inhabitants of Kiang Hsen would massacre the Burmese governor and his troops and open the gates, the Ping Shans would form a defensive and offensive alliance with them. The inhabitants of Kiang Hsen accordingly slew the Burmese governor and the 300 Burmese soldiers who were within the walls, and opened the gates to the Ping Shans. They soon found to their cost that they had been treacherously dealt with. The city was destroyed; some of the people escaped across the Salween and settled in Mokmai and Monay, and the rest were taken captive to the Ping States, and distributed amongst them. With the Shans treachery is an ordinary occurrence in warfare: the persons deluded are ashamed at having been taken in; the successful party chuckles and crows over his cleverness.

From the time when Kiang Hsen was captured till 1810, Ping Shan armies frequently raided into the Burmese Shan States—proceeding as far west as the Salween, and as far north as the border of China—sacked the towns, and carried away the inhabitants into captivity. The late General M‘Leod, when at Zimmé in 1837, states in his journal that “the greater part of the inhabitants of Zimmé are people from Kiang Tung, Muang Niong (Yong), Kiang Then (Tsen or Hsen), and many other places to the northward. They were originally subjects of Ava (Burmah).” In another passage he says: “They, with the Talaings (Peguan Burmese), comprise more than two-thirds of the population of the country.”

The Chow Hluang told me that before he left Lapoon to take up the government of Kiang Hsen, when it was reoccupied in 1881, his retainers numbered fully 30,000 souls, amongst whom were 2500 fighting-men. Every man from eighteen to seventy years of age, who is not a slave, is reckoned as a fighting man; and allowing one grown man to every five souls, there must have been fully 6000 grown men amongst his dependants. This proportion between full-grown slaves and fighting-men shows that there were about 17,500 slaves amongst his 30,000 retainers. The descendants of Burmese refugees and captives in war are classed as slaves by the Siamese and the Ping Shans, and are parcelled out amongst the ruling classes. His statement must be taken with a grain or two of salt, as the chiefs are apt to give Falstaffian accounts of the numbers of their retainers.