A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

Leaving Penyow the next morning about seven o’clock, we crossed the Meh Ing, which runs near the south gate of the city. The bed of the river at our ford was saucer-shaped, 80 feet wide, and 5 feet deep in the centre, and contained 1 foot of water, which was covered with a thick yellow slime, that emitted an unpleasant odour. After passing a great clump of rose-bushes, bearing ordinary tea-roses, we entered a plain covered with elephant grass and bamboo jungle, which is inundated to a depth of 5 or 6 feet in the rains.

Three-quarters of a mile from the city we left the low ground, and crossing the Meh Hong Sai, the brook of clear water, entered the rice-plain of Ban Meh Sai. This village is inhabited by people who have been turned out of other places in the district, under the accusation of witchcraft.

Near the village we noticed many padouk and pyngado logs, which had been dragged there for the purpose of building a temple and monastery.

Beyond the fields we entered a bamboo jungle, through which our elephants had to force their way by breaking down the bamboos and small trees, and snapping off such branches and twigs as would interfere with the howdah. It is surprising how docile these great animals are, and how sagaciously they obey the orders given them by their drivers. We halted for breakfast at a house that had been built for us in the pretty village of Meh Hong Khum, which is situated on a stream of the same name.

After breakfast, we visited the temple and monastery, where we found the priests busy making rockets for the approaching eclipse, and then continued through the forest to the village of Ban So. Thence proceeding through a slightly rolling country, where several small streams take their rise, we camped for the night under the shade of a great kanyin tree, near the Meh Na Poi, which enters the Meh Ing. We had risen 350 feet in 12 miles since leaving Penyow.

The kanyin (or oil-tree), under which we erected our tent, had it been on an affluent of the Meh Nam, might have been chosen for one of the main posts of a Pramene, or Royal Siamese cremation temple. When a king of Siam dies, his successor immediately begins making preparations for the construction of a Pramene, a splendid temporary building, under which the body, after sitting in state for several days on a throne glittering with silver, gold, and precious stones, is committed to the flames.

The late Dr Bradley thus described the erection of the posts in one of these buildings:—

“The building is intended to be in size and grandeur according to the estimation in which the deceased was held. Royal orders are forthwith sent to the governors of four different provinces far away to the north, in which large timber abounds, requiring each of these to furnish one of the four large logs for the centre pillars of the Pramene. These must be of the finest timber, usually the oil-tree (kanyin), very straight, 200 feet long, and proportionally large in circumference, which is not less than 12 feet. There are always twelve other pillars, a little smaller in size, demanded at the same time from the governors of other provinces, as also much other timber needed in the erection of the Pramene and the numerous buildings connected with it.

“The great difficulty of procuring these pillars is one main cause of the usual long delay of the funeral burning of a king. When brought to the city, they are dragged up to the place of the Pramene, chiefly by the muscular power of men working by means of a rude windlass and rollers under the logs. They are then hewed and planed a little—just enough to remove all cracks and other deformities—and finished off in a cylindrical form. Then they are planted in the ground 30 feet deep, one at each corner of a square not less than 160 feet in circumference. When in their proper place they stand leaning a little toward each other, so that they describe the form of a four-sided, truncated pyramid from 150 to 180 feet high. On the top of these is framed a pagoda-formed spire, adding from 50 to 60 feet more to the height of the structure. This upper part is octagonal, and so covered with yellow tin sheets and tinselled paper as to make a grand appearance at such a height.”

The Ton Yang (or Ton Nyang), the Shan name for the kanyin tree, sometimes attains a height of 230 feet to the first branch. Its oil is procured in a similar way to the varnish of the Mai Hăk, or Thytsi tree. A large notch is cut in the tree two or three feet from the ground, and a basin is formed at the bottom of the notch, capable of containing three quarts of oil as it drops from the upper part of the notch. A fire is then built in the notches, and kept burning until all parts are well charred. A tree 12 feet in circumference often has three or more of these wounds, each giving from one to two quarts in twenty-four hours.