The code of morality of the Kakhyens has been variously represented. Unchastity before marriage is certainly not regarded as a disgrace. If possible, the parents of the girl endeavour to get the lovers married, but it is not an imperative duty. Should, however, an unmarried girl die enceinte, the father of the child is bound to compensate her parents by the present of a slave, a buffalo, a dah, and other articles, and to give a feast to the inmates of the house. Failing this, he is liable to be sold as a slave. This arises from the value set upon a marriageable daughter, both as regards her present working power and her future price as a wife, which is not lessened by an indiscretion.
Infidelity after marriage is a crime which the husband may punish on the spot by the death of both the offenders. In case of elopement of a wife, the husband is entitled to recover damages, fixed at double the amount expended by him at his marriage. For this the relatives and clansmen of the lover are held liable on pain of a feud.
The ceremony of marriage, besides the religious rites, combines the idea of purchase from the parents with that of abduction, so frequently found to underlie the nuptial rites of widely separated races. An essential preliminary is to get the diviner to predict the general fortune of the intended bride. Some article of her dress or ornaments is procured, and handed to the seer, who, we may suppose, being thereby brought en rapport with her, proceeds to consult omens and predict her bedeen or destiny. If auspicious, messengers bearing presents are sent to make proposals to the girl’s parents, who specify the dowry required and agreed to by the envoys. All being adjusted, two messengers are sent from the bridegroom to inform the bride’s friends that such a day is appointed for the marriage. They are liberally feasted, and escorted home by two of her relatives, who promise to be duly prepared. When the day comes, five young men and girls set out from the bridegroom’s village to that of the bride, where they wait till nightfall in a neighbouring house. At dusk the bride is brought thither by one of the stranger girls, as it were, without the knowledge of her parents, and told that these men have come to claim her. They all set out at once for the bridegroom’s village. In the morning the bride is placed under a closed canopy, outside the bridegroom’s house. Presently there arrives a party of young men from her village, to search, as they say, for one of their girls who has been stolen. They are invited to look under the canopy, and bidden, if they will, to take the girl away; but they reply, “It is well; let her remain where she is.”
While a buffalo, &c. are being killed as a sacrifice, the bridegroom hands over the dowry, and exhibits the trousseau provided for his bride. A wealthy Kakhyen pays for his wife a female slave, ten buffaloes, ten spears, ten dahs, ten pieces of silver, a gong, two suits of clothes, a matchlock, and an iron cooking pot. He also presents clothes and silver to the bridesmaids, and defrays the expense of the feast. Meanwhile the toomsa, or officiating priest, has arranged bunches of fresh grass, pressed down with bamboos at regular intervals, so as to form a carpet between the canopy and the bridegroom’s house. The household nats are then invoked, and a libation of sheroo and water poured out. Fowls, &c. are then killed, and their blood is sprinkled on the grass path, over which the bride and her attendants pass to the house, and offer boiled eggs, ginger, and dried fish to the household deities. This concludes the ceremony, in which the bridegroom takes no part. A grand feast follows. Besides the ordinary fare of rice, plantains, and dried fish and pork, the beef of the sacrificed buffalo and the venison of the barking deer, all cooked in large iron pots, imported from Yunnan, are the viands. Abundant supplies of sheroo and Chinese samshu prepare the guests for the dance.
The orchestra consists of a drum formed of a hollowed tree stem, covered at both ends with the skin of the barking deer, a sort of jews-harp of bamboo, which gives a very clear, almost metallic, tone, and a single or double flute, with a piece of metal inside a long slit, which the performer covers with his mouth. He also accompanies the strain with a peculiar whirring noise, produced in his throat. The marriage feast ends, like all their festivities, in great drunkenness, disorder, and often in a fight.
Breach of promise is made a cause of feud, the friends of the aggrieved fair one making it a point of honour to attack the village of the offender. The curious custom obtains that a widow becomes the wife of the senior brother-in-law, even though he be already married. The day after the birth of a child, the household’s nats are propitiated by offerings of sheroo and the sacrifice of a hog. The flesh is divided into three portions, one for the toomsa, another for the slayer and cook, and the third for the head of the household. The entrails, with eggs, fish, and ginger, are placed on the altars, all the villagers are bidden to a feast, and sheroo is handed round in order of seniority. After all have drunk, the oldest man rises and, pointing to the infant, says, “That boy, or girl, is named so and so.” When a Kakhyen dies, the news is announced by the discharge of matchlocks. This is a signal for all to repair to the house of death. Some cut bamboos and timber for the coffin, others prepare for the funeral rites. A circle of bamboos is driven into the ground, slanting outwards, so that the upper circle is much wider than the base. To each a small flag is fastened, grass is placed between this circle and the house, and the toomsa scatters grass over the bamboos, and pours a libation of sheroo. A hog is then slaughtered, and the flesh cooked and distributed, the skull being fixed on one of the bamboos. The coffin is made of the hollowed trunk of a large tree, which the men fell with their dahs. Just before it falls, a fowl is killed by being dashed against the tottering stem. The place where the head is to rest is blackened with charcoal, and a lid constructed. The body is washed by men or matrons, according to sex, and dressed in new clothes. Some of the pork, boiled rice, and sheroo, are placed before it, and a piece of silver is inserted in the mouth to pay ferry dues over the streams the spirit may have to cross. It is then coffined and borne to the grave amidst the discharge of fire-arms. The grave is about three feet deep, and three pieces of wood are laid to support the coffin, which is covered with branches of trees before the earth is filled in. The old clothes of the deceased are laid on the mound, and sheroo is poured on it, the rest being drunk by the friends around it. In returning, the mourners strew ground rice along the path, and when near the village, they cleanse their legs and arms with fresh leaves. Before re-entering the house, all are lustrated with water by the toomsa with an asperge of grass, and pass over a bundle of grass sprinkled with the blood of a fowl sacrificed during their absence to the spirit of the dead. Eating and drinking wind up the day. Next morning an offering of a hog and sheroo is made to the spirit of the dead man, and a feast and dance are held till late at night, and resumed in the morning. A final sacrifice of a buffalo in honour of the household nats then takes place, and the toomsa breaks down the bamboo fence, after which the final death dance[24] successfully drives forth the spirit, which is believed to have been still lingering round its former dwelling. In the afternoon a trench is dug round the grave, and the conical cover already described is erected, the skulls of the hog and buffalo being affixed to the posts.
The bodies of those who have been killed by shot or steel are wrapped in a mat and buried in the jungle without any rites. A small open hut is erected over the spot for the use of the spirits, for whom also a dah, bag, and basket are placed. These spirits are believed to haunt the forests as munla, like the Burman tuhsais, or ghosts, and to have the power of entering into men and imparting a second sight of deeds of violence. Funeral rites are also denied to those who die of small-pox and to women dying in child-birth. In the latter case, the mother and her unborn child are believed to become a fearful compound vampyre. All the young people fly in terror from the house, and divination is resorted to, to discover what animal the evil spirit will devour, and another with which it will transmigrate. The first is sacrificed, and some of the flesh placed before the corpse; the second is hanged, and a grave dug in the direction to which the animal’s head pointed when dead. Here the corpse is buried with all the clothes and ornaments worn in life, and a wisp of straw is burned on its face, before the leaves and earth are filled in. All property of the deceased is burned on the grave, and a hut erected over it. The death dance takes place, to drive the spirit from the house, in all cases. The former custom appears to have been to burn the body itself, with the house and all the clothes and ornaments used by the deceased. This also took place if the mother died during the month succeeding child-birth, and, according to one native statement, the infant also was thrown into the fire, with the address, “Take away your child;” but if previously any one claimed the child, saying, “Give me your child,” it was spared, and belonged to the adopting parent, the real father being unable at any time to reclaim it.
These ceremonies show the character of the religion of the people. Hemmed in as they are by Buddhist populations, they adhere to the ancient form of worship of good and evil spirits. The French missionaries have been unable to produce any effect upon them. A vague idea of a Supreme Being exists among them, as they speak of a nat in the form of a man named Shingrawah, who created everything. They do not worship, but reverence him, “because he is very big.” As their funeral rites show, they believe in a future existence. Tsojah is the abode of good men; and those who die violent deaths, and bad characters generally, go to Marai. To questions as to the place and conditions of these, an intelligent Kakhyen answered, “How can I tell? no one knows anything.”
The objects of worship are the nats benign or malignant; the first such as Sinlah, the sky spirit, who gives rain and good crops; Chan and Shitah, who cause the sun and moon to rise. These they worship, “because their fathers did so, and told their children that they were good.” Cringwan is the beneficent patron of agriculture, but the malignant nats must be bribed not to ruin the crops. When the ground is cleared for sowing, Masoo is appeased with pork and fowls, buried at the foot of the village altars; when the paddy is eared, buffaloes and pigs are sacrificed to Cajat. A man about to travel is placed under the care of Muron, the toomsa, after due sacrifices, requesting him to “tell the other nats not to harm that man.”
Neglect of Mowlain will result in the want of compraw, or silver, the great object of a Kakhyen’s desire, and if hunters forbear offerings to Chitong, some one will be killed by stag or tiger. Chitong and Muron are two of ten brothers, who have an especial interest in Kakhyen affairs, and another named Phee is the guardian of the night. Every hill, forest, and stream, has its own nat of greater or less power; every accident or illness is the work of some malignant or vindictive one of “these viewless ministers.” To discover who may be the particular nat, or how he is to be appeased, is the business of the toomsa. He prescribes and assists in all sacrifices, and calls the nats to receive their share, which with economical piety generally consists of the offal. The extraordinary method of consulting the will of the nats by a possessed medium has been already described. The meetway is distinct from a toomsa, or regular priest, but there is no sacerdotal caste, the succession being kept up by a natural selection and apprenticeship. The village toomsa practises augury from fowl bones, omens, and the fracture of burned nul grass, besides holding communication with the spirit world. Besides the occasional sacrifices, at seed-time a solemn sacrifice is offered to Ngka, the earth spirit. In this the whole community participates, and the next four days are observed as a strict sabbath, no work or journey being undertaken.