The women are constantly engaged in weaving and dyeing, for the yarn from home-grown cotton is spun, dyed, and woven by their industrious fingers. They are adepts at needlework and silken embroidery; and all the clothes worn are made and ornamented by the women of each household. Straw-plaiting is another of their industries, and the broad-brimmed straw hats made in the valley would compete with the finest Leghorn fabrics. Another art in which they excel, apparently borrowed from the Chinese, is the manufacture of elaborate ornaments for the hair from the sapphire blue feathers of the roller bird (Coracias affinis). These are fastened on paper cut to imitate wreaths and flowers; and with copper wire, gold thread, and feathers, laid on with the greatest nicety, very pretty simple ornaments are produced, which are often brightened by the addition of a ruby or some other gem.
The stuffs woven in a loom similar to that in use by the Kakhyens are of all degrees of texture, the finer kinds, used for jackets, being very soft, and usually figured with large lozenge-shaped patterns of the same colour. A marked feature of the textile fabrics and embroideries of the Shans, and indeed of their ornamentation generally, is the reproduction of conventional patterns, handed down from their forefathers without any attempt to improve or vary them. The Shan designs of the nineteenth century probably are identical with those of the fourteenth, and are simple modifications of the lozenge, square, and stripe; these modifications may be, and are, almost endless, and the combinations of the elementary forms most intricate, while the ground of the fabrics in which the patterns are wrought is usually covered with numerous small truncated almond-rounded lozenges, interspersed with figures of the sacred Henza, or Brahminical goose. The chief beauty of their textile fabrics consists in the wonderful grouping and harmony of the colouring; and in the employment of their vivid full and half tints of blue, orange, green, and red, they are all but unrivalled artists.
The great body of the Shan population is engaged in agriculture; and as cultivators they may take rank even with the Belgians. Every inch of ground is utilised; the principal crops being rice, which is grown in small square fields, shut in by low embankments, with passages and floodgates for irrigation. During the dry weather, the nearest stream has its water led off, and conducted in innumerable channels, so that each block, or little square, can be irrigated at will. In the valley of the Tapeng, advantage is taken of the slope of the ground to lead canals to fields several miles away from the point of divergence. At our arrival in the beginning of May, the valley from one end to the other appeared to be an immense watery tract of rice plantations glistening in the sunshine, while the bed of the river was left half dry by the subtraction of the water. Tobacco, cotton, and opium are grown on the well-drained slopes of the hills, the two former for home use; but the white-flowered poppy is cultivated to supply the requirements of Chinese, Kakhyens, and Leesaws. A considerable quantity of Shan opium finds its way to Bhamô, and thence to Mandalay, and also to Mogoung, whence it is distributed among the Singphos.
The land is tilled by a wooden plough with an iron share, drawn by a single buffalo. Men and women work together, but the heavy tillage is done by the former, the weaker sex being only employed in weeding and thinning. Vegetables are grown round every house, and form an important article of diet. Numbers of fine cattle and pigs are reared and killed for eating, their flesh, with all kinds of poultry, being largely used, and sold freely in the markets, for the Shans have no Buddhist prejudices. The milk, however, is not used. The entrails of animals, as among the Burmese, are much used in Shan cuisine; a very fair soup, made of the intestines of fowls, being a favourite dish of the Hotha tsawbwa, who insisted, when dining with us, on substituting it for our soup, which he did not approve. The large larvæ of a giant wasp, and stewed centipedes, are Shan dainties which we could not appreciate.
Their principal stimulant is samshu, or rice-spirit; but during our stay amongst them, we observed scarcely an instance of intoxication. The vice of drunkenness and the licentiousness common amongst all their neighbours seem almost unknown among this industrious self-supporting race. They are social and good-humoured, but by no means as jovial as the Burmese, compared with whom they are a quiet, rather sedate people.
As a rule, each man is content with one wife, but polygamy is allowable to those who are wealthy enough; thus the Hotha chief had several wives at various villages. All that is required to contribute a valid union is the sanction of the parents, mutual consent, and interchange of presents between the contracting parties, but no religious rite whatever is observed on the occasion of the wedding.
They are a musical race, and possess many simple wild airs, which they play on stringed and wind instruments. Of the former, which are played like a guitar, one is about three feet in length, with three strings and a broad sounding-board; another is only half the size, the sounding-board being a short drum-like cylinder, with a snake skin stretched across it. This instrument was also a great favourite with the Momien people, and is probably of Chinese origin. The most usual wind instrument is a sort of flute, made of bamboo, with a flask-shaped gourd as mouthpiece, and the sound is full, soft, and pleasing. The long brazen trumpets, which are a sort of state appendage of the tsawbwa, are only blown to announce his arrival, or to do honour to his guests.
The chiefs, although paying an annual tribute to the authorities at Momien, exercise full patriarchal authority in their states; assisted by a council of headmen, they adjudicate all cases, civil and criminal. The tsawbwa is the nominal owner of all land, but each family holds a certain extent, which they cultivate, paying a tithe of the produce to the chief. These settlements are seldom disturbed, and the land passes in succession, the youngest son inheriting, while the elder brothers, if the farm is too small, look out for another plot, or turn traders; hence the Shans are willing to emigrate and settle on fertile lands, as in British Burma. The chiefs naturally do not approve of this, and it is to be feared that the recent emigration of these Shans to our provinces has in the last few years excited the ill-will of the tsawbwas against the British officials, whom they accuse of inducing their people to desert them. In ordinary times of peace and prosperity, the inhabitants of these valleys must have been very thriving, and the chiefs very wealthy, tokens of which appeared in their haws, though most of them had been much injured before our visit; but at this time they were certainly impoverished, and, without doubt, many of the valuable articles of dress and jewellery offered to us for sale belonged to the chiefs and their families. The great anxiety of the peaceable Shans was for the restoration of order, and though they all earnestly longed for the re-establishment of the imperial Chinese régime, they were, in the meantime, most ready to befriend those whose mission was to establish a route for commerce, necessitating peace and order as the conditions of its maintenance.
We found it impossible to obtain a guide to the southern side of the valley of Hotha beyond the Namsa, which is a very small mountain stream. The tsawbwa declared that the bridge had been washed away, and that the road was deep in mud; but he himself planned an excursion for us to visit another house belonging to him at Tsaycow, some miles to the east of Hotha. The chief set off early in the morning to prepare for our reception, and we followed at midday. The road, paved with boulders, and near the villages with long dressed slabs of granite, wound over the grassy spurs, the slopes of which were cultivated with tobacco and cotton. The mountain streams, running over rocky channels encumbered by large boulders particoloured with green moss and lichens, were spanned by bridges of gneiss or granite, those over the larger streams being handsome arched structures, twenty to twenty-five feet in span, with a rest-house at either end, and the parapets often guarded by stone dragons. Each village was approached by a long narrow lane arched by trees and feathery bamboos, terminating in a picturesque gateway, and bordered by stone drinking fountains. The houses were embowered in trees, pear, apple, chestnut, peach, and sweet lime, forming orchards round the villages, and the triple roofs of substantial khyoungs and occasional pagodas crowning the knolls, completed the rural picture, with a background of green slopes of grazing land running up to the rearward wall of mist-clad mountains. One small pagoda, called Comootonay, differed altogether from the ordinary Burmese type, in its peculiar shape and attenuated long spire, which rose to a height of fifty feet. Five miles of pleasant riding past a succession of thriving and picturesque villages, orchards, and khyoungs, brought us to Tsaycow, or Old Hotha, a much larger place than the present town of that name, embowered in trees, and delightfully situated on a spur at the opening of a little dale, down which flowed a fine mountain stream. The chief’s house, formerly his head-quarters, which was built in the Chinese fashion, though smaller than our residence, had the advantage of a better site and superior condition, the private apartments especially being richly decorated with elaborate carvings. In the inner reception hall we were welcomed by the tsawbwa, and, after being refreshed with tea, were conducted by him to see two khyoungs, one Shan and the other Chinese, built, after his own designs, one above the other, on the hillside behind the village. The Chinese temple, which occupied the highest site, was enclosed by a high wall, with a gate leading into a courtyard bordered by cloisters on either side, while a raised pavilion occupied the end, opposite to which, and above all the other buildings, towered the shrine, crowning the highest of two terraces faced with granite. Covered staircases led from the cloisters to the higher level, each terminating in a little rounded tower containing a large bell. The temple occupied the whole of the terrace, with verandahs, paved with stone, to the front and rear. A little stream bubbled up into a small basin in the front, and then formed a cascade from terrace to terrace into the court below. Two entrances led from the verandah into the temple, between which a large window exactly faced the altar-piece. On a table in front of the window stood vases with incense and flowers, and a number of boxes containing the library. The altar-piece, an admirable example of open woodcarving, about twenty feet high, resembled a huge triptych, containing three recesses about ten feet from the ground. It was enclosed by a simple wooden railing four feet high, and before it stood a small table, whereon incense is burned, and at either end two others, with a wooden fish and drumstick on each. The three recesses contained life-sized figures, each with a gauze curtain in front. A beam projecting to the front wall from either side supported two life-sized figures, and along each side wall eighteen small figures were ranged on a platform, with a vase and joss-sticks before each. The tsawbwa acted as cicerone, and explained that the central figure was Chowlaing-lon, the king of all nats, who had existed before Gaudama. The figures on either side are called Coonsang, and act as his pawmines or agents, to execute his orders; and the four standing figures are the rulers of the four great islands or quarters of the globe, who keep a record of all the actions of their subjects. After death each man is brought before Chowlaing-lon, and by him consigned to the Coonsang, who, according to the report given by the rulers, make them over to one or other of the thirty-six nats representing the army of the Thagyameng, ranged in order along the sides. One of these nats was represented with six arms, armed respectively with a belt, bow, arrow, club, and dagger, while one hand was empty as though ready to seize a victim. All the others were in different attitudes, each holding some kind of weapon, and having a long scarf-like band round his neck and shoulders, reaching to the ground, to serve as wings, recalling to our minds the flying people visited by Peter Wilkins.
The lower or Shan khyoung consisted of two oblong buildings on different levels. A grim-looking nat or Beloo guarded the door leading into the temple, where sat three colossal Buddhas, the Past, Present, and Future. On either side were two guardian figures, one mounted on a pigmy elephant, and the other on a mongrel monster, half lion and half tiger. At the feet of the Buddhas was a well executed figure of a tortoise; while vases of incense and sweet-smelling flowers placed on a table sent up their sweet odours to the calm impassive faces above them. At each side of the building, sat a row of life-sized figures, cleverly executed, and one especially, representing a shrivelled old man, with his chin resting on his knees, and the flesh tints admirably given, displayed real artistic power. In the lower temple, which was open in front, the middle of the central wall was occupied by a figure of Kwan-yin holding the child, and surrounded by a number of small adoring figures sculptured in relief; above her head a parrot, holding a rosary in its bill, was perched on a twig. On the other side of the wall, so as to be back to back with the Chinese goddess, sat a colossal Buddha flanked by two gigantic figures, one of which held a rat. The tsawbwa declared that all these temples had been erected in honour of Buddha; and he narrated the history of Kwan-yin, who was the daughter of an ancient emperor of China, but, assuming the white robe of a rahanee, spent her days in a forest, devoted to pious meditation. The mixture of ancient polytheism and Buddhism in the story was an apt illustration of the confused form of religion represented in the shrines.