Ten years in Burma

by Julius Smith

The car Juggernaut, with its great idol, when drawn along the roads at the Juggernaut festival evoked such fanaticism that men threw themselves under its great wheels, and were crushed. This practice has been prohibited by law. The festival is still observed, but men do not throw themselves under the wheels. I have seen the great car, with its hideous idol, drawn past our mission-house in Rangoon, attended by thousands of Hindus, with all the noise and confusion of an Oriental procession; but there is no blood on its wheels now, and no crushed bodies are left in the street.

There was another even more terrible custom prevalent in India for ages, in which the Government had to interfere. It has for centuries been the custom of Hindus to give their little girls in marriage when tender children. They were married at ten or eleven years of age, or even at nine years. To appreciate this monstrous cruelty it should be remembered that a child of the same age in Western lands is much stronger than a child in India. There were many mothers in India at twelve years of age. The cruelties of this practice of child marriage were such that they can not be written. Let it be remembered that this practice existed for hundreds of years, and that practically all the Hindus approved it, although the sufferers were their own children. And when the terribleness of the practice was so pressed on the Government that it could not avoid taking action, and consequently framed a bill to raise the age of consent to twelve years, before which it would be unlawful to consummate marriage, the whole Hindu world rose up in protest. They charged the bill to the oppression of the Government. Fifty thousand Hindus met in public protest in the city of Calcutta. This protest was from Hindus directed against a righteous law for the protection of their children from this age-old cruelty!

To the writer it has been an experience of a painful kind to find a few Americans crying out against the “Oppression of England in India,” when they are only echoing the cry of the Hindus against the righteous law. But the law was enacted, and has had a wholesome effect so far as it is not evaded by false statements of the age of the girls, which are often made.

But if England had no other justification for her Government in India than these four enactments, the Government would have much to its credit. But these are legal protections thrown around her people to prevent them taking life, or perpetuating cruelty in the name of religion. If monstrous things are still done, it is a comfort to know that these named have been abolished.

Once each year a sect of Mohammedans torture themselves by running through the fire. This torture occurs during the feast which follows the Mohammedan fast, or lent. During this fast the Mohammedan community eat nothing from sunrise to sunset. They may eat a great deal after sunset and before sunrise. Having fasted in this manner for forty days, they feast for three days. But this does not include all of the community. There is a division of the Mohammedans dating back to the death of Mohammed. A quarrel then arose over his successor as leader of the Mohammedans. One party held to Hassan and Hoosan, the sons of the prophet; and the opposing party stood for another leader. This division led to war, in which Hassan and Hoosan were slain and their party defeated. This contention has been maintained until the present, and those of the conquering party are known as Sunni Mohammedans, and the followers of Hoosan and Hassan are called Shia Mohammedans. The latter will not feast with the other party, and take this occasion to torture themselves by running through the fire, as a protest against the opposing sect.

The preparations for this torture by fire are made deliberately, and it is carried out on a large scale. First of all, they must secure the permission of the Rangoon magistrate to this ordeal. Then they publish the places where it will occur, for it is celebrated in several localities on the same night. Ditches are dug deep enough to hold a great mass of coals, and two or more rods in length. On the day appointed, a large supply of dry wood being provided, a fire is kindled in the ditches about noon, and is kept burning until long after dark. Meantime the ditch has been filled with coals smoldering, and kept alive, but not allowed to burn to ashes. As the earlier hours of the night have been passing, multitudes of all nationalities have gathered at the scene of fire-running. They have to be kept at a distance by a cordon of rope stretched about a considerable circle. As midnight passes, a spirit of expectancy takes possession of the waiting multitude, which is increased by shouts and excitement in a side street not far away. These are all according to the Oriental’s idea of working up a climax of interest in his spectacular display. A little after midnight the fanatics who have been selected to undergo this torture come rushing from a side street, carrying banners and shouting in increasing excitement as they enter the arena and approach the fire on the run. Crowding close together at the end of the ditch of fire, they wave their banners, chant, shout, and shriek until a frenzy possesses them, and then they plunge into the fire with their bared feet and legs! The first man to leap into the fire sinks more than half way to his knees in the fiery pit, and the next step also, and so through the ditch. As might be supposed, he plunges through as fast as possible with his greatest strides. He is followed in turn by every other of the twenty or more fanatics of his company.

They immediately collect at the other end of the ditch, and with even greater frenzy than before scream, stamp the coals from feet, and plunge again through the ditch. So from end to end they rush till the coals are dragged out of the ditch clinging to their feet and legs, or are kicked out on the surrounding ground. Then the fanatics disappear, and the multitude of curious onlookers disperse.

This cruel practice is carried out every year among these Mohammedan immigrants to the province of Burma. The idea seems to be a frenzied appeal to God that their contention, settled by the sword in the defeat of their party twelve centuries ago, was right. This particular revolting exhibition may be a modern development; but if so, it is but another evidence of the growth of fanatical extravagance of an imperfect faith. But viewed in any light, it is a sad commentary on the Christless Mohammedan world in this twentieth century of the Christian era. It is a fact to be lamented that Christian missions are not generally directed to the adherents of the Mohammedan faith.

Lest it be thought that such fanaticism is only representative of the lower class of people, let this circumstance be noted. On one occasion my wife saw this “fire-running.” Just before the expected approach of the company designated to run through the fire, a finely-dressed Mohammedan merchant came within the ropes, with the air of a man who intended to act as a self-appointed master of ceremonies over these fanatics, lest they act too outrageously. But when the excitement of the occasion was on, and these common people were rushing through the fire, he began to show every indication of rising excitement. He sat down, rose up, sat down again. He took off one shoe, jumped up, and sat down again; then off came both stockings, and he plunged into the fire like any other of these frenzied people. This shows the terrible power of such enormities over even the self-poised Mohammedan merchant.

Another scene we witnessed among the Hindus, even more revolting than this annual exhibition among the Mohammedans. It was on a Sabbath-day, and Bishop Thoburn was with us on his biennial visit to Burma. The early morning service at the English Church had been concluded, and we were going to the mission-house in the cantonments. The day was growing almost intolerably hot, especially under the direct rays of the sun, as it was in the latter part of April, the hottest time of the year. As we rode along under the protection of our covered tum-tum, we saw just ahead of us in the middle of the Signal Pagoda Road, the main street between the city and the suburbs, an excited company of Hindu pilgrims and their attendants. It is a striking fact, too, that the scene we beheld was very near a Christian church located on that road—a Christian church dedicated to the worship of Him who died for all men—and here by the side of that edifice on that Lord’s-day, nearly twenty centuries after the gospel was proclaimed to a sin-darkened world, was enacted one of the most distressing cruelties of heathenism, and it is doubtful if the devotees, or their attendants, even dreamed of the salvation which every Christian temple should suggest! That Church does nothing for missions, being content to preach only to those who bear the Christian name.