Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

The people of the place have to prepare rockets and other fireworks, as well as images of animals to which the rockets are fixed. The images are then drawn through the streets and round the town; all the citizens, when the ceremonies are strictly observed, being compelled to assist. The procession opens with some flags; then a number of dancing girls and boys follow; after this the carriages with the figures, drawn by boys and bullocks; and on the occasion which Mr. Carey describes, there followed, by the express command of the governor, a quantity of young women “dancing and singing, with an older woman between each row to keep them in order.” Then came the principal persons of the place under umbrellas, a sign of rank, as in ancient Nineveh, and all modern Asiatic countries. Lastly, the procession was closed by men, dancing and singing in like manner.

The images on the carriages are usually very large, much larger than life, and represented buffaloes, elephants, horses, and men. Each street attends its own carriage in the procession.

The following day the townspeople are divided into two parties, and strange indeed must be the sight of the multitude. The carriage containing the corpse has four large cables attached to it, and the two parties of the townspeople pull against one another, and strive to draw away the carriage and its contents. This contest is continued till superior strength puts an end to it, or till the cable breaks, and the losing party tumble head over heels.

The third day is spent in discharging the rockets. The figures were fixed on carriages, and the rocks were fastened to strong ropes by rattan loops, in such a manner that being passed between the legs of the animals, “so that when discharged, they, sliding on the ropes, ran along the ground.” In the evening there is another grand display of fireworks.

The next day the corpse is burnt in a temporary house by small rockets, which, sliding down on to the coffins along ropes in rings of rattan, set the coffin on fire. Sometimes, as we are informed by Crawfurd,[128] the body is blown from a cannon to convey it more quickly to heaven!

What can be said of such puerility and solemnity joined together? How melancholy is the aspect of such things, and what can we think of the moral or religious condition of a nation who made such seeming fun (for under what other term can a large portion of the ceremony be comprehended?) of the solemnest moment of existence, and that, too, in the burial of a minister of that God to whom, in humility and reverence, they lifted up their hearts in prayer. Very often, however, the most solemn and the most trivial are mingled in very remarkable proportions. We have one example of that, at least, in religion, nearer home.

The Buddhist religion is remarkable in many points, but decidedly the most curious circumstance connected with it, is the vast numbers of believers which own its influence. That the religion is ancient, perhaps more ancient than any other form of eastern worship, except Brahmanism, can scarcely be doubted; but that it extended so far over the earth as some would have us believe, is scarcely credible. Reuben Burrow, a long time ago, called Stonehenge a Buddhist temple; and since then the notion has been revived by Higgins in his Celtic Druids, as well as in another work.[129]

Mr. Pococke, too, the author of India in Greece, would persuade us that the early Greeks were Buddhists, and that Pythagoras, correctly written (according to him) Buddha-gooroos (Buddha’s spiritual teacher), was a Buddhist missionary!

However, let the religion be ancient or modern, in principle it is one of the best that man ever made for man. Mr. Malcom, from whom as a missionary one would of course expect rabid intolerance, bears testimony to this:—“There is scarcely a principle, or precept, in the Bedagat, which is not found in the Bible. Did the people but act up to its principles of peace and love, oppression and injury would be known no more within their borders. Its deeds of merit are in all cases either really beneficial to mankind, or harmless. It has no mythology of obscene and ferocious deities; no sanguinary or impure observances; no self-inflicted tortures; no tyrannizing priesthood; no confounding of right and wrong, by making certain iniquities laudable in worship. In its moral code, its descriptions of the purity and peace of the first ages, of the shortening of man’s life because of its sins, &c., it seems to have followed genuine traditions. In almost every respect it seems to be the best religion which man has ever invented.”[130]