When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

These carts form the first part of the funeral procession. They are decorated with queer primitive flags and flat paper umbrellas. The beautiful oxen are usually festooned with flowers; but when they are to be included in a funeral procession, the flowers are taken off them. This they often resent; for they are by no means devoid of vanity—these huge gentle oxen of the East.

After the waggons walk the priests, not less than twenty or thirty. They carry liver-shaped palm-leaf fans, and the umbrellas peculiar to their priesthood. They carry rosaries, as do all Chinese priests. The Burmese, who have many of the Mongolian features, always seemed to me to be the Chinese grown beautiful.

After the priests walk or ride the mourners. They are dressed in white.

Then comes the funeral cart. It is shaped like a house-boat. It is covered by a softly coloured silk canopy, and it bristles with umbrellas and pennants.

The close of the funeral procession is of a nondescript character. It is a catch-all for waggons, not en regale, for priests and friends crowded out of the procession proper, and for stragglers. By the time the procession reaches its destination, the irregular cortége behind the funeral cart is very apt to be twice or thrice the length of the regular cortége that precedes the carriage of the dead.

When the train halts, the coffin is lifted carefully from the waggon. It is placed upon the ground, on the spot designated by the priests. Then water is poured over the coffin, while the priests chant. The Burmese set great store by water. It is almost their only beverage; and water must be an important item in the daily life of a people of such exquisite neatness. They have a yearly Water Festival. It begins on New Year’s Day, and continues for nearly a week. At daybreak on New Year’s Day the Burmese go to the nearest of their wonderful pagodas. They throw water upon it, and pray for a plentiful season. A jar of water is presented, with great ceremony, to the head priest of the pagoda, and with a prayer that any wickedness they may have committed during the past year may be forgiven. Then they have a splendid romp. Most of the Eastern peoples play like children; and the Burmese are the most frolicsome race in the Orient. They drench each other with water; and he who gets wettest confidently expects the most good luck for the ensuing year. The missionaries say that this is a primitive expression of the theory of the cleansing of sin by water. It reminded me of the New Year’s customs of the Chinese. Every Chinaman, who possibly can, pays all his debts on New Year’s Day. What a festival for the Chinese tradespeople! It reminded me even more of a German habit. On New Year’s Day German friends who have quarrelled forgive each other. No Burmese feud can continue after the principals have drenched each other nicely with water at the Water Festival. The analogy would be more perfect if the Burmese were more quarrelsome or the Germans more peaceful. The Burmese very rarely quarrel among themselves.

After the pouring of water upon the coffin, alms are given to all the poor present. Then every one is given a dish of pickled tea (by the way, pickled tea is rather nice—far nicer than pickled cabbage). Other ceremonies follow—all of a quiet, dignified character. Then the body is burned—usually in the coffin. The funeral procession slowly wends its way back. The priests guard sacredly the smouldering pile. Three days later the relatives return and gather up the ashes. Very occasionally the ashes are put into urns; but as a rule they are buried.

That is a Burmese burial: the burial of human ashes.