Read Ebook: Among the Burmans: A Record of Fifteen Years of Work and its Fruitage by Cochrane Henry Park

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who had been guilty of many sacrilegious acts, destroying pagodas and other sacred objects in search of plunder, could hope for no mercy at the hands of his captors. The leading Portuguese were slaughtered. The remainder, including the women, were carried away captive to Ava as slaves. Their descendants may now be found throughout Burma, many of them being Roman Catholic priests. In 1634 Ava was made the permanent capital.

An immense pagoda was built, and a costly image of Gautama cast to add to the sacredness of the place, and to the merit of the king.

But Burman fortunes were uncertain. Ava the Great was taken and burned by the Talaings in 1752. Not long were the Talaings allowed to hold the Burman capital. A Burman who took the name of Alaungpra, with wonderful vigour and ability rallied his people. Little more than a year had passed when Alaungpra recaptured Ava. In 1755 he took his armies southward, conquering as he went, not content until he reached Dagon. There he founded a new city, which he designed should be the chief port of Burma, and named it Rangon , the word meaning the war ended.

Now, in 1755, both British and French traders were established there. During the struggles between the Burmans and Talaings, the Europeans hardly knew which should have their favour and help. Everything depended on being on the side which should prove victorious.

Alaungpra, after securing Rangoon, returned to Ava. This was interpreted as a sign of weakness, and thereafter the Europeans openly showed their sympathy with the Talaings. When the Talaings attacked the Burmese, they were assisted by the ships of both British and French.

But alas, Alaungpra returned early in the following year. After a blockade of several months Syriam was taken and destroyed, including the European factories. The principal Europeans, after being held a short time as prisoners, were put to death. The downfall of Pegu soon followed, marking the end of Talaing supremacy.

Six years later, 1762, Sagaing became the capital of the Burmese Empire. Passing over the wars with Siam, Manipur, and China, we find the capital changed, in 1783, to Amarapura, a new city built for the purpose. The following year Arracan was invaded and conquered. The most valued booty was an immense brass image of Gautama, cast in the second century, said to possess miraculous powers. This image, taken over the mountains, a wonderful feat, was placed in a building erected for the purpose, on the north side of Amarapura, the new capital, where it may now be seen by visitors to the "Arracan Pagoda."

In 1795 the first envoy to the king of Burma was sent by the government of India. The envoy was not well received, and secured no permanent advantage. The following year another was deputed to be resident at Rangoon, instead of Ava. He met with the same discourteous treatment, and accomplished nothing. Up to 1812 five successive attempts were made to arrive at an understanding with the Burman king, with reference to political and commercial relations, but without success. Envoys were either ignored or made the bearers of insolent replies. At this time war between England and the United States was about to begin. Adoniram Judson was getting ready to sail as a foreign missionary.

In 1823 the capital was restored to Ava. A great fire at Amarapura destroying some of the royal buildings, together with certain "bad signs," induced the king to abandon the city which had been in existence only forty years. During the previous year the Burmans had overrun Manipur and parts of Assam, and claimed the territory as a part of the Burman Empire. The first battle ever fought between the Burmese and English was at Cachar--in January, 1824. The Burmans were defeated. In 1824-5 the British and native troops succeeded in driving the Burmans back into their own country. The bulk of the Burmese army had already been recalled to repel the British who were advancing from the south, war having been formerly declared in March, 1824. In the meantime the American missionaries, Judson and Price, together with all Europeans at Ava were imprisoned as suspected spies, or in league with the enemy.

After eleven months they were transferred to Aungbinle, with the intention to put them to death. The first Burmese war lasted two years.

Arracan, and all the country east of the Gulf of Martaban was ceded to the British. Rangoon reverted to the Burmese. But the most interesting result to American readers, was the release of the missionaries, Judson and Price, who were utilized as messengers to negotiate the terms of surrender. After the second installment of indemnity had been paid, and the British troops withdrawn to territory ceded by the humiliated king the following record of the affair was added to the royal chronicles. "In the years 1186, 1187 the white strangers of the west fastened a quarrel upon the Lord of the Golden Palace.

"They landed at Rangoon, took that place and Prome, and were permitted to advance as far as Yandabu, for the king, from motives of piety and regard to life, made no preparation whatever to oppose them. The strangers had spent vast sums of money in their enterprise, so that by the time they reached Yandabu their resources were exhausted, and they were in great distress. They then petitioned the king, who, in his clemency and generosity, sent them large sums of money to pay their expenses back, and ordered them out of the country." The record modestly omitted to mention the fact that the strangers had permission to take with them the Arracan, Ye, Tavoy, Mergui, and Tenasserim provinces!

The whole period from 1826 to the second Burmese-English war, in 1852, was marked by heartless cruelties inflicted by successive Burman kings upon all real or suspected offenders; by persistent repudiation of the terms agreed upon at the close of the first war; and by gross insults to British representatives. The second Burmese-English war lasted a year and a half, and resulted in the annexation of the Province of Pegu, which included Rangoon and extended to a point about thirty miles north of Toungoo. In about 1837 the capital was again transferred to Amarapura, where it remained until Mandalay was founded, in 1860, by Mindon Min. A new king, Mindon Min, was soon proclaimed at Amarapura. Throughout his reign, from 1853 to 1878, relations between the British and Burmese were greatly improved. Mindon Min was the best king Burma ever had. Moreover, the loss of Arracan, Tenasserim, and Pegu had inspired some degree of respect for representatives of the British Indian Government. With the death of Mindon, and the ascension of Thibaw, trouble began. The great massacre, in which about seventy of royal blood, including women and children, were ruthlessly butchered, called forth a vigorous remonstrance from the British Government. An insolent reply was returned, rejecting outside interference.

In August 1879 the resident at Mandalay was withdrawn. Massacres soon followed, rivalling the horrors of the past. At this time many thousands of Burmese migrated to Lower Burma to escape oppression.

Thibaw then began a flirtation with France. The Bombay Burma Trading Company was accused of defrauding the king in the matter of royalty on teak logs. An enormous fine was inflicted. Arbitration was rejected. The French were conspiring with the king to gain commercial advantages, giving them practically full control of Upper Burma, including the only route to western China. In June, 1885, the government of India obtained conclusive evidence as to the nature of these negotiations. A demand was made that a British resident be received at Mandalay, and that Thibaw reveal his foreign policy. This ultimatum was refused. The British immediately advanced on the capital. On the 28th of November, 1885, Mandalay was taken, and King Thibaw made a prisoner. The great, self-sufficient Burman kingdom had fallen to rise no more.

French diplomatists had outreached themselves, and precipitated the annexation of Upper Burma.

It will be seen that the Burmese throughout their history have been a warlike people. The adoption of Buddhism, as the national religion, with its strict rules concerning the taking of life, does not seem to have wrought any change in this respect. The grossest cruelties were practiced, suspected conspirators slaughtered by hundreds, generals who had failed in battle, as well as others of high rank or noble blood were executed, sewed up in red sacks, and sunk in the Irrawadi River. Sometimes the preliminary execution was dispensed with.

Victorious kings built great pagodas, at the expense of the people, to expiate their sins of bloodshed,--and then renewed the carnage.

The cruelties inflicted upon Judson and his companions at Ava and Aungbinle; the history of Burman dacoity since the English occupation; together with many other evidences,--stamp the Burman as far from being the tolerant, peace-loving, life-reverencing character that many of his admirers, on the interest of Buddhism, or Theosophy, have pictured. It is said that a professor in a certain theological seminary, seeking to cast discredit on the historical authenticity of the Book of Daniel, called the attention of his class to the unlikelihood that any Oriental monarch would have issued such decrees as are attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, in the third chapter. To say nothing of Mohammedan fanaticism, familiarity with Oriental character as exhibited by Burman kings would have dispelled the professor's doubts.

"The good fortune that has attended him ... has inspired him with the idea that he is something more than mortal, and that this privilege has been granted him on account of his numerous good works....

"A few years since he thought to make himself a god." He did in fact, proclaim himself as the fulfillment of the national expectation of a fifth Buddha. Priests who refused to recognize his claims, were punished. Who can doubt that the late King Thibaw would have been quite capable of repeating Nebuchadnezzar's decree, had he thought of it, and seen any advantage in it, to himself.

The census of 1901 gives the total population of the province as 10,490,624. Of this total the Burmese number 6,508,682, while the number returning the Burmese language as their ordinary tongue was 7,006,495. The total number of Buddhists, including the Shans and Talaings, is 9,184,121. The area of the province is 286,738 square miles. To the casual visitor the country seems to be peopled almost exclusively by Burmese, and Buddhism the only form of worship, the other races inhabiting isolated parts of the country, far removed from the main lines of travel. The population of Rangoon is about 235,000. Buddhists and Hindus number about the same, with more than half as many Musalmans as of either. Fifty per cent. of the population are immigrants. Rangoon is no longer a Burman city.

In Mandalay, their last capital, and second city of Burma, the situation is quite different. In a total of 178,000 over 152,000 are Buddhists. This city has been in existence only sixty-three years. Its outward appearance is much the same as it was when taken by the British in 1885. The same brick wall, twenty-six feet high, with its crenelated top, a mile and a quarter on each side of the square, forming an impregnable barrier against all comers,--still surrounds what was the royal town. On each side are three gates, reached by bridges across the wide moat, which is kept filled with water by a connection with a natural lake a few miles to the northeast.

Inside of the walled town comparatively little now remains as it was when captured. The natives occupying thatched houses, were compelled to move outside the wall, taking their shanties with them. For this they were amply compensated by the British Indian Government. A large city, regularly laid out with straight wide streets, was already flourishing outside of the walled section. Within the walls the palace and monasteries still remain, the former now being restored by the provincial government, at great expense. Services of the Church of England are held in one of the large halls. In one of the buildings near the palace the Mandalay Club is comfortably established. Several old cannon, used by the Burmese in their wars, more for the noise they could make than for any death-dealing powers they possessed, now adorn the grounds. The king's monastery, and the queen's monastery, are objects of interest. Near the former is the site of the "Incomparable" temple, destroyed by fire in 1892. This immense structure, with its gilded columns and lofty ceiling, was the grandest building in the city. Near by is a huge pagoda within a high rectangular wall. The space enclosed is subdivided into three compartments by low walls extending around the pagoda, to represent the threefold division of the Buddhist scriptures. These spaces contain seven hundred and twenty shrines about fifteen feet high, their tops supported by four columns. In the centre of each shrine, set like a gravestone in the cement floor, is a stone tablet about three feet wide by five and a half feet high, covered on both sides with portions of the sacred writings. The floor around each tablet is polished by the bare feet of many devotees,--for the "Law" is one of the "three precious things" of Buddhism--commanding their worship. For all this immense outlay of time and money devoted to sacred objects Mindon Min is supposed to have secured the royal merit, freeing him from the countless existences through which the ordinary mortal must pass. The prevailing impression that as a result of the monastic school system all of the Burmese males can read and write, is not corroborated by the recent census. A little less than half are able to both read and write. Doubtless a large majority spent enough of their childhood in the monastery to acquire these accomplishments, but, to many, they have become lost arts, through disuse. Only fifty-five in each thousand of Burmese women can read and write. Girls are not admitted to monastic schools. This small gain is chiefly due to mission schools. The demand for female education is rapidly increasing. All Burmans, except the relatively small number of converts to Christianity, are Buddhists. Nearly all are worshippers of idols.

A sect called Paramats was founded at the beginning of last century. The Paramats will have nothing to do with pagodas and idols. They respect the ordinary Buddhist priests, as representatives of Gautama, who was the incarnation of eternal wisdom. They do not hold that eternal wisdom is reincarnated in the priests, and therefore do not worship them as orthodox Buddhists do. This eternal wisdom, which existed before the world was made, and will exist throughout eternity, fills all space, but exercises no influence over this world. Eternal wisdom is not, except in a very vague sense, personified--as an equivalent of the Christian conception of an eternal God. But the Paramats have the germ of a true belief, and, as a rule, are thinking men, which is more than can be said of the ordinary Buddhist. Numerous in the district midway between Mandalay, and Rangoon, they furnish a hopeful field for missionary effort.

THE SHANS

That there is a discrepancy of ten centuries or more between this view and the Shan Chronicles, in which the most striking feature is exaggeration, need not disturb any one. In fact, a sound "principle of interpretation" of legendary history, whether Burmese or Shan, is to cut down its figures by about one half.

Near the end of the tenth century the Shans occupied Arracan about eighteen years. The Shan kingdom continued until overcome by the Burmese, in the middle of the eleventh century. They still remained in power in the far north. In 1281 Shans from Siam joining with Shans of Martaban, conquered Martaban, then with assistance of Shans from the north they captured Pegu from the Burmans. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Shans were again in the ascendant in Upper Burma, the Burmans having been weakened by Chinese invasions. The Shans now ruled the country from the upper reaches of the Irrawadi as far south as Prome, but not including Toungoo. All Burma was threatened with Shan supremacy. This might have been realized but for the Shan emperor's own recklessness and tyranny, working his own downfall.

Kings of Shan race controlled Pegu from 1281 until conquered by the Toungoo Burman prince, Tabin Shwe' Htee, in 1539. The Shan power in the north having become weakened, the Burmese in 1554, captured Ava, and in 1557 conquered the Shans throughout the Upper Irrawadi region. Thibaw, Mone, and "Zimme" in northern Siam, fell to the Burmans a year later. The Shans seem to have remained subject to the Burman kings until the annexation of Upper Burma; and sometimes assisted the Burmans in their wars with the Talaings and Siamese.

The census of 1901 gives a total of 751,759 Shan-speaking people.

Besides the northern and southern Shan States, a large number of Shans are still found in Upper Burma, and many Shan villages throughout Lower Burma. It is not definitely known when the Shans adopted Buddhism. There are evidences that the Shans, who were supreme on the Upper Irrawadi at the opening of the Christian era, and for several centuries after, were influenced by Buddhism introduced from India by way of Manipur, and that many accepted it. After the introduction of Buddhism from the south it spread rapidly among the Burmese, and through them to the Shans, becoming the national religion of both races.

It is said that many Shan Buddhist priests sought reordination according to the rules of the southern type of Buddhism.

The Shans established monasteries throughout their country. Under the later Burman kings, Burman priests were sent to propagate Buddhism in the Shan country. In some places the sacred books were destroyed, and other books written in the Burmese language substituted, Burmese becoming the language of the Monastic schools for Shan boys.

Burman kings adopted the same tactics in dealing with the Talaings.

THE KARENS

The desert of Gobi best answers to their tradition. Other traditions point to western China as their early home. It is not unlikely that the tradition of the "river of sand" is much the older, and these traditions taken together mark the progress of the Karens in at least two widely separated migrations southward. The Karens strongly resemble certain hill-tribes now living in western China; in fact some of the Karens have identically the same customs, as these China hill-tribes, who are also said to have the tradition of a "river of sand."

There are three main divisions of the Karens, known as Pwo, Sgaw, and Karennee or "Red Karens." This threefold division antedates their migration to Burma. The Pwos, sometimes called "the mother race," are supposed to have been the first arrivals, working their way south by the way of the valleys of the Salwen and Mekong Rivers; followed by the Sgaws, and finally by the Karennees, though it is doubtful whether there was any interval between these main divisions in the general migration. But in some way they have--to this day--maintained the distinction. It is probable that for a time the Karens held the territory now known as the eastern Shan states, and all the upper Salwen region. The coming of the Shans, whether from the north or west, drove them southward, each of these tribal divisions advancing under compulsion in the same order in which they first entered the country.

The Pwos are now found in the delta and still farther south in the Maulmain district; the Karennees farther north, bordering on the Shan country, and east to the Siam border; the Sgaws keeping to the central territory, in the Toungoo district and diagonally across to Bassein, sharing parts of the delta with the Pwos. A large body of Sgaw Karens, as well as many Pwos, are found in the Tavoy district, farthest south of all. The Tavoy Karens drifted in from Siam, not extending to the seacoast until early in the last century.

There is now a continuous chain of Karens from Tavoy far into the north of Siam. In general, the Karens live in the highlands, the Burmans occupying the plains. Formerly this was partly from choice, but unavoidable whether from choice or not, on account of the cruel oppression suffered at the hands of the more powerful Burmans. But under British rule many Karens have come down to the plains, and forming villages of their own, have engaged in cultivation. They still like to be within easy reach of the mountains, to which they resort for game and other food.

In the shady ravines they have profitable gardens of betel palms, the nut being essential to any native's happiness, and commanding a ready sale. Some writers have advanced the theory that the religious traditions of the Karens were derived from their supposed contact with Nestorian Jews in western China. This can hardly be true--as it places the migration of the Karens to Burma at much too late a date.

The Nestorians did not begin their work in western China until 505 A. D., closing it in 1368, when they were expelled by the Mongols.

It seems certain that the Karens were already in Burma long before the Nestorian missionaries went to China.

If it is true that the large towns in Shan-land were founded by the Shans four or five hundred years before the Christian era, the migration of the Karens must be placed at an even earlier period,--but that early date is doubtful. The non-Christian Karens are, and always have been spirit-worshippers. This so-called worship is limited to propitiatory sacrifice. In this respect they are at one with all the races of Burma, not excepting the Burman Buddhists, though the latter have abandoned bloody sacrifice. Before the adoption of Buddhism the Burmans, Shans and Talaings were spirit-worshippers pure and simple. Spirit-worshippers they still are, with the forms of Buddhism for a veneering.

The history of the Karens in Burma has been a sad one. For centuries they had been grievously oppressed by the Burmans, who robbed them, carried away captives into slavery, and kept the Karens pent up in the most inaccessible parts of the mountain ranges.

In some localities one meets with a new dialect in each village through which he passes in a day's journey. Ye shades of Shinar! confusion of tongues,--twice confounded. It seems incredible that so many families of one race, occupying the same territory, and with practically the same habits, customs, and superstitions,--should each perpetuate for centuries its own peculiar dialect and clannish exclusiveness. The missionary or official, to do effective work among such a people, needs a small army of interpreters at his heels.

THE KACHINS

"Now, the name 'Majoi Shingra Pum,' literally translated is a naturally flat mountain, or in other words, a plateau, and it does not need any stretch of the imagination to identify it with some part of eastern Tibet. Colonel Hannay, writing in 1847, describes tribes residing in the inaccessible regions bordering on Tartary as closely allied to the Kachins." This identifies the Kachins more closely with the Burmans and Chins than with the Karens. Moreover it is said that the Kachin language has more points in common with the Burmese than with the Karen. This is especially true of the Marus,--a tribe to the eastward, allied to the Kachins of Burma. It is not difficult to believe that all these races, in the very remote past, were neighbours in the borders of Tibet, and that while the Kachins and Burmese migrated south direct, the Karens migrating by way of western China,--the meeting of these races on Burmese soil reveals a few of the many things they once had in common.

After the Burmans and Chins had migrated to Burma, the Shans, pressing westward by way of the Namkham valley, blocked the way of further migrations from the north. The Shans are known to have been supreme in northern Burma at the beginning of the Christian era. It is probable that they peopled the Upper Irrawadi several centuries earlier. In the thirteenth century the Shans overran Assam. Not until the middle of the sixteenth century were they finally overcome by the Burmans. Nothing is known of the Kachins in Burma earlier than the sixteenth century. They seem to be comparatively recent arrivals, working their way into Burma after the Shans had been weakened by their struggles with the Burmans. The Singphos of Assam are said to have drifted into that country but a little more than a century ago.

The Kachins have gradually forced the Palaungs and Shans before them, or isolating some of their villages from the main body. Their sudden development of power is remarkable. Political changes consequent on the annexation of Upper Burma checked Kachin aggressions. They are still spreading, but by fairly peaceable means. The Namkham district, supposedly Shan, is found to contain fully as many Kachins as Shans. Slowly but surely the Shans will be pressed southward. Before passing under control of the British the various tribes of Kachins were ever at war among themselves. Captives were sold into slavery. Retaliatory raids were constantly expected. Feuds are still kept up, though they do not have the free hand to execute vengeance enjoyed in former years.

It certainly would not be healthy to have it known. The Kachins have their own distinctive costume, varying according to tribe and locality. But Kachin men in touch with Chinese, Shans, or Burmans, usually adopt the costume of their neighbours. The women hold to their own costume.

THE CHINS

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