Man, Past and Present Part 21

A somewhat similar feature is presented by the Angami Naga, the chief language of the Naga Hills, of which R. B. McCabe writes that it is "still in a very primitive stage of the agglutinating cla.s.s," and "peculiarly rich in intonation," although "for one Naga who clearly marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so[405]." It follows that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said to be "distinctly monosyllabic" it really abounds in polysyllables, such as _merenama_, orphan, _kehutsaporimo_, nowhere, _dukriwache_, to kill, etc. There are also numerous verbal formative elements given by McCabe himself, so that Angami must clearly be included in the agglutinating order. To this order also belongs beyond all doubt the _Kuki-Lushai_ of the neighbouring North Kachar Hills and parts of Nagaland itself, the common speech in fact of the _Rangkhols_, _Jansens_, _Lushai_, _Roeys_ and other hill peoples, collectively called _Kuki_ by the lowlanders, and _Dzo_ by themselves[406]. The highly agglutinating character of this language is evident from the numerous conjugations given by Soppitt[407], for some of which he has no names, but which may be called _Acceleratives_, _r.e.t.a.r.datives_, _Complementatives_, and so on. Thus with the root, _ahong_, come, and infix _jam_, slow, is formed the r.e.t.a.r.dative _nang ahongjamrangmoh_, "will-you-come-slowly?" (_rang_, future, _moh_, interrogative particle)[408].

The Kuki, the Naga and the Manipuri, none of which claim to be the original occupants of the country, have a tradition of a common ancestor, who had three sons who became the progenitors of the tribes.

The Kuki are found almost everywhere throughout Manipur. "We are like the birds of the air," said a Kuki to T. C. Hodson, "we make our nests here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year[409]?" The following description is given of the Naga tribes, _Tangkhuls_, _Mao_ and _Maram Nagas_ (_Angami Nagas_), _Kolya_, or _Mayang Khong_ group, _Kabuis_, _Quoirengs_, _Chirus_ and _Marrings_. "Differences of stature, dress, coiffure and weapons make it easy to distinguish between the members of these tribes. In colour they are all brown with but little variety, though some of the Tangkhuls who earn their living by salt making seem to be darker. Among them all, as among the Manipuris, there are persons who have a tinge of colour in their cheeks when still young.

The nose also varies, for there are cases where it is almost straight, while in the majority of individuals it is flattened at the nostril.

Here and there one may see noses which in profile are almost Roman. The eyes are usually brown, though black eyes are sometimes found to occur.

The jaw is generally clean, not heavy, and the hair is of some variety, as there are many persons whose hair is decidedly curly, and in most there is a wave. Beards are very uncommon, and hair on the face is very rare, so much so that the few who possess a moustache are known as _khoi-hao-bas_ (Meithei words, meaning moustache grower). I am informed that the ladies do not like hirsute men, and that the men therefore pull out any stray hairs. The cheekbones are often prominent and the slope of the eye is not very marked[410]." The stature is moderate varying from the slender lightly built Marrings to the tall st.u.r.dy finely proportioned Maos. The women are all much shorter than the men, but strongly built with a muscular development of which the men would not be ashamed. The land is thickly peopled with local deities and at Maram the case is recorded of a Rain Deity who was once a man of the village specially cunning in rain making. Among the points of special interest in this region are the stone monuments still erected in honour of the dead, and the custom of head-hunting, connected with simple blood feud, with agrarian rites, with funerary rites and eschatological belief, and in some cases no more than a social duty[411].

Through these Naga and Kuki aborigines we pa.s.s without any break of continuity from the Bhotiya populations of the Himalayan slopes to those of Indo-China. Here also, as indeed in nearly all semi-civilised lands, peoples at various grades of culture are found dwelling for ages side by side--rude and savage groups on the uplands or in the more dense wooded tracts, settled communities with a large measure of political unity (in fact nations and peoples in the strict sense of those terms) on the lowlands, and especially along the rich alluvial riverine plains of this well watered region. The common theory is that the wild tribes represent the true aborigines driven to the hills and woodlands by civilised invaders from India and other lands, who are now represented by the settled communities.

Whether such movements and dislocations have elsewhere taken place we need not here stop to inquire; indeed their probability, and in some instances their certainty may be frankly admitted. But I cannot think that the theory expresses the true relations in most parts of Farther India. Here the civilised peoples, and _ex hypothesi_ the intruders, are the Manipuri, Burmese, Arakanese, and the nearly extinct or absorbed Talaings or Mons in the west; the Siamese, Shans or Laos, and Khamti in the centre; the Annamese (Tonkinese and Cochin-Chinese), Cambojans, and the almost extinct Champas in the east. Nearly all of these I hold to be quite as indigenous as the hillmen, the only difference being that, thanks to their more favourable environment, they emerged at an early date from the savage state and thus became more receptive to foreign civilising influences, mostly Hindu, but also Chinese (in Annam). All are either partly or mainly of Mongolic or Indonesian type, and all speak toned Indo-Chinese languages, except the Cambojans and Champas, whose linguistic relations are with the Oceanic peoples, who are not here in question. The cultivated languages are no doubt full of Sanskrit or Prakrit terms in the west and centre, and of Chinese in the east, and all, except Annamese, which uses a Chinese ideographic system, are written with alphabets derived through the square Pali characters from the Devanagari. It is also true that the vast monuments of Burma, Siam, and Camboja all betray Hindu influences, many of the temples being covered with Brahmanical or Buddhist sculptures and inscriptions. But precisely a.n.a.logous phenomena are reproduced in Java, Sumatra, and other Malaysian lands, as well as in j.a.pan and partly in China itself. Are we then to conclude that there have been Hindu invasions and settlements in all these regions, the most populous on the globe?

During the historic period a few Hinduized Dravidians, especially Telingas (Telugus) of the Coromandel coast, have from time to time emigrated to Indo-China (Pegu), where the name survives amongst the "Talaings," that is, the Mons, by whom they were absorbed, just as the Mons themselves are now being absorbed by the Burmese. Others of the same connection have gained a footing here and there in Malaysia, especially the Malacca coastlands, where they are called "Klings[412],"

_i.e._ Telings, Telingas.

But beyond these partial movements, without any kind of influence on the general ethnical relations, I know of no Hindu (some have even used the term "Aryan," and have brought Aryans to Camboja) invasions except those of a moral order--the invasions of the zealous Hindu missionaries, both Brahman and Buddhist, which, however, amply suffice to account for all the above indicated points of contact between the Indian, the Indo-Chinese, and the Malayan populations.

That the civilised lowlanders and rude highlanders are generally of the same aboriginal stocks is well seen in the Manipur district with its fertile alluvial plains and encircling Naga and Lushai Hills on the north and south. The Hinduized Manipuri of the plains, that is, the politically dominant _Meithis_, as they call themselves, are considered by George Watt to be "a mixed race between the Kukies and the Nagas[413]." The Meithis are described as possessing in general the facial characteristics of Mongolian type, but with great diversity of feature. "It is not uncommon to meet with girls with brownish-black hair, brown eyes, fair complexions, straight noses and rosy cheeks[414]." In spite of the veneer of civilisation acquired by the Meithis, the old order of things has by no means pa.s.sed away. "The _maiba_, the doctor and priest of the animistic system, still finds a livelihood despite the compet.i.tion on the one hand of the Brahmin, and on the other of the hospital a.s.sistant. Nevertheless the _maibas_ frequently adapt their methods to the altered circ.u.mstances in which they now find themselves, and realize that the combination of croton oil and a charm is more efficacious than the charm alone[415]."

"It is possible to discover at least four definite orders of spiritual beings who have crystallized out from the amorphous ma.s.s of animistic Deities. There are the _Lam Lai_, G.o.ds of the country-side who shade off into Nature G.o.ds controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an agricultural community; the _Umang Lai_ or Deities of the Forest Jungle; the _Imung Lai_, the Household Deities, Lords of the lives, the births and the deaths of individuals, and there are Tribal Ancestors, the ritual of whose worship is a strange compound of magic and Nature-worship. Beyond these Divine beings, who possess in some sort a majesty of orderly decent behaviour, there are spirits of the mountain pa.s.ses, spirits of the lakes and rivers, vampires and all the horrid legion of witchcraft.... It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Hinduism on the civilisation of the people, for to the outward observer they seem to have adopted only the festivals, the outward ritual, the caste marks and the exclusiveness of Hinduism, while all unmindful of its spirit and inward essentials. Colonel McCulloch remarked nearly fifty years ago that 'In fact their observances are only for appearance sake, not the promptings of the heart[416].'"

It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo, which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term _Khel_, which has travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and "it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village.

The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]."

There appears to be no trace even of a _jirga_, or council of elders, by which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.

From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of _Chins_ of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards to the rude _Kakhyens_ (_Kachins_) about the Irawadi headstreams and southwards to the numerous _Karen_ tribes, who occupy the ethnical parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tena.s.serim.

For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes, as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government, method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the Chinese _jin_, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call themselves _Yo_ in the north and _Lai_ in the south, while in Lower Burma they are _Shu_.

In truth there is no recognised collective name, and _Shendu_ (_Sindhu_) often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and Arakan frontier tribes, _Klangklangs_ and _Hakas_, who with the _Sokte_, _Tashons_, _Siyirs_, and others are now reduced and administered from Falam. Each little group has its own tribal name, and often one or two others, descriptive, abusive and so on, given them by their neighbours.

Thus the _Nwengals_ (_Nun_, river, _ngal_, across) are only that section of the Soktes now settled on the farther or right bank of the Manipur, while the Soktes themselves (_Sok_, to go down, _te_, men) are so called because they migrated from Chin Nwe (9 miles from Tiddim), cradle of the Chin race, down to Molbem, their earliest settlement, which is the Mobingyi of the Burmese. So with Siyin, the Burmese form of _Sheyante_ (_she_, alkali, _yan_, side, _te_, men), the group who settled by the alkali springs east of Chin Nwe, who are the _Taute_ ("stout" or "st.u.r.dy" people) of the Lushai and southern Chins. Let these few specimens suffice as a slight object-lesson in the involved tribal nomenclature which prevails, not only amongst the Chins, but everywhere in the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese domain, from the north-western Himalayas to Cape St James at the south-eastern extremity of Farther India. I have myself collected nearly a thousand such names of clans, septs, and fragmentary groups within this domain, and am well aware that the list neither is, nor ever can be, complete, the groups themselves often being unstable quant.i.ties in a constant state of fluctuation.

Most of the Chin groups have popular legends to explain either their origin or their present reduced state. Thus the Tawyans, a branch of the Tashons, claim to be Torrs, that is, the people of the Rawvan district, who were formerly very powerful, but were ruined by their insane efforts to capture the sun. Building a sort of Jacob's ladder, they mounted higher and higher; but growing tired, quarrelled among themselves, and one day, while half of them were clambering up the pole, the other half below cut it down just as they were about to seize the sun. So the Whenohs, another Tashon group, said to be Lushais left behind in a district now forming part of Chinland, tell a different tale. They say they came out of the rocks at Sepi, which they think was their original home. They share, however, this legend of their underground origin with the Soktes and several other Chin tribes.

Amid much diversity of speech and physique the Chins present some common mental qualities, such as "slow speech, serious manner, respect for birth and knowledge of pedigrees, the duty of revenge, the taste for a treacherous method of warfare, the curse of drink, the virtue of hospitality, the clannish feeling, the vice of avarice, the filthy state of the body, mutual distrust, impatience under control, the want of power of combination and of continued effort, arrogance in victory, speedy discouragement and panic in defeat[419]."

Physically they are a fine race, taller and stouter than the surrounding lowlanders, men 5 feet 10 or 11 inches being common enough among the independent southerners. There are some "perfectly proportioned giants with a magnificent development of muscle." Yet dwarfs are met with in some districts, and in others "the inhabitants are a wretched lot, much afflicted with goitre, amongst whom may be seen cretins who crawl about on all fours with the pigs in the gutter. At Dimlo, in the Sokte tract, leprosy has a firm hold on the inhabitants."

Although often described as devil-worshippers, the Chins really worship neither G.o.d nor devil. The northerners believe there is no Supreme Being, and although the southerners admit a "Kozin" or head G.o.d, to whom they sacrifice, they do not worship him, and never look to him for any grace or mercy, except that of withholding the plagues and misfortunes which he is capable of working on any in this world who offend him.

Besides Kozin, there are _nats_ or spirits of the house, family, clan, fields; and others who dwell in particular places in the air, the streams, the jungle, and the hills. Kindly _nats_ are ignored; all others can and will do harm unless propitiated[420].

The departed go to _Mithikwa_, "Dead Man's Village," which is divided into _Pwethikwa_, the pleasant abode, and _Sathikwa_, the wretched abode of the _unavenged_. Good or bad deeds do not affect the future of man, who must go to Pwethikwa if he dies a natural or accidental death, and to Sathikwa if killed, and there bide till avenged by blood. Thus the vendetta receives a sort of religious sanction, strengthened by the belief that the slain becomes the slave of the slayer in the next world.

"Should the slayer himself be slain, then the first slain is the slave of the second slain, who in turn is the slave of the man who killed him."

Whether a man has been honest or dishonest in this world is of no consequence in the next existence; but, if he has killed many people in this world, he has many slaves to serve him in his future existence; if he has killed many wild animals, then he will start well-supplied with food, for all that he kills on earth are his in the future existence. In the next existence hunting and drinking will certainly be practised, but whether fighting and raiding will be indulged in is unknown.

Cholera and small-pox are spirits, and when cholera broke out among the Chins who visited Rangoon in 1895 they carried their _dahs_ (knives) drawn to scare off the _nat_, and spent the day hiding under bushes, so that the spirit should not find them. Some even wanted to sacrifice a slave boy, but were talked over to subst.i.tute some pariah dogs. They firmly believe in the evil eye, and the Hakas think the Sujins and others are all wizards, whose single glance can bewitch them, and may cause lizards to enter the body and devour the entrails. A Chin once complained to Surgeon-Major Newland that a _nat_ had entered his stomach at the glance of a Yahow, and he went to hospital quite prepared to die.

But an emetic brought him round, and he went off happy in the belief that he had vomited the _nat_.

Ethnically connected with the Kuki-Naga groups are the _Kakhyens_ of the Irawadi headstreams, and the _Karens_, who form numerous village communities about the Burma-Siamese borderland. The Kakhyens, so called abusively by the Burmese, are the _Cacobees_ of the early writers[421], whose proper name is _Singpho_ (_Chingpaw_), i.e. "Men[422]," and whose curious semi-agglutinating speech, spoken in an ascending tone, each sentence ending in a long-drawn _i_ in a higher key (Bigandet), shows affinities rather with the Mishmi and other North a.s.samese tongues than with the cultured Burmese. They form a very widespread family, stretching from the Eastern Himalayas right into Yunnan, and presenting two somewhat marked physical types: (1) the true Chingpaws, with short round head, low forehead, prominent cheek-bones, slant eye, broad nose, thick protruding lips, very dark brown hair and eyes, dirty buff colour, mean height (about 5 ft. 5 or 6 in.) with disproportionately short legs; (2) a much finer race, with regular Caucasic features, long oval face, pointed chin, aquiline nose. One Kakhyen belle met with at Bhamo, "with large l.u.s.trous eyes and fair skin, might almost have pa.s.sed for a European[423]."

It is important to note this Caucasic element, which we first meet here going eastwards from the Himalayas, but which is found either separate or interspersed amongst the Mongoloid populations all over the south-east Asiatic uplands from Tibet to Cochin-China, and pa.s.sing thence into Oceanica[424].

The kinship of the Kakhyens with the still more numerous Karens is now generally accepted, and it is no longer found necessary to bring the latter all the way from Turkestan. They form a large section, perhaps one-sixth, of the whole population of Burma, and overflow into the west Siamese borderlands. Their subdivisions are endless, though all may be reduced to three main branches, _Sgaws_, _Pwos_ and _Bwais_, these last including the somewhat distinct group of _Karenni_, or "Red Karens."

Although D. M. Smeaton calls the language "monosyllabic," it is evidently agglutinating, of the normal sub-Himalayan type[425].

The Karens are a short, st.u.r.dy race, with straight black and also brownish hair, black, and even hazel eyes, and light or yellowish brown complexion, so that here also a Caucasic strain may be suspected.

Despite the favourable pictures of the missionaries, whose propaganda has been singularly successful amongst these aborigines, the Karens are not an amiable or particularly friendly people, but rather shy, reticent and even surly, though trustworthy and loyal to those chiefs and guides who have once gained their confidence. In warfare they are treacherous rather than brave, and strangely cruel even to little children. Their belief in a divine Creator who has deserted them resembles that of the Kuki people, and to the _nats_ of the Kuki correspond the _la_ of the Karens, who are even more numerous, every mountain, stream, rapid, crest, peak or other conspicuous object having its proper indwelling _la_. There are also seven specially baneful spirits, who have to be appeased by family offerings. "On the whole their belief in a personal G.o.d, their tradition as to the former possession of a 'law,' and their expectation of a prophet have made them susceptible to Christianity to a degree that is almost unique. Of this splendid opportunity the American mission has taken full advantage, educating, civilising, welding together, and making a people out of the downtrodden Karen tribes, while Christianizing them[426]."

In the Burmese division proper are comprised several groups, presenting all grades of culture, from the sheer savagery of the Mros, Kheongs, and others of the Arakan Yoma range, and the agricultural Mugs of the Arakan plains, to the dominant historical Burmese nation of the Irawadi valley.

Here also the terminology is perplexing, and it may be well to explain that _Yoma_, applied by Logan collectively to all the Arakan Hill tribes, has no ethnic value at all, simply meaning a mountain range in Burmese[427]. _Toung-gnu_, one of Mason's divisions of the Burmese family, was merely a petty state founded by a younger branch of the Royal House, and "has no more claim to rank as a separate tribe than any other Burman town[428]. "_Tavoyers_ are merely the people of the Tavoy district, Tena.s.serim, originally from Arakan, and now speaking a Burmese dialect largely affected by Siamese elements; _Tungthas_, like Yoma, means "Highlander," and is even of wider application; the Tipperahs, Mrungs, k.u.mi, Mros, Khemis, and Khyengs are all Tungthas of Burmese stock, and speak rude Burmese dialects.

The correlative of Tungthas is _Khyungthas_, "River People," that is, the Arakan Lowlanders comprising the more civilised peoples about the middle and lower course of the rivers, who are improperly called _Mugs_ (_Maghs_) by the Bengali, and whose real name is _Rakhaingtha_, _i.e._ people of Rakhaing (Arakan). They are undoubtedly of the same stock as the cultured Burmese, whose traditions point to Arakan as the cradle of the race, and in whose chronicles the Rakhaingtha are called _M'ranmakrih_, "Great M'ranmas," or "Elder Burmese." Both branches call themselves _M'ranma, M'rama_ (the correct form of _Barma, Burma_, but now usually p.r.o.nounced Myamma), probably from a root _mro, myo_, "man,"

though connected by Burnouf with Brahma, the Brahmanical having preceded the Buddhist religion in this region. In any case the M'rama may claim a respectable antiquity, being already mentioned in the national records so early as the first century of the new era, when the land "was said to be overrun with fabulous monsters and other terrors, which are called to this day by the superst.i.tious natives, the five enemies. These were a fierce tiger, an enormous boar, a flying dragon, a prodigious man-eating bird, and a huge creeping pumpkin, which threatened to entangle the whole country[429]."

The Burmese type has been not incorrectly described as intermediate between the Chinese and the Malay, more refined, or at least softer than either, of yellowish brown or olive complexion, often showing very dark shades, full black and lank hair, no beard, small but straight nose, weak extremities, pliant figure, and a mean height[430].

Most Europeans speak well of the Burmese people, whose bright genial temperament and extreme friendliness towards strangers more than outweigh a natural indolence which hurts n.o.body but themselves, and a little arrogance or vanity inspired by the still remembered glories of a nation that once ruled over a great part of Indo-China. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Burmese society is the almost democratic independence and equality of all cla.s.ses developed under an exceptionally severe Asiatic autocracy. "They are perfectly republican in the freedom with which all ranks mingle together and talk with one another, without any marked distinction in regard to difference of rank or wealth[431]." Scott attributes this trait, I think rightly, to the great leveller, Buddhism, the true spirit of which has perhaps been better preserved in Burma than in any other land.

The priesthood has not become the privileged and oppressive cla.s.s that has usurped all spiritual and temporal functions in Tibet, for in Burma everybody is or has been a priest for some period of his life. All enter the monasteries--which are the national schools--not only for general instruction, but actually as members of the sacerdotal order. They submit to the tonsure, take "minor orders," so to say, and wear the yellow robe, if only for a few months or weeks or days. But for the time being they must renounce "the world, the flesh and the devil," and must play the mendicant, make the round of the village at least once with the begging-bowl hung round their neck in company with the regular members of the community. They thus become initiated, and it becomes no longer possible for the confraternity to impose either on the rulers or on the ruled. "Teaching is all that the brethren of the order do for the people. They have no spiritual powers whatever. They simply become members of a holy society that they may observe the precepts of the Master more perfectly, and all they do for the alms lavished on them by the pious laity is to instruct the children in reading, writing, and the rudiments of religion[432]."

R. Grant Brown denies the common report which "has appeared in almost every work in which religion in Burma is dealt with" that Burman Buddhism is superficial. "The Burman Buddhist is at least as much influenced by his religion as the average Christian. The monks are probably as strict in their religious observances as any large religious body in the world.... Most laymen, too, obey the prohibitions against alcohol and the taking of life, though these run counter both to strong human instincts and to animistic practice[433]."

Nor is the personal freedom here spoken of confined to the men. In no other part of the world do the women enjoy a larger measure of independent action than in Burma, with the result that they are acknowledged to be far more virtuous, thrifty, and intelligent than those of all the surrounding lands. Their capacity for business and petty dealings is rivalled only by their Gallic sisters; and H. S.

Hallett tells us that in every town and village "you will see damsels squatted on the floor of the verandah with diminutive, or sometimes large, stalls in front of them, covered with vegetables, fruit, betel-nut, cigars and other articles. However numerous they may be, the price of everything is known to them; and such is their idea of probity, that pilfering is quite unknown amongst them. They are entirely trusted by their parents from their earliest years; even when they blossom into young women, _chaperons_ are never a necessity; yet immorality is far less customary amongst them, I am led to believe, than in any country in Europe[434]."

This observer quotes Bishop Bigandet, a forty years' resident amongst the natives, to the effect that "in Burmah and Siam the doctrines of Buddhism have produced a striking, and to the lover of true civilization a most interesting result--the almost complete equality of the condition of the women with that of the men. In these countries women are seen circulating freely in the streets; they preside at the _comptoir_, and hold an almost exclusive possession of the bazaars. Their social position is more elevated, in every respect, than in the regions where Buddhism is not the predominating creed. They may be said to be men's companions, and not their slaves."

Burma is one of those regions where tattooing has acquired the rank of a fine art. Indeed the intricate designs and general pictorial effect produced by the Burmese artists on the living body are rivalled only by those of j.a.pan, New Zealand, and some other Polynesian groups. Hallett, who states that "the Burmese, the Shans, and certain Burmanized tribes are the only peoples in the south of Asia who are known to tattoo their body," tells us that the elaborate operation is performed only on the male s.e.x, the whole person from waist to knees, and amongst some Shan tribes from neck to foot, being covered with heraldic figures of animals, with intervening traceries, so that at a little distance the effect is that of a pair of dark-blue breeches[435]. The pigments are lamp-black or vermilion, and the pattern is usually first traced with a fine hair pencil and then worked in by a series of punctures made by a long pointed bra.s.s style[436].

East of Burma we enter the country of the _Shans_, one of the most numerous and widespread peoples of Asia, who call themselves _Tai_ (_T'hai_), "n.o.ble" or "Free," although slavery in various forms has from time immemorial been a social inst.i.tution amongst all the southern groups. Here again tribal and national terminology is somewhat bewildering; but it will help to notice that _Shan_, said to be of Chinese origin[437], is the collective Burmese name, and therefore corresponds to _Lao_, the collective Siamese name. These two terms are therefore rather political than ethnical, Shan denoting all the Tai peoples formerly subject to Burma and now mostly British subjects, Lao all the Tai peoples formerly subject to Siam, and now (since 1896) mostly French subjects[438]. The Siamese group them all in two divisions, the _Lau-pang-dun_, "Black-paunch Lao," so called because they clothe themselves as it were in a dark skin-tight garb by the tattooing process; and the _Lau-pang-kah_, "White-paunch Lao," who do not tattoo. The Burmese groups call themselves collectively _Ngiou_[439], while the most general Chinese name is _Pa_ (_Pa-y_).

Prince Henri d'Orleans, who is careful to point out that Pa is only another name for Lao[440], constantly met Pa groups all along the route from Tonking to a.s.sam, and the bulk of the lowland population in a.s.sam itself belongs originally[441] to the same family, though now mostly a.s.similated to the Hindus in speech, religion, and general culture.

a.s.sam in fact takes its name from the _Ahoms_, the "peerless," the t.i.tle first adopted by the Mau Shan chief, Chukupha, who invaded the country from north-east Burma, and in 1228 A.D. founded the Ahom dynasty, which was overthrown in 1810 by the Burmese, who were ejected in 1827 by the English[442].

These Ahoms came from the Khamti (Kampti) district about the sources of the Irawadi, where Prince Henri was surprised to find a civilised and lettered Buddhist people of Pa (Shan) speech still enjoying political autonomy in the dangerous proximity of _le leopard britannique_. They call themselves _Padao_, and it is curious to note that both _Padam_ and _a.s.sami_ are also tribal names amongst the neighbouring Abor Hillmen.

The French traveller was told that the Padao, who claimed to be _T'hais_ (Tai) like the Laotians[443], were indigenous, and he describes the type as also Laotian--straight eyes rather wide apart, nose broad at base, forehead arched, superciliary arches prominent, thick lips, pointed chin, olive colour, slightly bronzed and darker than in the Lao country; the men ill-favoured, the young women with pleasant features, and some with very beautiful eyes.

Pa.s.sing into China we are still in the midst of Shan peoples, whose range appears formerly to have extended up to the right bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang, and whose cradle has been traced by de Lacouperie to "the Kiu-lung mountains north of Sechuen and south of Shensi in China proper[444]." This authority holds that they const.i.tute a chief element in the Chinese race itself, which, as it spread southwards beyond the Yang-tse-Kiang, amalgamated with the Shan aborigines, and thus became profoundly modified both in type and speech, the present Chinese language comprising over thirty per cent. of Shan ingredients. Colquhoun also, during his explorations in the southern provinces, found that "most of the aborigines, although known to the Chinese by various nicknames, were Shans; and that their propinquity to the Chinese was slowly changing their habits, manners, and dress, and gradually incorporating them with that people[445]."

This process of fusion has been in progress for ages, not only between the southern Chinese and the Shans, but also between the Shans and the Caucasic aborigines, whom we first met amongst the Kakhyens, but who are found scattered mostly in small groups over all the uplands between Tibet and the Cochin-Chinese coast range. The result is that the Shans are generally of finer physique than either the kindred Siamese and Malays in the south, or the more remotely connected Chinese in the north. The colour, says Bock, "is much lighter than that of the Siamese," and "in facial expression the Laotians are better-looking than the Malays, having good high foreheads, and the men particularly having regular well-shaped noses, with nostrils not so wide as those of their neighbours[446]." Still more emphatic is the testimony of Kreitner of the Szechenyi expedition, who tells us that the Burmese Shans have "a n.o.bler head than the Chinese; the dark eyes are about horizontal, the nose is straight, the whole expression approaches that of the Caucasic race[447]."

Notwithstanding their wide diffusion, interminglings with other races, varied grades of culture, and lack of political cohesion, the Tai-Shan groups acquire a certain ethnical and even national unity from their generally uniform type, social usages, Buddhist religion, and common Indo-Chinese speech. Amidst a chaos of radically distinct idioms current amongst the surrounding indigenous populations, they have everywhere preserved a remarkable degree of linguistic uniformity, all speaking various more or less divergent dialects of the same mother-tongue.

Excluding a large percentage of Sanskrit terms introduced into the literary language by their Hindu educators, this radical mother-tongue comprises about 1860 distinct words or rather sounds, which have been reduced by phonetic decay to so many monosyllables, each uttered with five tones, the natural tone, two higher tones, and two lower[448]. Each term thus acquires five distinct meanings, and in fact represents five different words, which were phonetically distinct dissyllables, or even polysyllables in the primitive language.

The same process of disintegration has been at work throughout the whole of the Indo-Chinese linguistic area, where all the leading tongues--Chinese, Annamese, Tai-Shan, Burmese--belong to the same isolating form of speech, which, as explained in _Ethnology_, Chap. IX., is not a primitive condition, but a later development, the outcome of profound phonetic corruption.

The remarkable uniformity of the Tai-Shan member of this order of speech may be in part due to the conservative effects of the literary standard.

Probably over 2000 years ago most of the Shan groups were brought under Hindu influences by the Brahman, and later by the Buddhist missionaries, who reduced their rude speech to written form, while introducing a large number of Sanskrit terms inseparable from the new religious ideas. The writing systems, all based on the square Pali form of the Devanagari syllabic characters, were adapted to the phonetic requirements of the various dialects, with the result that the Tai-Shan linguistic family is enc.u.mbered with four different scripts. "The Western Shans use one very like the Burmese; the Siamese have a character of their own, which is very like Pali; the Shans called Lu have another character of their own; and to the north of Siam the Lao Shans have another[449]."