CHAPTER VII
ORIENTAL OBSEQUIES
A Hindoo Burning Ghât
Thearch-devil death is so unconquerable a foe that the veriest atheist must easily find it in his heart to forgive the theist who has invented the consolatory theory of immortality.
If we believe death to be but the imaginary boundary between two lives, then death ceremonials become very inconsequential. If we believe death to be the end, the last sad rites assume a terrible significance. Strangely enough, the most elaborate funeral customs prevail among the staunchest believers in an after life. But then mankind always has been inconsistent. Man is born of woman!
In the East I learned something of thepost-mortemcustoms of five races: the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Parsi, the Burmese, and the Japanese.
We are apt to think ourselves very advanced—we who are beginning to believe in cremation. The Hindoos have practised it for thousands of years.
The funeral pile of a Rajah sometimes costs lakhs of rupees. In Calcutta I have seen a body burned when three rupees covered the entire expense.
The rich Hindoo may be somewhat exclusive. The Hindoo masses do everything simply and openly. They bathe out of doors. They pray out of doors. They cook out of doors. They die out of doors, and their bodies are burned out of doors.
There are three burning ghâts in Calcutta. The first we visited was the cheapest and most primitive of the three. It was also the most interesting; for it was the most eloquent of the Hindoo populace.
It was a longish drive from our hotel to the burning ghât, but the last half, or more of it, was crowded with interest, for it was along the bank of the sacred Ganges, and thousands of devout Hindoos were worshipping.
Only a mile or two inland was Government House, upon the gates of which crouch two colossal lions—in stone. The British lion is more manageable in stone than in alien jungle flesh. The British lions of the Calcutta Government House gates are very impressive, but it is a rare thing to see them without native crows perched insolently upon their hard heads. Inside those gates all was a subdued, well-bred hubbub, for Lady Lansdowne was to hold a drawing-room that night. Anglo-Indian Calcutta was athrob,—European dressmakers and native dhursies were exceedingly busy. Here—where we were, on the banks of the Ganges—were myriad human creatures to whom Government House was but an architectural intrusion. They were enrapt in the observance of their racial customs; and, to them, our European customs were less than nothing. It was a little like a country fair—and greatly unlike. I learned then and there that specialisation was not a nineteenth century development. The banks of the Ganges were divided into booths, not by walls, but by occupational differentiation. We stopped—our underfed horses were glad to stop—we stopped and watched a, to us, meaningless dance. I thought it more awkward than suggestive. That may have been because I was ignorant of its religious meaning. Then we saw a hundred people clustered about a naked fakir. His unbarbered hair was braided into disgustingly many plaits. His brown face was painted a ghastly white. He lay naked upon innumerable spikes (they were dull-edged spikes), and as he bled (in reality he did not bleed; he balanced himself so beautifully), the surrounding Hindoos prayed to Kâli, and praised the fakir. We saw enchanted pigs. We passed inspired fortune-tellers. We stopped to water our horses at a sacred fountain,—I can’t imagine to what it was sacred, for I saw our disreputable steeds drink from it, and I saw many to-the-core afflicted lepers fill their chattees from it. A pile of common stones based the fountain. The lepers touched them reverently with their hopeless stumps. It is perhaps well for the human intellect that “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
When the gharri wallah and the sais said we had reached the burning ghât, we found our inquiring minds intercepted by a crude brick wall. I have said that the Hindoos burn their dead in the open,—that is true; but in Calcutta the Hindoo has grown thrifty, and he hedges his burning ghât with a wall the closed door of which is sternly suggestive of bukshish.
The sais pounded upon the door with the butt of the whip, kindly loaned by the gharri wallah. An old Hindoo (he was sucking sugar-cane) opened the door, after a dignified pause. We gave him a rupee—deferentially, and passed in. I stumbled upon something, and gave a dainty little European shriek. The something sat up and rubbed its eyes; it was one of the burning ghât coolies, and it had been having a sleep. I marked the holy mud thrice with my Louis Quinze heels, and I stood beside a smouldering funeral pile. A crack—not unlike the report of a pistol—drove me back. The heat had broken through the dead man’s skull. Our brain is our best servant, or our mightiest master, in Europe; in the land of the Hindoo, it or its casement is the last human part to protest against the extinguishment of death.
The funeral pile of a poor Hindoo looks very like an ordinary kitchen-yard wood pile. But if you go up to it—close up to it—you discover something very like a human form—a glowing charred mass, but proudly distinguished from every other shape, animate and inanimate. In the East I tried to look at things reasonably; not from any exaggerated sympathy with the subjugated native, but because I wished to get from the East the utmost available information and mental capital.
When I pulled myself together, after shrinking from the first funeral pile I had ever seen, a phrase flashed to my memory—“Purified as by fire.”
That is just what the Hindoos do. They purify their dead by fire. The body is burned until absolutely nothing remains but a handful of ashes—ashes wholly free from any unclean or poisonous matter.
A second body was brought in. Two coolies carried it upon a rude litter, woven from coarse grasses, and held together by outlines of bamboo. Two of the dead man’s brothers followed, chatting pleasantly.
Four stout sticks of wood were driven upright into the ground at the corners of an imaginary parallelogram, about six feet by two. Between these four posts were loosely laid sticks of dry, cheap wood. When the pile was a little more than three feet high, the body was laid upon it. A dirty piece of crash, of the quality the coolies wear about their loins, partly wrapt the dead. One of the brothers stepped up and poured about four ounces of oil over the body. This ensured a quicker cremation, but was something of a luxury, and not a universal practice. The oil must have cost about three pies. The other brother paid the coolies, who shouldered their light empty litter and marched gaily out. More wood was piled upon the dead. A thin stick was lighted at the other funeral pile, which was now flaming finely; the second pile was lighted, and the cremation of the newcomer was begun. The two brothers appeared very interested in the igniting, and decidedly pleased when it was accomplished. They squatted down upon the ground, just so far from the pile that they might feel that their scant, filthy garments were fairly safe from the sparks, but near enough to watch all the changing phases of the cremation, and to see easily when it was consummated.
They untied a dirty rag from about a small bundle one had brought with him. They took out a small earthen bowl; it was clean and shining; and so was the brass chattee each lifted from his filthily-turbaned head. The chattees held water; the bowl held curry and rice. They fell to eating with gusto. And pray why not? They were eating to live. Their brother was burning to live—to live in Hindoo Paradise. From the Hindoo point of view his state was far the more blessed; and from all I saw of coolie life, I am not inclined to think their point of view wrong.
While the dead burned and the living ate, I looked about me, and thought. I must not claim to have felt much; it was all too strange to me for feeling to be less than numbed. My first observation was that my husband and the friend who was with us had withdrawn from my near vicinity, in the meanest manner. There they stood, on the very edge of the Ganges, and with their two brave backs squarely turned to the interesting rite we had come some miles to witness. When I say the Ganges, I mean of course the Hoogly, which is one of its mouths, and therefore as sacred to the Hindoos. I thought at first that they were smoking, because I have noticed that my husband usually is smoking when he escapes an appreciable distance from my side. They were not smoking; and our friend afterwards confided to me that they were discussing “the present condition of European politics,” but discussing it languidly.
Then I saw that the cremation, which had been in full blast upon our arrival, was completed. There were two distinct kinds of ashes. The human ashes were carefully gathered into an old chattee. The authorities do not allow those ashes to be thrown into the river, and I understand that they never are thrown there in the presence of Europeans. The ashes of the wood were swept swiftly away. The bits of wood not quite burned, were frugally collected to be utilised in the next pile.
The two men had finished their curry and rice. They began to play some native game of chance. They used pebbles for the game itself, and splinters from the adjacent funeral pile did nicely for counters.
The men—my European men, I mean—came back and said that they would like to go home. So we went.
Life is so hard for the poorer natives of India that it is not surprising that they take death so coolly. They have so little to live for; they live so difficultly, so miserably, so inadequately, that to them death has ceased to be a devil, and has become, instead, an angel of deliverance.
The most satisfactory acquaintance I made in Calcutta was with a physician whose father was a Scotsman and whose mother was a very high-caste Hindoo woman. Aside from my personal liking for the man, I found him satisfactory because he could, and did, explain Hindoo customs to me exhaustively, and also in terms intelligible to my Europeanly-developed mind. A few nights after we were first at the burning ghât we asked him how an attempt to introduce Western crematory arrangements would be received in Bengal. He shook his head. He personally would welcome the innovation (he, by the way, was a Christian); he felt sure that some of the better circumstanced, better informed Hindoos would also welcome it; but the Hindoo masses would resent it bitterly. The attempt would be foolish, I think. Why force upon so strongly conservative a people a reform for which they have absolutely no need? Would it serve any good purpose? I think not. It would do nothing except widen a breach which we, for many reasons, should do our utmost to heal.
To me, the system of the Hindoo burning ghâts, of which I saw every detail, was not nearly so repulsive as the system of the Parsi Towers of Silence, of which I only saw the outside, and could but too well imagine the inside. I wish the Parsis would abolish their method of disposal of the dead in favour of another method, as sanitary, but less revolting. But the Hindoo custom seems to me entirely commensurate with the Hindoo needs and the preservation of the general health of India.
I went to the burning ghât once at night. Night is the time of Hindoo leisure, as indeed it is of most native peoples. The enclosure was crowded with burning piles.
One night we sailed down the Ganges. The outlines of the attendants of the dead and of the funeral piles were sharply silhouetted, against the black background of the dark night, by the flames of the gruesome death fires; and from that part of the shore sacred to Hindoo worship came the shrieking and the songs of many thousand half-mad devotees.
In a primitive part of interior India, I once saw a Maharajah’s funeral pile. It had cost a positive fortune. It was built of expensive spicy woods and saturated with costly oils. It was richly gilded; and the dead was wrapped in embroidered silken sheets. For an incredible distance the air was sweet and pungent and thick with the perfumed smoke.
I remember having thought when a child that the literally sweetest experience I ever had had was the attending of a High Mass at St. Peter’s in Rome. But now I must own that the sweetest smell I ever smelled was the burning of a Maharajah’s funeral pile.
CHAPTER VIII
ORIENTAL NUPTIALS
A Hindoo Marriage
ToHindoo women, marriage is of even more importance than it is to women in general. Indeed, I know no race to whose women it is more important; for marriage is the sum total of a Hindoo woman’s existence. She has no interests beyond her home, no possibility of outside compensation if her marriage is a failure.
Even conventional, conservative India is beginning to throb with nineteenth century restlessness and Occidental changeableness. There is a great deal to be said on both sides of the burning question of child-marriages. I propose to say none of it, but to confine myself to a description of a Hindoo marriage that I witnessed at Jubblepore,—confine myself without commenting upon the race theories of which it was a ceremonial expression.
Children are still married very young in India. But the custom is not clung to, save by the ultra orthodox Hindoos. I have known three sisters to be married in one month, in a high-caste family. The eldest was sixteen, the youngest was eight. A Hindoo girl is in the full bloom of womanhood at sixteen.
The marriage I saw was between Brahmins of a strict caste; and I believe that the only unorthodox detail was my presence. I went in the early morning to the bride’s house. She was a slender, pretty girl of twelve. The bridegroom (who had not yet arrived) was an intelligent fellow—five years her senior. Twelve and seventeen years of age mean very much more in the East than in the West.
This marriage happened to be a love match. I should think that that is now true of nearly half the Hindoo marriages. The children of the caste play freely together, and their baby likes and dislikes develop with their quick development. Family love is very strong among the Hindoos. And the children have rather large influence with their parents. Hindoo girls are, I believe, rarely reluctant to marry. Indeed, they reminded me of a line of Byron’s. They seemed more in love with the prospect of marriage than with any particular prospective husband. It was my observation—which was, I must say, not exhaustive—that few Hindoo marriages are unhappy. The same has been claimed, I understand, by some partial writers, forles mariages de convenanceof France.
The first duty of Hindoo bride and bridegroom, on the Chief Day or wedding day, is ceremonious ablutions. It was after that duty had been fulfilled that I arrived at the bride’s home. For many days ceremonies dear to the Oriental heart had been taking place. But they were fashionable rather than religious. They were self-granted indulgences of a ceremony-loving race, and in no way augmented the validity of the marriage, which was secured entirely by the ceremonies and the oaths of the wedding day, prescribed by the Shástras.
It was some time after my humble entrance that the splendid arrival of the bridegroom occurred. He came on horseback, as a Hindoo bridegroom should, and he was surrounded by all his relatives and friends, which was the acme of Hindoo good form. By the bye,—a high-caste Hindoo is as polite as a Japanese. Courtesy is as much the religion of a Brahmin as of a Japanese. But Hindoo courtesy is less celebrated than Japanese courtesy because it is less graceful (though not less picturesque), and because it is not, as it is in Japan, common to high and low. Politeness is the sign of a Hindoo gentleman. It is the birth mark of every Japanese—from the Mikado to the humblest coolie.
I do not know which was the more gorgeous—the Hindoo bridegroom or the dark roan horse he rode. Certainly, the bridegroom looked the more important. The steed seemed bored, which showed a most ungrateful spirit, for never yet was horse more sumptuously caparisoned. Beneath his shaggy, unkempt mane he wore a red strung necklace of glittering jewelled talismans; about his neck was a triple row of native gems, and similar jewelled braids marked his face into wonderful parallelograms; upon his head was proudly placed an inverted feather duster, such as European ladies use for treasured bits of bric-a-brac, which the parlour-maid may not touch. The decoration of the unappreciative animal’s tail was gorgeous and unique. The saddle-cloths were beautiful in detail, if not in shape; they were exquisite specimens of old, orthodox Hindoo embroidery. Hindoo customs are changing very gradually; Hindoo art is unchanged and unchangeable. It has developed; it has not been modified. The saddle-cloths were stiff, broad ovals, heavy with pearl-specked, gold embroidery; they were edged with red, silken fringe. Above the saddle-cloth rose a golden, swan-shaped saddle. Enthroned upon it sat the bridegroom. Over his head a servant held a wonderful red and yellow umbrella; two fan men followed close, holding the quaintest fans I ever saw; the sticks were of carved silver, and the fans, shaped like antique spear-heads, were made of odd painted glass, deftly embroidered here and there with jewels, and edged, as was the fan and all of the horse’s caparisons, with elaborate fringe. The four servants were dressed as Hindoo servants should be, in Hindoo livery. The bridegroom wore wonderful brocaded clothes; his eyes were thickly ringed with khol; his lips were flaring red with betel-nut; his velvet cap was heavy with embroidery; his jewelry was abundant and glaring. In brief, it was in all ways a most correct Hindoo marriage procession. His people followed him with beaming faces, carefully arranged costumes, and foreheads smeared with the paint and ash-marks of high-caste Brahminism.
We clustered about the door to bid him welcome—the bride’s mother in front, and the closely veiled red-clad bride next. The mother received with many ceremonies the dismounting bridegroom. The bride ran shyly forward and pinched his foot. That was in warning that he might find married life full of vexations. But he smiled with proud superiority as he salaamed elaborately to his girl-bride.
We followed him into the house. The bride’s father, crying out to the gods that he would honour and receive well this Snátaka who had come to ask a maiden’s hand, offered the young man a seat—offered it with many words of welcome and compliment. The bridegroom sat down, after calling the elder Brahmins everything that is honourable, superior, and admirable. Then they performed the peculiar worship of the “blessed and kind waters,” the girl’s father providing all theimpedimentaof the ceremony. The elder man offered the younger a tray of sweets, calledmadhuparka. The bridegroom called upon the gods to partake of his noble father-in-law’s bounty. The gods did not do so—that I could perceive; but no one seemed disconcerted, and the bridegroom ate a little himself. The host called to a servant to bring a cow. The bridegroom protested that the cow was an innocent and useful animal, and entreated that its life might be spared. The elder Brahmin conceded this; which ended the welcoming ceremony, which is calledmadhuparka, after the sweet which is given to the bridegroom. Many years ago it was customary, at a Hindoo wedding, to sacrifice a cow and distribute the fresh beef.
Then came theKanyá-dánaceremony; the giving of the bride by her father to the bridegroom. The bride and bridegroom sat together, facing the east. Near them, but facing the north, sat her parents. The father “worshipped” the young couple; and all the guests called upon the gods for a thick shower of blessings. The priests handed the father sacred grass and water, and then they prayed with him, in Sanskrit. Then the old Brahmin rose up, and placing the girl’s hand in her lover’s, but with a blade of grass between them, said solemnly to the bridegroom, “She is no longer mine; she is thine.” The bride’s mother pronounced glad consent. Then the young Brahmin, holding his wife tightly by the hand, and looking at her, but speaking to the gods, said, “I entreat you, oh my gods, to bless and prosper the gracious man and wife who have given me this most sweet gift.” A priest drew from between the clasped hands the blade of grass. The marriage was irrevocable. They were man and wife for ever.
Then the proud young husband, looking very manly and handsome, said to his bride, clearly and earnestly, words that I thought very sweet, although they were partly prescribed. “Moved by the gods, the great god Varuna has given you to me, oh my dear, that I may know ambrosial happiness. Your father in giving you to me has given me his very life. You are my life of life.” He laid his slim brown hand upon her veiled right shoulder. “It is Love that gave this, Love that received it. O Love! all this is thine. My bride, enter thou the Ocean of Love; I accept thee out of Love. Thou art rain; the heavens give thee, the earth receives thee.” Are not those beautiful words? They are prescribed, truly; but so are the words of our marriage service.
Then came theKautukágáraceremony—the prettiest part of the marriage. I was allowed to see it, as a great concession. The young husband and wife went, with a priest and a number of Hindoo maidens, into an inner room. This room is strangely painted, and is calledKautukágára. The bride tied a love-knot on her husband’s wrist, and he did the same to her; then he drew the veil from her dimpled brown face and kissed her; then he replaced the veil with a soft silken sari, that he had brought as a gift to his bride, but the little glowing face was left uncovered. The priest took a bit of red string and tied together the garments of husband and wife, and placed a crown of tinsel, of gold, silver, and jewels upon her head. A prayer was made by the bridegroom—a prayer that their hearts might grow into each other; and while he prayed, he painted, with collyrium, his bride’s eyes, and she painted his. Then he gave her some droll presents, which he produced from a mysterious somewhere among his own garments. I noticed a porcupine-quill and a looking-glass. Then he tied about her neck the marriage string. It is an odd necklace—a cord upon which a strange melée of trinkets are hung. It is called the tali. It is worn by all married Hindoo women. It is almost if not the only thing that I have never known a Hindoo woman to pawn. The tying of the tali ended theKautukágáraceremony. We returned to the other room.
TheViváha-hômaor marriage sacrifice began. The young couple sat upon a primitive, flower-decked altar. Then the priests poured ghee-libations to the invisible gods. Then the bride’s father anointed her head heavily with ghee, saying, “Become thou the sovereign ruler over thy father-in-law, over thy mother-in-law, over thy sister-in-law, and over thy brothers-in-law”—a very liberal invocation; but I thought I observed that, in the majority of high-caste Hindoo families, it was most frequently fulfilled. Hindoo women are very potent members of Hindoo society, and in home life they are often supreme. I know many Hindoo men who are extremely devoted to their wives, and consider them before all others.
The young husband was rash enough to confirm his father-in-law’s large prophecy, and added to the bride, “I take thy hand that thou mayest live with me as thy husband, for a long time; the gods Bhaga, Aryamá, Savitá, and Purandhi have given thee to me that I may be a householder. Soma gave thee to Gandharva, Gandharva gave thee to Agni, and Agni gave thee to me with wealth and sons. As in the wordSâmathe syllablesSâandamaare mutually connected and interdependent, so are we; I amama, thou artSâ. I am the heavens, thou art the earth. As aSâma verse is related to Rik of which it is composed, so am I to thee; then shouldst thou follow me. Like these pairs, let us marry, produce progeny, obtain sons; may they be many and may they live long.”
Then they performed the ceremonies ofAs’ma’rohanaandMangal Fe’rà. Near the altar burned a sacred fire. About it lay a circle of stones. The bridegroom caught his wife’s hand and said, “Come lady! place thy foot on this stone, and be as firm as it is. Resist whatever is evil.” He stooped down and placed her right foot upon the stone. Together, but he preceding her, they went round the fire, treading carefully upon the stones. Back to their seats they went. The bride gave an oblation to the fire, her husband saying, “This woman prays that she may be pleasing and helpful to her relatives, and that her husband may live long.” The little bride was looking very important, but oh! so tired. Four times they went round that flaming fire. Four times she gave an oblation, and he repeated his little speech.
Then they performed a ceremony which, when it was explained fully to me, I thought very significant. It was calledSaptapadi, or “taking seven steps.” Seven heaps of rice were laid upon the floor, near each other, slanting toward the north-east. Again the bridegroom took his wife’s little brown hand. She put her foot upon the first heap as he said, “Take the first step and become the partner of my drinks.” On they went, she stepping on each little rice heap, he saying, “Take the second step and become the partner of my food.” “Take the third step and become the partner of my wealth and prosperity.” “Take the fourth step and become the partner of my good health.” “Take the fifth step and become the partner of my cattle.” “Take the sixth step and become my companion in all the seasons.” “Take the seventh step and become my friend.”
That ended the serious part of the long complicated ceremony. The newly married twain fed each other solemnly from a bowl of sugar; and then grave ceremonial gave way to mirth and noise. Presents were made to the priests. A feast was served; and an excellent feast it was. They gave me some, but I had to eat it apart; with them I might not sit, nor eat,—even the courtesy of a high-caste Brahmin failed before such a desecration of caste purity. All night long trumpets blared, shrill native fifes shrieked, drums and wild songs rent the air, and great fires flared up to heaven, making the big clumps of slender bamboos look red.
I fear I have been tedious; I hope I have been clear. A Hindoo marriage is an intricate performance. I have not described it entirely. The religious ceremonies were supplemented by many others that were customs, not observances of faith.
The vows of a Hindoo marriage are most beautiful. Unfortunately they are repeated in Sanskrit, and the bridal pair rarely, if ever, know Sanskrit. Let us hope that they know the meaning of the words they utter parrot-like. Certainly young children are as ignorant of the sense as of the language. I have seen a Hindoo bridegroom of five—a sweetly pretty boy he was.
But the ritual of the Hindoo marriage ceremony, whether it means much or little to the celebrants, can, at least, show us what the great founders of mighty Hindooism meant Hindoo marriage to be. And it behoves us to understand the spirit, the essence, of Hindoo life before we alter it by the right of might—I mean the might of right. Moreover it behoves us to know how Hindoo usages work. Child-marriage is revolting; but I have heard Hindoos make one or two tiny points in its favour. I saw something of Hindoo home-life, and I thought that it was, as a rule, devoted and happy; I know more than one eminent Hindoo to-day who is beautifully under his wife’s little brown, be-ringed thumb.
The Hindoo women cling to their racial customs far more pertinaciously than do the men. I knew several delightful Hindoo women; they despised me, but they were very kind and courteous, and I admired them exceedingly. One of them was a woman of great intellectual strength and commensurate culture. One day she said to me, “What is this ‘woman’s rights,’ of which so much you talk?” I disclaimed any share in the epidemic that had attacked so many of my sisters, and then I explained to her the movement as eloquently as I could, and as justly as a woman was able to do who despised that of which she spoke.
“I see,” she said, turning her great, languid eyes on mine; “they would have us renounce an immense, veiled, real power, for a little apparent power; they would make us lose our power over men, to have, of ourselves, and our lives, the little control that men do have of themselves and of their lives. In Europe, women who are not strong, think too much, talk too much. The big thought in the little brain will not go, only one part of it. And the sound of their own voices it makes them mad.”
Nothing so surprised me in the East as did the upper class Hindoo women—their content, their position, and their enormous influence. The men of Ind are comparatively easily converted to our socialmodus operandi. We underrate the strong opposition we will encounter from the Hindoo women.
CHAPTER IX
KING THEEBAW’S STATE BARGE
Wewent from Calcutta to Rangoon. In Burmah the shadow of a great personal sorrow fell upon us. Our reminiscences of Burmah are too sad and too sacred to be put between the covers of a book. But there is a great deal that is interesting that I may try to tell about Burmah before I catch up my little personal narrative in China.
Burmah has almost unprecedented natural wealth. Minerals, woods, marbles, and gems are in Burmah in seemingly inexhaustible stores. Useful vegetation springs in spontaneous plenty from the pregnant soil. Nature does almost everything for the Burmans, and yet, Orientals though they are, they are exceptionally industrious. The palmyra tree leaf gives them paper. Butter, sugar, and flour, or their substitutes, grow on trees. Game, fish, fruit, and vegetables are most abundant. And yet they work—the men and women of Burmah—work with a will and to a right good purpose.
The marvellous pagodas, that are the artificial glory of the Burmese landscape, represent all that is best in Burmese art, all that is most persistent in Burmese industry. They are indescribably beautiful, with their huge, graceful, jewelled peaks and their lace-like, golden carvings. Lepers swarm at their gates. Heavy, pungent flowers are scattered before their thresholds, and often beneath their shadows lie the full cemeteries of the Europeans. They dot the Burmese landscape like huge jewels—do these matchless pagodas, and their sweet, swinging bells and singing gongs break the Burmese silence with clear, tinkling music.
Except the “monkey-slipping-tree,” almost every tree in Burmah is festooned with a creeper,—such wondrous creepers! About the tree trunks glide snakes, pythons, lizards, chameleons, scorpions, and deadly centipedes. In the river wallow gruesome alligators.
KING THEEBAW’S STATE BARGE.Page 80.
KING THEEBAW’S STATE BARGE.Page 80.
King Theebaw is no longer in Burmah; but Burmah is foul with his memory, and the more odious memory of his chief queen, Soo-pyah-lat.
Theebaw came of a race in which insanity had found many a victim. The kindest thing that can be said of his reign is that it was the reign of a madman. But for Queen Soo-pyah-lat there is no such possible excuse; her brain was as clear as her heart was bad.
Theebaw was married to three wives; they were sisters, and were named Soo-pyah-gyee, Soo-pyah-lat, Soo-pyah-galay; but Soo-pyah-lat was the real queen, the chief queen, and she ruled her two sisters as well as Theebaw’s concubines, or “under wives.”
Opium, wine, and liquors were forbidden to the king’s subjects, but not to the king. His potations were so deep that they will be remembered when he is forgotten.
“The King is still drinking.” No one thing has ever been said oftener of any one monarch than that was said of the notorious Theebaw, King of the Burmans, Suzerain of Mandalay, King of the Rising Sun, Lord of the White Elephant, the Golden Umbrella, and Lord of Earth and Air. If one tithe of what has been during the last twenty years written about King Theebaw is true, if a fraction of what they now say in Burmah of him is true, why then a worse monarch never sat in absolute power upon a barbaric throne.
It is a strange fact that the Burmese—the pleasantest, most easy-going of all nations—were ruled for centuries by a cruel bloodthirsty dynasty. The predecessor of Theebaw, King Mengdon, seems to have been rather gifted, but he was shifty and treacherous. King Theebaw—unless Christian literature has wronged him as it never yet wronged heathen prince—had every bad quality and no one redeeming one. His orgies, his debauches, the stories of his “posture girls,” are unequalled in the chronicles of a continent of which many lurid things have been written.
Things were certainly fast and furious while Theebaw ruled Mandalay. But I doubt if King Theebaw ever did rule at Mandalay. Queen Soo-pyah-lat was the veritable potentate; she ruled Theebaw. He had an abundance of wives, but when he showed any special favour to any wife other than Soo-pyah-lat, she promptly had that other wife trampled to death by the royal elephants, or killed in some other equally pleasant way. Then she would, most probably, take King Theebaw in their state barge for a little post-datedlune de miel. Theebaw seems never for an instant to have resented, disputed, or resisted Soo-pyah-lat’s supremacy. It was Queen Soo-pyah-lat who hated the British with an intensity beside which ordinary Asiatic hatred was nothing. It was Queen Soo-pyah-lat who forced Theebaw to hold out against the English forces, long after resistance was worse than vain. On the first of January 1886 King Theebaw, was finally and absolutely overthrown; but before that date he had caused England much anxiety and his patient subjects great misery.
How often have the eyes of all England been turned toward that wonderful palace at Mandalay; and almost invariably the wires flashed to the nations this message: “The King is still drinking.” Yes, the king was still drinking. Before his gin-filmed eyes swayed the lithe forms of the flower-decked “posture girls,” and the palace yard ran blood—the blood of many victims. Wonderful Burmese carvings glimmered and glinted on the palace walls, and the big gems rose and fell on the bad queen’s breast.
To me there is something very pathetic about the story of King Theebaw. He was born to a great opportunity. He became the ruler of a most charming people, the absolute master of as interesting and as beautiful a country, and as productive, as any on the globe. And his manhood went down beneath a bad woman’s jewelled foot—he sold his kingship for a hogshead of grog; and wherever his name was spoken, men said with disgust, “The King is still drinking.”
When Theebaw ascended the throne in 1878, an eminent Englishman wrote of him:—“He is little over twenty. He is a tall, well-built, personable young man. He is very fair in complexion, has a good forehead, clear steady eyes, and a firm but pleasant mouth. His chin is full and somewhat sensual-looking, but withal he is a manly frank-faced young fellow, and is said to have gained self-possession and left the early nervous awkwardness of his new position with great rapidity.”
Ah, what a different appearance he presented when he was dethroned in 1886! In eight short years he had committed or countenanced atrocities that entitle his name to be bracketed with the names of Nero and Caligula.
It is happy for Burmah that Theebaw and Soo-pyah-lat are gone for ever. The industrious, happy natives eat their morning, noon, and evening rice under a gentler, if an alien, rule. But what pictures they must have made in the days and nights of all their glory—the weak bad king and his strong bad queen!
Think of them in their state barge. It was a picture in itself. Great golden gods gleamed and glowered on the segregated prow. One of these indescribable metallic majesties rode upon a grotesque golden horse; and gods and horse had for eyes jewels of incredible size. Upon the deck was a house of precious woods. It rose pagoda-like, and was crowned with a big gem which, fastened to a strong, slender wire, flashed, above the barge, like a heaven-sent star. Rare journeys they must have had up and down the lovely Burmese rivers. There are three great rivers in Burmah. They rise in the high mountains, where the snows never melt, and they take their wonderful course to the Indian Ocean. Trees crowd on their banks,—trees that are golden and red and purple with fruit, and yellow and white with blossom. The scents of mangoe and pine mingle with the fainter perfumes of the orange and papaya and plantain. Wild asparagus lifts its slim feathers everywhere. Yams and sweet potatoes grow in wild plenty. Down to the river’s edge for drink come huge elephants and the fierce one-horned rhinoceros. Sleek leopards and striped tigers fight with the wild hog, and hunt the Indian roe and the axis. Wild-cock, quail, pheasant, and partridge scurry among the scented under-bush; and great peacocks spread their wonderful fans amid flowers that are brighter.
Small wonder if Theebaw and Soo-pyah-lat loved to drift up and down those wonderful rivers.
BURMESE POSTURE GIRLS.Page 85.
BURMESE POSTURE GIRLS.Page 85.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the beauty of the Burmese river banks; I should like to slip between them on such another boat. They lay on soft crêpey cushions, did Theebaw and Soo-pyah-lat. They had dainty fare of green turtles’ eggs and esculent swallows’ nests; they ate strange salads made of the succulent stems of many aquatic plants and of shrubs; they dipped their jewelled fingers into big carved bowls of pickled tea; they skinned and ate odd Oriental fruits; they moored their glittering barge, and caught the big dates from off the graceful tamarind trees. Green and purple parrots whirled in the moonlight; and the blue jays winged their graceful way, haply unconscious that they must die to feather with their splendid azure the state robes of Chinese mandarins.
Perhaps they landed sometimes to wander hand in hand through the forests of priceless teak. Perhaps Soo-pyah-lat rejoiced in the immense masses of gorgeous yellow flowers, and in the huge leaves that measured twenty inches from stem to tip. Perchance they called their attendants to cut a hole in some huge oil tree, and light in it a fire, and watched the oil flow, that they might realise again how great in natural wealth Burmah was, and how spontaneously she yielded up her treasure to her sons. When the great tree—it was one hundred and eighty feet high, and its circumference was sixteen feet,—when it was emptied of its oil, it was split into long torches; and by their weird light the king and queen went back to their waiting boat.
Wherever Theebaw walked, over him was carried the great white umbrella. Umbrellas are the stars and garters of Burmah—the coats of arms—the insignia of rank. They are not carried as a protection against rain, but as a proclamation of degree. The white umbrella was sacred to Buddha and the king. Only over the head of a statue of the god and the head of the king could it be opened. To the princes of the blood-royal belonged the gold umbrella. And every class had its umbrella prescribed of shape and hue.
I do not know which is the more wonderful, the pagodas of Burmah or its creeping canes. The latter are sometimes three hundred feet long. They make splendid ropes; and out of them the deft Burmans and defter Chinese make all conceivable and many inconceivable things.
There are immensely valuable mines in Burmah whose locality was only known to Theebaw, his queen, and their few most trusted ministers. When Theebaw was conquered, just eight years ago, he did not betray the placement of those natural treasure stores. We have been hunting them ever since, but without success. It has been recently mooted that Theebaw might be induced to disclose to us their whereabouts. If the spirit of Soo-pyah-lat whispers in his ear, he will ask a big price for his knowledge.
CHAPTER X
ORIENTAL OBSEQUIES
Burmese Burials
TheBurmese are very philosophical. They have no belief in another life; but they make the most of this one. They take everything very easily—everything but death; they hate to die. That is natural on the part of a people who enjoy life so thoroughly, and who live in such a pleasant, sunny land. I have seen a Burmese funeral train in a gale of merriment, but I have never seen a Burmese man or woman who was willing to die. They are not afraid of death; but they are unutterably saddened by it. The Burmese are a tender-hearted, affectionate race, and the most affecting deathbed parting I ever saw was between a Burmese man and his dying mother.
A Burmese village burns; the entire property—all the belongings of the inhabitants, are destroyed. The men set to work and build a theatre on the smouldering ruins; the women gather plantains from the nearest tree, until their silk tameins are full; the pretty Burmese children climb the trees and drop the yellow fruit down into their pretty mothers’ out-held garments; the men complete the impromptu theatre while the women roast the fruit. Then they eat, and wash their meal down with brook-water, with laughter, and with song; then they bathe their hands and lips in the nearest stream, which is sure not to be far away; then they have a theatrical performance; and so console themselves for the loss of their homes and their little earthly all. But, for the loss of a relative or a close friend they are never consoled. They grieve quietly—which is very un-Eastern—but they grieve persistently.
When a Burmese dies, messengers are at once sent to all his friends, no matter how far off those friends live. And all the friends hasten to bid farewell to the body, to arrange for the funeral, and to console—as best they may—the bereaved family. All the expenses of a Burmese funeral are met by voluntary gifts.
I have often thought the Burmese the cleanest people on earth; certainly they are the cleanest people in the East. They wash their dead with great care, and several times. The last water used is scented. The Burmese do not believe in immortality, and yet, like all of us who are disbelievers, in whatever part of the world we live, they fight their own unbelief, and, when death touches their near and dear, they indulge their hurt hearts with many a little ceremony inconsistent with their scepticism. For instance, they place in the mouth of their dead a little coin called “ferry hire.” They believe, or try to believe, that death is a river, and that the waterman requires pay. How the superstitions of the world repeat themselves! How the Greek imagination dominates the imaginations of all the gentler peoples.
The body is placed on an uncovered bier, which is laid just out of the house door. There it remains for three days; but it is never left alone. Then the body is laid in the coffin. The priests, looking very like copper-coloured Capuchins, come to conduct the dead to its last resting place.
PAGODA NEAR MANDALAY.Page 88.
PAGODA NEAR MANDALAY.Page 88.
The funeral procession, unlike those of any other Eastern people, is formed largely of vehicles. The Burmese carts are very odd, and are fittingly picturesque adjuncts to the most graphically beautiful landscape in Asia. The carts are drawn by great, handsome oxen. They have two immense wheels, and an indescribable top. The back of the cart is curved. The Burmese perch themselves on the seat of their native vehicles in some mysterious way.
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, noten 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.