: ¢ st ar Praia ae ee See otaee a Late, a oS eee ss University of Virginia Library DS485.B85 W5 1922 ULALDERMAN LIBR AR UNIVERSITY CF VIRGINIA CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA it fea‘% nom $0 he As ~¥ frre "wie YOUR MINNESOTA FRIENDS. COLLECTED: BY MINKIESOTA-PENAL COALITIONTHE SEA GYPSIES OF MALAYATierpastors) Peete i 8 ns EST oy re PuRrarenyeroesst a Fe tees liteA KABANG OPENED OUT. This shows the decks of split bamboo, and the roof rolled up in the stern.THE Peon GYPSIES MALAYA AN ACCOUNT OF THE NOMADIC MAWKEN PEOPLE OF THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR WAYS OF LIVING, CUSTOMS, HABITS, BOATS, OCCUPATIONS, &c., &c., &c. BY WALTER GRAINGE WHITE, F.R.G.S. Member of the Oxford University Anthropological Society WITH A FOREWORD BY Rok MARE Dn, MA: D.Sc; FRA. University Reader in Social Anthropology, Oxford WITH ILLUSTRATIONS & A MAP PHILADELPHIA |; Be EIPPINGCOTT COMEANY LONDON: SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LTD. 1922 oy of RST Paras) afi Pesan TTT MOM RE tara Sea toate bFOREWORD HEN Mr White came to Oxford to read a paper on the Mawken before our Anthro- pological Society, most of us had hitherto never heard of those people, at any rate under that name, Thereupon, having gauged his attitude towards wild folk in general, I gladly promised to furnish any book that Mr White should write about them with an introductory note, not because I was in any way com- petent to supplement the information collected by him, but simply in order to associate myself with an enter- prise that I felt to be useful. For surely it is useful in the highest degree to everyone who takes an interest in his fellow-men that he should be taught to respect them even when their circumstances are lowly. These Mawken are, to judge by externals, scarcely better off than the mud-fish on which they live. To accompany our author on a trip in one of their reeking dug-outs is a trying experience, even when but imagined from the depth of an arm-chair. Nevertheless, as we follow Mr White in his efforts to make friends with the Mawken, we find ourselves becoming friendly towards them too. This book, then, in my view at least, is thoroughly anthropological in spirit, because all anthropology, whether pure or applied, has its root in human sympathy. Hoc fundamentum rei est. Human nature is only to be understood from within. The supreme object of the study of our fellow-man is to join souls with him. Nor is such contact so difficult to achieve as it might at a first glance seem. The natural bridge of souls is 5 MP eSeTE Muh sieie oro Aosta Sr Os Oa acy; fide bb Ph a yt grein SaECET ite eT eres GD Ss ay TMH MGrath sitia abies Glee Ou NisUI Lek (eesica ae eh eek eet REUTER 6 Foreword language. Having this faculty in common, human beings are capable of spiritual intercourse, whatever material barriers otherwise may tend to impede the process. Mr White went the right way to work in seeking to master the Mawken tongue. He soon found—as everyone discovers who is at pains to con- verse with a primitive people in their own idiom—that the workings of the human mind are much the same in all of us. He and his friend Nbai conversed freely to their mutual profit. I wonder which of them learnt more that was of value to him. Meanwhile the problem of effectively joining souls is complicated by the fact that success depends on the social no less than on the individual make-up of the minds that meet. ach stands for a consciousness wedded to a custom. The social habits of the people with whom one’s life is more immediately bound up must on the whole be followed, and a prejudice in favour of these as compared with habits of any other kind constitutes in large part the mental outlook of every normal man, But if there is to be real sympathy between those who represent very different stages or types of culture, such prejudice must be somehow overcome—to this extent at least, that some sort of line is drawn between essential and non-essential habits, between morals and manners, let us say, so that a large toleration can be exercised in regard to the latter. Here anthropological science can help. The study of man is scientific just so far as it is disinterested and objective. Impartially viewed in the light of the facts, a given mode of life is seen to entail one code of manners and another another. If Nbai, for instance, was to continue to live the life of a Sea Gypsy, his best chance was to stick to Mawken methods of coping with their amphibious environment. Thus who can doubt that the Mawken, confronted with tinned salmon, TTT Tes Pe Err rer F eye a] oat fete tT H Hl ST Woe igriForeword 7 were right in protesting, “ We do not know to eat it”? Even their practice of cleaning fish into the bottom of the boat, nasty as it may seem to us, and very possibly entailing the drawback of skin disease, may amount to a wise precaution, if, as Mr White suggests, it is vital to naked pearl divers that sharks should not be encouraged to hang about. So much, then, for manners. They must conform to the mode of life. Unless we are prepared to replace this mode of life by another, the manners are best left alone. But morals can be distinguished from manners. They are far less relative to the mode of life, being concerned with what is largely common to mankind as such. ‘To help Nbai to develop his moral nature, to realise his essential humanity, was not to unfit him for the career of a Sea Gypsy, but rather to brace him for his task. Was he not well advised, for example, to desist from the use of opium? Without pronouncing on the wider issues involved in the opium question, we may surely decide in this particular case that Nbai was likely to be at once healthier and wealthier for his abstinence. Again, it was consistent with the truest sympathy to teach Nbai that black magic ceases to work the moment one ceases to be frightened at it. The curse of primitive society is the fear of the sorcerer. I should indeed like to know in what precise form there was revealed to Nbai his immunity from the magician’s spells. Perhaps he merely conceived of Mr White as a superior magician by association with whom he himself had acquired the power to resist. Even were this so, however, something would have been gained. The educator of the savage has to build with such material as is ready to his hand; and it is surely possible to utilise the widespread primitive notion of the spiritual world as a battle-field of rival wonder-waking powers, so as gradually to bring homeTelit Va ne a mate Te Bit oY EYE Set AS eae dotted 8 the truth that a good will must ever in the long run prove stronger than a bad will. Finally, to illustrate the difficulty of separating the morally essential from that which is merely contingent on the particular state of culture, I note that Mr White, resolute as he is to suppress all black magic, is disposed to take a lenient view of the white magic of the native leech. Certainly the opprobrious title of devil-doctor is here beside the mark. To practise the faith cure is not to bedevil. Moreover, as Mr White seems to me to be perfectly right in holding, the leech is no conscious charlatan, but thoroughly believes in the power of which he is the vehicle. Only faith can beget faith. It is, however, a nice question whether the educator should be content to leave the medical science of the Mawken in the state in which he finds it. It comes to this, I suppose, that we had better be chary of destroying until there comes the opportunity of substituting something else that will be lastingly better. Meanwhile, in all such matters of doubt, sympathy will suggest the right solution, if the sympathy be reinforced by a solid and sufficient knowledge of the facts. Foreword R. R. Maret. Oxrorp. Tee MOL eevee URL ER STRUTS N chica CHR Rui esrgtssesiegcgtants ieess tat FeCONTENTS CHAPTER I AN IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH OF BURMA CHAPTER II THE TENASSERIM © THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO CHAPTER III THE SEA GyPSIES @& THEIR HOMES CHAPTER IV How THE SEA GypsIES NAME THEMSELVES—@ WHy CHAPTER V U SHWE I: THE “ PAINTER” CHAPTER VI “Your FRIEND WOULD BE I’; or, THE TALE OF A ROMANTIC PICNIC CHAPTER VII AFLOAT IN A MAWKEN SHIP: A VOYAGE TO MAIDEN ISLE 9 PAGE | 26 54 61 73 84 ST shite Ue Te Ps ore mahi eS Ee tine Ty tia roaiat erat nit Pe aie atl Rell ed hes a ay Sie a hare ec trany: 1 Contents CHAPTER VIII FRIENDLY OVERTURES @& THE WARNING CHAPTER IX How THE MAWKEN OBTAIN THEIR LIVELIHOOD: SOME EFFECTS OF THE OPIUM TRAFFIC CHAPTER X LIFE AT MAULMEIN : : : : ; CHAPTER XI COMMITTING MAWKEN TO WRITING: THOUGHT-SYMBOLS & A SCRIPT GHAPTER =XII Notions, New & OLp CHAPTER XIII DISCUSSION OF LANGUAGE ORIGIN CHAPTER XIV PREPARATIONS FOR THE CENSUS (1911). CHAPTER XV TAKING THE CENSUS OF THE SEA GYPSIES CHAPTER XVI REASONS FOR COMPUTING THE NUMBER OF MAWKEN Gea eUn ine ee ta nau a eta eet PAGE 98 106 120 132 14! 168 177Contents CHAPTER XVII BirTHS @& MARRIAGES CHAPTER XVIII KINDRED @ AFFINITIES . CHAPTER XIX Tue SicK & THE DOCTOR CHAPTER XX DEATH @& BURIAL CHAPTER XXI CHILDREN’s GAMES & OCCUPATIONS CHAPTER XXII How THE WoMEN LIVE . CHAPTER XXIII THE LIFE OF THE MEN . CHAPTER XXIV PsYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA, OR How WorRKS CHAPTER XXV A COMPARATIVE STUDY PAGE 199 209 217 227 249 261Contents CHAPTER XXVI PAGE *“ScIENCE & ART” AMONGST THE MAWKEN oo 295 CHAPTER XXVII FUTURE POSSIBILITIES INDEX Arist fatiirer te Latur fect haa ahA Kaéang opened out The Floating Home of the Sea Gypsies Mawken Men The Sick & the Doctor ** Grannie” Kabang in sail Kabang “Kennels on Stilts ” Victoria Point A Distant View of Mergui Mergui from the Harbour . Mawken Women Mawken Children . Gathering their Dinner 13 LIST OF ILEUSTRATIONS Frontispiece PAGE 40 48 64 64 88 88 168 200 224 22414 List of Illustrations A Grandfather A Group of Sea Gypsies A Beach Shelter Harbour & Islands A Sorcerer’s “ Bag of Tricks”’ Pangolin & its Young a eT PET han a OPT TET TT TCT: 7 7 - HEE Mattia tient adiibees (iit patiioee eet APRN est RN ninioetae een nine atin tie ite eee 7 iAUTHOR'S NODE NFORTUNATELY I cannot acknowledge all my helpers by name. Special reference must be made, however, to my old friend the Chinaman, U Shwe I, who enabled me to undertake the study of the Gypsies of the Sea; as well as to Mr E. G. N. Kinch, to whose skill as a photographic artist I owe most of the illustrations. The pangolin was photographed for me by a Chinese photographer, at Maulmein; and the group and a few other subjects were procured from a Burmese photographer at Mergui. With regard to the mode of presentation, I am greatly indebted to suggestions made by the publishers, and especially to those of their reader.ORTHOGRAPHY In the spelling of Mawken words I have followed the Con- tinental pronunciation of the vowels, when used without any diacritical marks. a is pronounced, whether initially, medially or finally, as ak e€ a a - » asaye 1 J ‘ - 2) | aSee oO - . . 3, wasn u . * i i) aS OD When a short vowel-sound is needed, I have imposed the breve. So 4 is pronounced, whether initially, medially or finally as in ax é = - 55 » aS in fen 1 , * ss “3 AShin pee 0 . . < » aS ip pot u + + i 5 asin putt In the Makuchi word, or terminal, which signifies the plural, I have adopted the circumflex over the “‘e” in order to give it the French vowel-sound required, thus thamé (thamur—-silent 7). In reading the Mawken name for the northernmost clan and its dialect the word Dung must be pronounced as if written Doo-ng. So, the name of the Mawken ship, 4adazg, must be pronounced as if written kah-bah-ng ; and micha-b/én must be pronounced as if written mee-chah blenn. Burmese words are spelled as officially written in Burma. Lungyt is pronounced /oon-ee. W.Ge WW. se aut ea ete PEMA MGR e re nee ee LE een cea nel Gam time elisa emtea cian eesurart lbsDEE SEA GYPSIES OF MALAYA CHAPTER I AN IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH OF BURMA OTUS-LAND! The Silken East! Land of the Peacock! SBeautiful Burma! What enchanting pictures are conjured up as our thoughts dally with these epithets! Burma, or, as the people would pronounce it, Bur-mah, is indeed a land of charms. The land itself is a beautiful land, and the people from whom the country takes its name are light-hearted, pleasant folk. Those who like to find the West in the East speak of the Burmese as “ the Irish of the East.” No well-read nor any travelled person would expect a region so large as Burma to be inhabited by a single race; and Burma is the home of many peoples, of different shades of colour, of diverse religious systems, of varied dress and speaking in tongues unintelligible to each other. There are the Was. Of them it is told that a Wa maiden would not look at a Wa swain as a prospective spouse unless he had proved his physical superiority B 1718 An Impressionist Sketch of Burma over other men by bringing in their heads or their scalps. For the most part the Wa country is still unadministered by the British. High upon the hills, bordering upon China and Siam, are the Shans. The Shan men are trousered. There is an ordered government, under British domination; and it is a land of corn and peaches, oranges and bananas. Being five thousand feet above sea-level, and situated in the tropics, the climate is salubrious and exhilarating. Upon the “ backbones” of Burma live the Karens, the Po and the Skaw Karens, in whom some would trace a descent from Abraham, the Chaldean. It would not be unreasonable to suppose that they migrated down the Irawadi and the Salween. During my sojourn in Burma someone informed me _ that the Salween rises in Thibet, and flows down behind the “Snow’s-abode” (Him-alaya). The maps of the Royal Geographical Society know nothing of this, though I confess to having believed my informant, and it may pass, with the rest, as Legend. The Karens are, at the back of things, as were the Hebrews, mono- latrists, if not monotheists, and their name for the Supreme Being is Jehowah. Their romantic tradition is fairly well known: how, for many generations, they have been looking for white teachers from over the seas, who would come to teach them the truth about Jehowah, and restore to them the sacred writings they had lost! No one can have read the life story of Dr and Mrs Judson, the American Baptist missionaries, TET ee eee eee REET Ci etrseis ratte fiat i Elfietitetiice in nee en test beecsAn Impressionist Sketch of Burma 19 pioneers amongst the Karens and the Burmese, without being thrilled. Like the Shans and the Burmese, the Karens have a script of their own. The Karens build their villages round the tops of conical hills, where possible. The backs of their dwellings rest upon piles, with the facades encircling the hill-top. In the coastal lands of the west of Burma are the Arakanese, the men of which race wear neither skirt nor trousers, and do their hair in a ball at the top, and as a fan behind, and wear laps or loin-cloth. Of the Chins and Kachins, other peoples of whom the men are trousered, there is no need to tell, nor can the remaining races be described here. En passant, references should be made to the Burmese, who live, for the most part, in the plains, watered by the great Irawadi river and its delta. The Burmese kings had their capitals at different places, one of which was Ava; and it is said that a Burmese king at Ava sent for some of the Sea Gypsies, had them taught to read and write Burmese, and sent them back to their people; but no apparent results have accrued from this incident. Until the British took over their country and exiled their king, the last capital of the Burmese kings was Mandalay. Maulmein, in the Tenasserim division, was the capital of British Lower Burma, and from the old Maulmein pagoda, on the road to Mandalay (in the distant north) one looks westward to the sea, and eastward to the Shan States and China. The Burmese had the idea, and perhaps some have20 An Impressionist Sketch of Burma it still, that the world is plate-like. It is said that Mandalay was regarded as the middle of the disc, and that the king, when holding Court, seated beneath his sunshade of white silk, was in the middle of the world and in the centre of the universe. Like many kings of yore, he seems to have had a very exalted opinion of himself, of his dignity and of his power, if we may judge from the grandiloquent language of his letter to the British when the invasion of Upper Burma was threatened. Was not the king, in his royal person, to lead his valiant troops and to sweep the British into the sea? It is not many years since, that the story was going the round in Burma that some of the monks instructed the boys in their schools to reply, if ques- tioned by a Government Inspector, that the world is round, like a ball (“lest the European should be angry”); but, “‘of course, you know that it is fat.?? These things are not mentioned with sneer or scoff. Early Christians and a pope laid great store upon such an outlook on the world, and these early Christians, or some of them, were puzzled to know how, if the world were a globe, their theory of salvation could embrace inhabitants at their antipodes. Are not our common terms “sunrise” and “sunset” relics of this past, when apparent truth was not differentiated from reality ? The Burmese are a delightful and cultured race. Their technology is that of a people advanced in civilisation. And their so-called “religious”” system g yAn Impressionist Sketch of Burma 21 is based upon deep thought, as anyone who has studied Buddhism knows. ‘The teak, ivory and silver carvings of the Burmese bear witness to developed art. I have some beautiful specimens in my _ possession. Their use of gold-leaf, vermilion and _ glass-mosaic speaks of a beauty sense, even though the ultimate source of all beauty, as of all truth, be not recognised. In my many lectures on Burma, in various parts of England and Wales, although I have tried to be lucid, I have found, over and over again, that when I have given an account of the Sea Gypsies, there have been some people who, because they are a people of Burma, have confused them with the Burmese. Though it may be a pardonable mistake, it does great injustice to Burma and the Burmese. Burma has been written up so well by Shwe Yoe and others; it has been ‘painted and illustrated ” by Talbot Kelly, and photographed and painted by Mrs Muriel, in so exquisite a manner; and Fielding Hall, in Soul of a People, has done such justice to the good that is in the Burmese (for Buddhist and Burman are almost synonymous), that there is no need for me to do more than provide pegs upon which readers can hang their recollections. These pegs are necessary, in order that a proper comparison and contrast may be drawn between the people of Burma to-day and those about whom it is intended to deal specifically in the succeeding chapters of this book. There are still people who think that there is a British BurmaTren Rea a Ura ede Co ee oi hte ae 22 An Impressionist Sketch of Burma and a Burma ruled by aking of Burma. A geographical text-book for schools made this mistake only a few years ago. And voyagers to the Silken East, going to work in Burma, are still requested—as was I!—to remember friends kindly to Mr Smith or Mrs Jones, if encountered, for (may I so put it?) they live just across the way in a tiny village called Bombay! Observant travellers, as they visit different lands, may notice that each country has “ prevailing tints.” Often these tints are due to atmospheric conditions, which cause a particular prismatical resolution of the colours of light. They are affected also by the pre- vailing tone of the soil, and, at certain seasons of the year, by the common flora. Burma’s dominating tint is red. It is seen in the soft rose of sunset and sunrise, in the deep reds of sky and cloud effects, and in the mauves and purples of the hills. Bougainvillea, Flam- boyant and Lagerstramia, with the most graceful of all flowering trees, Amberstia Nobilis, combine, with the widely prevailing laterite soil, to produce these tints. And, as if they would be in harmony with the soil of their land, the Burmese men and boys have a pre- dilection for reds in the silks they select for their lungyis. ‘The Burmese are not a trousered race. The men and the boys wear a convenient skirt-like nether garment, full, and dressed in graceful folds in front, which can be tucked up and tucked in for swimming, games or work, For the sake of an interesting comparison, it may beAn Impressionist Sketch of Burma 23 mentioned that the prevailing tints of British Guiana, to flit from East to West, are blues and delicate blue- greys, as one compares landscape with landscape, in panoramic view; although Guiana too has its red flowers and its laterite soil in places. In Guiana there are diamond mines, and sapphires are found. Burma teak and rubies, and Rangoon oil and rice remind us of our close connection with this beautiful country; and it may be on this account that we are easily induced to explore its byways and its islands, and try to delve into its distant past; for I have no doubt that the past of Burma, if it could be told, would have many things to relate of a people very diferent from the Burmese, living a life of another sort. ‘The facts I have collected will but hint at this past, and we shall, when we have considered them, be left uncertain and wondering still. Is it right to speak of Burma at all and to omit all reference to Rangoon? Perhaps I am a faddist, but I do confess to a strong desire that the present capital of Burma should be allowed its original name. Yan-gon, ‘the war’s end,” sums up a bit of history and crystallises its poem. Ran-goon means nothing at all, and does but perpetuate the unpleasing fact that we British have been guilty of a “superior careless- ness” of other languages and the symbolism of words, in an illogical deduction from the poet’s dictum that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Rangoon is not in the dry zone of Mandalay, nor inMpc tenet eat (Cort Vestieel dre abel ee deceit tee kes ee TD 24. An Impressionist Sketch of Burma the wet zone of Maulmein and Mergui. Like many other tropical cities, it is a microcosm. Typically Burmese it is not. Europeans, Chinese and Indians from across the Bay (the Bay out here is the Bay of Bengal, not the Bay of Biscay) have left their mark upon it. Electric trams and electric light; motor cars; a large and magnificently equipped hospital; churches and cathedrals, which bear sad witness to the obstinate perpetuation of divisions amongst those who claim to proclaim to the world “the Brotherhood of Man”; and the inevitable picture palace, caricaturing and thereby misrepresenting Western life—these all tell their own tale. The cantonments, where the Europeans congregate, include the palatial residence of the head of the Government of Burma, It is a luxurious building, which, however, scarcely gives proof of our high regard for esthetics. It is a palace, with spacious ballroom, a lift and electric fans. Its lawns are from time to time gay with the gorgeous robes of Eastern races, when on them are collected the various peoples who have made Burma their home. There is still one thing we must mention.