Golden Earth

by Norman Lewis

  Soon after this the family retired to bed. The house was a rather flimsy construction raised on piles about three feet from the ground. It consisted of two main rooms and a kitchen, had a palm-thatched roof and a floor of split bamboo. I was left to myself in one of the rooms, while the five members of the family – another brother had just turned up – were to sleep in the other. Clearly the old mother did not approve of this arrangement, which I gathered, from her gestures, probably went against her ideas on true hospitality. Perhaps she felt that I was not being treated as a member of the family. At all events she protested and was with difficulty overruled by Tin Maung, who probably told her that communal sleeping was not a European custom; and with a shrug of bewildered resignation she let the thing go as it was. Bars were put over the door and a shutter fitted to the window. The younger brother appeared carrying a camp bed which he erected in a corner. By the side of this Tin Maung set a stool with a lamp, a glass of water, a saucer of nuts and several giant cheroots. Before going into the other room he told me not to put the lamp out. I wondered why.

  Taking off my clothes, I put on a cotton longyi which I had bought in Mandalay. It had been recommended as the coolest thing to sleep in. Turning the lamp low, I lay down on the camp bed, and was just dozing off when I heard a slight creaking, and through half-opened eyes saw Tin Maung, going slowly round the room, flashing an electric torch on the walls and ceiling. I asked him what he was looking for, and he said, ‘Sometimes there are moths.’ He then tiptoed quickly from the room. My eyelids came together and then opened, reluctantly, at a faint scuffling sound. The bungalow consisted of a framework of timber upon which sheets of some white-washed material had been nailed. It was like a very ramshackle example of a small black-and-white Essex cottage. On one wall, just above my feet was a Buddha shrine, containing a rather unusual reclining Buddha and offerings of dried flowers in vases. From behind this there now appeared several rats, not large, but lively, which began to move in a series of hesitant rushes along the beam running round the room. There were soon seven of them in sight.

  I watched this movement with dazed curiosity for a time, and then began to doze again. Then, suddenly, an extraordinary protective faculty came into use. Once during the recent war, I had noticed that whilst my sleep was not disturbed by our own howitzers firing in the same field, I was inevitably awakened when the dawn stillness was troubled by the thin whistle of enemy shells, passing high overhead. Now, on the verge of unconsciousness, I felt in the skull, rather than heard, a faint scratching of tiny scrambling limbs. Something, I half-dreamed and half-thought, was climbing up the leg of the camp bed. Turning my head I caught a brief, out-of-focus glimpse of a small black body on the pillow by my cheek. Then in a scamper it was gone. It was a scorpion, I thought, or a hairy spider of the tarantula kind. I linked its appearance with Tin Maung’s mysterious inspection of the room with his torch. What was to be done? I got up, thinking that whatever this animal was, it would come back to achieve its purpose as soon as I fell asleep. I thought of sitting in the chair and staying awake for the rest of the night, but when I picked up the lamp to turn up the wick, it felt light, and shaking it produced only a faint splashing of oil in the bottom of the container. In a short time then, the lamp would go out, and my scorpion or whatever it was, with others of its kind, would come boldly up through the interstices in the bamboo floor. The next impulse was to spend the night walking round Lashio, and I went to unfasten the door bar. Immediately the pariah dog that lived under the house, where it lay all night snuffling and whining, burst into snarling life, furiously echoed by all the dogs in the district. I thought of the trigger-happy police of Lashio, who would have Chinese bandits on their mind.

  The best thing, I decided, was to use my mosquito net and hope that I could sleep without any part of my body coming into contact with the sides. Fixing it up as best I could, I crawled in and tucked the net well under me. For a while I watched the movement, blurred through the net, of the rats; then consciousness faded again. I was awakened by a not very sharp pain in the lip and putting up my hand found myself clutching a cockroach which had fastened there. This was the last disturbance; when I next woke it was to the mighty whirring of hornbills flying overhead, and the daylight was spreading through the shutters.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Northern Shans

  LASHIO was taking shape in the calm morning light, its roofs and palisades touched with mist-filtered sunshine. Two-thirds of the town lay below U Thein Zan’s veranda, clinging to slopes that slid down into a vaporous valley. Sashes of mist wound through the town, isolating hillocks, huts and clumps of trees. From some distant meadow concealed in the hazy depths arose a thin, pastoral piping. Beyond the valley a tuft of cotton-wool balanced on a thinly drawn line joining the summits of a distant mountain range.

  This was the country – as Lashio was the capital – of the Northern Shans, a curious people who provided an example of a huge racial group in a constant state – like some radioactive metal – of fission and degeneration into lesser elements. The name Shan is unknown among the people themselves, and probably originates, as do also Chin, and Kachin, in a common Chinese term for hill-savage, or barbarian. The Shans call themselves Thai, meaning ‘free’, and remnants of their race are spread right across Southern Asia, from Canton to Assam – the greatest single unit being the Siamese. It is their singular passion for freedom which has kept the Thais disunited. In general, those peoples that remain in the mountains reflect in their character the physical division of their environment into hills and valleys. The smaller the tribe the greater the freedom. These arch-republicans of South-Eastern Asia sometimes carried their democracy to a point where there were no chiefs and not even a village council.

  Only when such people are driven by some invader from their valleys, and forced down into the plains – as were the Siamese – can they be united, and prepared for civilisation, under victorious tyrants. The Burmese, having reached the plains of the Irrawaddy first, turned themselves into a nation of rulers and ruled, organised themselves, increased and multiplied, and bought the latest weapons. In this way they were able to hold the later waves of immigrants – the Shans, and Kachins – back in their mountains.

  Surfeited with democracy, the Burmese organised the Shans politically whenever they could, allowing them otherwise to cling to their natural customs. They are notably uxorious, and those who can support them are permitted three official wives. Miscellaneous concubines are styled ‘little women’. Divorce is easy, and women retain their property. The democratic principle is followed even in the matter of seduction. An official who seduces the wife of a non-official in a similar case, escapes a fine, and may even keep the great man’s wife, if she agrees to forfeit her property. It is curious that there are racial groups which have lived for centuries among the Shans, which, far from being influenced by this liberality of outlook, have marriage taboos and restrictions only equalled by those of the Australian bushmen. The Bghai Karens strangle in a pit those who marry out of their station. The Banyangs’ endogamous system is so exclusive that it has reduced the tribe numerically to a point when it is no longer possible for a marriage to be contracted within the permitted relationship groups. Having therefore resigned themselves to extinction, the people can only be kept in existence by state compulsion. Once a year an official arrives in the village, a suitable couple are selected, detailed for marriage, conveyed by force to the bridal chamber, and kept there under governmental seal, tormented, no doubt, by incest-guilt, for three days. Meanwhile, the Shans fill the surrounding villages with their children.

  * * *

  The youngest brother was already up, moving stealthily about the garden, watering the snapdragons, geraniums and roses with the solemnity of one tending the flowers before the high altar. His face was respectfully averted, and occasionally, when forced to pass within a few yards of me, on his way to refill his watering can, he did so in a hunched-up rush. Soon after he left to go off to some kind o
f clerical occupation. He was dressed in shorts, a kind of Alpine jacket and a Gaucho hat, with a chin-strap, from the bottom of which hung down a three-inch decorative knot. Under his arm he carried a brief case. Later, U Thein Zan made an appearance, dressed in his best longyi, worn under an American Army greatcoat; he was ready for early-morning prayers at the pagoda. Next Tin Maung, about whom the household clearly revolved, came on the scene. He asked how I had slept, and I assured him that I had rarely passed a more peaceful night. After we had drunk tea, he suggested a stroll along to the market.

  Although it was no more than eight o’clock, animation was at its height. Every swaggering Asiatic mode was displayed here. A group of Kachin women wore with demure elegance their black Chinese smocks of some good, coarsely woven material, relieved only by spiralling silver links at the neck-fastening, and a few negligently worn strings of amber beads. There were turbanned Palaungs with infantile faces, and teeth and lips blotted out with betel. They were dressed in dressing-gowns slashed with many colours, and gaily-woven anklets, and had massive silver rings round their necks, which made their wearers look as if they had been won by someone at a game of hoopla. The Taungthus were in shapeless penitents’ chemises of indigo sacking and wore with raffish effect a towel wound several times round the head. Shans, slender and willowy in their long gowns, were the sophisticates, the bourgeoises of the market. Until they looked up, they were extinguished by their huge, mushroom hats; then sometimes one looked into the face of a severe beauty, with the regularity of feature of a fine ivory carving; primly pursed lips and wonderfully shaped eyes – to a Westerner all the more piquant from the invisibility when the eyes were open, of the upper eyelids. Besides these groups there were occasional representatives of more distant peoples; a Lisu, with satchels strapped about him like a medieval palmer, and turban wound with intricate regularity; an unidentified pair in waisted and loose-sleeved Cossack coats. Behind their stalls Shan young ladies viewed their clients with the aloofness of haughty sales-ladies of model garments. Tin Maung said that it was better to deal with the Chinese – perfect shopkeepers who held to the principle that the customer was always right.

  On our way back, five beautiful Chinese Shan girls, in blue jackets and trousers and wide cummerbunds, came tripping down the street towards us. They were jolly and free in their manner, and pink-cheeked under their slight tan. I asked Tin Maung if he thought I could photograph them, and after considering the question until it was too late, he gave his verdict, with sensibility, I thought. ‘In their own village, they will be pleased for you to photograph them. But here, they are visitors.’ He then added an odd corollary, ‘They are too slow moving to dance the rumba.’

  * * *

  It had been arranged that a friend of Tin Maung’s, who was supposed to have some contact with the Special Commissioner, should accompany me to his house. Afterwards I was to return to breakfast with Tin Maung. The Special Commissioner was also the Sawbwa of Hsenwi, the most powerful of the Shan feudal princes in the Northern Shan States, who had now been turned by the Burmese into a kind of exalted civil servant. The Shan, Kachin and Karen minorities have always been more or less hostile to the Burmese, for much the same reasons that the Irish have not agreed with the English. Lacking the organisation, or perhaps even the natural military genius to defeat the Burmese in the field, they have rebelled whenever they could, allying themselves – with usually disastrous results – with any invader, whether Chinese or Siamese, and suffering in due course the frightful retaliation that has always been commonplace in South-East Asia. The Burmese have always accused the British – probably with justice – of trying to separate them from the minorities, in accordance with the principle of ‘divide and rule’. There is little doubt also that the Shans did their best to play off the British against their old enemies. Traditionally the Sawbwa were educated outside Burma, often in Siam, and the Burmese are still said to suspect them of plotting with neighbouring states to the detriment of Burmese sovereignty. There were, for instance, in Rangoon all sorts of rumours – and not from Burmese sources – of machinations aimed at turning over part of the Kentung province to Siam. I was therefore warned that any approach to the Sawbwas would certainly be misconstrued by the Burmese, and might even land me in some sort of trouble. However, although the Sawbwa of Hsenwi was said to have been in difficulties with the Burmese over the Karen insurrection, he was now a Burmese Special Commissioner, and as such it was not only in order but obligatory to call on him.

  The Sawbwa lived in a large villa of European type. My sponsor having explained the nature of my visit to a servant, I was shown into a lounge and left to await the great man’s pleasure. The walls were decorated with Chinese silk panels of natural history subjects. A large silver cup of the kind awarded for athletic distinction stood on the mantelpiece. Facing me was a partially curtained stairway, and several ladies of the Sawbwa’s household took turns to peep at me from behind the curtain. After a reasonable interval the Sawbwa appeared. He was dressed in loose pyjamas of white silk, possessed a handsome, unlined face and a manner of cultivated tranquillity. Shan rulers were clearly modelled on Chinese rather than Burmese patterns. In spite of the conventional British praise for everything to do with the hill peoples of Burma, I must confess to a preference for the easy-going affability of the Burmese notables, well typified by the Premier, Thakin Nu, by comparison with the well-bred Shan aloofness. I have no doubt that every kind of sterling quality is concealed by this habit of reserve.

  After reading my credentials the Sawbwa asked me where I wanted to go, and I told him that my intention had been to make my way to Taunggyi. The Sawbwa thought about this for a moment, and said that it would be easier to go north than south. He could give me a letter to his brother, also a Sawbwa, who was now living at Hsenwi, and who would look after me, and pass me on via Mu-Sé to Nam Hkam. After that I could easily get to Bhamó, where there were no troubles of any kind. This was indeed a tempting alternative to my original plan. Such a route would take me for a considerable distance along the Chinese frontier, and Nam Hkam had been described as, ethnologically speaking, the most interesting town in the Northern Shan States, although hopelessly inaccessible in these times. I mentioned the matter of a further army permit to travel in these areas, and the Sawbwa brushed the question aside. ‘This territory,’ he said, ‘comes within my jurisdiction. I will give you whatever is necessary.’ I wondered if, in these words, that utterly efficient facial control cloaked a hint of quiet satisfaction. It then occurred to me to obtain an official ruling on the nationality of the authors of the previous evening’s incident, and I quoted the DSP’s opinion that the lorry had been attacked by Shans. Without emphasis, the Sawbwa said, ‘The Shans have never done such a thing. They have never committed an act of banditry. The attack carried out last night was by Chinese Nationalist troops, of whom there are several hundreds in the neighbourhood.’

  * * *

  Old U Thein Zan, however, was very worried about the idea of my going off along the Chinese frontier without additional army sanction. I said that surely a letter of authorisation from the chief civil authority in the Shan States was enough, but U Thein Zan said, ‘You do not realise. You will encounter ignorant, uneducated soldiers, who will not understand the Sawbwa’s letter.’ Well, then, I said, if they wouldn’t understand the Sawbwa’s letter, what use would an army permit be? Ah, said U Thein Zan, that would be different. An army permit would be written in Kachin, which these ignorant, stupid soldiers from the hills could read … Very well then, I would have the Sawbwa’s letter translated into Kachin. But still the old man shook his head, with the gravest misgivings. For my part, I was quite determined, at all costs, to keep out of the army’s clutches. I had found that I should have to wait an indefinite time in Lashio before finding any kind of transport going in the Taunggyi direction, so that the choice lay between pushing on northwards, and an ignominious retreat to Mandalay. There was, therefore, no choice.

  * * *


  On the way back we called on the SDO, who was in charge of the bungalow of the Public Works Department. In the old Burma it was considered ill-mannered to call a man by his name if he held any office. Imaginary and unpaid positions were often created by the king – the nonexistent glass manufactory with its hierarchy of officials was one – to allow worthy men that kind of satisfaction which inhabitants of the Southern States of the USA are said to derive by calling themselves doctor or colonel without the possession of the usual qualifications. This usage is still reflected in the modern Burmese custom of referring to a man not merely by his function but by a series of initials. I could never remember what those mysterious initials stood for, but everyone in government service had them. They became hopelessly entangled in my mind with similar ones in the British Army. The letter D for instance, in SDO – what did it stand for, District or Deputy? But in this case it was Sub-Divisional Officer.

  The SDO was a Southern Indian, cultured and genial, with a thin, homesick wife, and a pretty doll-like child, with eyes clouded with malaria. He had inherited his comfortable bungalow from an English predecessor, and was obsessed by the fate of the sweet peas that had gone with it. They were still vigorous and profuse of blossom, but since the country had gained its independence had quite lost their colour, all the sharply-divided, original shades having faded to a wishy-washy pinkish-blue.

  With the SDO’s permission I went down to the Inspection Bungalow to take over a room left by soldiers who were just moving off. It was like an ample prison-cell, with barred windows and scaling walls. There was no light, and the only piece of furniture was a frame raised on legs, recalling some obscure instrument of torture, across which string had been stretched, crisscross. On to this I flung my bedding, upon which a few minute red insects immediately appeared. Looking up I saw that the ceiling was entirely screened from view by thick, old cobwebs, which I judged to be no longer tenanted. The door was much splintered and repaired about the lock, and appeared to have been broken in on many occasions.