by Norman Lewis
For the Shans themselves there were more solid refreshments in store. The killing of cows, which is illegal in Burma, and only carried on as a scandalous, black-market activity, is tolerated in the Shan States, where the brand of Buddhism is less strict, and does not prescribe a largely vegetarian diet. In a discreet corner of the market a buffalo was tethered by a rope round the horns, carried over a beam. A muscular and elaborately tattooed Shan, drawing his dah, advanced and struck the outstretched neck a practised blow that was more an accolade than a mortal wound. Going closer, he examined the gash laid open by the straining muscles; repeating the blow, almost as an afterthought. At this, the buffalo, which had remained passive, seemingly unconcerned, began to lash out with its hooves and a mighty flexing of the hindquarters, and then to slither, legs momentarily spread-eagled, assisting by its strainings the out-gushing of its life. Finally it sank down, its rear legs sliding beneath it, and then gathering its strength and kicking out furiously, it half rose, before slipping back again. The butcher waited with patience, a long cheroot held in his teeth. Presently he produced and tried the edge of the short knife with which in a few minutes he would open up the belly, hack off the hooves, and skilfully release the tension of the hide at certain points, before stripping it off like an overcoat. Meanwhile the buffalo fought silently with huge muscles, against the lethargy that was dragging it down.
Picnicking Shan families began to gather, laughing happily. In the background, fires had been built, and braziers were already heating. Not a Burman was to be seen.
Thus the bazaar continued through the daylight hours, a good-natured and convivial assembly of half a dozen races, some of whose members could only speak with each other through the common medium of a few words of Shan. Such gatherings, every fifth day, are the mountain people’s genial equivalent of the Sabbath, and even when feuds or warfare are in progress, the bazaars are recognised as neutral territory. There are no loudmouthed disputes, scoldings or imprecations. The buying and selling, eating and drinking are all carried on with true oriental gentleness and forbearance. In the afternoon, when most of the serious business was over, the bottles of country spirit came out, and the shy, elusive beauties of the morning were to be seen taking unconcealed nips from their flasks – without, however, noticeable effect. Happy, slightly tipsy groups went wandering through the streets, while the mountains sank back into the haze, and a blue twilight settled on the town. The yellows and the greens drained out of the curving roofs so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the skilful metal counterfeit from the authentic original. A twinkling centipede twisted up the nearest hillside – a Palaung family, with their lanterns, going home in Indian file. The traders who were staying the night retired into the opium and liquor stores, and light burst in a thousand spear points through the wide chinks of the bamboo constructions. The drivers of fifty worn-out three-ton lorries climbed up into their cabins, and went to sleep. And now the Kachin garrison issued from its barracks to guard the sleeping town.
A Kachin patrol was a cheerful affair, more social than warlike. Fires were lit in the streets in various parts of the town, then the main body of men split into small groups, who visited each fire in turn. Each group carried with it an elaborately carved rectangular frame in which were suspended five gongs of different sizes, all beaten simultaneously by clappers attached to a single bar operated by a lever. As soon as the party reached a fire the frame was set down, and one of the soldiers began to work the lever at an even, rapid tempo, producing a sweet, high-pitched and penetrating sound. When the beating of the gongs ceased, a member of the group would step out from the circle formed, sing a single verse and, taking two swords, while the gongs began again, break into a vigorous, posturing dance. This performance was repeated by each soldier in turn. One of them was old enough to have served under British officers, and remembered a few words of English. I asked him what the songs were about, imagining that they dealt with warlike exploits, but he said that they were ‘funny stories about ladies’.
CHAPTER 15
Circuit House, Bhamó
THE AMAT’S CLERK said that he had reserved a place in a jeep bound for Bhamó at seven in the morning, so that when seven-thirty came and the jeep had not arrived, I became a little nervous. One after another, the merchants’ lorries went thundering out of town, until only one was left, which was jacked-up to await the repair of a tyre. It seemed ungracious not to wait for the jeep, when an arrangement had been made, and yet if I allowed the last lorry to go and the jeep failed to appear, it would mean a five days’ wait in Nam Hkam, until the next bazaar. Just as the wheel was being put back and I was about to begin negotiations with the driver, I heard the sound of a familiar burping acceleration, and the jeep arrived. The usual maximum of passengers was wedged in among the luggage and petrol cans, from which sprouted like exotic plants in a rock-garden an awkward bundle of umbrellas, as large as those to be found in continental cafés. In spite of my protests a polite rearrangement took place for my benefit, so that I found myself seated in front, in relative comfort, with the one leg which could not be contained within the car supported on the front wing. We then set off through the fresh morning forest, alive with the movement of lizards and small birds, and strongly perfumed as if by unseen lilies. What was the origin of this fragrance, which in the imagination streamed from white, immaculate blossoms? In my jungle experiences I have never encountered flowers of the often repellent splendour described by tropical botanists, and here in the Shan uplands the flora, which was sparse and even trivial, bore a disappointing resemblance to that of Europe. In this area flowers a gigantic wild rose, and a species of honeysuckle, with corolla seven inches long, which is by far the largest known. But in these forest-clearings I saw nothing but a few shrinking primroses, violets and anemones; and further on, when we made a short stop and I could explore further, clematis, agrimony, convolvulus and willowherb, none of which dispensed the mysterious bouquet, which now, as the sun rose higher, was swiftly fading.
At Man Wing my companions stopped to buy country spirit, which was better and cheaper here, they said, than anywhere in the country. This high-grade product was kept in motor-oil cans, while lesser distillations were supplied from ordinary jars. At Man Wing it was bazaar day, intelligently timed to catch traders returning from Nam Hkam. It was a much smaller affair than Nam Hkam had been, and conducted almost exclusively by Kachins, who appeared in a great variety of costumes, woven with the designs by which, in a stylised, dream-like and semi-conscious fashion, tribes sometimes record the few bare facts of their history – a serrated pattern of mountains crossed in their migrations; the yellow of the desert sands. Some of these Kachin motifs were indistinguishable from others I have photographed among the Maya Quiché Indians. I attribute no more to this than that such simple designs occur naturally to all primitive weavers. Their artistic value seemed great to me, and I should say that apart from occasional articles of silver jewellery, woven cloth is the only article of artistic interest produced in the mountains of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Unfortunately such cloth, or the garments made from it, are not on sale in any of the bazaars, for at present every woman weaves the material for her own clothes. As soon as printed cottons come within her means, she will, as most Siamese girls have already done, renounce with contempt the gorgeous creations of her own hands, which are the result of the communal artistic imagination of her tribe throughout the centuries, delightedly substituting for them graceless, ready-made models. Art is sometimes protected by poverty, and civilisation can be the destroyer of taste.
* * *
Soon after midday we arrived at Bhamó, which lay stifling and somnolent in the plains by the Irrawaddy. The jeep dropped me at the administrative buildings – a long, divided bamboo hut – and the driver accepted with a show of protest the modest ten rupees which is the recognised price for long distance de luxe travel in Burma. Here, according to my instructions, I reported to the DSP and the Deputy Commissioner, and was relieved t
o find that, although I was expected, no comment was made about my arrival from an unexpected direction. With the Commissioner’s permission, it was arranged that I should put up at the Circuit House and, finding a decayed gharry, I drove there, at a cost of half that charged for a journey of a hundred miles.
The Circuit House was a forlorn structure in the English half-timbered mood, but of shell-like fragility. No sooner was I inside than in taking a kick at a hornet I put my foot through the wall. This bungalow was presided over by a functionary called the butler, an ancient and dignified survival, living in a kind of monastic seclusion with his memories of the Imperial days and the splendid personalities they had delivered into his charge. Almost before I could look round he produced, with the manner of one displaying an illuminated breviary, a visitors’ book in which a number of the great had written their comments and testimonials. The last English one, dating from 1947, by a distinguished lady said, ‘A dear old fellow – one of those old-fashioned Burmese servants who are so fast disappearing.’ Subsequently there had been a few Burmese contributions, all of which had accorded genteel commendation on English models.
It was about two-thirty when I arrived at the Circuit House, and the butler, on his mettle, and anxious to show that none of the old traditions had been forgotten, said something like ‘Ih – a – eh?’ He repeated this several times before I realised that he was one of those Burmese who do not believe in the existence of English consonants, which are unemphatic compared with those in the Burmese language. Having discovered that I was being offered tea with eggs, I accepted with pleasure, settling down to the enjoyment of my room, for which, after about two weeks in bamboo huts, I felt quite an affection. By normal Burmese standards, it was choked with furniture. There was an iron bed, a chair and a table, on which stood a mirror and a toilet-roll. Hornets with long trailing stings sailed about the room, and when one came too close, I batted it away, using a book as a tennis-racket. Within ten minutes the tea arrived, formally arranged on a tray, with a bowlful of white sugar, real milk, and the two hard-boiled eggs rolling about and crashing heavily into each other with an appetite-provoking sound. When I thrust a spoon into the sugar, ants boiled out of it. I stirred among the crystals and still the ants came, till it seemed that hundreds had scrambled over the bowl’s rim to swarm away to the edge of the table along the spokes of an invisible wheel. I ate and drank with enjoyment and relaxation. When I went to sugar the second cup of tea, the ants were back again. It was clear that they located the sugar by its smell, because wherever I perched the bowl, there would be ants in it within ten minutes. There were plenty of other insects about, particularly medium-sized spiders, that scuttled off in a panic if I moved in their direction and then hid under the table-legs or behind projections of the wall, leaving a hairy leg sticking out.
At about three-thirty, just as I was ready to take a siesta, I got a shock. There was a tap at the door, and the butler was there again, announcing with dignity, what, although shorn of its consonants, was unmistakably, ‘Breakfast is served.’ In came two trayfuls of honest, English food, more eggs – fried this time – fish with chips, bread and butter, jam and tea. Waving away this collation, I went into the cubicle attached to the room, threw jugfuls of water on the cockroaches crawling about the floor, and took a shower. The water splashed on the concrete floor, spread across it like a stain, and began to dry at the edges. Outside, the trees and the earth with its spears of whitened grass were glazed under the sun, and the gilded bell-shape of a pagoda, surmounted with a cap like a Burmese crown, glittered painfully. A barbet, known as the ‘coppersmith’, invisible adjunct to the Burmese landscape, hooted once every two seconds, and the brain-fever bird added its hallucinatory shriek to this ensemble of heat and fatigue.
With the evening came slight relief, and I walked a dusty mile into the town. Turning into a street of shops I looked up and had a vision of a monumental shape, the mighty torso of a man standing at a first-floor window, his arms raised in the arrangement of a complex hairstyle. It was the Sikh from Mandalay. I went into his shop, which was an ironmonger’s, but which, with a certain elasticity in trading matters, also sold airmail envelopes. I bought a packet, and his wife, a Burmese lady, gave me a cup of tea. The Sikh told me that he and his friends had finally managed to hire a jeep, and after a complicated and exhausting journey of four days they had reached Bhamó. They had met with no dacoits, although after what he had seen and heard, he had decided to stay quietly in Bhamó until the troubles were over. The Bhamó-Myitkyina areas were the only ones completely free from bandits or insurgent armies. Here, he said, if the heat would only let you, you could relax and be almost as happy as in a civilised country like India. Avoiding the direct and vulgar question why he didn’t go back there, I enquired into his reason for remaining in trouble-torn Burma. India was the better place to live in, he said, there was no doubt about that – more civilised, more cosmopolitan. But Burma was the better place to make a living in – if I saw the difference.
* * *
The Chinese restaurateur of the evening’s meal was more complimentary to the country of his adoption. He owned one of the half-dozen lugubrious eating-places along the Irrawaddy shore, and was busy, he said, four days in the week – the days when the two boats from Mandalay arrived, and when they left again. The cavern in which he conducted his business was distinguished from those of his competitors by a yard of fluorescent tubing, whose clammy light was an indication of enterprise in such a place. Although he had never formally learned English, he spoke it with the efficiency demonstrated by his race whenever a project is seriously undertaken. He came from Szechwan, he said, and one of his remote ancestors had been an Imperial cook. He delighted me by referring to his ‘unworthy’ restaurant and his ‘humble’ food – traditional self-deprecations which, until then, I had been convinced were to be found only in the speech of the Chinese of Ernest Bramah. His family had emigrated to Burma in his youth. He loved the country, had married a Burmese wife, and nothing would tempt him to return to China. In a few glowing words he summed up the Burmese character. The people were franker and more outspoken than his compatriots. ‘If I am hungry in Burma, I will say so, and any man will give me food, without thinking anything about it. In China I must not ask. I must wait to be offered, or people will say, “This is an ill-mannered fellow”.’ My informant was also shrewd enough to suggest that in China conventions were stricter and hospitality more confined because the Chinese could not afford hospitality on the Burmese scale. In Yunnan if there were five members of a family, they could only live by all five working. In Burma, in a similar family, only one worked, and then, he said, not too hard. And how were things in China? I asked. It was evident that I had found at last a Chiang Kai-Shek supporter. They were doing fine, he said, if only they hadn’t gone just a little too far in the matter of squeeze. And now the Communists were carrying out a house-cleaning on a big scale. They were very strict, and people who couldn’t believe that things had changed, were suffering. In Bhamó alone there were about a thousand refugees, poor people who had been chased out of their country over trifling matters which in the old days would have been beneath the Government’s notice.
CHAPTER 16
The Jade Country
AT BHAMÓ there were other aids to civilisation to go with that yard of glimmering fluorescence. I was able, for instance, for thirty rupees a day plus the cost of petrol, to hire a jeep with its driver; and next morning in the dawn and with the frantic whistling and shrilling of birds in our ears, we took the road north, to Myitkyina. It was a great luxury to be travelling at last with the power to stop whenever I wanted to, to linger as long as I liked over the most charming parts of the journey. By the time the heat of the sun could be felt we had reached the Tapeng river. A track from the main road, passing under a bower of orange flamboyants, followed the bank for a way, and up this we went in search of a clear stretch of river in which to swim. Down the narrow valley – most fateful of all the ways of entr
y into Burma – the water came, frothing among the white boulders, plunging in polished cascades of marbled green into profound pools, where a resistant bubble or a gyrating insect were the only indications of movement and direction.
Over the river hung a cold, sweet smell, carrying with it a sharp association of the shock and the delight of a plunge into opaque depths. Bamboos and tall blond grasses with feathered tops had decayed at their bases and fallen across the rocks, where, roasting in the sun, they gave off a concentrated scent of hay. Here river perfumes poured through and washed aside those of the forest. Small, dun birds – brown dippers – bobbed and flitted from rock to rock; and sometimes pied kingfishers passed, hanging for seconds in motionless contemplation above a pool, before darting away. Down by the water there was nothing flamboyant, mysterious or repellent. It was all familiar and nostalgic. There could have been no better place in Burma than this to study butterflies. They seemed attracted by the damp boulders, on which they alighted in infinite variety, wings spread and gently pulsating. There was no display here of garish colour, no exaggeration, but a rather subdued elegance and sombre good taste, like the grande tenue of a nobleman at the Court of Philip the Second.
During the rainy season the level of the water was much higher; now boulders had been left uncovered in which deep basins had been scooped by the action of the water. Some of these contained water, the colour of medium sherry, in which a few small, lethargic fish miraculously survived, a feat which only lost in stature when one remembered that this was the country of climbing perch and of lung fish, which, when their native pools dry up, undertake long overland treks in search of water.
