Giants of the Monsoon Forest
Page 24
9. A map of approximate village locations can be found in U Tun Aung and U Thoung Nyunt, “The Care and Management of the Domesticated Asian Elephant in Myanmar,” in Giants on Our Hands (Bangkok: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 2003), 89–102, 101. However, these locations have all likely shifted somewhat during the years since that study.
10. Interview X.
11. My 2016 central Burma field notes.
12.One of these surprise visits occurred while I was staying at a logging village in 2013.
13. Interviews H, X, and U.
14. Richard Lair, Gone Astray (Bangkok: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 1997), 199.
15. Interview U.
16. Interview H and X.
17. Interview Z.
18. Interview F.
19. Interviews E, J, U, and X; and my 2016 central Burma field notes.
20. R. M. Nath, Background of Assamese Culture (Guahati, 1978), 60; and S. L. Baruah, A Comparative History of Assam (New Delhi: Munshiram & Manorharlal, 1985), 222.
21. Edmund Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma (London: Athlone Press, 1964), 36; and Francis Kingdon-Ward, In Farthest Burma (London: Seeley, 1921), 133–35.
22. James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Southeast Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 24, 210, 255.
23. Interview E.
24. Interview C.
25. Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Note on the Trans-Arunachal Highway (submitted to Secretary to Governor, March 13, 2008). This official document includes a map of the project’s routing.
CHAPTER 8: PENCIL LINES ON A MAP
1. Peter Beaumont, “Myanmar Army Killing Civilians in Escalating Conflict in Kachin, Warns UN,” Guardian, May 1, 2018.
2. These interviews occurred over two sessions, referred to herein as Interviews R and T.
3. Interview T.
4. “Indo-Burma-China Railway Connexion,” Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art 67 (1889): 680.
5. Khin Maung Nyunt, Selected Writings of Dr. Khun Maung Nyunt (Yangon: Myanmar Historical Commission, 2004), 36; and Alice Virginia Petar, Jade (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, 1936), 10.
6. Mandy Sadan, Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderlands of Burma (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 198–253.
7. Gustaaf Houtman, “Aung San’s Lan-Zin, the Blue Print and the Japanese Occupation of Burma,” in Reconsidering the Japanese Military Occupation in Burma, ed. Kei Nemoto (Tokyo: University of Foreign Studies, 2007), 179–227.
8. Shelby Tucker, Among Insurgents: Walking through Burma (London: Radcliffe Press, 2000), 167; Shelby Tucker, Burma: Curse of Independence (London: Pluto Press, 2001), 128; and Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (London: Zed Books, 1991), 48.
9. Smith, Burma, 176–97.
10. Bertil Lintner, Land of Jade (1990; rpt. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2011), 164, 245; and Interview R.
11. Global Witness, Jade: Myanmar’s Big State Secret (London: Global Witness, 2015); Jonah Fisher, “Myanmar Elite ‘Profits from $31bn Jade Trade,’ ” BBC News, October 23, 2015; and “Myanmar’s Military Elite and Drug Lords Run £20bn Jade Trade, Report Says,” Guardian, October 23, 2015.
12. Nang Mya Nadi, “Military Secures Hpakant Area After 37-ton Jade Slab Found,” Democratic Voice of Burma, February 20, 2014.
13. Richard Hughes et al., “Burmese Jade, the Inscrutable Gem,” Gems and Gemology 36, no. 1 (2000): 2–27.
14. Interviews R and Y; and my Kachin field notes.
15. Lintner, Land of Jade, 246–47; and Interview R.
16. Interview T; and my Kachin field notes. A driver described the Kumons as “N’kai Bum” or “bad mountains.”
17. Tucker, Among Insurgents, 196–97.
18. Bertil Linter, KIA elephant camp 1987 field notes (with many thanks to Lintner for sharing these with me).
19. Interviews R and T.
20. Lawi Weng, “Tatmadaw Says Kachin IDPs Cannot Stay in Tanai,” Irrawaddy, April 19, 2018.
21. The map is an English-language topographic map of the Hukawng Valley, with an added text layer translating place names into Burmese script, and another layer showing central military and KIA base locations.
22. In reality, the Tiger Reserve is virtually bereft of tigers. Since its 2003 founding, it has functioned to facilitate development access to the Hukawng Valley for mining and sugar plantation companies with connections to the country’s military regime. See Francis Wade, “Is the World’s Largest Tiger Reserve a Front for Burma’s Cronies?” Asian Correspondent, November 22, 2012.
23. Rajeev Bhattacharyya, Rendezvous with Rebels: Journey to Meet India’s Most Wanted Man (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2014), 80–87.
24. Interviews C, J, G, and P.
25. Lintner, Land of Jade, 147.
26. Charles Romanus and Riley Sutherland, China- Burma-India Theater: Stillwell’s Command Problems (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1987), 39.
27. Lintner, Land of Jade, 148.
28. Lintner, Land of Jade, 153.
29. Tucker, Among Insurgents, 258.
30. Interviews P and R.
31. Lintner, Land of Jade, 154, 180.
32. Interview fully anonymized.
33. Tucker, Among Insurgents, 236.
34. Interview P.
35. Interview R; Lintner, Land of Jade, 155; and Tucker, Among Insurgents, xxviii.
36. Tucker, Among Insurgents, 106–12.
CHAPTER 9: FLOOD RELIEF ELEPHANT
1. Dambuk interview 3, 2017.
2. See Francis Kingdon-Ward, “The Great Assam Earthquake of 1950,” Geographical Journal 119, no. 2 (1953): 169–82; and Francis Kingdon-Ward, “Aftermath of the Great Assam Earthquake of 1950,” Geographical Journal 121, no. 3 (1955): 290–303.
3. Interview P.
4. S. D. Goswami and A. M. Saikia, “The Sadiya Trade Fair,” in Cross-border Trade of North-east India: The Arunachal Perspective, ed. S. Dutta (London: Greenwich Millennium, 2002), 129–37.
5. Interviews B and P.
6. Interview M. See for instance Paula Bronstein’s photo in Moni Basu, “Thailand Flooding: Fear Brings People Together,” CNN Online, August 14, 2011.
7. Helen Gibbons and Guy Gelfenbaum, “Astonishing Wave Heights Among the Findings of an International Tsunami Survey Team on Sumatra,” Sound Waves: USGS Newsletter, March 2005; and Shannon Doocy et al., “Tsunami Mortality in Aceh Province, Indonesia,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85, no. 4 (2007): 273–78.
8. See Jacob Shell, “When Roads Cannot Be Used: The Use of Trained Elephants for Emergency Logistics, Off-Road Conveyance and Political Revolt in South and Southeast Asia,” Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies 5, no. 2 (2015): 62–80, 66–67.
9. Interview M.
10. Richard Lair, Gone Astray: The Care and Management of the Asian Elephant in Domesticity (Bangkok: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, 1997), 73–74.
11. Lair, Gone Astray, 79; and Interview M.
12. James Brooke, “Thais Use Heavy Equipment: Elephants Help Recover Bodies,” New York Times, January 7, 2005.
13. Rajan Sukumar, The Asian Elephant: Ecology and Management (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 28.
CONCLUSION
1. For instance, the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake measured 8.6 on the Richter scale and caused the Lohit River to completely change its course, forcing the permanent abandonment of the district capital at Sadiya. See Francis Kingdon-Ward, “Aftermath of the Great Assam Earthquake of 1950,” Geographical Journal 121, no. 3 (1955): 290–303.
2. Dambuk interviews, 2017.
Illustrations Insert
Dambuk elephants crossing the Sissiri River with passengers, monsoon season of 2017, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Photo by Ayem Modi.
Khoonkie elephants in the Trans-Patkai region, 2
015. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Mahout bathing an elephant at an elephant logging village, central Burma, 2013. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Air Singh the elephant and Gam the mahout, Mithong logging camp, Lohit Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Mother elephant and calf at Mithong logging camp, Lohit Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Hkamti mahout at Mithong logging camp, Lohit Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
An Adi passenger climbs onto Burmay-Moti by way of her trunk and ears, Dambuk, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2017. Photos by Jacob Shell.
Rungdot the elephant with his mahout, likely a Singpho-Kachin man, carrying a party with food for evacuees, Burma, 1942. From Geoffrey Tyson, Forgotten Frontier, 1945.
Rescue of the railway party at the Dihing-Dapha confluence, Burma, 1942. From Geoffrey Tyson, Forgotten Frontier, 1945.
Dihing-Dapha rescue, 1942. From Geoffrey Tyson, Forgotten Frontier, 1945.
Transport elephants with Japanese troops, Burma, 1944. Mainichi Newspaper Company.
Elephant combat, drawing by unknown Indian artist, seventeenth century. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Alvin O. Bellak Collection.
Hannibal Crossing the Rhone River by Henri-Paul Motte, 1878, British Museum. The war elephants went over on rafts (though likely they were not carrying soldiers during the crossing, as they are in Motte’s dramatization).
Transport elephant, North Vietnam, 1971. Photo by Doan Cong Tinh.
Elephants carry possessions of Kachin refugees fleeing violence in Kachin State’s Hukawng Valley, May 2018. The group is crossing the Mau Hka (river) near the village of Awng Lawt. Photo by Jerome Palawng Awng Lat.
Elephant carrying a log with his tusks, central Burma, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
An elephant at a mahout family’s house, elephant logging village, central Burma, 2013. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Burmay-Moti the elephant and Pradip the mahout, with passenger and bags of rice, Sissiri River, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2017. Photo by Jacob Shell.
An elephant pulls a car through the mud in the Hpakant region of Kachin State, northern Burma, c. 2010. Photo by Hkun Lat.
An elephant drags a sled full of bamboo at an elephant logging village in central Burma, 2013. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Elephant and mahout in the Trans-Patkai region, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Elephant logging village in central Burma, 2013. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Pwa Oo the elephant, at Mong Cho’s logging camp, Kachin State, northern Burma, 2015. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Neh Ong the elephant, at Mong Cho’s logging camp, Kachin State, northern Burma, 2015. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Mong Cho with a calf of Neh Ong and Pwa Oo. Neh Ong is the large, shadowed elephant in the background behind the tree. Kachin State, northern Burma, 2015. Photo by Jacob Shell.
A forest mahout’s tools, Kachin Hills, northern Burma, 2015. Photo by Jacob Shell.
A mahout and his wife with a work elephant. On the right, a hut is being rebuilt in preparation for coming monsoon storms. Elephant logging village, central Burma, 2013. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Imow (left) and Timeh (right), the retired mahout couple, central Burma, 2016. Photo by Jacob Shell.
Elephant-mounted KIA soldiers, Kachin State, northern Burma, 2012. Photo by Will Baxter.
A KIA mahout climbing onto a brigade elephant, Kachin State, northern Burma, 2011. Photo by Ryan Libre.
KIA elephants cross the Tawang Hka (river) in the Hukawng Valley, Kachin State, northern Burma, 1989. Photo by Shelby Tucker.
A relief elephant in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, immediately after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Photo by Chris Stremmer.
Index
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to maps. Page numbers after 218 refer to Notes.
Abrahamic religions, 104
Abyssinia (Ethiopia), British invasion of, 107
Aceh Sultanate, 196, 199
Adi boatmen, 193–94
Adivasi people, 43–44, 117, 158, 159
Africa:
becoming hotter and drier, 103, 104, 114
“land bridge” between India and, 99–100, 230
African elephants, 93–115
contrasted with Asian, 93–94
domestication of, 95–97, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 115
evolution of, 114–15
ivory poaching of, 38, 210–11
North African vs. savanna elephants, 99
physical appearance of, 93
populations of, 7, 103, 211, 228
ranges of, 103; map, 92
resistance to tsetse flies, 97, 107, 109
sizes of, 7
African Great Lakes, 106, 107
agriculture:
and deforestation, 36–37, 109, 130, 141
farmer-elephant conflicts, 110, 200, 201–2
and flooding cycles, 130, 207–8
four possibilities for elephants as result of, 110
increasing pressures from, 36–38, 110–11, 112, 113
irrigation-based, 130
mountain-friendly crops, 184
paddy fields, 37, 130
swidden (shifting field), 111, 124, 179, 184
Ahom kingdoms, 158
Air Singh (elephant), 44–47, 51, 112, 117, 147, 157, 194, 216
Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, 97–98, 101, 229
Al-Idrisi, Muhammad, 230
amber trade, 176
Anglo-Burmese Wars, 172
animal rights, 140–41
animist practices, 27
anthropogenic evolution, 113
Arabian Desert, 103
Aristotle, 230
Arunachal Pradesh, 12, 43, 222
elephants in emergency flooding situations in, 194–95
helicopters in, 194
landscape of, 213–14
road-building project in, 192, 193, 213–14, 237
Asia, expanding population of, 210
Asian elephants:
contrasted with African, 93–94
forest-based domestication of, 211–12
grazing vs. browsing, 110
populations of, 7, 36, 88–89, 103, 191, 209, 211, 220
present and ancient ranges, ix, 7, 98, 103, 165, 204
sizes of, 7
see also elephants
Assamese language, 55, 158
Assamese people, 158, 159
Assam-Tibet earthquake (1950), 194–95, 241
Atlas Mountains, 99
Aung San, leader of independence movement, 173, 174
Aung San Suu Kyi, state counselor, 173
Awng Lawt, Burma, 126
Axum, kingdom of, 103–4
Ayutthaya, Thailand, flooding in, 196
Ayutthaya kingdom, Siam, 20, 40–41
Azande people, 108
Bago Hills, 152
Bali, tourism in, 201
Banda Aceh, Sumatra, flooding in, 196–99, 202–3, 207
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, 203–6, 207
Bandoola (elephant), 67, 83, 86–88, 90
Barca, Hannibal, see Hannibal
Battle of Gaugamela, 229
Battle of Raphia, 100–101
Beja people, 103–4
Belgian Congo, 108, 115
Bhattacharyya, Rajeev, 180
Bhutan, 142
Bisa (Singpho-Kachin chief), 80
Bisa family, 80–82
Bisa Laknung, 80–81
Blemmyes (Troglodytes), 100, 104
Borneo:
elephant herds in, 204
possible uses of elephants in, 206–7
proboscis monkeys in, 206
Borsat (elephant), 23–24, 25
Botswana, safari parks in, 109
Brahmaputra River, 2, 142,
158
Brahmaputra Valley, India, 184
Bridge on the River Kwai (film), 6
Bruce, C.W.A. (British forest officer), 31, 58
Brunei, 203–6
offshore gas in, 203–4, 205, 206
water villages of, 205–6
Buddhism, 157, 167, 187
Burma (Myanmar):
Anglo-Burmese Wars, 172
as “back door” to China, 63–64
border controls tightened in, 55
British control of, 65, 152, 172, 194
changing political balance in, 163
closed economy of, 155
displaced-persons camps in, 166
elephant populations in, 141, 165
elephant rescues in (2018), 126
forestry department of, 207
government logging villages in, 148–49, 153–55, 162–63
government teak-logging industry, 12, 20–21, 51, 55, 82, 88–89, 138, 146–47, 149, 151–52, 154–55, 157, 163, 210
independence of, 173–74
insurgencies in, 6, 116, 174
Japanese invasion/occupation of, 62, 63–65, 83, 88, 227
map, ix
military rulers of, 175, 176
military takeover of, 164, 174
opium trade in, 174, 180
political isolation of, 200
roads in, 192–93
Tatmadaw (army) of, 126, 164–66, 168, 170, 171, 172, 175–76, 179, 185, 186–87, 195
temporary limits on logging in, 156