Friedrich Engels

Birma

Written between the beginning of February and 8 March 1858.

From the English.

["The New American Cyclopædia", Vol. IV]

Birma, or the Kingdom of Ava—an extensive state in the south-east of Asia, beyond the Ganges, formerly much larger than at present. Its former boundaries were between 9° and 27° north latitude; it extended in a length of 1,000 miles and over 600 in width. At present the territory of Birma reaches from 19° 25' to 28° 15' north latitude and from 93° 2' to 100° 40' east longitude, covering a space of 540 miles in length from north to south and 420 miles in width, with an area of about 200,000 square miles. It is bounded on the west by the province of Aracan, which was ceded to the British by the Burman treaty of 1826, and by the small states of Tiperah, Munnipoor and Assam, from which it is separated by high mountain ranges; on the south lies the British province of Pegu, recently acquired by the British; on the north, upper Assam and Tibet; and on the east, China. The population, according to Capt. Henry Yule, does not exceed 5,000,000.

Since the cession of Pegu to the British, Birma has neither alluvial plains nor a sea-coast; its southern boundary is at least 200 miles from the mouths of the Irawadi, and the land rises gradually from this boundary towards the north. About 300 miles are table-land, and beyond that it is rugged and mountainous. This territory is watered by three great rivers, the Irawadi, its tributary the Khyen-Dwen, and the Salwin. These rivers have their sources in the northern mountain chain and flow in a southerly direction into the Indian Ocean.

Although Birma has been deprived of its most fertile territory, that which remains cannot by any means be called barren. The forests abound in valuable timber; among it teak-wood, which is used for shipbuilding, occupies a prominent place. Almost every kind of wood known in India is also found in Birma. Stick-lac of excellent quality is produced, as well as varnish for the manufacture of lacquered ware. Ava, the capital, is supplied with superior teak-wood from a forest 15 days’ journey distant. Agriculture and horticulture are everywhere in a strikingly backward state, and had the country not such rich mineral resources and so equable a climate, the state would be very poor. Fruit is not cultivated at all, and the crops are insufficiently tended. Of garden vegetables, chiefly onions and cayenne pepper are grown. Yams and sweet potatoes are also found, as well as small quantities of melons, cucumbers, and egg-fruits. The young bamboo shoots, wild asparagus, and the juicy roots of various water-plants supply the inhabitants with the place of cultivated garden produce. The fruits of the mango tree, pine-apples, oranges, sugar-apples, jack-fruit (a species of bread-fruit), papaw, figs, and the plantain (that greatest enemy of civilisation) are the principal fruits; all these grow with little or no cultivation. The chief crops are rice (which in some districts is used as a circulating medium), maize, millet, wheat, various pulses, palms, sugar-cane, tobacco, short-stapled cotton, and indigo. Sugar-cane is not grown everywhere, and the art of making sugar from it is scarcely known, although the plant has long been familiar to the people. A cheap raw sugar is obtained from the sap of the palmyra palm, of which there are numerous groves especially south of the capital. Indigo is so poorly prepared that it is totally unfit for export. Rice in the south and maize and millet in the north are the staple crops. Sesamum is generally grown for the cattle. On the northern hills the genuine tea-plant of China is cultivated to a considerable extent, but instead of infusing it, as they do with Chinese tea, the natives, oddly enough, eat the leaf with oil and garlic. Cotton is grown principally in the dry districts of the upper provinces.

The dense forests of Birma abound in wild animals; the commonest are the elephant, the one-horned rhinoceros, the tiger and the leopard, and the wild hog; besides these there are several kinds of deer. Of birds, the wild cock is common; there are also varieties of pheasants, partridges, and quails. Domestic animals are the ox, the horse, and the buffalo. The elephant is also used as a draught animal. The camel is unknown. Although there are some goats and sheep, little care is taken of their breeding. Donkeys are scarcely used. Dogs are not kept in the Burmese household; but cats are numerous. Horses are used exclusively for riding and are seldom more than thirteen hands <about 1.32 m> high. The ox is the draught and pack animal in the north, the buffalo in the south.

As for minerals, gold is found in the beds of several streams, washed down in the sand from the mountains. On the Chinese frontier, in Bor-twang, silver mines are worked. The annual yield of gold and silver obtained has been estimated at nearly 1,000,000 dollars. In the eastern part of Laos iron is found in abundance; but it is worked so primitively that 30–40% of the metal is lost in the smithing process. The petroleum wells on the banks of the Irawadi yield 8,000,000 lbs. annually. Copper, tin, lead, and antimony are known to exist in Laos, but it is doubtful whether any of these metals are obtained in considerable quantities, as the population does not know the methods of extracting them. The mountains near the city of Ava furnish limestone of excellent quality; pure statuary marble is found 40 miles from the capital on the banks of the Irawadi; amber exists in such quantities that it is sold at Ava at the low price of 1 dollar per lb.; and saltpetre, natron, salt, and coal are widely distributed over the whole country, although the last is little used. The petroleum obtained abundantly is used by all classes of Birma as fuel for lamps and as a protection against insects. It is drawn in buckets from narrow well-shafts at a depth of 210 to 300 feet; it gushes from the earth like a natural fountain. Turpentine is found in various parts of the country and exported in large quantities to China. The oriental sapphire, ruby, topaz, and amethyst, as well as various species of yellowish-green beryls and red spinels, are found in two districts in the brook-beds. All precious stones worth more than 50 dollars are claimed by the crown and sent to the treasury; moreover, foreigners are not allowed to search for the stones.

From all that has been said it is evident that the Burmans have made but little progress in the practice of handicraft arts. The entire process of cotton manufacture is carried on by women; they use a simple loom and display comparatively little artistic taste and skill. Porcelain is imported from China; British cotton goods are introduced and sold even in the interior cheaper than the native products; although the Burmans smelt iron, steel is imported from Bengal; silk is produced in various places, but from Chinese raw silk; and while a very great variety of goods is imported, the exports are comparatively insignificant; those to China, with which the Burmans carry on their most extensive trade, consist of raw cotton, ornamental feathers, principally of the blue jay, edible swallows’ nests, ivory, the horns of the rhinoceros and the antlers of deer, and some inferior sorts of precious stones. In exchange, the Burmans import wrought copper, sulphuret of arsenic, quicksilver, vermilion, iron pans, brass wire, tin, lead, alum, silver, gold and leaf-gold, earthenware, paints, carpets, rhubarb, tea, honey, raw silk, velvets, Chinese spirits, musk, verdigris, dried fruits, paper, fans, umbrellas, shoes, and clothing. Gold and silver ornaments of very coarse workmanship are made in different parts of the country; weapons, scissors, and carpenters’ tools are manufactured at Ava; idols are carved in considerable numbers about 40 miles from Ava, where a mountain of pure white marble has been found. The currency is in a wretched state. Lead, silver, and gold, all uncoined, constitute the circulating medium. A large part of trade is carried on by barter, owing to the difficulties involved in making small payments. The precious metals have to be weighed and assayed every time they change hands, for which bankers charge about 3
1
/
2
%. Interest amounts to 25 to 60% a year. Petroleum is the commonest article of consumption. Saltpetre, lime, paper, lacquered ware, cotton and silk fabrics, iron and brass work, sugar, tamarind, etc., are exchanged for petroleum. The Yonnet-ni (the standard silver of the country) is generally alloyed with 10–15% copper. Below
65
/
100
the alloy is not recognised as a medium of payment; this degree of fineness is required in the money paid for taxes.

The revenue of the empire is derived from a house-tax imposed on the village; the village authorities assess the householders according to their ability to pay. This tax varies greatly, from 6 tikals per householder in Prome to 27 tikals in Tongho. Persons liable to military service, peasants on the royal domain, and artisans employed on public works are exempt from this tax. The land-tax is fixed according to the yield of the harvest. The tobacco tax is paid in money; for the other crops 5% is paid in kind. The peasants on the royal lands pay more than one half

Of their yields. Fishing ports on sea and river are leased either for a fixed fee or for a share of the catch in dried fish. These various revenues are collected by the crown’s officers and for their use, each of them receives, according to his importance, a larger or smaller district, from the yields of which he lives. The royal income is derived from the sale of crown monopolies, the chief among which is cotton. This monopoly is managed in such a way that the inhabitants are forced to deliver certain articles at fixed low prices to the crown’s officers, who sell them at an enormous mark-up. Thus, lead is delivered by the producers at the rate of 5 tikals per bis or 3.6 lbs., and His Majesty sells it at the rate of 20 tikals. The royal revenues are said to amount to about 1,820,000 tikals or £227,500 annually, to which must be added a further sum of £44,250 arising from certain customs duties levied in particular districts. These monies maintain the royal household. This tax system, though despotic, is unusually simple in its details; and a further example of simplicity in the mode of government is the way in which the army is enabled to maintain itself, or how it must ultimately be maintained by the people. There are various methods of recruiting; in some districts the voluntary system is applied, while in others every 16 families are forced to provide 2 men armed and equipped. They are further obliged to supply these recruits monthly with 56 lbs. of rice and 5 rupees. In the province of Padoung each soldier is quartered with 2 families, who receive 5 acres of tax-free land and have to supply the warrior with half the harvest yield and 25 rupees a year, besides firewood and other less important articles of daily need. The captain of 50 men receives 10 tikals (the tikal is worth 1 1/4 dollars or 212 rupees) from every 6 families and half the harvest yield from a seventh. The Bo or centurion is maintained by the labour of 52 families, and the Bogyi or colonel draws his pay from his own officers and soldiers. The Burman soldier fights well under favourable conditions, but the chief advantage of a Burman army corps lies in the absence of impedimenta; the soldier carries his bed (a hammock) on one end of his musket, his kettle on the other, and his provisions (rice) in a cloth around his waist.

In physique the Burmans appear to be of the same race as the inhabitants of the countries between Hindustan and China, though having more of the Mongol than of the Hindu type. They are short, stocky, well-proportioned, fleshy but agile, with large cheekbones, slanting eyes, brown but never very dark complexions, coarse, straight black hair, and fuller beards than their neighbours, the Siamese. Major Allen, in a memorandum on the East Indian government, credits them with frankness, a strong sense of the comic, considerable readiness to help, little patriotism but great love of home and family, besides comparatively little prejudice against foreigners and a readiness to acquire the knowledge of new arts, if not connected with too much mental exertion. They are cunning traders and possess a good deal of a certain enterprising spirit; they are moderate, but have little endurance; they have more cunning than courage; though not bloodthirsty by nature, they have phlegmatically endured the cruelties of their various kings; and without being liars and deceivers by nature, they are yet great braggarts and unreliable.

The Burmans are by faith Buddhists and have kept the ceremonies of their religion freer from admixture with other religions than is the case anywhere else in India and China. Burman Buddhists avoid in a certain respect the idol worship practised in China, and their monks are more faithful than usual to their vows of poverty and celibacy. Towards the end of the last century two sects or varieties of the old faith had split off from the Burman state religion. The first of them had a belief in some respects similar to pantheism, according to which the deity is diffused over and through the whole world and its creatures, but appears in its highest stages of development in the Buddhists themselves. The other completely rejects the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, image worship, and the monastic system of the Buddhists; it regards death as the gate to eternal happiness or misery, according to the conduct of the departed, and worships a supreme and all-creating spirit (Nat). The present king <Mehendun-Men>, who is a zealous adherent of his faith, has already had 14 of these heretics publicly burned, both groups being equally unlawful. Nevertheless, according to Capt. Yule, they are very numerous, though they practice their faith in secret.

The early history of Burma is but little known. The empire attained the height of its power in the 11th century, when Pegu was the capital. Towards the beginning of the 16th century the state was split into several smaller and independent governments that waged war against each other; and in 1554, when King Tschen-bayu-Majyajen took the city of Ava, he had subjugated the whole valley of the Irrawaddy and even made Siam tributary. After various changes, Alompra, the founder of the present dynasty (he died in 1760), once more raised the empire to a power and extent roughly equal to the former. From that time onwards the British have taken from it the most fertile and valuable provinces.

The form of government of Burma is pure despotism; the king, one of whose titles is “Lord of Life and Death”, inflicts imprisonment and fines, torture or death according to his exalted will. The government is carried out in detail by the hlwot-dau or state council, presided over by the previously designated lawful heir to the throne or, if no successor is named, by a prince of royal blood. In ordinary times the council consists of four ministers, who, however, have no specific departments but act as chance directs. They also form a high court of justice, before which cases are brought for final decision; and in their personal capacity they have the power to pass judgments in matters not brought before the collective council. Since they retain 10% of the property in litigation for the costs of the judgment, they derive quite handsome revenues from this source. From this and from other peculiarities of the Burman government it is easy to see that justice is rarely meted out to the people. Every official is at the same time a plunderer, the judges are venal, the police is powerless, robbers and thieves are numerous, life and property are insecure, and all incentive to progress is lacking. Near the capital the power of the king is terrible and tyrannical. It diminishes with distance, so that in the more remote provinces the people pay little heed to the demands of the Lord of the White Elephant, elect their own governors, who are confirmed by the king, and pay only a small tribute to the government. In fact, the provinces bordering on China present the curious spectacle of a people living contentedly under two governments, the Chinese and the Burman, which have equal share in confirming the governors of these territories, but wisely in general appoint the same men. Nevertheless, various British missions have visited Burma, and although missionary activity has been carried out there more successfully than anywhere else in Asia, the interior of Burma is still a complete terra incognita, about which modern geographers and cartographers have hazarded a few wild conjectures, but know very little in particular. – (See “Report of the Mission Sent by the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava in 1855” by Capt. Henry Yule, London 1858).