Talk:Tip Htila

useful info? Mi Mi Khaing/Sao Khai Mong
from http://mangrai.com/khai/kanbawsa/part15.html

THE CENTRAL AND TRUE SHAN STATES III

A glance at the individual histories of these central states in very recent times will reveal two destructive campaigns, typical enough of all that went before.

Kehsi Mansam, in Burmese, Kyethi Bansan, has an area of 551 square miles. Most of this area is open rolling country, almost treeless except for the hills towards the west. The people have lived by agriculture. They get their rice from neighbouring areas and carry it to Taungpeng where, like the Hsipaw and other traders they exchange it for tea which is carried to Mandalay and realises money to bring back Burmese and imported goods for sale. As we have seen, the dahs of Kehsi are famous; good quality hats are also produced.

REBELLION AGAINST THIBAW Kehsi is really a Myosaship. It was created as such in 1860 by a Royal Order of the Burmese King. Till then, it had been a part of Hsenwi. In 1882, the Sawbwa of Mongnai, an important state just south of this central group, rebelled against King Thibaw. The states all around Mongnai had to decide which side they would be on, not only in the Burmese expedition sent out to deal with Mongnai but in the subsequent Limbin Confederacy got up by Mongnai and other Sawbwas after the British conquest of Burma. These Sawbwas fled east from the Burmese King and were given refuge by Kengtung. When they returned after the rumpus had died down, however, they found that the Burmese power had fallen to the British. Some stayed in their states and gave allegiance to the new rulers, but others, notably Mongnai and Lawsawk, returned to Kengtung and invited the Limbin Prince, one of King Mindon's sons who was then in Moulmein, to come to them via Siam. They raised an army for him in Kengtung and marched westwards in a gallant attempt to restore a Burmese king at Mandalay, but were defeated by British punitive expeditions, when the whole thing fizzled out.

To those who are familiar with the environs of the Kengtung mountains and the personalities of many who lived in those times, the attempt is as sad and romantic as the adventure of Bonny Prince Charlie. At the time the Limbin Prince was as debonair as the Young Cavalier, "As he cam' marching' up the street, the pipes played loud and clear, / And all the folk cam' running' out to greet the Cavalier, Oh-Oh!"

AUNT TIP HTILA Elder Aunt Tip Htila, then a young girl more interested in attaining masculine prowess than maidenly beauty, and getting in the hair of the officers in charge of the recruiting centres set up at the south and east gates of Kengtung Big Haw, trying to get herself tattooed along with the recruits, in which she did not succeed, being fobbed off with drawings on her legs in blue writing ink, and to get the invulnerability charms of gold and silver let into her flesh, in which she did succeed, thus getting two men sacked in wrath by her father, Aunt Tip Htila's imagination too was fired by the Royal Personage years --- many years --- later, however, when she was on a visit to Rangoon she met in the shop of P. Orr and Sons, a stout and middle-aged gentleman who greeted her.

"Don't you remember me?" It was the Limbin Prince, complacent enough without a throne.

"Had we succeeded them," he said, "I would now be King of Burma and you would be the Chief and only Queen. What a fine place we might have made it!" Aunt Tip Htila has been used to such gallantries all her life, her masculine spirit has never succeeded in hiding her beauty; and how she flips away all the compliments with her wit!

I must, by the way, introduce the Limbin Prince to American readers as the grandfather of Miss Junerose Bellamy, with many apologies to the venerating spirit of Burmese tradition for putting the cart before the horse as it were.

Now I have used a most unfortunate metaphor, as though I likened the young lady to a cart, but she will forgive me if she is familiar with that endearing character Ma Bokeson in the old Burmese jingle: "Miss Plumpity, with buttocks so round and in pair, Makes of them a cart to ride her to the fair ..."

Anyway, here was the rebellion of Mongnai and the central States had to take sides. Three of the five in our group (Kehsi, Laikha, and Mongkung) decided to stick to authority both times: The Burmese first, then the British to whom they sent representatives in 1885-86. For this decision they suffered ravages at the hands of their neighbors.

Mongkung, to the south of Kehsi, is a much richer area. Though the state is not very much bigger, it contains a large and productive valley made by the Teng, in which the capital town stands. This valley is one of the characteristic Shan valleys. You see it lying spread out with paddy fields as you top the ridge from the south, with enclosing hills on which pines and oaks grow. Where the hills rise higher and recede into the dark blue mass overhung with clouds and called the Elephant's head, are headwaters of the Teng which winds across the plain. You see bamboo clumps, pagodas, and monastery roofs, and the grouping of houses to form a town while smaller villages dot the distant horizon. All around in the fields here and there are flashes of water in sunlight, buffaloes and cultivators with bamboo hats. This is the complete picture of Shan valley settlement and the towns and villages which you meet after miles of uninhabited hill road may or may not contain all of its features. In Kengtung, Mongkung, Namkham, and Hsenwi you see the fairest, most beautiful and smiling examples.

The Teng River flowing through Mongkung, though so near its source, is a quiet stream, only rippling. That is because Khun Sam Law, meeting with Nang Upem along its banks and fearing that his words of love would be echoed by the waters, told the stream to hush. It is this same Teng, which having perforce to be silent here, lets out all its strength in a magnificent roaring drop further south in Mongnai, creating one of the biggest falls in Asia.

There is plenty of good rice, very sweet oranges, very juicy and delicious pineapples which will no doubt find their way into Mrs. Hunerwadel's cans in Taunggyi next year, and some take in this rich Mongkung valley. Good pottery and dahs are made in the villages surrounding the town.

MONGKUNG HAW Mongkung also has the distinction of still possessing a Haw from pre-war days. It is built of wood and though not an exact replica of any particular structure in the Royal City of Mandalay, it recalls the palace very strongly. Low and single-storied, it is approached by a vast open "room" supported on lofty round trunks. Leading in from that is another big square hall similarly supported on pillars, at the far end of which is a railed-off dais and on that the yazapalin. With the exception of Kengtung, none of the Shan Chiefs sit on this yazapalin or high throne. They use a thalun in from of it, reserving the higher seat as an altar. Behind this, in the central and two side-wings are the living quarters.

We had the rare treat of seeing in the open hall of this Haw, the Sawbwa mobilising his men to fight the KNDO on our way north from rebel-bound Taunggyi in August 1949. What a change coming from there, where buildings had been turned into "War Office" and "area Commander's Officer", passes issued with a stamp in English saying: "The Karens, Taunggyi," and streets full of very young khaki-clad figures hardly old enough to raise a down on their cheeks, to see in Mongkung so soon after, the traditional personal retainers of the Sawbwa called in. There they were, moustached Shans of the old gentle type, with turbans and pinni boungbis, siting on the floor of the Haw, receiving each his rifle from the Sawbwa's own stock, while bags of rice brought in by headmen were being loaded with rolls of bedding on to lorries; and the Sawbwa himself, who has his own eccentricities, was holding a rifle as he rushed about giving orders with his gaungbaung awry. Where the Union army could not reach out far enough or soon enough, the very same apparatus which had got up expeditions for or against the Burmese king had to be set creaking again.

NO AMALGAMATION Actually, it was a memorable trip, to see the Shan countryside waking up to this sort of activity. We had slept at Loilem the night before, the night during which the Shan officer sent by the KNDO to propose "Karen-Shan amalgamation against the Burmans" to the Hsenwi Sawbwa at Lashio, had returned. We woke up at the noise of the returning car, which had driven without a stop all night, at the house of Brother Sao Huk, who sheltered everyone during those few nights to be told (in hushed tones as the KNDO officer was in occupation of the Circuit House nearby) that Hsenwi had given the answer: "No Amalgamation, We will fight"; had sped onwards as soon as it was light to see Hsenwi if only gratitude for having declared his intention so uncompromisingly when all sorts of wild rumours started by the KNDO that the Shan Sawbwas were in with them had been poured into our ears during the five days we had been "under" the rebels, and a little further north had run into Kehsi Sawbwa who was rushing through the states to tell each Chief to mobilise. It was this order of the Special Commissioner's that we saw the Mongkung Sawbwa obeying in his own inimitable fashion.

THREE RIVER VALLEYS ... AND NINE STATES I Westwards of the south central states we come, across ranges to three river valleys which run north to south and roughly parallel to each other. They are the valleys of the Nam Pawn, one of the main tributaries of the Salween, the Nam Tam Phak which is a tributary of the Nam Pawn, running parallel a little west and south of it, and the Nam Pilu, another tributary further south and west again. Within these valleys are the States of Mongpawn in the first valley, five little states of Hopong, Namkhok, Nawngwawng, Wanyin, and Hsatung in the second, and the three states of Samka, Sakoi and Mongpai in the third.

In coming westwards to these states we leave not only the open main plateau for narrow confined valleys, but also the states where the purely Shan population predominates without question for those where the Taungthu population is very much in prominence. The Shans further east may also have Taungthu blood but it is not obvious in most cases, the Taungthu women having discarded their dress and settled alongside their Shan neighbours. But here, the Taungthus, retaining their dress, their separate villages and their particular pursuits are also found to be sometimes equal to the Shan population, and in the case of Hsatung, actually forming the majority and the ruling house.

The Taungthus, called by the Shans Tawnghsu, are very closely related to the Karens. Their speech is not unlike Karen dialects, and a pre-war census actually listed them under the same heading as Karens. The belief generally held in the Shan States is that they migrated northwards from Thaton in Burma after King Manuha was taken captive to Pagan by Anawrahta Min. A settlement of them was started at Hsatung while others settled in the Myelat further to the west. This migration appears to be a backwash northwards, for the Taungthus migrating southwards into Burma earlier than the Shans had already been pressed southwards as far as Siam and Cambodia and the Lower Mekong. Here in the Shan States they do not go east of the Salween nor north of Mongkung State in any large numbers. The western range of the Shan plateau proper appears to be their chief habitat.

Even casual visitors to the Shan States will be familiar with the appearance of Taungthus, for they live in the villages surrounding Taunggyi and the Myelat valleys and come into the towns on every bazaar day. The men all wear Shan dress, but the women when decked out in new clothes round Thadingyut or Tabaung still put out a magnificent show of tribal costume. The black smock has slashes of purple or green velvet let in at the elbows, the black leggins similarly decorated, the earplugs of a reddish alloy richly chased; the black wimple hung with coloured tassels shows the silver hair ornaments, and the whole is set off by the pink cheeks and sturdy gait of the average healthy Taungthu girl.

This is of course the finished product which enters the bazaar grounds after a five-mile walk from the village. What a natural beauty these hill women show, one writer has exclaimed, forgetting that the instinct to adorn is one of the most primitive. The Taungthu girl's fine showing on pwe day is altogether calculated. Those earrings have been soaking in tamarind water and a dash of turmeric all night. Half a mile before she arrives at the bazaar, at the stream under the banyan perhaps, where the muddy village lane comes out to join the town road, she has stopped to wash her feet and legs and don the brand new leggins, has chewed a handful of uncooked rice, and rubbing it between her palms has applied it to her face to take the heat and sweat off.

Most Taungthus are cultivators of taungya rice and wheat and diverse garden produce, their industry and folk knowledge resulting in fine vegetables of all kinds. They are prosperous by the standards of Shan States agricultural economy -- many Taungthus when they have bought a stock of heavy silver jewelry, run to a stock of gold set solidly among their teeth.

Buddhism is the religion they profess, but it is a Buddhism very largely overlaid with spirit worship as is only to be expected from a purely rural population who have no literature of their own though they do possess a written character. Of their fervour for the religion there is no question. When the relics of the Buddha were scheduled to be brought up to Taunggyi early this year, the feeling everywhere that the visit of such sacred objects could not help but bring blessing to the people, perhaps in the form of peace, was justified most signally in the surrenders by Taungthu insurgents here and there, surrenders made with the idea of being able to come into town to worship when the relics arrived.

As it turns out, however, the beneficent influence of the Relics brought about a truce, rather than the peace hoped for. Despite the efforts of a peace negotiation committee the Taungthus, the "bad ones" that is, are still giving trouble. In the Shan States they are, in fact that baffling elusive 5 percent that is withholding our millennium of gold and silver rain.

And what is the aim and object of the Taungthu "revolt", such as it is? People who like making capital of human stupidity and vanity will tell you that there has always been bad blood between Shan and Taungthu, that the Shans look down so much on the Taungthus that they have a rhyme: "That oafish Taungthu, he will worship the little ridges of the paddy field in mistake for high towers, the piled up coils of chicken's droppings in mistake for pagodas." In the face of this bad blood, it may be said, the hardy Taungthu resents living under the rule of the effete Shan and desires separate states where the Taungthu population is large, to wit, most of the southern Shan States on the west of the range which runs south from Hsipaw.

Yet the Taungthus voiced no desire for a Taungthu autonomy in British times. None of the states in which they predominate are large, nor, except in the case of Hsatung have they had histories of longer than a century as independent states under Chiefs, Taungthu or Shan. It was after independence that a Taungthu desire for increased representation in the Shan State Council was first heard. The quota allotted was three out of a total of 25, and this remains the quota today.

Actually, there has never been a regular Taungthu revolt equivalent to the KNDO affair. Violence started only as an aftermath of the KNDO occupation of the Shan States. Recruitments of Taungthus were made by the rebels; in Taunggyi for example, they were offering Rs. 100 cash down and a rifle in hand to any who joined, plus the prospect of so much loot later. A greater impetus was given then by the appeal to them as blood brothers of the Karen, to unite against an old enemy, the Shan. When the KNDO scuttled, these armed Taungthus were left behind, and they harry the countryside levying protection money on stray settlements of Gurkhas, collecting food sums from villages by a mile or two outside the town, dashing into the towns themselves in smash and grab raids. All the refuge given by woods and hills and jungle paths are theirs, and the anonymity given by picking up a hoe and digging at an isolated taungya.

Mongpawn, the most easterly of the states in which the Taungthu population is prominent is 366 square miles in area. It was set up as a Myosaship in 1816 but given back again to Mongnai later. Only when Mongnai fled from the Burmese wrath and the Mongpawn Myosa went down to Mandalay, was he reinstalled as an independent Chief. He showed great level-headness and loyalty all around in the confused years that followed, defeating the usurper Twet-Nga-Lu and handling back Mongnai to the exiled Sawbwa's followers, yet keeping out of the Limbin Confederacy and maintaining peace in his state. He was created a Sawbwa by the British, and found occasion to stand up for authority again about 25 years later under very different circumstances.

In the early twenties the strike fever initiated down in Rangoon by the University Boycott spread all over the country and apparently came up to Taunggyi and into the Shan Chiefs School. This Shan Chiefs School, though it was by the 1930's not much different from any other good boarding school in Burma, was in the first two decades of its institution a rare and wonderful place. Its purpose was to impart some sort of Western and modern education for the sons, nephews and more distant relatives of ruling families and the families of high officials. For this, a sum of Rs. 100 per boy was allotted by Government. The curriculum was the old Anglo-Vernacular Code, Vernacular meaning Burmese, however, and not Shan. The Headmaster was British as was a good deal of the controlling policy. But the atmosphere prevailing in the school was pure Shan of the late 19th century. The high age of the boys for one thing; there were many pupils with moustaches. Then the boys were allowed private servants and private furnishings. Aunt Tip Htila says that she sent her son to boarding school with eleven retainers and his own piano. But Aunt Tip Htila is a notorious exaggerator. Most notable of all, arms, dahs, and firearms, were allowed.

Yet let it not be thought that this old Shan Chiefs School was therefore a wrong sort of institution. These things were but a reflection of the social conditions prevailing. Outside of such concessions a much stricter discipline than one sees in the schools these days was enforced. The British Headmaster carried over many of the austerities of a British public school. Baths had to be taken under a cold tap out of doors in the bitterest winter's frost, long walks and hours of organised sports were prescribed; on the other hand, formal Shan dress of trousers, jacket and turban, even for small boys was insisted upon.

It was at this institution that a strike took place in the 1920's for some cause forgotten except that it had to do with religious observance or a Shan national spirit. The strikers decided to quit school as a protest against British authority. Fully armed and descending by jungle paths they made tracks for Mongpawn, 38 miles away, Sao Sam Htun the Mongpawn heir, who twenty-two years later was assassinated in Rangoon being among them. Arriving at Mongpawn, they went to the Haw still fired by a pride in this revolt of Shan chiefs and chiefs-to-be against the ruling authority. Alas for their patriotic fervour. Old Mongpawn called his son to stand out, and pointing to the dahs which hung by their read and green cords along the wall, he said: "I put you in school and you have run away. Now which one of these am I to use on you? You have the choice of the green on the red."

The upshot of this was not an execution, however; merely that the strikers, now feeling very flat and exactly like school boys once again were sent back to Taunggyi. Here an expulsion order awaited them, but old Monpawn said that as he had captured the prisoners and granted them his pardon, no one else could punish them. He got his way because he was always right. Only old Aunt Tip Htila seemed to have little respect for his judgment. Taking great offence during a visit to India of Sawbwas with their wives, when he went without wife and she without husband, and he quipped, while cocking a thumb at her turned back, that in fact he did have a Mahadevi along, she hung a notice outside her Haw for years, saying "Mongpawn Sawbwa Not Allowed."

The Mongpawn Sawbwa who was assassinated in 1947 succeeded his father at a very young age after training as an administrative officer in Burma proper. The qualities which led to his election as the first Frontier Areas Minister were his from the beginning, but under the old system which gave no scope for any Chief to play a prominent role in Shan affairs outside of his own state, the first 19 years had perforce to be spent in obscurity; for Mongpawn unlike other more fortunate states is a small and poor area yielding insufficient revenue for any development schemes.

Sao Sam Htun spent his time studying deeply, especially of politics and government, and in working personally at agricultural experiments which might benefit his poor State. Grapefruit, avocado, olive and other foreign trees as well as improved strains of native crops were planted and tended by himself. When Bogyoke Aung San presented at Panglong in 1947 the scheme for a union of the hill peoples with the rest of Burma, Mongpawn was chosen by Shan, Chin, and Kachin delegates as Counselor for Frontier Areas, in spite of being a small Chief, for his reputation as a hardworking and studious man, his close touch with all Frontier problems, and his easy and affectionate disposition towards all. The jubilation with which he and his friends greeted this appointment at last giving him an opportunity to use his talents can be imagined, so how just more their greatest sorrow at his untimely end.

Mongpawn lies in a long and narrow valley. The population of the state is almost equally divided between Taungthu and Shan. There is believed to be mineral wealth but nothing of importance is worked up to date. Cotton is grown, and thanapet of a fine quality, but not much rice. The town itself is an unhealthy spot and when one passes it now on the 38th mile from Taunggyi to Loilem, it wears an air of wretchedness and poverty. Its glory is in the avenue of Butea trees which form a flaming highway of red blossom as you descend into the valley from the west during February and March.