Social Life of the Kachins

The Kachins play such an important part .in the life of the frontier that I must say something about their manners and customs.

They are not a numerous race, and probably do not exceed 200,000 persons all told. Their main home is the Triangle, or country lying between the rivers Mali-hka and 'Nmai-hka, which unite just above Myitkyina to form the Irrawaddy. A further district inhabited solely by Kachins is the Hukawng valley, still farther west. But they may be found all over the hills of Upper Burma and western Yunnan, while scattered communities exist in Assam and Tibet.

Until quite recently the Kachins of the Triangle and of the Hukawng valley were left by the British undisturbed under the rule of their own chiefs. But slavery was rife among them, so about ten years ago Sir Harcourt Butler, the Governor of Burma, decided that this reproach against the British flag and name must cease. Expeditions were dispatched to secure the release of all slaves and the abolition of the practice of slavery. Each year since then expeditions have visited these districts in order to maintain British authority and to ensure that no return to that abhorrent practice has occurred.

            The Kachins have no written language, so there are no native books to which we can turn for information concerning their early history. (About forty years ago the late Dr. Ola Hanson of the American Baptist Mission published a Kachin book in a Romanized alphabet. This system was later adopted by the Burma Government and has ever since been taught in the schools.) But at big weddings and funerals and similar celebrations the priests recite the history of the race from earliest times to the present day- a marvelous feat of memory, for the recitation lasts several days and nights. Much of this history is legendary, dealing with mythological persons and deities, but there is wheat among the chaff. I asked one of our interpreters at Sinlumkaba about his' family history, and he reeled it off for the past forty generations, tracing his ancestors' migration from the north of the Triangle down slowly and by easy stages to their present home, where they had already resided for seven generations. Allowing as little as fifteen years for a generation, this amounts to 600 years. How many English, even with the aid of books and documents, can trace their ancestry for such a period?

Kachin villages are perched on the hilltops and mountain spurs, and are almost hidden in the jungle. There is no main street; the houses are just scattered about, though not too near one another, from fear of fire. The houses are long, varying from thirty feet to 150 feet in length, according to the wealth of the owner. But one house suffices for several families, for the married sons bring their wives to the paternal home, and do not set up housekeeping on their own.

The framework of the house is made of massive tree trunks, and the walls are of split bamboo, as is the floor, which is raised two or three feet from the ground, leaving a place underneath for the chickens and pigs. The thatched roof projects many feet in front to form a large porch; here are kept the farm implements and baskets, here the women prepare, the rice for cooking and the men do odd jobs, here the oxen and buffaloes are stabled at night.

A rough stairway leads lip to the house itself, easy to walk up for the barefooted Kachin but not for the booted European. The house is divided into" fireplaces "-Kachins do not speak of rooms - and sometimes the fireplaces are not partitioned off. There is a fireplace for the parents,

another for each married son, another for the young people. These are all on one side of the house. On the other side are the kitchen and the visitors' room and the room sacred to the household deities, or nats, into which no stranger is allowed to enter.

Save for low stools and sleeping mats; there is no furniture at all in the house. A few odd cooking pots and some bamboo tubes of water may be seen in a corner, and perhaps a jar of rice whisky. The fireplaces are only hollows in the floor, filled with clay to prevent the house catching fire. All is dark and gloomy, for there are no windows, no light save through the doorways and the cracks in the walls. Still, the occupants are outdoors most of the day, and at night the blaze of the firewood on the hearths gives a fitful light. There are no chimneys, so the walls are stained black with smoke, which fills the whole atmosphere before finding its escape.

A Kachin house only lasts a few years-seven or eight at the very most. When it becomes too dirty or dilapidated for even a Kachin to inhabit, it is burnt down and a new one built. The owner prepares all the timber and bamboo, and then invites the men of the village to come and help him with the work. The new house is speedily built; one day may see its completion or two at the most. The helpers receive no payment, but the owner has to entertain them to a big feast, with plenty of rice beer and whisky.

Whether the house is finished or not, the family occupy it the first night. First the priest, who is always present, invites the family nats to take possession of their new home and to bring good luck and prosperity with them. "New fire" is obtained by rubbing together two pieces of dry bamboo, and with it the fire is lighted at the principal hearth. From this the priest ignites a torch and carries the fire to the other hearths. This is the signal for the women to start cooking the rice for the feast.

At the feast there is much screaming and shouting, quarrelling and yelling, especially as the beer and whisky begin to take effect. The first time I heard the completion of a new house being celebrated, I thought murder was being committed, or a raid was taking place, but was told not to be frightened, nothing was really the matter.

             Kachins are by nature dirty and the condition of the remote villages and of their habitants must be seen to be believed. Of course, there are excuses for them. The climate is very cold for months at a time, and water has frequently to be carried for long distances up steep mountain paths. The only time they ever have a wash all over is in the rains, when they have to be outdoors planting out the paddy. Their clothes are too horrible to think of; they wear them night and day until they drop off. And even when they do buy or make new clothes they put them on over the old ones! Education and the advance of civilization are, however, changing their habits in this respect, and I never had any' reason to complain of dirtiness among my servants.

The main characteristic of the Kachin is his bold independence; he allows nobody, nothing, to interfere with his personal liberty; and he never cringes, as many other Orientals do. I have had many years' experience of Kachins as servants, and I found that it was quite useless to refuse them leave when they asked for it, however inconvenient it might be to me. They 'would come and announce that they would be away for five or six weeks for a funeral or a wedding in. their village, and I had to .do the best I could with some substitute, frequently a raw countryman who had never seen the inside of a European house before," If I did refuse them leave, they just walked off and left me.

The Kachin is also revengeful, and considers it his bounden duty to avenge every wrong done to himself or to his family. If a murder is committed or a man even accidentally killed, then blood-money is payable, though the amount varies and is assessed by the village elders according to the circumstances of the case. If the culprit cannot or will not pay the amount of the fine, then a blood-feud is declared and carried on for generation after generation until vengeance is satisfied. If his goods or his crops or his cattle are' stolen or damaged, if his daughter elopes or bears an illegitimate child, compensation must be paid him. If the offender accepts the terms and pays up the fine, the matter is ended. But if not, then there will be reprisals, and a feud will be declared. While a feud is being carried out, the Kachin is not particular about his methods so long as he is successful. All is fair in a blood feud.

The great trouble of a blood-feud is that a whole community, a whole village, may be involved. If a Kachin is killed or murdered in a village, then his relatives will take vengeance on any person belonging to that village, even though he is perfectly innocent and may not even' have heard of the incident. There is no time limit for the vengeance. One little incident may illustrate the dangers of these feuds. A British expedition on its way from Burma to China was adjudged by the Kachins to have inflicted some wrong on them; what it was forgotten in the years that elapsed. Twenty years later a party of missionaries travelling along the same road were attacked and robbed in revenge for the old "wrong" just because they were '" British. No one could ever be safe in Kachinland if these feuds were permitted to continue. 

The result of living for centuries in this network of feuds IS that the Kachins are very - reserved, very unwilling to impart any information to strangers. Who knows but what he may be speaking to a member of a family or clan with whom his own family has a feud, and if he tells the stranger who he is, may not the stranger seize the opportunity to murder him? He is not instinctively a liar-indeed, he gets very indignant if you doubt his word-but there are occasions when a little prevarication is absolutely necessary...

According to the old tribal law thieves were either killed or sold as slaves. The result is that· Kachins are remarkably honest, especially amongst themselves. I myself never lost a single thing the whole time I had them as servants. Even if I left a small article behind at a rest house or in a grass hut while on tour, it was at once sent along after me. Nothing was ever locked up by me, and if I sent one of them to buy anything in the bazaar, he was most careful to bring back the correct change.

The Kachins are very hospitable people. Any traveler is always put up by the chief, who makes him welcome for several days. A Kachin can travel from one end of his country to the other and be sure of free food and lodging all the way. Guests rarely abuse this hospitality. While they are staying in a strange village, the chief, or duwa, is responsible for their behaviour.

The Kachins have many amusing superstitions about their food. If a man is slow, then it is thought that he must have eaten many pigs' tails-not cows' tails, as we might be inclined to say. If he is left-handed, then it is caused by his eating too many chickens' left wings. Craw's flesh makes a man cowardly, a tiger's heart makes him fierce and brave. Children must not eat eggs or their feet will not grow:", and they must not eat moles' livers, or love for their parents will be destroyed.

Rice, is their principal food, and, save when an iron or copper boiler has been obtained from the Chinese, it is always boiled in a tube of bamboo. Before the wood is burnt through, the rice is ready for eating. Banana leaves serve as plates, and the food is eaten with the fingers. Bamboo is indeed the universal provider of the Kachin; there are few of his wants it does not supply.

Their food is very simple; it is just boiled rice seasoned with salt and chillies, with probably a few stewed vegetables or jungle leaves. They love meat, but are-only able to indulge their appetites on festivals, when part of the flesh of the animals or chickens sacrificed is added to their meal. Kachin men hate work and leave all the drudgery to their women. The lot of the latter is indeed hard. Rarely does one see a Kachin woman without a large basket on her back, hanging from a band across her forehead. This may seem a strange way to carry it, but it leaves the hands free to push aside bushes in the jungle, or to help the bearer up a particularly steep place. Frequently I have seen one twirling a spindle with her hands as she walked along bowed down with a heavily-laden basket.

How often, when camped near a Kachin village, have I been wakened before daylight by the grunts and groans of the women as they pounded the paddy in a mortar to remove the husk! I believe they were really trying to sing at their work, but their efforts were the reverse of musical. The day's rice prepared, they went off to the stream with long sections of bamboo, which they brought back up the steep mountainside filled with water. Breakfast cooked and eaten, they were off to the jungle picking wood for the fires, or, if it were summer, helping in the paddy field. If they could find a few spare minutes, then there was a new skirt to be woven. 

The loom a Kachin woman uses is 'crude in the extreme, It consists of two bars of wood to keep the warp tight; one bar is tied to a stake: in the ground, the other: to 'a broad band round her waist. The weaver sits on the ground, her legs stretched straight out in front of her and her feet braced against a log. She works the heddles with her hands, slowly threading the shuttle between the threads. It is a long, laborious process, but the results arc very pretty, with many intricate designs.

Kachin cultivation is very primitive. At the beginning of the year all the vegetation on a patch of jungle is cut down and allowed to dry, and at the end of the spring it is set alight and nothing is left but a few blackened tree stumps. The land is roughly hoed to work in the ashes, and then sown, the sower scratching the ground as he drops the seed. Most of the work is, of course, done by the women and children, and they are solely responsible for the weeding during the summer rains. The buffaloes are used as in Old Testament days to tread out the grain, which is winnowed by being thrown up in the air with a shovel.

A second year the same land is cultivated, but a third year the crop would hardly repay the seed, so a new plot is prepared and the old land left to return to jungle. But it never completely recovers, and the jungle is everywhere being destroyed by Kachin and Lisu cultivation. 

As I have remarked in a previous chapter, a Kachin never goes out without his sword hanging from his shoulder in a wooden scabbard. Formerly he carried a 'spear too, but that practice has almost died out, while the Kachin crossbow is but rarely used now. I have met with them only in very remote villages. The arrows are nev.er poisoned, like those of the Lisus, which are described in Chapter XII. Nowadays practically every Kachin has a gun, and as all guns in Burma have to be registered, there were some wonderful specimens brought in by their owners for inspection. A few of the chiefs had breech-loading shot-guns, received as rewards from the Government for good services. But most were rough "home-made" guns bought from the Chinese. The better ones were fired with percussion caps, others had flint locks, clut many were just" gas-pipes" fired with touch-paper. But in the hands of a Kachin, out for vengeance and ever lurking in ambush, they were capable of great execution, though he was too well aware of their limitations to stalk a tiger or other dangerous game unless it were strictly necessary, as in the case of a man-eater or a rogue elephant.

                         Like most savage peoples, the Kachins are animists, believing that spirits or demons, which they call nats, dwell in every mountain and cave, every wood and stream, every rock and tree. Nats rule the heavens and the stars, the sun and the moon. They are the arbiters of a Kachin's fortune, and may wreak disaster on his crops and his family, his house and his beasts. They will never help him unless he propitiates them. So the Kachin is perpetually striving to keep on the good side of the nats, to 'secure their goodwill.

                                                                  

 If, notwithstanding the sacrifices he makes to the nats, a Kachin still finds his life dogged with ill-luck, he consults a medium to find out what the nats want, just as women in the West consult fortune-tellers and crystal-gazers. Or he may use some method of divination, just as some Europeans use cards or a coin. A bamboo is put on the fire, and when it bursts at the joint the position of the fibres gives the answer to the riddle.

The Kachins believe, too, in omens; for a snake or a wild cat to cross one's path denotes bad luck, .a deer or a hedgehog good luck. There are endless taboos too, very similar to our superstitions regarding walking under a ladder or spilling salt; no man may crawl under a house there might be women in the house and it would never do for a man to be lower than a woman; a man may not dress up in woman's clothes-it is very unlucky; a woman must never step over a rope or pole, she must remove it or pass under it.

One of the main reasons for the poverty prevailing in the Kachin Hills is the expense of the many sacrifices that must be made to the nats. Most of these are for help in illness, and on account of their ignorance of hygiene sickness is ever present.

The priests dress and live exactly like the rest of the community, but are usually the most intelligent. They alone are acquamted with the special language and forms of address used when supplicating the nats, so they: are naturally in great and frequent demand.

Sacrifices are made in the nat groves situated at the entrance to the village. There the narrow path is shaded by immense trees, through whose dense foliage the sun filters with difficulty. On either side are posts ornamented with crude drawings, representing the many things wanted by the villagers and depicted there to remind the nats not to forget to provide them. All around may be seen altars, little platforms roughly made of bamboo. Attached to long bamboo poles are elongated baskets which once contained the fowls sacrificed to the nats. There are special altars, varying in shape and design, to the various nats; but, having been once used, they are left uncared for till they fall to pieces. Stretched across the path is a rope from which dangle star-shaped ornaments of bamboo; this is to keep away from the village the nats which cause smallpox and cattle disease. .

In the nat groves at the entrances of the villages, and also  beside the houses, are crosses, formed of two heavy poles fixed in the ground in the form of a St. Andrew's cross. They are the frames to which cattle have been tied for sacrifice. I have always avoided watching one of these ceremonies, which, l am told, are gory enough to turn most stomachs. Once when walking along with my pony following behind, I came .upon a crowd at a nat grove with the buffalo all tied up and waiting for the fatal knife. I just took to my heels and bolted from the gruesome sight. ' .

Kachins believe that a large family is a sign of the nats' favour, so they are always delighted when another child is born. But childbirth, like everything else among them, is subject to many rules and ceremonies. Directly the babe is born, one of the attendant women gives it a name to prevent the nats naming it and claiming it as their own. For three days mother and child remain in the house, and then, on the fourth day, the priest comes and sacrifices to the household nats, beseeching their favour for the new arrival. The baby is also presented to the sun, after which it may be carried out of doors. On the same day the mother goes with her husband to the village spring, where she washes herself and her garments. Thereafter she resumes her place in the community.

But all births are not happy, and the most terrible calamity that can happen to a family is the death of the wife in childbirth. If this is thought to be imminent, the whole village turns out to try to frighten away the sauns, or evil spirits, who are trying to prevent the birth of the child. Guns are fired; stones and arrows are flying everywhere under and round the house. Torches and swords are flourished over the wretched woman, and if it is possible to obtain it, a meteorite is placed under her head. Horrible smells are made by burning rags and bark.

If, however, all these precautions are of no avail and the woman dies, her body is burnt as soon as possible. If the child cries when taken away from its mother, then it is allowed to live; but if it remains silent, it is burnt with its mother. The latter is believed to have become a saun herself, so the priest is required at once to purify the air and the house. He ties a small chicken to the end of a stick and brandishes it in every direction, calling to the sauns to accept this little victim and toga away. The room in which the death occurred is demolished, and sometimes the whole house is burnt to the ground.

In describing a Kachin house I mentioned the "fireplace of the young people". Kachin boys and girls commence love-making at an early age, and this fire-place is for their own use. There they can be together without interference from their elders, for, provided they are not of the same family or clan, practically no restriction is placed on the relations between boys and girls prior to marriage. But the young people are not promiscuous; the relationships are more in the nature of temporary marriages. The girl gives her lover a strip of brocade like her skirt which she has specially woven for him, and he proudly ties it on his bag. When they separate, the girl suffers no loss of virtue or respect, unless she be pregnant. Then her lover must pay a heavy fine, for the girl is considered degraded and will be unable to make a good marriage.

Normally a marriage is arranged by the parents without the wishes of the son being consulted. Firstly, articles belonging to several suitable girls are submitted to a diviner, who determines which of them will make the best wife.

Having decided on the girl, emissaries are sent to her parents to ask her in marriage. Then follows long, keen bargaining, for the girl's father tries to get as much for his daughter as he can. But finally the price is agreed on, all other matters -satisfactorily arranged, and the wedding' day fixed. 

The bride's parents and near relations do not even attend the wedding, and she leaves for the bridegroom's house with some friends, one of whom carries a large basket of presents. Meanwhile all the bridegroom's friends and relations have gathered at his father's house, where a great feast is being prepared.

Arrived at her new home, the bride has to pass along a narrow avenue of elephant-grass which has been sprinkled with chickens' blood. This is to purify her and get rid of the nats which have accompanied her. She must walk 'very carefully between the bunches of grass, for bad luck will dog the marriage if even one tiny drop of the blood stains her clothes.

The avenue of grass safely negotiated the bride steps up a new stairway into her new home, where she is welcomed by her mother-in-law, who places a necklace over her head as a token that she has become a member of the family. "She is now introduced-to her husband, whom she sees possibly for the first time. They sit down together on a mat, drink wine from the same cup, chew the same tobacco, and the wedding ceremony is over.

The bride, after washing herself in the nearest stream, starts to cook the rice and meat for the feast, which, with much drinking of rice whisky and beer, continues till daybreak.

Such is the marriage ceremony, but there are occasions when it is partially dispensed with. Perhaps the price asked for the girl is too exorbitant, perhaps the young couple are in love but the parents will not consent to a marriage. In the first case the bridegroom's emissaries decoy the girl away, the religious ceremony is hurried through, and she is legally wed. Then friends persuade the bride's parents to accept a smaller price for her, and the marriage is acquiesced in; otherwise revenge, even a feud, might follow. In the second case the young couple dispense with assistance and just elope and settle down in some distant village. But it is death and burial which entail the greatest sacrifices, the most elaborate ceremonies.

Directly breath has left the body, the death is announced to the village by the firing of guns and the beating of gongs.The corpse is washed and shrouded and then placed on a catafalque of bamboo in the main "fireplace", in the corner sacred to the family nats.

 A tree is selected for the coffin, but before it is cut down a chicken is sacrificed to propitiate the spirit of the tree. While the coffin is being prepared, men erect the karoi- cluster of bamboos and branches of trees round which the death dance is performed -in front of the house.

That night the funeral dance is performed by two men, each armed with a decorated spear. The dance starts in the house, then continues round it outside, with circling of the karoi after each movement. It is more prancing and posturing than dancing, but as the performers get worked up the steps quicken.

On the fourth or sixth day the body is buried, some little hill in the jungle being usually selected for the grave. That night the death dance is performed round the karoi and continues nightly until the final ceremonies are completed.

 The death dance is a most intricate performance, with numerous steps, postures, and movements, representing all the usual acts of Kachin life. Led by two masters of ceremonies, and to the sound of three big gongs, it is the young folk who are the principal performers, though their elders may join in too. The clearing of the jungle, the planting of the paddy, harvesting and threshing, the spinning of cotton and weaving of cloth, all the many acts of domestic life are portrayed by the dancers, who must follow exactly the actions of the two leaders. It is a most impressive ceremony.

The body has been buried in the grave, but the soul has remained waiting in the sacred corner of the house. It must be sent on its way to rejoin the souls of its ancestors in the spirit world. Ceremonies take place at the grave to separate the soul completely from the body in which it used to dwell. The catafalque in which it had rested is broken up and the wood scattered on the roadside. Then the priest, holding a spear before him, harangues the soul and exhorts it to start on the great journey to the spirit world. He describes the road minutely, warning the soul of the many difficulties and dangers. It is a long and impressive speech, a fitting climax to the elaborate funeral ceremonies.

Before closing this chapter, I must pay a tribute to those many Kachin soldiers of the Burma Rifles who fought for Britain in Mesopotamia. A memorial to those loyal soldiers of the King-Emperor is erected on the hills at Sinlumkaba.

Ref. Where China Meets Burma by Beatrix Metford 1935 (pages 41-54)