Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

BURMESE SKETCHES. ign
of whom forms the basis of Shamanism ; the genii are spirits
who haunt objects of nature, and especially those with which
are associated ideas of sublimity and power ; and the fifth and
last class of spirits are those whose malignant influence has to
be mitigated by propitiatory sacrifice and who have been
termed " disease spirits " Of these five classes of spirits, the
second, third and the fifth are the most feared, venerated, and
worshipped.
In the house of some Burmese families, cocoa-nuts with a
fillet of white muslin or red cloth tied round them are suspended
by a cane support from a special post called the
uyudaing. The Burmans have forgotten the origin of uyu^
but the word or its synonym ktm is still used in the Chin
language to signify the guardian spirit of a family. Further,
on the seventh day after the birth of a child, offerings consisting
of cocoa-nuts, tobacco, betel -leaves, betel-nuts, rice, and
letpet or pickled tea are made to the family spirit, and a white
cotton string is tied round its wrists to signify to all evil
spirits that it has been initiated Into the family, and that it has
been placed under the guardianship of the family 7iat. The
offerings made to the family spirit as well as those made to all
other natsy are always eaten by their devotees.
At marriages, the family nat is not forgotten ; he is always
propitiated. This latter practice is, however, falling into desuetude
among the Burmans through the Influence of Buddaism.
As the adoration of saints has succeeded the worship of the
manes in Christendom, so has the worship of the Buddha and
his disciples superseded the ruder faith of ancestor-worship.
However, traces of this last form of worship still exists among
the Burmans of the present day. In such of the households
in Burma as are tenacious of the observance of the faith and
practices of their forefathers, the charred bones of parents and
grandparents are carefully preserved In cases of glass, and
daily offerings of rice and other eatables are placed before
them, in the same manner as before the images of the Buddha*
At the time of the British occupation of Mandalay in 1885, a
number of gold images representing the kings and chief queens
of the Alompra dynasty were found in the Palace, together
with a book of odes chanted whenever they were worshipped.
This form of worship finds an exact counterpart in the Mongol
worship, as good deities, of the manes of Genghis Khan and
his family.
The worship of communal spirits still obtains among the