Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA. 37
found traces of ancestor worship mixed with the ordinary spirit cult. Offerings
are made by the Southern Chins to the Khun or founders of the various clans
who are supposed ,to have an eye to the welfare of their descendants. These
Chins, like the Burmans, have a Styx which after death they cross, though by a
thread and not in a ferry boat. A being named Nga Thein appears to combine
for them the offices of Charon and Rhadamanthus and a cauldron of boiling
water is one of theprincipal features of their infernal regions. The Chins' hell has
certain points in common with that of the Szi, but it is thought probable that the
Szis' Inferno has been largely borrowed from their Burmese neighbours. The nats
of the Palaungs are male and female and all of them have their names. The most
powerful of these beings goes by the name of Ta Kalu. Like the Karen nats he
favours one particular eminence.
51. The most practical outcome of the spirit- worship of the wild Was is
th eir head-hunting. In the opinion of the Wa the
u
ghost of a dead man goes with his skull and hangs
Animism and head-hunting.
about its neighbourhood, and so many skulls posted up outside his village gate
mean so many watch-dog umbrce attached to the village, jealous of their own
preserves and intolerant of interlopers from the invisible world. Thus every addition
to the collection of skulls is an additional safe-guard against ill-affected
demons and a head-hunting expedition is undertaken not, as was once thought,
from motives of cannibalism or revenge, but solely to secure the very latest thing
in charms as a protection against the powers of darkness. It is interesting to note
that the head-cutting season lasts through March and April, and that it is when
the Wa hill fields are being got ready for planting that the roads in the vicinity
become dangerous for the neighbouring Shans.
In a word, the little that is known
of the practice seems to hint at the fact that the victim selected was primarily a
harvest victim. The whole question of the animistic basis of the ceremony is of
the greatest interest, but it is impossible to do full justice to it here. I will
merely quote' a passage from Mr. Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea of God,
which, read in connection with Sir George Scott's account of the Was, strikes me
as highly suggestive
"For the present, it must suffice to say that the ceremonial and oracular preservation
of the head, the part which sees and speaks and eats and drinks and listens, is a common
feature in all religious usages ; that :t gives rise apparently to the collections of family
skulls which adorn so many savage huts and oratories ;
that it may be answerable ultimately
for the Roman busts and many other imitative images of the head in which the head alone
is represented, ar.d that, when transferred to the sacred human or animal victim (himself,
as we shall hereafter see, a slain gcd) it seems to account for the human heads hung up by
the Dyaks and other savages about their houses as also for the skulls of oxen and other
sacred animals habitually displayed on the front of places of worship."
52. The attitude of the Lower Burma Karens towards nat- worship has been
„ . . , . r , „ indicated in an earlier portion of this chapter. Thev
Spint-worship of the Karens.
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rave been described as temporizing with the spirits
of evil till God's promised return. Meanwhile man is not altogether without invisible
succour. His guardian spirit, a benevolent being known as his La, ordinarily
accompanies each Karen, but is liable to be separated from him and has then to
be coaxed back with offerings of food.
The following note prepared by the Deputy Commissioner, Amherst, from
materials contributed by the Subdivisional Officer, Kawkareik, contains information
about one of the Karen forms of belief which I believe has not been published
before :
"It -may not be out of place to give the following narrative relating to a religious sect
called ' Talakus ' or ' Bapaws,' which is not generally known.
'
Talakus ' means ' hermits '
and ' Bapaws,' ' worshippers of flowers,' which convey the same meaning, as will be
seen from the accounts given below. The history or legend of their origin runs thus :
" About a century and a half ago Bodawthagya, a celestial being, seeing from the upper
regions that the Karens were without God and religion, sent his grandson ' Saw Yor, ' who
came down and lived with the Karens at Tawa, a place in Siarn known as Pramklauno-.
Saw Yor, having forgotten his identity and mission, became as one of them, attending only
±0 temporal requirements. When his grandsire saw this he came down to earth and re-
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