the Black and White Brothers, who boxed before King Duttăbaung of Prome till both died from exhaustion and were numbered among the Thirty-seven.[1]
Tree-worship.—Sacred trees, supposed to be inhabited by spirits but not now connected in the popular idea with the dead, abound all over Burma. The legends of the Blacksmith and the Brothers suggest that they derive their virtue from dead men whose names have been forgotten, and thus confirm the theories of Mr. Grant Allen and Professor Ridgeway. The latter also, on p. 387 of the work quoted, suggests the legend of the Brothers as the origin of the tree which used always to mark the centre of the piece of ground set apart for the players at an open-air theatrical performance. As to this I think the evidence is inconclusive. Several factors may have contributed to perpetuate the custom: the fact that a growing tree was used as shelter where possible, the frequency of forest scenes, and the necessity for setting up some sort of a mark to show where the performance is to take place. But there is one piece of evidence which does not seem to have been noticed before. When a nat appears on the stage the fact that he is a nat is always indicated by leaves held in the hand or stuck in the hair or over the ears. When I was asked the reason I was told that the nat was supposed to live in the forest.
The Burmese story of Udeinna the Elephant-tamer seems to be connected with tree worship. Udeinna's mother is said to have been carried off before his birth from the palace at Kosambi, where she was queen, by a monstrous bird, and dropped into a banyan-tree (which was still in existence five years ago) at Indaing, two miles north of Kyauksè in Upper Burma. Here she gave birth
- ↑ For an illustration of the dragon's head (a model of which is in my possession) see the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for October 1917; and for an illustration of an image of Shwenăbe, photographed by me at the Taungbyôn festival, see the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for the latter half of 1915.
