Provincial Geographies of India/Volume 4/Chapter 15

by Herbert Thirkell White

CHAPTER XV

OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE

The great majority of the people of Burma are farmers and peasants, dwellers in villages. Out of a total population of about 12,000,000 as enumerated in 1911, only rather more than a million were townsmen. The remainder constituted the rural population of whom about 8,500,000 were returned as occupied with pasture and agriculture or dependent thereon. The main occupation, agriculture, is the subject of the last chapter. Here we deal with other arts and crafts.

Dependent on the supply of rice is the important rice-milling industry which flourishes at Rangoon and the other principal ports. This is not an indigenous occupation, being directed almost exclusively by European firms; but it gives employment to large numbers of workers, Burmans, and immigrants. Other industries which owe their prosperity to foreign influences are oil-winning and oil-refining; cotton-ginning; and the conversion of timber at saw-mills. The extent to which mining is pursued has been indicated in the chapter on Minerals. Similarly, the extraction of timber for local use and export, and cutch boiling, in both of which many Burmans are employed, have been mentioned in the pages devoted to forests.

Next to agriculture fishing is the greatest native industry. It is carried on mainly in the Delta of the Irrawaddy and on the sea coast. Dependent on this is the manufacture of ngapi or fish paste.

Of indigenous handicrafts, boat-building, cart-making and the fashioning of rude ploughs and other agricultural implements, are widely spread. The making of byit (fringes) of dani leaves for walls and roofs of houses is practised where dani is cultivated. There are, it is hardly necessary to say, Burmese carpenters and blacksmiths. But the best carpenters are Chinese. The Burman puts up his own house of bamboo, timber, mat and thatch; and Burmese masons build pagodas and other sacred edifices.

Weaving etc. The home industries of cotton- and silk-weaving were formerly universal. Every house had its loom whereon the girls wove pasos and tameins, the skirts worn by men and women respectively, and produced textures of bright and beautiful colours. Some of the elaborate silken webs are of exquisite design. It is to be regretted that these have to a great extent been supplanted by imported fabrics often of inferior kinds. Of late, there has been a revival of this occupation. There is a small school of silk-weaving at Amarapura; and silk weaving is now practised with profit. Co-operative credit societies of weavers have been formed and "the industry is regaining lost ground^[1]." Gay and graceful umbrellas are made. For a time these were almost entirely displaced by common ugly European articles. But this industry, also, is reviving^[2]. Kalaga (curtains) are made of cloth; some of the appliqué work on them is of a high standard. Bags of beautiful design, ornamented with bead patterns, are produced in the Shan country. In the Chin and Kachin Hills are woven saung, rough sheets, useful and of interesting patterns.

Cheroot making is a home industry widely practised. Basket- and mat-weaving are important occupations yielding pleasing and useful products. The delicate thin-byu mats made at Danubyu on the Irrawaddy have long been famous. More than a hundred years ago Symes wrote: "Donabew...is...celebrated for its manufactory of mats, which are made here in beautiful variety, and superior in

Fig. 59. Weaving.

quality to what are fabricated in any other part of the [Burmese] Empire^[3]."

Pottery. Pottery attains the dignity of an art and besides pans and jars of common use produces many articles of ornate or grotesque design. Of the large Pegu jars, Symes writes: "The jars of Pegu are in general estimation throughout India, being remarkable for their size and excellence^[4]." "The bulk of the glazed pottery work is done by Talaings or in areas where the work has been started by Talaings. Kyaukmyaung, the most important centre in Upper Burma, was settled by Talaing captives^[5]." Bassein and Twante used to be important centres of the pottery industry but have declined. "Most of the Burma clays are coloured, yellow predominating; the chief colouring being iron. When burned they give varying shades of red from a bright brick red to an orange tint^[6]." But black and green ware also is made. Some articles are beaten into shape; others are turned on the potter's wheel. The glazing material used is either galena or lead slag. The industry is of ancient date, specimens having survived for over four hundred years.

Workers in brass and iron are engaged in making bells and gongs, images of the Buddha, and das (knives) of all shapes and sizes. Burmese bells are notable for beauty of tone and for graceful shape. The making of bronze statuettes is a comparatively modern industry^[7].

Silver-work. Even more than for crafts whose end is utility, Burmans are renowned for art-work. Without, perhaps, rivalling the idealism of China or Japan, Burmese artists, subject to their limitations, attain a high standard of excellence. Two of the most widely-practised and effective arts are silver-work and wood-carving. At the capitals, as might be expected, are assembled most of the silver workers but many a smaller town has artists of local repute. Bowls, betel and lime boxes, ornamented with figures of men and animals, flowers, foliage, and scroll work of bold yet delicate design, in high relief, are typical specimens of Burmese silver ware. There is a risk that this rare and beautiful art may be debased by western teaching and by

Fig. 60. Wood-carving.

misguided efforts at encouragement and improvement. Silver tea-pots and cigar cases, with Burmese ornamentation, can give no joy to cultured taste. Charming niello work is done, chiefly at Prome. Gold work is less common; but ear-tubes, ear-rings, bracelets and necklaces, golden chains of honour (shwe salwè) are made by native artists. Sometimes the gold of ornaments is dyed red with tamarind juice.

Wood-carving. As famous and as beautiful as silver-work is the elaborate wood-carving of intricate pattern which adorns monasteries and public buildings. Some of the most beautiful examples are at the Queen's Monastery at Mandalay; but the finest are said to be at the Salin Monastery in that town. Carved wooden figures, often grotesque, of bilu (demons) and nats, are also characteristic; and boxes adorned with carvings are common. Ivory-carving of great

Fig. 61. A corner of the palace, Mandalay.

delicacy and of exquisite finish, is produced, mostly at Rangoon and Moulmein.

Lacquer-work. Lovely lacquer ware is made at Pagan, the most famous centre, as well as in the Lower Chindwin, at Laikha in the Southern Shan States, and elsewhere. Lacquer workers are about 7000 in number; of whom some 1500 are at Pagan. Bowls, trays, betel-boxes, tables, and boxes for storing manuscripts, covered with rich pictures and designs, are among the many lacquered articles produced. For bowls, the framework is of very fine woven bamboo, mingled in the best specimens with horse-hair. On this are imposed successive layers of the exudation of the thitsi tree. On the lacquer surface a pattern is worked by successive incisions filled with colouring matter, orange, yellow, red, black, or green. The process is painfully slow

Fig. 62. Carving Buddhas.

and laborious; the effect is admirable. The industry is said to have been brought to Pagan in the middle of the 11th century. A tube of lacquer work dated 1274 A.D. has been found there in a pagoda^[8].

Images of the Buddha, of conventional types, are carved at Amarapura and elsewhere. The materials used are marble and steatite.

In pictorial art, so far, Burmans have not attained a high standard. But there are native frescoes and pictures more quaint and grotesque than beautiful. Some frescoes on the walls and ceilings of zayats (rest houses) near the Shwe Dagôn Pagoda, representing the torments of lost souls, are realistically horrible. And there are many old frescoes at Pagan. One thing a Burmese artist can do. He can draw an elephant. An art school has been opened at Rangoon. It is possible that Burmese pictorial art has a future.

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1. Burmese village industries. Paper read by Mr A P Morris before the Royal Society of Arts, January 2nd, 1920.
2. Ibid.
3. Symes, 452.
4. Symes, 91 n.
5. A. P. Morris. Journal of the Burma Research Society, viii. (iii.), 1918).
6. Ibid.
7. A. P. Morris. Burmese village industries, ut sup.
8. For an elaborate account of Burmese lacquer work see a paper by Mr A. P. Morris, Journal of the Burma Research Society, ix. i. (1919).