Arakan State

The rust bucket which passed as a ship blew its shrill whistle, and the last
scurrying sarong clad passengers hurried across the gang plank as we cast
off from Sittwe in Arakan State before 6 AM. Arakan State borders Bangladesh
to the northwest, and Chin State to the north. Moving into the current, we
passed by the rotting hulks of other neglected boats, some of them
confiscated Thai fishing vessels with Thai markings whose crews had been
imprisoned for fishing illegally in Burmese waters. There were dozens of
boats beached like dead whales, exposing their sad bleached ribs in the mud
on the banks of the Kaladan River. Through the morning fog, jagged islands
rose up in the distance, and hundreds of seagulls followed the ship from the
Bay of Bengal, catching whatever food the passengers tossed skywards. Upper
class consisted of reclining deck chairs of wood screwed together and seats
of stiched thai rice sacks. Below on the lower level, there wasn't a spare
inch to move about as vendors and passengers wrapped themselves sardine
packed into blankets against the cold.

In the east, the diffused tangerine color of the sun rose like a scalded
welt distorted by the soupy atmosphere. Young girls returning home from
school on term break, huddled together for warmth against the forward
windbreak, wearing pastels and pure hues of color, gathered together asainst
the wind like a bouquet of ruffled flowers.

As we sailed up the Kaladan River to Mraug-U, some five or six hours away,
somebody plucked at the strings of a mandolin whose sweet melody drifted
over the upper deck of the ship. In no time the deck was litered with
crunching sunflower seeds and penut husks and stained vermillion with
splashing squirts of chewed betal juice followed by the acrid smell of
wafting fish. The river banks of the Kaladan were never far away, and most
of the upper deck passengers slept in rickety lounge chairs. The river
sculpted the curves of silt rich sand dunes, meandering inland as the back
lit hills rose up in a line to the east.

It was easy to see how a combination of such abundant fresh water, proper
irrigation, and flat fertile lands made this place such a strong ancient
empire. Arakan's documented history extends to the second century, but surly
goes back much further than when Buddhism became established during the
reign of King Chandra Surya in 146AD. It was here in Arakan State that the
famous Mahamuni Buddha was cast in what was said to be the time of Buddha's
life 2,500 years ago. That however was not possible as the first images of
the Buddha were from the Gandharan period at the time of Christ, and were
inspired by none other than the sculpted greco-roman gods of Alexander the
Great who carried his gods with him into India.

Silver coinage was a much more reliable way to historically document the
periods, and much comes from the advanced Pyu people who introduced the
first coinage from 190AD. The Pyu seem to have been absorbed by the Burmese
in the 9th century, although their language lasted several more centuries.
Many of these coins could be found throughout Burma in Halin, Vesali and
Srikestra and in other parts of South East Asia, proving that trade at a
very early period was already flourishing. Vesali, a few miles north of
Mraug-U, suggested a hindu dynasty previous to the inroads of Buddhism. The
earliest coins from the Chandra period date from 420AD. for a long period no
more coins were minted and then in the fifteenth century coins were again
produced in Arakan.

Mrauk-U was founded in 1433AD. by King Minsawmun who was told by his
astrologers that if he moved the capital from the "unlucky" Royal city of
Launggyet that he would be dead within the year. The following year, the
prophecy was fullfilled and the king died. By the 16th century, Arakan was
influenced by the Portuguese, Dutch and Danish traders and the Moghul Empire
of India. It was during this period that an influx of people came to Arakan
who were to lend this particular mixture and flavor for which Arakan is
noted.

The Thet or Shakama people came from what is now Bangaladesh along with the
Daingnet who were said to have fled to Arakan State to escape the fighting
between the Maramagyi and the Bangaladeshi in the 15th to 17th centuries.
The Maramagyi say that they came to Arakan State from India during the
Vesali period in the 5th Century as traders and stayed at Mraug_U. Rakhine
people claim that they were the first settlers along with the Khami or Mro
who first came here thousands of years ago.

In 1782, Burmese king Bodawpaya killed his nephew, a rival for the throne,
all of his advisors, all possible rivals in the Royal family, four queens
and their children. all of their followers and servants. Soon after that
when he found his own brother plotting against him, he eliminated all the
rivals of the remaining families, killed some 200 more in an uprising,
burned their villages, killed the entire population, all the animals, crops,
and cut down the fruit trees. In 1784, King Bodawpaya invaded Arakan, till
then an independent kingdom, and carried away the Mahamuni Buddha to
Mandalay, where it resides today, inches thicker than the original casting
with gold leaf constantly pressed onto it's surface by the faithful. The
Arakanese equate their loss of their independence and of becoming a part of
Burma to the loss of this buddha, and it is still a very touchy and
emotional subject for them. I found the Arakanese to be exceptionally aware
of their own history.

All around Mraug-U, from the diggings of the Royal Palace, surrunding the
Shitthaung Temple, around the Andaw Temple and dozens of others for miles
around, in nameless hills, are the remains of Buddhas and wall carvings.
Knocking away a bit of soil, I saw excavations come to light for the first
time in 600 years, and there can be no doubt that much more will be found in
the future.

I had been to Arakan State before, checking into the prawn business, when I
met a young man at the airport who was born in Mrauk-U. he had to return
home when the government had again closed the schools. I found him to be
very knowledgeable and told him that I wanted to photograph the various
groups which lived here, and he agreed to help me. I first wanted to find
the Thet or Shakama which in 1919, C.C. Lowis said were disappearing from
Arakan State, remarking that only 230 villagers had returned themselves as
Thet in the census of 1901. My new friend knew where we could find one
village, and we went to visit. We found a pair of old Thet women with the
large traditional silver disks worn in their ears. After I had shot their
pictures, they held my hands and wept, they just could not believe that
anybody was interested in them or in their culture. There were Rakhine
people everywhere and the Maramagyi who resemble more than the others, their
Indian origins. I photographed many Maramagyi girls at the well drawing
water, and some of them were charming.

The Khami or Mro had a tradition of being judged as a potiental wife by the
skill of her weaving. In the whole of Burma, I believe that the finest
weaving is done by the Mro. I found a woman at her loom weaving an
incredibly intricate design which I understand was to be the front part of
what the Mro use to cover up the breasts. The back section was of a
different design. One single panel can take three months or more to
complete, at least a half a year for one set. Traditionally, since the
shoulders of the Mro women were bare, tattoos were displayed there as signs
of beauty. The girls of the Mro would recieve their tattoos at the age of
seven or eight years old. I spoke to the head of the Mro and Khami cultural
association who told me that there were no longer any Mro womdn with the
tattoos, since the younger girls did not want to be tattooed, but the woman
at the loom had the original tattoos on her shoulders which matched her
weaving, and I photographed her.

A few miles from Mraug-U, across dry harvested rice fields whose stalks
stood up dry and as stiff as porcupine quills, were the foundations of
fortifications laid centuries ago streching to the banks of the Lemro River.
Although the road to Kyauktaw in the north was officially closed, I figured
that I would meet little resistance if I sailed up the Lemro River into the
equally forbidden southern Chin State.

We hired a small local motor boat after I had shot more pictures of Rakhine
girls on the banks of the Lemro River, drawing water which was clear, clean,
and for them, drinkable. I brought along a cooler filled with iced beer.
Since the prawn business was so important to this region, there were plenty
of cold storage facilities which produced ice. A few hours upstream, we cut
the engine and drifted with the aid of a bamboo pole into a cove below below
a village of Daingnet. The Daingnet claim to have been here for 450 years.
We walked up the river bank and collected curious Daignet children as we
walked to the house of the headman. The Daingnet have distinctly wider noses
than those of the Thet, and the simiarity is evident between all of those in
the village. The headman had never seen a foreigner and siad that he thought
foreigners were taller.

The fire burning billowed with smoke and the crowds pressing in made it
difficult to breathe. Thre girls sat in the sunshine, one behind the otherin
a row, pulling lice out of each others hair. The Daingnet were dirt poor as
children with distended stomachs illustrated, but with great generousity,
offered me everything they had. Many of the children and even the horse had
the cloudy eyes of glaucoma. I shot photos of a Daingnet girl wearing the
one remaining piece of original clothing that the headman stimm owned.

The next morning, as we shoved off, young Daignet girls beat their laundry
against a tree which had fallen into the Lemro river, and the headman loaded
the boat with bananas. We would be going to the upper Lemro River into an
area of the tattoo face Chin women.

A few years ago, I had brought some Chin from Kampetlet and from Mindat in
the eastern Chin State near Mt. Victoria at an elevation of 10,016 feet
(3,053 meters), to photograph west of Pakokku. It was at this time that a
Chin State representive told me the history of the Chin or Zomi as they call
themselves. Many of the Chin women in the south had their faces tattooed.
This practice originated during the Pagan Period nearly 10 centuries ago. It
seemed that the king whose capital was at Pagan, desired the beauty of the
wide eyed light skinned Chin women, and carried many of them off in slave
raids. After having his way with them, he would discard them. The Chin in
their shame, with the intention to disfigure their women, and to be able to
identify them by clan when they were carried off, began to tattoo their
womens faces. They said that at present,there were less than one thousand
tattooed women left in the towns of Mindat and Kampetlet. The men were
great warriors. The few facial hairs that they
had, grew long like fine black cornsilk into whispy mustaches and beards.
They were expert marksmen with a bow and arrow. Each man wore a plume of red
or silver blue cock feathers arching out from a turban with crossed rows of
cowery shells stiched into the black and red striped tunic, crossed like
bandoleers over the chest.

The Chin Bok women wore a great number of necklaces of reddish orange
cornelian and musk oxen teeth with strings of tiger teeth. Some of the women
were quite beautiful with their faces covered in uniform designs of dots,
dashes, nicks and lines. Fair skinned, some of the girls are so heavily
tattooed that their natural pigment was nearly absent under the intricate
geometric loops and swirls, black vertical lines etched into the bridge of a
nose, or dashes following the line of a pouting lip. The men wore thin disks
of gold in their ears which were engraved at the ends.

Divorces were not known. If a man's wife went off with another man, the
husband must kill his rival, if he can, and takes his wife back again. Chins
must take revenge to balance the wrong committed against them. One Chin
warrior told me of a woman who had gone down to the river to draw water,
fell in and drown. Her husband took a lenght of bamboo to that river and
filled it with water, drew his sword, and cut the bamboo in half, punishing
the water for drowning his wife. Harmony was restored.

In places on the Lemro River it was very shallow and so clear that I could
easily see to the bottom. We had to avoid the engine shaft being tangled in
weeds or breaking against the rocks. Across the surface of the water flew
silver flying fish, which surfaced, skipped across the water, and dove back
into the current. Some times the current was so strong that even with the
engine at full bore, we were almost stationary. Hundreds of white heron
passed low over the water and the trees on the banks of the river were
shreeking with unseen birds. After a few hours of snaking upstream into
southern Chin State, we slid like a knife into a sandbank below the village
of the Arrow Throwing Chin.

These Chin called themselves the Laytoo Chin or Arrow Throwing Chin. They
were a formitable group, the men beating drums and crashing gongs in a mock
battle scene with leather shields and iron tipped spears. The shields had an
ox skin handle on the back and were V shaped to deflect blows. The Chin
warrior would duck behind his sheild then rise up screaming, his spear
cocked and ready.

These Chin said that their primary group here in the delta region are called
the Sountoo. Many of the women had tattooed faces. The tattoo pigment was
made from black buffalo bile added to carbon. They began to tattoo the face
at about thirteen years old, and the process can take years. Chins under
thirty years old no longer tattoo the face as the thousand year old practice
is now illegal. In those younger Chin girls, the skin was very light
colored, with fine features and delicate hair. The older Laytoo Chin women
had tattooes which began with a circled X on the forehead and had lines
radiating outwards like a setting sun with vertical and horizontal lines
below the eye and across the cheek, which cross hatched over the sensitive
eyelid like the threads of a spiderweb. In their ears, some of the womdn
still had silver drums which weighed heavily, and pulled at their elongated
earlobes. Therre is a wide flange at the top which keeps them from falling
through. I had now seen the Chin Bok, the Chin Bon, and not this group of
Laytoo Chin which I believe till now had never been recorded in color.

END