p. 235 | A VIRGIN MISSION FIELD by J. N. Cushing, D.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 15.

A VIRGIN MISSION FIELD.

By J. N. Cushing, D.D.

BY J. N. CUSHING, D.D.

[Missionary of the American Baptist Missionary Union.]

NORTHEAST of the Salwen River, toward the borders of Western China, is a remote mountainous district, of which strange reports have come from time to time. It has been a terra incognita not only to foreigners but to all the surrounding native races. Good reasons have existed for this, not only in the fact that this district lies a long distance from the ordinary routes of trade and travel, but also in the peculiar characteristics of the inhabitants themselves. In 1870, during my journey to Kwangtung, I saw men from the southeastern borders of this district, but they were considered harmless, having been brought under the rule of the Sawbwa of Kwangtung. This people is called the Wa tribe. With the exception of a Burman army, once sent to conquer this district and work its gold mines, no outsiders were ever known to have visited the territory of this people until, toward the close of last year, Mr. J. G. Scott, the superintendent of the Northern Shan States, went there with a small military force.

The Burman army was cut off to a man; but the English force came back unscathed, and his report is intensely interesting.

The manners and customs of the Was are quite unlike those of the general run of human beings. They are a people without the most elementary notions of decency or propriety of any kind. They habitually practice the most savage customs, being unable to sow a field without cutting off someone's head and offering it to appease the unseen powers. They are a race of drunkards and opium eaters, and extraordinarily filthy in their habits. Yet, after all, these people are not exactly savages, for they cultivate fields, live in permanent houses, and show unusual ingenuity and skill in their fortifications. Some extracts from Mr. Scott's report may be interesting, although the people must be a distinctly unpleasant people to get along with.

They are not ferocious, but they cannot sow a field of peas without cutting off the head of somebody as an offering to the spirits to allow the crops to grow well. They are not often degraded, and yet the clothes that they wear might be dispensed with without great loss of decency. They are exceedingly diligent cultivators, but they are very occasionally sober. They bring water with a good deal of skill from long distances by means of bamboo aqueducts, into the interior of their villages, but the water seems to be used for little else than making liquor.

The state of dirt of both men and women is absolutely beyond belief, and it is only limited by the point beyond which extraneous matter refuses to adhere to human flesh.

Passing over an interesting description of the situation and ingenious fortification of the Wa villages, to some of which is there any way of entrance except by a long tunnel from fifty to one hundred feet in length, of the cultivation and use of opium, and the universal manufacture of liquor, with its consequent almost perpetual drunkenness, we come to a description of that which gives to this people of Burma the name of the "Head Hunters of Burma." He says:—

Outside every village, but not apparently at any special point of the compass, is the Ong Gru Pangkan, the avenue of skulls. These groves are conspicuous from long distances. They consist of strips of primeval jungle, huge forest trees left standing where all the remaining country has been cleared for cultivation. The undergrowth is rank, and these avenues are usually, but not always, in deep shade. There are rows of posts all in one line, and not on both sides of the path, decked with human skulls. A niche is cut in the back of the post, with a ledge on which the skull can rest. There is a round hole in front, through which sometimes only the teeth and empty eye sockets, sometimes the whole skull, grins horribly, a ghastly smile. The number of skulls run as high as a hundred.

The source of supply for this hideous practice is found in the neighboring Shan or Lem districts. But the Was often make raids on one another's villages, and sometimes, even, a victim is taken from among the old people of the village itself, as this class is no longer of service in daily work.

It is to be hoped that the Was will be gradually brought to abandon their ferocious practice of head cutting. Doubtless in due time the power of the British Government will be felt upon them; but for the present their distance from all usual routes of travel, and their almost entire lack of intercourse with outside communities, will prevent any immediate action. They are certainly a strangely degraded race, and no other people could need the gospel more than they do.—The Independent.