The Soul of a People

I might give example after example of this sort, for they happen every day. We who are meat-eaters, who delight in shooting, who have a horror of insects and reptiles, are continually coming into collision with the principles of our neighbours; for even harmful reptiles they do not care to kill. Truly I believe it is a myth, the story of the Burmese mother courteously escorting out of the house the scorpion which had just bitten her baby. A Burmese mother worships her baby as much as the woman of any other nation does, and I believe there is no crime she would not commit in its behalf. But if she saw a scorpion walking about in the fields, she would not kill it as we should. She would step aside and pass on. 'Poor beast!' she would say, 'why should I hurt it? It never hurt me.'

The Burman never kills insects out of sheer brutality. If a beetle drone annoyingly, he will catch it in a handkerchief and put it outside, and so with a bee. It is a great trouble often to get your Burmese servants to keep your house free of ants and other annoying creatures. If you tell them to kill the insects they will, for in that case the sin falls on you. Without special orders they would rather leave the ants alone.

In the district in which I am now living snakes are very plentiful. There are cobras and keraits, but the most dreaded is the Russell's viper. He is a snake that averages from three to four feet long, and is very thick, with a big head and a stumpy tail. His body is marked very prettily with spots and blurs of light on a dark, grayish green, and he is so like the shadows of the grass and weeds in a dusty road, that you can walk on him quite unsuspectingly. Then he will bite you, and you die. He comes out usually in the evening before dark, and lies about on footpaths to catch the home-coming ploughman or reaper, and, contrary to the custom of other snakes, he will not flee on hearing a footstep. When anyone approaches he lies more still than ever, not even a movement of his head betraying him. He is so like the colour of the ground, he hopes he will be passed unseen; and he is slow and lethargic in his movements, and so is easy to kill when once detected. As a Burman said, 'If he sees you first, he kills you; if you see him first, you kill him.'

In this district no Burman hesitates a moment in killing a viper when he has the chance. Usually he has to do it in self-defence. This viper is terribly feared, as over a hundred persons a year die here by his bite. He is so hated and feared that he has become an outcast from the law that protects all life.

But with other snakes it is not so. There is the hamadryad, for instance. He is a great snake about ten to fourteen feet long, and he is the only snake that will attack you first. He is said always to do so, certainly he often does. One attacked me once when out quail-shooting. He put up his great neck and head suddenly at a distance of only five or six feet, and was just preparing to strike, when I literally blew his head off with two charges of shot.

You would suppose he was vicious enough to be included with the Russell's viper in the category of the exceptions, but no. Perhaps he is too rare to excite such fierce and deadly hate as makes the Burman forget his law and kill the viper. However it may be, the Burman is not ready to kill the hamadryad. A few weeks ago a friend of mine and myself came across two little Burman boys carrying a jar with a piece of broken tile over it. The lads kept lifting up the tile and peeping in, and then putting the tile on again in a great hurry, and their actions excited our curiosity. So we called them to come to us, and we looked into the jar. It was full of baby hamadryads. The lads had found a nest of them in the absence of the mother, who would have killed them if she had been there, and had secured all the little snakes. There were seven of them.

We asked the boys what they intended to do with the snakes, and they answered that they would show them to their friends in the village. 'And then?' we asked. And then they would let them go in the water. My friend killed all the hamadryads on the spot, and gave the boys some coppers, and we went on. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? Can you think of any other schoolboys sparing any animal they caught, much less poisonous snakes? The extraordinary hold that this tenet of their religion has upon the Burmese must be seen to be understood. What I write will sound like some fairy story, I fear, to my people at home. It is far beneath the truth. The belief that it is wrong to take life is a belief with them as strong as any belief could be. I do not know anywhere any command, earthly or heavenly, that is acted up to with such earnestness as this command is amongst the Burmese. It is an abiding principle of their daily life.

Where the command came from I do not know. I cannot find any allusion to it in the life of the great teacher. We know that he ate meat. It seems to me that it is older even than he. It has been derived both by the Burmese Buddhists and the Hindus from a faith whose origin is hidden in the mists of long ago. It is part of that far older faith on which Buddhism was built, as was Christianity on Judaism.

But if not part of his teaching – and though it is included in the sacred books, we do not know how much of them are derived from the Buddha himself – it is in strict accordance with all his teaching. That is one of the most wonderful points of Buddhism, it is all in accordance; there are no exceptions.

I have heard amongst Europeans a very curious explanation of this refusal of Buddhists to take life. 'Buddhists,' they say, 'believe in the transmigration of souls. They believe that when a man dies his soul may go into a beast. You could not expect him to kill a bull, when perchance his grandfather's soul might inhabit there.' This is their explanation, this is the way they put two and two together to make five. They know that Buddhists believe in transmigration, they know that Buddhists do not like to take life, and therefore one is the cause of the other.

I have mentioned this explanation to Burmans while talking of the subject, and they have always laughed at it. They had never heard of it before. It is true that it is part of their great theory of life that the souls of men have risen from being souls of beasts, and that we may so relapse if we are not careful. Many stories are told of cases that have occurred where a man has been reincarnated as an animal, and where what is now the soul of a man used to live in a beast. But that makes no difference. Whatever a man may have been, or may be, he is a man now; whatever a beast may have been, he is a beast now. Never suppose that a Burman has any other idea than this. To him men are men, and animals are animals, and men are far the higher. But he does not deduce from this that man's superiority gives him permission to illtreat or to kill animals. It is just the reverse. It is because man is so much higher than the animal that he can and must observe towards animals the very greatest care, feel for them the very greatest compassion, be good to them in every way he can. The Burman's motto should be Noblesse oblige; he knows the meaning, if he knows not the words.

For the Burman's compassion towards animals goes very much farther than a mere reluctance to kill them. Although he has no command on the subject, it seems to him quite as important to treat animals well during their lives as to refrain from taking those lives. His refusal to take life he shares with the Hindu; his perpetual care and tenderness to all living creatures is all his own. And here I may mention a very curious contrast, that whereas in India the Hindu will not take life and the Mussulman will, yet the Mussulman is by reputation far kinder to his beasts than the Hindu. Here the Burman combines both qualities. He has all the kindness to animals that the Mahommedan has, and more, and he has the same horror of taking life that the Hindu has.

Coming from half-starved, over-driven India, it is a revelation to see the animals in Burma. The village ponies and cattle and dogs in India are enough to make the heart bleed for their sordid misery, but in Burma they are a delight to the eye. They are all fat, every one of them – fat and comfortable and impertinent; even the ownerless dogs are well fed. I suppose the indifference of the ordinary native of India to animal suffering comes from the evil of his own lot. He is so very poor, he has such hard work to find enough for himself and his children, that his sympathy is all used up. He has none to spare. He is driven into a dumb heartlessness, for I do not think he is actually cruel.

The Burman is full of the greatest sympathy towards animals of all kinds, of the greatest understanding of their ways, of the most humorously good-natured attitude towards them. Looking at them from his manhood, he has no contempt for them; but the gentle toleration of a father to very little children who are stupid and troublesome often, but are very lovable. He feels himself so far above them that he can condescend towards them, and forbear with them.

His ponies are pictures of fatness and impertinence and go. They never have any vice because the Burman is never cruel to them; they are never well trained, partly because he does not know how to train them, partly because they are so near the aboriginal wild pony as to be incapable of very much training. But they are willing; they will go for ever, and are very strong, and they have admirable constitutions and tempers. You could not make a Burman ill-use his pony if you tried, and I fancy that to break these little half-wild ponies to go in cabs in crowded streets requires severe treatment. At least, I never knew but one hackney-carriage driver either in Rangoon or Mandalay who was a Burman, and he very soon gave it up. He said that the work was too heavy either for a pony or a man. I think, perhaps, it was for the safety of the public that he resigned, for his ponies were the very reverse of meek – which a native of India says a hackney-carriage pony should be – and he drove entirely by the light of Nature.

So all the drivers of gharries, as we call them, are natives of India or half-breeds, and it is amongst them that the work of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals principally lies. While I was in Rangoon I tried a number of cases of over-driving, of using ponies with sore withers and the like. I never tried a Burman. Even in Rangoon, which has become almost Indianized, his natural humanity never left the Burman. As far as Burmans are concerned, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals need not exist. They are kinder to their animals than even the members of the Society could be. Instances occur every day; here is one of the most striking that I remember.

There is a town in Burma where there are some troops stationed, and which is the headquarters of the civil administration of the district. It is, or was then, some distance from a railway-station, and it was necessary to make some arrangement for the carriage of the mails to and from the town and station. The Post-Office called for tenders, and at length it was arranged through the civil authorities that a coach should run once a day each way to carry the mails and passengers. A native of India agreed to take the contract – for Burmans seldom or never care to take them – and he was to comply with certain conditions and receive a certain subsidy.

There was a great deal of traffic between the town and station, and it was supposed that the passenger traffic would pay the contractor well, apart from his mail subsidy. For Burmans are always free with their money, and the road was long and hot and dusty. I often passed that coach as I rode. I noticed that the ponies were poor, very poor, and were driven a little hard, but I saw no reason for interference. It did not seem to me that any cruelty was committed, nor that the ponies were actually unfit to be driven. I noticed that the driver used his whip a good deal, but then some ponies require the whip. I never thought much about it, as I always rode my own ponies, and they always shied at the coach, but I should have noticed if there had been anything remarkable. Towards the end of the year it became necessary to renew the contract, and the contractor was approached on the subject. He said he was willing to continue the contract for another year if the mail subsidy was largely increased. He said he had lost money on that year's working. When asked how he could possibly have lost considering the large number of people who were always passing up and down, he said that they did not ride in his coach. Only the European soldiers and a few natives of India came with him. Officers had their own ponies and rode, and the Burmans either hired a bullock-cart or walked. They hardly ever came in his coach, but he could not say what the reason might be.

So an inquiry was made, and the Burmese were asked why they did not ride on the coach. Were the fares too high? – was it uncomfortable? But no, it was for neither of these reasons that they left the coach to the soldiers and natives of India. It was because of the ponies. No Burman would care to ride behind ponies who were treated as these ponies were – half fed, overdriven, whipped. It was a misery to see them; it was twice a misery to drive behind them. 'Poor beasts!' they said; 'you can see their ribs, and when they come to the end of a stage they are fit to fall down and die. They should be turned out to graze.'

The opinion was universal. The Burmans preferred to spend twice or thrice the money and hire a bullock-cart and go slowly, while the coach flashed past them in a whirl of dust, or they preferred to walk. Many and many times have I seen the roadside rest-houses full of travellers halting for a few minutes' rest. They walked while the coach came by empty; and nearly all of them could have afforded the fare. It was a very striking instance of what pure kind-heartedness will do, for there would have been no religious command broken by going in the coach. It was the pure influence of compassion towards the beasts and refusal to be a party to such hard-heartedness. And yet, as I have said, I do not think the law could have interfered with success. Surely a people who could act like this have the very soul of religion in their hearts, although the act was not done in the name of religion.

All the animals – the cattle, the ponies, and the buffaloes – are so tame that it is almost an unknown thing for anyone to get hurt.

The cattle are sometimes afraid of the white face and strange attire of a European, but you can walk through the herds as they come home in the evening with perfect confidence that they will not hurt you. Even a cow with a young calf will only eye you suspiciously; and with the Burmans even the huge water buffaloes are absolutely tame. You can see a herd of these great beasts, with horns six feet across, come along under the command of a very small boy or girl perched on one of their broad backs. He flourishes a little stick, and issues his commands like a general. It is one of the quaintest imaginable sights to see this little fellow get off his steed, run after a straggler, and beat him with his stick. The buffalo eyes his master, whom he could abolish with one shake of his head, submissively, and takes the beating, which he probably feels about as much as if a straw fell on him, good-humouredly. The children never seem to come to grief. Buffaloes occasionally charge Europeans, but the only place where I have known of Burmans being killed by buffaloes is in the Kalè Valley. There the buffaloes are turned out into the jungle for eight months in the year, and are only caught for ploughing and carting. Naturally they are quite wild; in fact, many of them are the offspring of wild bulls.

The Burmans, too, are very fond of dogs. Their villages are full of dogs; but, as far as I know, they never use them for anything, and they are never trained to do anything. They are supposed to be useful as watch-dogs, but I do not think they are very good even at that. I have surrounded a village before dawn, and never a dog barked, and I have heard them bark all night at nothing.

But when a Burman sees a fox-terrier or any English dog his delight is unfeigned. When we first took Upper Burma, and such sights were rare, half a village would turn out to see the little 'tail-less' dog trotting along after its master. And if the terrier would 'beg,' then he would win all hearts. I am not only referring to children, but to grown men and women; and then there is always something peculiarly childlike and frank in these children of the great river.

Only to-day, as I was walking up the bank of the river in the early dawn, I heard some Burman boatmen discussing my fox-terrier. They were about fifteen yards from the shore, poling their boat up against the current, which is arduous work; and as I passed them my little dog ran down the bank and looked at them across the water, and they saw her.

'See now,' said one man to another, pausing for a moment with his pole in his hand – 'see the little white dog with the brown face, how wise she looks!'

'And how pretty!' said a man steering in the stern. 'Come!' he cried, holding out his hand to it.

But the dog only made a splash in the water with her paws, and then turned and ran after me. The boatmen laughed and resumed their poling, and I passed on. In the still morning across the still water I could hear every word, but I hardly took any note; I have heard it so often. Only now when I come to write on this subject do I remember.

It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly thing to be indifferent to pain – not to our own pain only, but to that of all others. To be sorry for a hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded deer, to shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted by us as namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a squeamish woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues. He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion and kindness and sympathy – that nothing of great value can exist without them. Do you think that a Burmese boy would be allowed to birds'-nest, or worry rats with a terrier, or go ferreting? Not so. These would be crimes.

That this kindness and compassion for animals has very far-reaching results no one can doubt. If you are kind to animals, you will be kind, too, to your fellow-man. It is really the same thing, the same feeling in both cases. If to be superior in position to an animal justifies you in torturing it, so it would do with men. If you are in a better position than another man, richer, stronger, higher in rank, that would – that does often in our minds – justify ill-treatment and contempt. Our innate feeling towards all that we consider inferior to ourselves is scorn; the Burman's is compassion. You can see this spirit coming out in every action of their daily life, in their dealings with each other, in their thoughts, in their speech. 'You are so strong, have you no compassion for him who is weak, who is tempted, who has fallen?' How often have I heard this from a Burman's lips! How often have I seen him act up to it! It seems to them the necessary corollary of strength that the strong man should be sympathetic and kind. It seems to them an unconscious confession of weakness to be scornful, revengeful, inconsiderate. Courtesy, they say, is the mark of a great man, discourtesy of a little one. No one who feels his position secure will lose his temper, will persecute, will be disdainful. Their word for a fool and for a hasty-tempered man is the same. To them it is the same thing, one infers the other. And so their attitude towards animals is but an example of their attitude to each other. That an animal or a man should be lower and weaker than you is the strongest claim he can have on your humanity, and your courtesy and consideration for him is the clearest proof of your own superiority. And so in his dealings with animals the Buddhist considers himself, consults his own dignity, his own strength, and is kind and compassionate to them out of the greatness of his own heart. Nothing is more beautiful than the Burman in his ways with his children, and his beasts, with all who are lesser than himself.

Even to us, who think so very differently from him on many points, there is a great and abiding charm in all this, to which we can find only one exception; for to our ideas there is one exception, and it is this: No Burman will take any life if he can help it, and therefore, if any animal injure itself, he will not kill it – not even to put it out of its pain, as we say. I have seen bullocks split on slippery roads, I have seen ponies with broken legs, I have seen goats with terrible wounds caused by accidental falls, and no one would kill them. If, when you are out shooting, your beaters pick up a wounded hare or partridge, do not suppose that they wring its neck; you must yourself do that, or it will linger on till you get home. Under no circumstances will they take the life even of a wounded beast. And if you ask them, they will say: 'If a man be sick, do you shoot him? If he injure his spine so that he will be a cripple for life, do you put him out of his pain?'

If you reply that men and beasts are different, they will answer that in this point they do not recognise the difference. 'Poor beast! let him live out his little life.' And they will give him grass and water till he dies.

This is the exception that I meant, but now, after I have written it, I am not so sure. Is it an exception?