MYANMAR

An independent republic of Southeast Asia, known until 1989 as Burma, located east of India and south of China, and formerly a province of British India, inhabited by an indigenous stock of Indo-Chinese people who originally migrated from Western China at different periods, represented by three principal groups, the Talaings, the Shans, and the Bama, although groups of several other allied races are also found.

The largest religious community is the Theravada Buddhist, though there are significant minority communities of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and those who follow forms of indigenous tribal religions. Many beliefs were affected by the Japanese occupation during World War II and by the internal power struggles following independence in 1948, culminating in the creation of the present socialist republic in 1974.

Some traditional beliefs still linger on. In general, the Burmese believed the soul is immaterial and independent of the body, to which it is only bound by a special attraction. It can quit and return to the body at will, but can also be captured and kept from returning to it. After death the soul hovers near the corpse as an invisible butterfly, known as leippya. A witch or demon may capture the leippya while it wanders during the hours of sleep, and sickness is sure to result. Offerings are made to the magician or devil to induce him to release the soul. The Kachins of the northern hills of Burma believed that persons having the evil eye possessed two souls, the secondary soul being the cause of the malign influence.

Belief in Spirits

Beliefs in spirits, mostly malign, took a prominent place in the religious beliefs of the people of Myanmar. The spirits of rain, wind, and the heavenly bodies were in that condition of evolution that usually results in their becoming full-fledged deities, with whom placation gives way to worship. But the spirits of the forest are true demons with well-marked animistic characteristics. Thus the nat or seiktha dwells in trees or groves. His nature is usually malign, but occasionally we find him as the guardian of a village. In any case, he possesses a shrine where he may be propitiated by gifts of food and drink. Several of these demonic figures have almost achieved godhead, so widespread did their particular veneration become, and Hmin Nat, Chiton, and Wannein Nat may be named as fiends of power, the dread of which spread across extensive districts.

The nats were probably of Indian origin, and the now thoroughly indigenous creatures may at one time have been members of the Hindu pantheon. Many spirit families such as the Seikkaso, Akathaso, and Bommaso, who inhabit various parts of the jungle trees, are of Indian origin. The fulfillment of every wish depends upon the nats or spirits, who are all-powerful as far as humans are concerned. They are innumerable. Any house might have its complement, who swarmed in its several rooms and took up their abode in its hearth, doorposts, verandas, and corners. The nats also inhabited or inspired wild beasts, and all misfortune was supposed to emanate from them.

The Burmese used to believe that the more materialistic dead haunted the living with a malign purpose. The people had a great dread of their newly-deceased relatives, whom they imagined to haunt the vicinity of their dwellings for the purpose of ambushing them.

No dead body would be carried to a cemetery except by the shortest route, even should this necessitate cutting a hole in the wall of a house. The spirits of those who died a violent death haunted the scene of their fatality. Like the ancient Mexicans (see Ciupipiltin), the Burmese had a great dread of the ghosts of women who died in childbirth. The Kachins believed such women to turn into vampires (swawmx) who were accompanied by their children when these died with them. The spirits of children were often supposed to inhabit the bodies of cats and dogs.

The Burmans were extremely circumspect as to how they spoke and acted towards the inhabitants of the spirit world, as they believed that disrespect or mockery would at once bring down upon them misfortune or disease. An infinite number of guardian spirits were included in the Burmese demonological system, and these were chiefly supposed to be Brahmanic importations. These dwelt in the houses like the evil nats and were the tutelars of village communities, and even of clans. They were duly propitiated, at which ceremonies rice, beer, and teasalad were offered to them. Women were employed as exorcists to drive out the evil nats, but at the festivals connected with the guardian nats, women were not permitted to officiate.

Necromancy and Occult Medicine

Necromancy used to be common among the Burmese. The weza or wizards were of two kinds, good and evil, and these were each subdivided into four classes, according to the materials they employed, such as, for example, magic squares, mercury, or iron. The native doctors professed to cure the diseases caused by witchcraft, and often specialized in various ailments. Besides being necromantic, medicine was largely astrological. There was said to be in Lower Burma a town of wizards at Kale Thaungtot on the Chindwin River, and many journeyed there to have the effects of bewitchment neutralized by its chief. Sympathetic magic was employed to render an enemy sick. Indian and native alchemy and cheiromancy were widespread. Noise is the universal method of exorcism, and in cases of illness the patient was often severely beaten, the idea being that the fiend that possessed him was the sufferer.

Mediums and Exorcists

The tumsa or natsaw were magicians, diviners, or wise men and women who practiced their arts in a private and in a nonhierophantic capacity among the rural Burmese. The wise man physician who worked in iron (than weza) was at the head of his profession, and sold amulets that guarded their purchasers from injury. Female mediums professed to be the spouses of certain nats, and could only retain their supernatural connection with a certain spirit so long as they were wedded to him.

With the exorcists, training was voluntary and even perfunctory. But with the mediums it was severe and prolonged. Among the civilized Burmanese a much more exhaustive apprenticeship was demanded. Indeed a thorough and intricate knowledge of some departments of magical and astrological practice was necessary for recognition by the brotherhood, the entire art of which was medico-magical, consisting of the exorcism of evil spirits from human beings and animals.

The methods employed were such as usually accompanied exorcism among tribal cultures, that is, dancing, flagellation of the afflicted person, induction of ecstasy, oblation to the fiend in possession, and noise.

Prophecy and Divination

Prophecy and divination have been quite popular in Myanmar, and were in some measure controlled by the use of the Deitton, an astrological book of Indian origin. Observation of the direction in which the blood of a sacrificed animal flowed, the knots in torn leaves, the length of a split bamboo pole, and the whiteness or otherwise of a hardboiled egg were utilized as methods of augury. But by far the most important mode of divination in use in the country was the bones of fowls. It was indeed an almost universal way of deciding all the difficulties of Burmese existence. Those wing or thigh bones in which the holes exhibit regularity were chosen. Pieces of bamboo were inserted into these holes, and the resulting slant of the stick defined the augury. If the stick slanted outwards it decided in favor of the measure under test. If it slanted inwards, the omen was unfavorable. Other materials of divination were the entrails of animals and the contents of blown eggs.

Astrology

Burmese astrology derived both from Indian and Chinese sources, and powerfully affected the entire people, most of whom had a private astrologer who would be consulted for knowledge of the trend of the horoscope regarding the near future. Burmese would be active and enterprising on lucky days, but nothing would induce them to undertake any form of work should the day be pyatthadane or ominous.

The bedinsaya, or astrologers proper, practiced a fully developed Hindu astrology, but being few in number, they were not as influential as the rural soothsayers, who followed the Chinese system known as Hpewan, almost identical to the Taoist astrological tables of Chinese diviners. From this system were derived horoscopes, fortunes, happy marriages, and prognostications regarding business affairs. But in practice the system was often confounded with the Buddhist calendar and much confusion resulted. The Buddhist calendar was in popular use, while the Hpewan was purely astrological. Therefore the Burmese ignorant of the latter was obliged to consult an astrologer who was able to collate the two regarding his lucky and unlucky days. The chief horoscopic influences were day of birth, day of the week, represented by the symbol of a certain animal, and the position of the dragon's mouth to the terminal syllables of the day-names.

Magic

Burmese magic consisted in the making of charms and the manufacture of occult medicine to cause hallucination, second sight, the prophetic state, invisibility, or invulnerability. It was frequently sympathetic and overlapped with necromancy and astrology. It did not appear to be at all ceremonial, and was to a great extent unsophisticated, save where it had been influenced by Indian and Buddhist monks, who also drew on native sources to enlarge their own knowledge.

Sources:

Fielding, H. The Soul of a People. London: n.p., 1902.

Fytche, A. Burma, Past & Present. 2 vols. London: n.p., 1878.

Spiro, Melford E. Burmese Supernaturalism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967.

Temple, Sir Richard C. The Thirtyseven Nats (Burmese Animism). London: n.p., 1906.