Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 294

288
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1897.
"in trading with the neighbouring States of their class." A propos of this. Strettell, Fious Elastica, p. 135, tells us that on the 18th January, 1874, he met some Palaungs on the Nansha Chaung, a branch of the Mögaung River, who had come from some distance further South, and of them he remarks as follows: "Wat money could not secure, empty pint lock bottles clid. For foar of these I got eleven egys and a brood of jungle-fowl chickens." A short time before this, Talboys Wheeler, in diandalay to Bhamo, p. 64 f., went up the Irrawaddy, and in his Journal, under date 26th November, 1870, we find that at Malè the people, seemingly, but certainly not from the context, Shâns, placed, so Wheeler was informed, "an inordinate value upon empty bottles. Those which had contained any kind of liquor were highly appreciated, but the passion for soda-water bottles is still stronger, whilst there is, if possible, a deeper yearning for the dnrk red bottles, which have contained hock. As we had a considerable number of empty bottles on board, due perhaps to the genialty of our party since leaving Mandalay, a few were thrown into the water as an experiment, and then commeneed one of the most amusing scrambles that can possibly be imagined. Boys and girls threw off their carments and dived or swam impetuously after the bottles; cot throwing out their arms leisurely, Like European swimmers, but paddling like dogs, only much more noisily. Meantime mothers, wives, and sweethearts were urging on the coinpetition for the bottles, and carrying them It way in triumph immediately they were brought on shore, or safely landed in one or other of the numerous canoes that were plying about the steainer. Mr. Marks gave away some religious books and tracts, but they were regarded as things of small value in comparison with the bottles.”
Talboys Wheeler evidently looked on the whole thing as a joke, but a tribal or national passion for the possession of a particular article is never due to insanity or eccentricity, and the sober explanation of the scene is that the bottles were currency, or of value for purposes connected with worship or superstition. The other evidence available points to the former.79
(8) Earthenware. - It is possible that the great trade, once world-famous, in the Martabana, or Pegu Jars, 80 which I have elsewhere traced to the IXth Century A. D., caused these valuable articles to be used as currency or standard of barter, but I have no proof of it. However, at the Maldives, where the matabáns have been known for centuries, we have a parallel from *Abdu'rrazaq in the XVth Century, who tells us that the Moors of India frequented these Islands in his day, '* bartering the salt and earthenware, which are not made at the islands,"82 .
(7) Ingot Iron and Articles of Iron. - Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 51, tells os that the Lawas we saw at Baw were not agriculturists, but iron-workers and manufacturers. The metal is fonud in a hill lying about half a day's journey to the North-West of the village, is a red oxide of iron, and is worked solely by the women. It is brought to the village on elephants and is smelted in such a rough way that it yields only 50 per cent. of metal. The principal tax paid by the villagers to the Zimme Chief consists of elephant chains, spearheads, cooking pots and other iron-ware. At p. 315, there is an illustration of currencies amongst the Shans, but apparently no description beyond the note to the Plate. Of the illustrations, No. 1 is "iron money, made by the Kuys or Khmerdom, in use at Stung Treng on the Mekong River." The illnstration shews a diamond shaped ingot of iron, I presume it to be small in size, but there is no scale.
I should record that Mr. W. Boxall, the orchid-hunter, has at my suggestion enquired everywhere in his travels in the Shan States as to this iron currency, and could get no trace 75 The Tang History in Parker, Huwma, p. 13.
Bowring snya, Siam, Vol. 1. p. 2657, that stamped glass and enamel were used for money, but I think he really refers to the procelain gambling tokons common in Siam, about which I will discourse at length under the head of jettoon later on. The Dutch found glass bottles of use as currency at Amboyna and Tornato in 1596: Dutch Voyages, 1703, pp. 283, 286. cf. Ling Roth, Sarawak, Vol. II. p. 285, n. 3, where ouriously enough al reference to Pegu and Martaban as a possible origin for Borneo Jars is omitted: see also Yol. L p. 419. C. Ridgeway, Origin of Currency, p. 165: Aymonier, Voyage dans le Laos. Vol. I. pp. 134, 215. See ante, Vol. XXJI., p. 384.
Vide Pyrard de Laval, Hal. Soc. Ed., Vol. I. p. 259. Pyrard de Laval, Vol. II. p. 473.