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 90

86
THE INDIAN ANTIQUART.
[APRIL, 1897.
The hendman, his wife, and youngest daughter were dressed in Burmese fashion ; but the clothing of the remainder of the adults was restricted to a cloth tied across the hips and doubled up between their legs, the rest of the body being nude, this costume being common to the men and women alike. Everything about these people was indicative of the greatest poverty, and as the rice, gourds, and yams which they succeed in raising are insufficient for their wants, they eke ont a subsistence on wild edible roots, and also on fish 'and shell-fish procured in the adjoining creek or on the neighbouring coast.
The occupations of the men are felling the forests, cultivating and reaping the paddy, gathering honey and wax, spearing fish and collecting shell-fish in the creek and on the shore : but in much of this they are assisted by the women, who also, as is common to all the Salones, devote a considerable portion of their time to the manufacture of mats. These mats, along with the honey and wax, are readily disposed of by barter to the traders who visit the western shores of the island daring the north-east monsoon.
The Salones at Yaymyitkyee, with one exception, came originally from Done, that is, from the large group of islands immediately to the west of King's Island, and of which the largest are Elphinstone, Grant, and Ross Islands. The exception was the nephew, and at the same time son-in-law, of the headman, who was a Salone of Taroy island, very fair and remarkally like a Burman. All the members of this colony were more or less related to one another, and all claimed to have relatives in the Done group of islands.
These northern Salones of the Archipelago are known to themselves as Kathay Salones.
On being onestioned as to what had induced him to settle on King's Island, the headman gave as his reasons the hardships and privations which had to be endured in moving from place to place amongst the islands in search of food, the uncertainty of food-supplies, and the absence of permanent dwellings. He had been induced to take the step by the representations of the Karens at Yaymyitkyee, with whom he had met on his visit to King's Island in search of honey and wax, and wbo had pointed out to him how much more comfortable he would be, were he to forsake the asnal migmtory life of a Salone and become a cultivator of the land. He had, so far, been satisfied with the result, although the difficulties which he had at first to encounter were very great, as he had originally settled only with his sons-in-law, The second and more squalid group of houses was occupied by fresh settlement of Salones related to him, and who bad been led by his little measure of success to follow his example.
The great poverty of this people was due, according to him, to the fact that they were new-comers and had yet to make their way. They had been only one year in the clearing.
From Padaw, or King's Island, I visited the Done group, where I fonnd the Salones in their norinal condition as a sea-people, spending the greater part of their lives in their boats along with their children and dogs, and only betaking themselves to a short sojonrn on land during the stormy weather of the south-west monsoon, when thoy erect on the sandy shores huts of much the same character as those of the second group at Yaymyitkyce.
The employments of these people consist of visiting the most westerly islands of the Archipelago during the first two or three months of the north-east monsoon, where they collect béclie-ule-mer and the large Turbo marmarat us, the animal of which is extracted from the shell and dried in the sun.
During the remainder of this monsoon they generally frequent their own group of islands, an occasional boat only visiting the western groups. Among their own islands, their chief occupations are spearing the large fish known to them as caoo, collecting bêche-de-mer, occasionally a few pearls, and a little black coral. After the south-west monsoon has set in, they devote themselves chiefly to collecting honey and wax in the forest, and hunting pigs.