Besides the Wa or Lent, their religious annual festivals are the Ko-daw-ba, or Beg-pardon day ; the Ta-wa-dein-tha, relating to the life of Buddha ; and the Water Festival, Shin- oo-pa-ga, when little saucer-shaped lamps are consigned to the river at night. Their favourite religious story is the Way than-da-ra, on the former existence of Buddha. Their everyday amusements are the pooey drama, the puppet or marionettes, 2 to 3 feet high, music, boat' and horse racing, football, boxing, wrest ling, gambling, cock-fighting. The country is wealthy, and their aversion to regular labour is extreme. Notwithstanding this, the total trade in 1870 amounted to £10,263,000, increased in 1880 to £22,222,000. The incidence of taxation on the population of 3,736,771 is Hs. 6.3 per head. So little is this felt, that every family in Burma on the average spends £12 yearly on jewellery and imported luxuries. Bullion to the extent of a million and a half annually is absorbed in the province, in addition to the great amount spent in charity and amusements.
Their courting time is after 9 P.N., and is called Loo-byo-tay, thee-achyrin, the time for young men to go about. Polygamy is legal, but is only practised by the wealthy. Living as man and wife, or eating out of the same dish, is a legal marriage. The bridegroom provides a dower. The king has four legitimate wives. Few women have had edu cation. They can hold property, and can divorce themselves from their husbands. The Burman woman's lower garment, Ta-mein, is a narrow cloth of various colours of a pleasing contrast, which descends generally from the waist or from below the arm to the feet. It is made to overlap, and in front is tucked in, but it is so narrow that as the wearer walks the thigh is more or less shown at each step. Women transact the most important business. The filagree work necklace Bayet ' is a great ornament with the Burmese women. As in Buddhist countries, Burmese women are more nearly the companions and not the slaves of the men. But the Tibeto-Burmans and the cognate Indonesian tribes permit great licence to both sexes prior to marriage, when chastity is not required.
The Burmese tattoo themselves, and, after certain Turks, are perhaps the most civilised men and women who do so. They tattoo their bodies with figures of lions, tigers, beloo or demons, and dragons, also red squares, cabalistic signs or words on their breasts, arms, or backs. The Burmese, Mon, or Ta-laing also tattoo from below the navel to below the knee ; the Shan from the navel to the ankle. The Karen-ni have a rising sun on their back as a clan badge, as a mark of manhood. The Kyen tattoo the whole of the face of their women. The inflammation is severe, and
death occasionally follows the operations.
The Burmese have no surname. Their single name is prefixed with Moung, meaning brother, or Nga, Koh, and Poh. They and the Karen have the custom of brother-making, called by them Doh, also Thway-thouk. In salutation, the Bur mese bend the head three times to the ground, but the Karen, the Shan, and wild tribes of Arakan sniff their relatives. Burmese are skilled workers in metals. A bell at Mengoon is 12 feet high. At Amarapura is a sitting figure of Gau dame, 12 feet high. It was formerly the tutelary saint of Arakan, and was carried off A.D. 1784 by the king of Burma. Amongst the Karen, the Kyee-zee, a large one-headed metal drum, is the standard of wealth. They use as bellows the double-formed forcing air-pump of the Malays. lila-pet, or pickled tea, prepared from the leaves of the Elmodendrou Persicum, forms a part of every Burman ceremony. They brew a rico beer called koung.' • The Karen races continue the destructive form of temporary clearings for cultivation, called Toung-ya, meaning hill clearing or hill garden. Rats, at long intervals of 40 or 50 years, invade the Karen Lands in myriads, crossing streams, so that the water is black with them, and devouring every edible thing. From 1870 to 1874 the bill country east of the Sitang was devastated by them, and Government expended £10,000 in re lieving the Karens.
The adult dead are burned ; those under 15, also such as have died of cholera or smallpox, aro buried. Leip-bya, or spirit or soul of the deceased, is believed to dwell in the house until released on the seventh day from the house by the house Nat. The Karen, after cremation, and at an annual festival, collect the unburnt bones, and carry them to the consecrated Ayo-toung, or hill of bones. This is a practice of other tribes.
Independent Burma has the British districts of Assam, Arakan, and Pegu, with the Tipera and Manipur states on the N. and W. and S., with Chinese territory and the Shan states on the E. It extends from lat. 30' to 28° 15' N., and from long. 93° 2' to 100° 40' E., and its area has been estimated at 192,000 square miles; this in cludes the tributary Shan states. Its rivers are the Irawadi, Kyeng-dweng, which unite in lat. 21° 50' N., the Sitang or Paung-laung (Poungloung), the Salwin, and the Myit-nge. Crawfurd estimated its population at 22 to the square mile, which would give about 3,090,000 ; Colonel Yule's estimate in 1855 was 1,200,000 ; Count Beth leuen in 1874, excluding the Shan tribes, reduced it to 700,000 ; Dr. Hunter in the Imperial Gazetteer, including the Shan, supposed the number to be 4,000,000.