Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/800

Rh 774 S H A S H A Each Shan state is governed by a tsobira (chao p'hya), or supreme chief, aided by a council, and often by a coadjutor. "Where the Shans are in immediate contact with one of their great neighbours their habits and customs are necessarily modified; otherwise, speaking generally, civilization increases southwards. Religion is nominally Buddhist, and the priests, though their lives are. usually far from correct, have great influence; temples, caves, and other localities sacred to Buddha are thronged with worshippers liberal with their offerings; but the practical exercise of religion of the nats or p'hees, demons and spirits everywhere present, to whom all accidents and illnesses are attributed. Along with the Buddha, various images, among which the horse is not uncommon, are adored (though there are temples in which these are not found); and fetiches natural objects of special form, e.g., of some part of the body are kept in the house to avert disease. Medical treat- ment consists largely in magical practices, and individuals de- nounced by the sick as the cause of their illness frequently have their houses burned ami are themselves deported to a distance. Thus, too, ordeals have a prominent place iu legal practice. The Slums have no Buddhist prejudices against killing poultry or cattle for food, but like other Indo-Chinese ami the Malays do not use milk. Slavery is general; the supply is recruited partly by raids on neighbouring hill tribes; the Indo-Chinese practice of slavery for debt also prevails. The slaves are not ill-treated, and are chiefly employed in field labour by the chaos, who own great numbers. In appearance the North Shans are sallow, but hardly darker than South Europeans, and are characterized by a short broad flat face, more elongated and nearer the Tartar type in the upper classes; they have red cheeks, brown eyes hardly oblique, black hair, nose almost aquiline, and are of medium height. The Chinese Shans are much smaller, with squat figures, prominent cheek-bones, and oblique eyes. The practice of tattooing prevails in some districts, down to the upper waters of the Me-nam, and it occurs also among the Laos in the south-east, the tattooed being known as the black-bellied, the non-tattooed as the white-bellied. The Shans are all hardier and more manly than their congeners the Siamese, and they are also more sedate and more sell -possessed than the Burmese. Most travellers speak of them as brave, friendly, social, and hospitable, but a good deal of the oppression and cruelty natural to a semi- barbarous condition prevails. They are cleanly and fond of bathiug, the towns and villages being supplied with bamboo aqueducts. Drunkenness, except at festivals, is rare. Gambling is common, whole families being sold into slavery to pay debts thus contracted. Public gaming and the sale of spirits and opium are monopolies. They show much artistic taste in the beautiful colours of their textile fabrics, the needlework and embroidery of the women, and the designing and execution of the silver ornaments which are worn in profusion. They show great aptitude for trade, and are said by Mr Holt Hallett to welcome the prospect of the railway intended to connect their country with Maulmein, crossing thence to Raheng or some neighbouring point on the Me-nam, and on through the fertile valleys and plateaus on its upper tributaries to the Chinese frontier. Tea is found, both wild and cultivated, from Zimme to Eiang Tung. Opium is exported to Mandalay and to China. Indian corn, sugar, and tobacco are grown in the low grounds, and excellent cotton and indigo (which also grows wild in the hills). T':ik has long been worked by Anglo-Burmese in the easteni alllnents of the Toong-yen and neighbouring valleys, and has become comparatively scarce west of the Me-ping; but it grows freely in the hills and valleys around Kiang Sen and Lagong, and in the hill region of eastern Siam, where, however, it is of inferior quality. Silk is produced, and iron, copper, and silver-lead (galena) ores are worked. The Shan languages are classified by Dr Gushing as follows : Ahom (Assam), extinct; Khamti, on the upper Irawadi and other valleys on the extreme north of Burmah; the Chinese (Mau) Shans, east from Bamo; Shans proper, between the* mountains which bound the Burmese plains in the east and the Me-koug, and between 23 and 19 N. lat; Laos to the south of this, from 19 north to the frontiers of Siam; and lastly, Siamese. The last two, as spoken, differ but little, and the three others may be grouped together. All have separate alphabets (related, however, in form), except the Siamese; and, kho spelling being phonetic, the orthography is tolerably fixed. But it is a tonal language, and the vowel signs are few, so that some have two or three values assigned them. There are a good many Pali words due to Buddhism, many Bur- mese words in the districts under Burmese influence, and a large foreign element in the Chinese Shan state of Ho-tha, where the nice is perhaps not fundamentally Shan. Se Key Ettas, Jntnxhifiory Steteh of the History of tht Shans in f>/vr Runnah an- 1 Wett rum-nan. Calcutta, 1876; Yule, Glottary of Anglo- Indian Word* an i Phraset (18S6), and Xarratireof thr Minion to Ara (1838); Anderson. From iftutdalay to ifomiea; Colqnhoun, Among tht Shans; Gushing, Shan Dictionary (Introduction); Bock. Ttmp'u and Elephants; Sir A. Phayre, History of Burmt*. (C. T.) SHARK. The systematic position of the gronp of Sharks or Sdachoidei in the class of Ffshes, their classifica- tion, and their general external and anatomical character- istics have been already sufficiently noticed under ICHTHY- OLOGY (vol. xii. pp. 630 sq. and we have here to supplement that article only by a fuller reference to the natural history of the more common and more important types of the group. Sharks are almost .exclusively inhabitants of the sea, but some species freely enter the mouths of large rivers, and one species (Carcharias gangeticiis) occurs frequently high up in the large rivers of India, and in the Tigris about Baghdad, at a distance of 350 miles from the Persian Gulf in a straight line, and has even been reported from a lake in Viti Levu (Fiji Islands) which is shut off from the sea by a cataract. Sharks are found in all seas; most numerous between the tropics, they become scarcer beyond, a few only reaching the Arctic circle; it is not known how far they advance southwards in the Antarctic region. Alto- gether some hundred and fifty different species have been described. With regard to their habits many are littoral species, the majority pelagic, and a few are known to belong to the bathybial fauna, having hitherto been obtained down to a depth of 500 fathoms. Littoral Sharks. The littoral forms are of small size, and generally known under the name of " dog-fishes," "hounds," &C. Some pelagic sharks of larger size also live near the shore on certain parts of a coast, but they are attracted to it by the abundance of food, and are as frequently found in the open sea, which is their birth- place; therefore we shall refer to them when we speak of the pelagic kinds. The majority of the littoral species live on the bottom, sometimes close inshore, and feed on small marine animals or on any animal substance. The following are deserving of special notice. The Tope (Galevs) is common on the coasts not only of England, Ireland, and of the more southern parts of Europe, but also of South Africa, California, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Its teeth are equal in both a jaws, of rather small size, flat, triangular, with the point directed towards the one side, and with a notch and denticulations on the shorter side (fig. 1). It is of a uniform slaty-grey colour, and attains to a length of 6 feet. The female brings forth some thirty living young at one birth in May. It cannot be regarded as a very destructive fish, but becomes troublesome Fl f - ijjTJjJ 1 at times to fishermen by taking their bait and uppei; /'.lowl driving away other fish they desire to catch. The Hounds proper (Mustrlus) possess a very different dentition, the teeth being small, obtuse, numerous, arranged in several rows like pavement (fig. 2). Five or six species are known from the shores of the various temperate and subtropical seas, one (J/. vulgaris) being common on the coasts of Great Britain and the United States on the Pacific as well as the Atlantic side. It is of a uniform grey colour or sparingly spotted with Fl0 ' *- white, and attains to a length of 3 or 4 feet. The young, about twelve in number, are brought forth alive in Nov- ember. It is a comparatively harmless fish, which feeds on shells, crustaceans, and decomposing animal substances. Of the Dog-Fishes proper (>V/////M?H, CAiloscyllium, itc.) some twenty species are known, which are spread over nearly all the temperate and tropical seas. Their teeth are small, in several series, with a longer pointed cusp in the middle, and generally one or two smaller ones on each side (figs.
 * s chiefly in efforts to propitiate or avert the evil influenge