Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/363

Rh Ganan-pwas (I am not quite certain about these names), and Ganan-mas were not, I was told, allowed to take part in a Ganan-pwa struggle, or vice-versâ. Presumably, therefore, there must have been two Shwe-hmus. The account of the proceedings as given to me, was this. The office of Shwe-hmu depended on the possession of the pair of scales which was used for weighing the gold in which the tax was paid. With these went also the Shwe-hmu's saddle, spear, and the royal order of appointment for the original, or at any rate an early, Shwe-hmahmu [sic]; but the scales were the real thing. Any one who could get possession or them by fair means became Shwe-hmu for as long as he could keep them. A man would therefore call his friends together and go to the Shwe-hmu's house and attack him. The use of iron in the fight was prohibited, and, as I have mentioned above, Ganan-mas could not fight with Ganan-pwas, nor vice-versâ. Bamboos were apparently the usual weapons. If the claimant beat the Shwe-hmu, and was able to carry off the scales by dint of fair fighting, he became Shwe-hmu, but he could not steal them or get them by fraud. If the claimant was defeated the Shwe-hmu fined him, the amount of the fine being, I think, three vin of silver (say £20 nowadays, but of course of greater value before the annexation). There was no limit in either direction to the time for which the Shtve-hmuship must or might be held, and a man might be Shwe-hmu any number of different times. I have seen men who were Shwe-hmus at three or four different times, and six months or a year was a very fair tenure. One man I met was still a butt because, fifteen years before, perhaps, he had been Shwe-hmu for one day only

I never heard of any superstitious beliefs attaching to any of the objects, and I do not know anything about the age of the custom or its origin. The origin of the Kadus themselves is obscure; they are supposed to be in part at any rate of Kachin origin, but their own story is that four generations ago they came up to Ganan from a large forest in the Shwebo or Monywa district on the west of the Chindwin. I only heard of this custom as I was leaving Ganan for the last time, as it turned out, as I was immediately transferred to another district. I had therefore no time to make any inquiries on the spot.

, I. C. S., Burma.

12th November, 1902.