Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Mark · 12th August 2005, 09:12 PM

Good stuff! I have read excerpts of Fitch's journal in a couple books, but I only just scored (today) a copy of the full work. I hope that it arrives soon. I don't know if it is the edition you mention -- the footnotes seem interesting in yours.

I also have come across extracts of the travel journal of a Portuese from the same period (his name escapes me, but I'll add it later when I have my notebook at hand [LATER: Sebastien Manrique, who travelled in Arrakan between 1630 and 1635, and so was not really a contemporary of Fytche after all]), and he describes a procession during a royal coronation in Arakan in which there were several squadrons of cavalry of various nationalities, some of which carried "swords," and others of which carried "sabers" (these last were Mogul mercenaries). The Burmese were described as carrying spears, but not swords, which I found very interesting. It might have been due to the fact that they were horsemen, not infantry. [Arakan is on the coast on the west side of the Malay penninsula, and is now part of Myanmar. It was usually dominated to varying degrees by the Burmese Empire -- this guy happened to visit during one of the periods of independence]

The dha is indeed central to Kachin life. It is even used as a ritual medium of debt payment, and is in those cases often not even a functional dha or full size. It is the idea of the value of the dha that drives the transaction. They are also stuck up in the rafters of a house near the household shrine (sometimes in miniature form). A stair of swords, edge up (actually wood, apparently) was at least at one time used during the initation of monks in Burma.

LATER: There are excerpts from a number of European traveller's journals in a book called "Old Burma, as described by Early Foreign Travellers" by U Myo Min (Hanthawaddy Pub., 1947). This is where I read Manrique's account, and a bit of Fytche.

With all this information about how important the dha was, I find it really odd and frustrating that there are not more references to them, and more descriptions of the darn things, or depictions in art. Aggrevating.

12th August 2005, 09:12 PM	#4
Mark Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 987	Good stuff! I have read excerpts of Fitch's journal in a couple books, but I only just scored (today) a copy of the full work. I hope that it arrives soon. I don't know if it is the edition you mention -- the footnotes seem interesting in yours. I also have come across extracts of the travel journal of a Portuese from the same period (his name escapes me, but I'll add it later when I have my notebook at hand [LATER: Sebastien Manrique, who travelled in Arrakan between 1630 and 1635, and so was not really a contemporary of Fytche after all]), and he describes a procession during a royal coronation in Arakan in which there were several squadrons of cavalry of various nationalities, some of which carried "swords," and others of which carried "sabers" (these last were Mogul mercenaries). The Burmese were described as carrying spears, but not swords, which I found very interesting. It might have been due to the fact that they were horsemen, not infantry. [Arakan is on the coast on the west side of the Malay penninsula, and is now part of Myanmar. It was usually dominated to varying degrees by the Burmese Empire -- this guy happened to visit during one of the periods of independence] The dha is indeed central to Kachin life. It is even used as a ritual medium of debt payment, and is in those cases often not even a functional dha or full size. It is the idea of the value of the dha that drives the transaction. They are also stuck up in the rafters of a house near the household shrine (sometimes in miniature form). A stair of swords, edge up (actually wood, apparently) was at least at one time used during the initation of monks in Burma. LATER: There are excerpts from a number of European traveller's journals in a book called "Old Burma, as described by Early Foreign Travellers" by U Myo Min (Hanthawaddy Pub., 1947). This is where I read Manrique's account, and a bit of Fytche. With all this information about how important the dha was, I find it really odd and frustrating that there are not more references to them, and more descriptions of the darn things, or depictions in art. Aggrevating. Last edited by Mark Bowditch; 15th August 2005 at 02:36 AM. Reason: adding more information ....