File:Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature (1910) (14741248406).jpg

Identifier: shansathomewitht00miln (find matches)
Title: Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Milne, Leslie, Mrs., 1860-1952 Cochrane, Wilbur Willis
Subjects: Shan (Asian people)
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
which we call a slight
earthquake. When Shans feel such a shock they run
out of their houses, and, kneeling down, answer the
little men by calling out, We are here, we are here!
Schoolboys, unless they live far from the monas-
tery, return to their homes at sunset to sleep. When,
however, they reach the age of eleven or twelve ¹ they
leave their homes for a time, don the dress of a
monk, and spend their days and nights in the mon-
astery. When going through their course of religious
training, as embryo monks, they obey the most rigid
rules of fasting. At certain times they pass whole
days without eating, and on no occasion do they eat
solid food, between the hours of twelve in the morn-
ing of one day and an early hour, before dawn, next
morning. Towards evening they may be very hungry,
but no boy tries to evade the rule. He would con-
sider it dishonourable and unmanly to break his fast
at a forbidden hour, so he accepts the rule quite

¹ They are sometimes older, if required to help in work at home.
Text Appearing After Image:

PIGS IN MONASTERIES 55

cheerfully, and probably quenches his hunger with
long drinks of water or tea.
I do not propose to write a long account of a
boy's life at school: it very much resembles that in
a Burmese monastery, and this has been fully and
sympathetically described by Sir George Scott and
Mr. Fielding Hall.
A monk—" Sao-mun " or " Glorious Lord," as he
is called—rarely leaves the monastery alone. A file
of little disciples follow behind: the tallest walks
immediately behind the monk, the smallest marches
at the end of the row. Each one carries a yellow
paper umbrella, or a big palm-leaf fan, and every
boy ought to look at the boy who precedes him, and
not allow his eyes to wander to right or left. As a
rule they are very circumspect and sedate, but some-
times they are allowed to break the line. There are
many pigs in a Shan village, and whenever a little
jpig lingers behind its companions it is attacked by
the village dogs. Sometimes a small pig keeps a
determined front to its enemies, and as long as it

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