SETTLING A MANDALAY MYTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10014, 28 December 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

SETTLING A MANDALAY MYTH.

The Academy prints the following 1 "On a small door to the left of the throne as one enters what is now the 1 Ladies' Room' of the Upper Burma Club, but was formerly the Audience Hall of Queen Suphoy&l/it, at Mandalay, are the marks of a 'bloody hand.' They were getting faint when I last saw them; but they were plain enough in ISS7, about which time tho myth alluded to in this letter began to arise.

"The story, as told in a public lecture some time ago by an old resident of .Mandalay, who ought, at any rate, to have known better, was in outlino as follows: There was a certain daughter of a Shan SawbwA on whom King Thibaw showered more favours than Queen Suphavak'it approved, and in consequence the Queen had her murdered, the ' bloody hand' on the doorway being the mark" of the unfortunate girl's fingers as she tried to escape. I supposo the romance of this version of what occurred was too much for tho lecturer, and lie could not resist tho temptation of telling it, instead of what was locally well known at the time and was the truth of the tale.

"I must say that tho story when he told it was in various versions current in tho Mandaluy garrison, but at the same time it was, to those who knew Burraah and tho manners of its people, manifestly untrue. Since then I have seen it repeated, in more or less garblod and embellished forms, in newspaper and magazine articles, and quite lately in a little book of taloa about Burma. The ' bloody hand,' too, is, of course, shown to every new arrival and to every globetrotter, and the myth around it is in a fair way to become an ' established fact.' I think it, therefore, worth while to tell the facts as I heard them, before it is too late. In any case it will do no harm to history and the reputation of tho lata Queen of Burma, if this lettor should givo rise to a little discussion on the story. "The Shan Sawbwi's daughter did exist and did rouse the jealousy of tho Queen, and in rovengo tho Queen had taken her off tho palace platform into the gardens, in front of tho summer-house in which Thibaw subsequently abdicated, at a spot now rnarkod by a brass tablet. Just in front of this house is an ornamental wator, and on the brink of this the girl was unmercifully beaten, and thon turned out of the palace, tho King not having the spirit to protect her against his wife. She was certainly not killed in tho palace, nor was her blood shed by the Quoen horself, as is now said. Such a thing was practically impossible, as in Burmese superstition all sorts of horrors would come upon tho Crown and the Throne if human blood were shod in the palaco itself by the King or the Queen Royal lies woro not killed, when it was desirablo to despatch them, in tho palaco, but outsido it; nor was thoir blood shed; they were boaton on the gullet by bamboos and thus suffocated.

"As regards tho 'bloody hand/ the Queen's palace was used nB a hospital immediately alter the British occupation and for some time lat/or, and during its use us such many operations were performed there on wounded and other man. The true explanation of the ' bloody hand' on tho door in question being that it is the mark of some person concerned in an operation which took placu there. Tho door had boen pushed open by some person with blood on his hands, as the marks bhomaoivos testify. " My own opinion lias, therefore, always been ihat Micro is no more truth in tho story of tho Shan girl's murder by tho Queen than there is in that, also commonly told, of her husband passing his days in bout* of drunkenness. Thibaw, as I have hoard him described by those who knew him intimatoly, wan in truth a learnod monk, with no notion of kingship or administration Ho was oxooedingly woll read in the Buddhist Scriptures, and always ready with apt saws, which ho applied "to almost every contingency of life in tho wisest way. The description of another king has often struck mo as peculiarly applicable to tho last foeble King of Burma: ' fie never said a foolish thing, und novor did a wise one.'—U. U. Tempi,k. Governmont House, Port Blair, Andaman Islands, 1 September 27, 1895."