HOUSE-BUILDING IN THE EAST. 545 



mistic peculiarities of the neighborhood. Otherwise the house-builder 

 simply courts disaster, and may involve not only his own family, as 

 well as himself, in overwhelming difficulties, but may actually render 

 a whole district uninhabitable by his unwarrantable irritation of the 

 spirits dwelling in the soil, in the air, and in the very logs of timber 

 which are recklessly used, or are put up with an improper exposure 

 to the south instead of to the north, or set in position at a time of 

 year when presiding demons hold that such things ought not to be 

 done. It is, however, a necessity, even of Indo-Chinese existence, that 

 mankind should have houses to live in. For the instruction, therefore, 

 of those who are forced by necessity, or are foolhardy enough to be- 

 lieve that they can build themselves houses without coming to any 

 particular harm, there are elaborate text-books, both in Burmese and 

 Siamese. The Burman Dehtton is a bulky treatise, containing a far- 

 rago of omens and signs with regard to all possible events and circum- 

 stances, and not merely to the process of building. The Siamese 

 " Tamra," or " Manual of House-Building," is considerably more sys- 

 tematic, and, in addition, possesses the advantage that it sticks to the 

 subject of which it professes to treat. The theories in both works are 

 based on and elaborated from the Shastras which record the customs 

 of the Brahmans. Notwithstanding their Buddhism, which prohibits 

 all such beliefs, the Indo-Chinese have a very strong regard for the 

 Brahmanical observances. They are much easier to comprehend, or 

 at any rate more fitted to seize on the imagination, than the abstruse 

 problems of the faith of the Buddha. Buddhist metaphysical posi- 

 tions are fine things to confound hostile controversialists with, but the 

 common Indo-Chinese mind yearns for something more concrete. The 

 house-building code is, therefore, a very popular institution. It per- 

 suades a man that he is pious when he has an internal conviction that 

 he ought to be damned. 



The first thing the would-be house-builder has to do is to find out 

 the situation of the great dragon that encircles the earth with his 

 body, like the Midgard serpent of Northern mythology. This must 

 be ascertained before operations are begun at all, for it will have a 

 great influence, not only on the time of beginning the building, but 

 on the way in which the foundations must be dug and the method of 

 hoisting the posts into position. This the Burmese have recorded for 

 them in a rhyme which every school-boy can repeat. The Siamese are 

 not less alive to the necessity of accurate information on the subject, 

 and it is fully set out in the " Tamra." The reason of this is that 

 when you come to dig the hole for the main post of the house you 

 must heap up the earth on the side toward the Nagah's belly. Ter- 

 rible consequences follow if you do not observe this preliminary pre- 

 caution. If you should pile up your mound in the direction of the 

 head of the dragon, your negligence or ignorance will involve the 

 death of your parents, your brothers, and the patrons, of your house. 



VOL. XXIV. S5 



