206 Journal of a Tour through the Island of Rambree. [April, 



At some little distance below the town, and on the right bank of 

 the creek, is a small village, inhabited by that extraordinary race the 

 Kaengs, of whose origin still less seems to be known than what has 

 been imperfectly detailed of other castes. The Kaengs of Rambree, 

 by their own account, came duwn many years ago from the moun- 

 tainous regions of Kaladong and Kyen-duing -myit , in Arracan pro- 

 per ; and as they can give no information whatever respecting their 

 first settlement in those places, it is possible that they may be the 

 aborigines of the country. Divided into clans, and differing from 

 both Mughs and Burmahs in feature as well as attire, the Kaengs 

 have many peculiar customs of their own, some of which deserve to 

 be noticed. When any one of a clan dies, the body is laid upon a 

 funeral pile, and consumed : the ashes, carefully collected within an 

 earthen vessel, are conveyed to the mountain from whence the clan 

 was known to have originally come, and there deposited in the earth. 

 There is something awfully grand in this manner of disposing of their 

 dead, bespeaking the existence of that love of liberty and of country 

 still engrafted in their souls, which had in some instances render- 

 ed them* secure from their enemies. That same spirit of Freedom 

 dictated an observancet which, however revolting it may appear to 

 European ideas, cannot fail to attract the admiration due to a virtuous 

 feeling, that deems honor and reputation of more account than beauty, 

 and has induced the father of a family to disfigure the faces of his 

 daughters the more effectually to preserve them from the contamina- 

 tion of strangers. The mode of performing the operation is as follows : 

 The young maiden is enveloped in a mat, and forcibly held down to 

 the ground, while gun-powder or indigo is rapidly pricked into the skin 

 (over the whole of her face) by means of a pointed instrument. This 

 is generally done at an early age, and the pain produced by it ceases 

 after the lapse of three or four days. So soon as released from 

 the hands of her tormentors, the poor girl is presented to che dogs of 

 the village, and should they evince any signs of anger or surprise, the 

 operation is deemed to have been effectually performed. The Kaengs 

 are not very numerous in Arracan, being found more plentifully dis- 

 tributed along the Ydmadong, and the less elevated mountains in their 



* 



The Kaengs of Arracan were on some occasions particularly trouble- 

 some to the Burmese invaders, who feared to follow them to their mountain 

 fastnesses. 



f The Kaeng women are generally very handsome, and the Burmahs, as 

 well as their predecessors, several times attempted to possess themselves of their 

 persons : it was with the view of saving their daughters from such degradation 

 that the Kaengs instituted the observance here described. 



