Nowherelands: Lost Countries of the 19th and 20th Century
Gerald Cannon Hickey (1988)
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- PERAK
- Tin on the Brain
- Isabella L. Bird (1883): The Golden Chersonese H. Conway Belfield (1902)
- ILE SAINT-MARIE
- Civilized Panic in a Tropical Utopia
- Bjarte Breiteig (2013): Ile Sainte-Marie Charles Johnson (1724): A General History of the Pyrates Against All Flags
- NANDGAON
- Peaceful Fanaticism
Gerald Cannon Hickey (1988): Kingdom in the Morning Mist. Mayréna in the Highlands of Vietnam. André Malraux (1930): La Voie Royale Wolfgang Baldus (1970): The Postage Stamps of the Kingdom of Sedang There was power in every line of that face, in the hard, determined, cruel mouth, the dark and heavy eyebrows which nearly joined one another across the bridge of the nose, in the broad smooth forehead, in the eyes themselves, keen, fierce, piercing and cynical HUGH CLIFFORD
Tin on the Brain Sampans are lying on the heated slime. Cocoa-nut trees fringe the river bank for some distance, and there are some large, spreading trees loaded with the largest and showiest crimson blossoms I ever saw, throwing even the gaudy Poinciana regia into the shade; but nothing can look very attractive here, with the swamp in front and the jungle behind, where the rhinoceros is said to roam undisturbed. There is a general smell of vegetable decomposition, and miasma fever92 (one would suppose) is exhaling from every bubble of the teeming slime and swamp.93 It is the late 1870s and the British adventurer Isabella Lucy Bird and her friend Mrs Daly are travelling across the Malacca Peninsula94. They are standing by the mouth of the river Bernama, looking across at the state of Perak on the opposite bank. Bird was bitten by the travel bug after her doctor recommended sea voyages as a general remedy for poor health. In photographs, she looks small and fragile, and has a slightly world-weary air. But this must be a misinterpretation, because in a few short years, she has travelled around the whole world. Beyond the mangrove swamps, the interior is covered in huge forests, from which white limestone peaks protrude here and there, eventually merging into a mountain chain to the east. The area is uniquely fertile. But still, the only thing anybody talks about is tin. As early as the 1500s, the large tin deposits had financed Perak’s liberation from the Malacca Sultanate and by the middle of the 1800s it was clear that the jungle regions concealed the world’s largest alluvial deposits of this valuable metal. The ore lay piled up in river gravel to a thickness of up to 30 m and was extremely simple to mine. Stones and other impurities were easily flushed away before the tin itself was smelted into a shining, creamy mass in huge furnaces. It was then cooled into bars that were transported out to the coast by rail and elephant. Tin has always been sought-after, and for thousands of years it has been used in an alloy with copper to produce the harder metal, bronze. During the Industrial Revolution the area of application increased, in the rapidly expanding canned goods industry among others. And boys’ games with tin soldiers had become extremely popular by the 1800s, although it is unlikely that this, in itself, accounted for a particularly large volume. When Isabella Lucy Bird arrived in Perak, the British were already installed, with their own governor. By then he had had full control over the administration of the British-friendly Sultans for five or six years. But the Chinese had been quicker off the mark. As early as 1860, the Hai San and Ghee Hin clans had embarked on intensive tin mining, employing up to thirty thousand workers to this end. The two clans had always clashed over the best ore deposits, but apparently irrelevant situations could also flare up into conflicts. It all came to a head after the leader of the Ghee Hin clan was found to be conducting an adulterous affair with the wife of a nephew of the Hai San leader. After catching the adulterous pair in flagrante, the Hai San clan had them tortured, placed in a basket and drowned in a disused mine. When the Ghee Hin clan responded by bringing in four thousand mercenaries from China, the feud was on. It all escalated into a civil war, in which many local Malayan chiefs also became embroiled, resulting in thousands of murders and the complete annihilation of the mining town of Larut.95 The otherwise insignificant chief, Raja Abdullah, exploited the situation. With the aid of a powerful Chinese merchant he drafted a letter to the British in the Straits Settlements colony, a group of strategically placed possessions in other parts of the Malacca Peninsula. In the letter, he begged the British to deal with the chaos and, in addition, ensure that the reigning – and apparently useless – sultan be deposed and replaced with Raja Abdullah himself. The British were more than happy to help, especially since the tin deposits had proven much larger than previously thought. After exerting the requisite diplomatic pressure needed to calm both Chinese and local chiefs, Raja Abdullah was installed as the new Sultan of Perak in 1874. And a British emissary, later the governor, was sent in to protect and develop British interests in the region. It soon became clear that Abdullah had no local supporters. He had negotiated entirely on his own behalf and was otherwise quite uninterested in anything that smacked of management. He used his position primarily to get women, smoke opium and arrange cockfights. The British had him removed and sent into exile in the Seychelles. In his place, they appointed the much less troublesome chief, Raja Muda, as regent of Perak.
The British kept tight control on the region up until 1948, when the Malaysian Union was created, but it was only in 1957 that the country finally gained its independence. The global tin industry collapsed in the 1980s. Perak, which is now one of Malaysia’s thirteen states, has still not fully recovered. Isabella L. Bird (1883): The Golden Chersonese H. Conway Belfield (1902): Handbook of the Federated Malay States There are ‘trumpeter beetles’ here, with bright green bodies and membranous-looking transparent wings, four inches across, which make noise enough for a creature the size of a horse ISABELLA LUCY BIRD 1890 TO 1915 THE CANAL ZONE TIERRA DEL FUEGO MAFEKING ILE SAINTE-MARIE NANDGAON KIAOCHOW
THE CAROLINES
Civilized Panic in a Tropical Utopia Some time in the early 2000s, the Norwegian author Bjarte Breiteig travelled with his family to Ile Sainte-Marie off the eastern coast of Madagascar in search of a peaceful place to write. The island is 8 km from the mainland. Narrow and just 60 km long, it had been a French colony for a couple of years by the end of the 1800s. Although Ile Saint-Marie meets all expectations of South Sea harmony – with high sun, swaying coconut palms and white beaches – the young family’s stay there proved anything but romantic. Their encounters with the locals were far from reassuring and the local wildlife was repulsive. Some metres away from the beach, black ants, cockroaches and rats ruled the roost. And hordes of land crabs made evening walks a revolting experience. One evening, Breiteig’s wife Tonje vanished without a trace. Darkness fell abruptly. Only the flame of a lighter to guide him. His son Askil on his back in a baby-carrier. Suddenly, a violent rainstorm. I panicked. I ran in the darkness and the rain, legs sinking into the mud, calling out for Tonje like a madman. Around me I could see small lights gleaming in the huts, dark faces that were barely distinguishable from the night and the rain. I had the feeling that this was the end, a cyclone – and then I would lose Tonje.98 If Ile Sainte-Marie is no place for sensitive authors in search of peace and quiet, we can assume the island seemed more than good enough for the pirates of European extraction who lived here for nearly two centuries. It ticked all the boxes: the island was close to the trading routes from Asia; it offered sheltered harbours and unlimited access to water, as well as fruit, meat and seabird eggs; and palm sap can easily be fermented to make wine and then distilled into the rum-like spirit, arak. What’s more, the island was full of gorgeous women. Many of the pirates married into the local Betsimisaraka tribe. The wedding ceremony, which started after the parents and shamans had given their consent, was a lively blend of local and European rituals. The bridegroom wore a new white shirt with lace on the breast, a back-combed wig and red knee-length socks from a Dutch prize. He had apparently already showered the bride’s parents with gifts, such as dragon-patterned damask, leaf-thin teacups, and a painting of a chalk-white lady in a golden, baroque frame. The bride herself, shrouded in white silk, was promised a secret present that night, and a bridal bed sprinkled with cinnamon. By the end of the 1600s, more than 1,500 pirates were living on Ile Sainte-Marie, and its economy was good or even sustainable, as we’d put it today. This is the situation that prevails when some French pirates take the initiative to establish the anarchist colony Libertatia under the motto ‘For God and Freedom’.99 They seem like anti-capitalists, with their declared aim of plundering the rich and sharing out the booty. They are also resolutely opposed to church, monarchy and anything else that smacks of authority. They themselves practice direct democracy, which is organized through a council formed of representatives from the different pirate groups. Anybody who tries to accumulate personal power or thwart the will of his own voters may be recalled with immediate effect. The island is also a cashless economy, and all agricultural activity is carried out collectively. The booty from the pirate expeditions is shared out equally, and the local population is also taken care of. Unlike other pirate ships, the ones from Libertatia sail under a white flag. When they capture one of the many slave ships crossing the oceans in those days, they immediately set free the prisoners, who are also offered the opportunity to live on Ile Sainte-Marie and to share in the piracy. The resulting ethnic mix eventually gives rise to a unique dialect that steadily becomes more incomprehensible to anybody but the island’s own inhabitants. This helps strengthen the sense of fellowship. So it seems there must have been other reasons why the community of Libertatia nonetheless ground to a halt after just twenty-five years. Perhaps the loot from piracy dried up after England and other European countries sent warships to the area – or perhaps the whole thing was just one great fib. Because in all honesty, nobody can say for a fact that Libertatia ever existed. Written sources, so abundant in the wake of more authoritarian societies, are nowhere to be found. From the mid-1700s, Ile Sainte-Marie became more or less French. And the story behind this is also poorly documented. It is said that it all started with the French officer, Jean-Onésime Filét. Fleeing punishment for an adulterous relationship on the Island of Réunion, a little further out in the Indian Ocean, he was washed ashore on Ile Sainte-Marie.100 Here he was rescued by none other than Princess Betia, the daughter of King Ratsimilaho, who was the son of a former British pirate. They got married and when the king died, the island was at once presented as a gift to Louis XV of France in July 1750. The local population was angry and a couple of years later a rebellion ensued. Some of the French settlers were massacred and the locals regained control. We do not know what became of Jean-Onésime, but Princess Betia was exiled to Mauritius forever. France had had enough for the time being, but came back even stronger in 1818 with a large naval force. After a smooth re-conquest, the island was used as a penal colony. Beyond that, it would appear that the management of the territory was a half-hearted venture. There simply wasn’t much to gained here. Later in the same century, the island served as a poorly prioritized subsidiary of more important French possessions, in particular Réunion, Mayotte and Diego Suarez. Then, in 1894, for reasons unclear it was assigned the status of a separate colony. In the couple of years this lasted, Ile Sainte-Marie issued its own stamps. Needless to say, they were of the prevailing French colonial type, with an allegorical depiction of navigation and trade, in which the woman holding the flag represents navigation. My stamp is postmarked 11 August 1896 and was probably stuck on one of the last letters to be posted before the colony was dissolved and made subordinate to Madagascar. Madagascar, in its turn, remained a French colony until 1946, then became a French protectorate until 1960, when it gained full independence.
On Ile aux Forbans, an islet just off the coast by the little harbour town of Ambodifotatra, are the remains of the pirates’ graveyard, its crumbling gravestones set on a green plain beneath the palms. And in the bay beyond lie dozens of sunken pirate schooners, all in a row, clearly visible just a few metres below the surface of the crystal-clear water. Bjarte Breiteig (2013): Ile Sainte-Marie Charles Johnson (1724): A General History of the Pyrates Against All Flags (1952): Script by Joseph Hoffman and Aeneas MacKenzie Directed by George Sherman
SLOGAN OF THE PIRATES OF LIBERTATIA
Peaceful Fanaticism Every year during the Holi Festival, a pitcher of buttermilk is suspended on a string high above the main street in Nandgaon. As the boys eagerly try to form a human pyramid to reach up and break it, hordes of girls bombard them incessantly with coloured dyes – pink, yellow, blue and green. In this way, they re-enact the story of a gang of rascally boys who tried to steal butter from the Hindu god Krishna. This is pretty much the wildest thing that happens in Nandgaon, which was said by British officials in colonial times to be the most peaceable of the Indian princely states. There was never any trouble here. There is much to suggest that the reason for this was the princes themselves – every one of whom was a fervently religious Hindu of the Bairagi sect. The term Bairagi comes from the Sanskrit and means freedom from passion. The very purpose of life was the spiritual quest and spiritual development. The Bairagis therefore had little interest in material goods. Not even food should be given much importance. The most dedicated of them would prepare and consume their food in isolation. The noblest life was a celibate one, and failure could carry a severe penalty. Sexual intercourse with a woman was punishable by between two and three hundred meals’ worth of food.101 In the northwest of the Deccan Plateau lies Nandgaon: the only city in a lush forest landscape, 300m above sea level. Elsewhere in the area there are a few hundred small villages, where people live simply and self-sufficiently. The little kingdom, roughly the size of Herefordshire, was originally ruled by the Marathas, a clan that had populated large parts of Central India over the centuries. At the beginning of the 1700s, Prahlad Das arrived from the Punjab region, in Western Himalaya. As well as being a successful shawl merchant, he was also a Bairagi and rapidly caught the attention of the local monarchs. They employed him as a spiritual advisor. And after him came several Bairagi disciples, whose influence gradually increased until at last the British appointed one of them, Ghasi Das, ruler of the newly established princely state of Nandgaon in 1865. The prince was given the title of Mahant and, in principle, he also practised celibacy. But Mahant Ghasi Das quickly changed all that. He got married and had a son, Balram Das, who inherited his title. It was Balram Das who first started printing stamps. They met with a fairly lacklustre response: ‘The stamps are of the most primitive and smudgiest order of lithography.’102 It’s a bad business. The paper quality is poor and the lines pretty much run into each other. And as we saw earlier with the stamps from Obock, a pointless perforation is drawn in, but here it is so wonky that it doesn’t even serve as a useful guide for cutting out the stamps. It is difficult to imagine anything further removed from aesthetic vanity and materialism. The whole thing was in line with Bairagi teaching, so Mahant Balram Das was on safe ground. But one may wonder whether the Mahant went a little too far in 1893, when he allowed the unsold stock to be overprinted with the Latin characters M. B. D. – his own initials. Was this an acute case of vanity or was it all done simply to butter up the British?
We may assume that it is the pious Mahant who has brought him to the region. Tilak has just decided to embark on Sannyasa, the fourth life stage within the Hindu tradition of Vaishnavism. This implies that he must offer up his property to Prajapati, the lord of creation, and live his life as a mendicant, meditating and praising Krishna all the while. He doesn’t appear to be held back by the fact that he is already married. His wife is called Laxmibai and is also from the Brahmin caste. They entered into an arranged marriage when she was eleven. In Nandgaon, religious ambition is primarily a man’s business. Laxmibai is not especially committed, but all the same she has to put up with her husband’s constant sacrifices. Time and time again, she gives away everything she owns to the needy, including food and clothing. She writes in a journal, using the tip of a used matchstick: ‘I’m very like a rubber ball, bouncing back, again and again.’103 She tells us about her husband, who might suddenly leave her in the middle of the night, setting off without money or food, apparently without any aim: ‘All he knew was to walk as far as his feet would carry him.’104 Even so, Tilak would sometimes end up on a train; and on one occasion, late at night, he met the American missionary Ernest Ward, who belonged to the Methodist mission that ran several leprosy hospitals in the area. Along with a couple of dozen colleagues, he worked night and day to save as many souls as possible on the brink of death, and his task was made more demanding by his conviction that the sickness was caused by inbred sin. Ernest Ward gave Tilak a bible and whispered in his ear that he would be converted within two years.105 Tilak denied it, but since he had promised to read the bible, he did so. And in 1895 he converted, sending a warning home to Laxmibai’s sister at the same time: ‘I’ve become a Christian. Take care of your sister. There is a river at Nasik as well as Jalalpur…see that she doesn’t take her own life.’106 Laxmibai took his conversion very badly and the couple separated. We do not know whether it was love or the lack of rights for divorced women that prompted her to resign herself at last, but after five years, she agrees to be baptized and moves back in with her husband. There she faces the same stress as before, accompanied by the same mortification of the flesh and renunciation of material goods. In between his constant journeys, he writes more than a hundred edifying songs before dying in 1919. [1893: copy overprinted with M. B. D., standing for Mahant Balram Das, Prince of Nandgaon.] Laxmibai also continues to write, but in her case it all takes a more political direction. Her message is women’s liberation and the eradication of illiteracy, and she rejects the caste system. Laxmibai was brought up to believe that some people are clean and others unclean – among others by her father, who suffered from a compulsive disorder linked to hand washing. He was unable to accept clothes or food from lower-caste people without making them undergo an excessive cleansing process. To demonstrate her scorn for this, Laxmibai seeks out the poorest people in the non-caste or untouchable groups. She eats from their hands in public. She dies in 1936. By then, the last Mahant of Nandgaon – Digvijai Das – has already been born. In 1948, without a hint of protest, he signs an agreement that incorporates Nandgaon into the Indian Union. Yüklə 463,42 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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