Online access to historical newspapers from Southeast Asia

In the decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, much of Southeast Asia was under Western colonial dominance. Most of the region was divided among the British, French, Dutch, Spanish, and American powers, supplanted by a brief period of Japanese influence following the outbreak of World War II in Europe and the Pacific. The post-war era witnessed a series of revolutions as local leaders looked to regain independence from colonial powers. Decolonisation efforts and movements spread throughout the region, leaving the newly independent states in charge of their own political, economic, and social pathways for the first time in decades.

The Southeast Asian Newspapers, an Open Access collection supported by the Center for Research Libraries and its member institutions, chronicles the changes that took place throughout the region during this period, and the challenges of early statehood. Covering several countries from the region, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, and featuring multiple languages such as Dutch, English, French, Javanese, Khmer, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese, the Southeast Asian Newspapers collection incorporates a wealth of coverage and perspectives on major regional and global events of the late nineteenth and twetieth centuries.

To date, altogether 129 newspaper titles with a total of 67,762 issues dating from between 1839 to 1976 have been included: 57 from the Philippines, 37 from Vietnam, 24 from Indonesia, 5 from Thailand, 3 from Malaysia, 1 from Cambodia and 1 from Myanmar. Among the earliest printed newspapers in the collection are Tranh đ̂áu, a newspaper in Vietnamese language published in Saigon (33 issues from between 1839 to 1938, with gaps), and Nangsư̄ čhotmāihēt (หนังสือจดหมายเหตุ – Bangkok Recorder), a Thai newspaper published in Bangkok (11 issues from 1844 to 1845).

The online collection provides free access to the fully digitised issues of the newspapers (altogether 463,246 pages). Search functions by newspaper title, free word search, date and map help locate information easily. One additional feature is “On this date in history”, which presents randomly selected articles from various newspapers published in different countries on the date in history of the visit of this collection.

(This post contains information from the website of the Southeast Asian Newspapers collection)

Remembering the black African heroes of World War II in Burma

World War II ended 75 years ago. This was commemorated in numerous events, speeches, ceremonies, writings, interviews and film documentations during the past weeks. However, not much has been done to remember black Africans who served in the Allied Forces in Burma. Their names and their sacrifices have been absent from the combat narratives of World War II, and primary sources to find out about these heroes are limited and not easy to find and to access. Most of these servicemen are no longer alive, and there are no statues, monuments or street names to remember their names.

 

Soldiers of the 81st Division Recce Regiment in Burma, c. 1944. © IWM IND 7049

As a result, Southeast Asian historians still struggle to acknowledge the African involvement in Burma during the last three years of World War II, although the African divisions played an important role in the battle against the Japanese forces, most especially in the capture of Myohaung, the ancient capital of Arakan. The British colonial possession of Burma was a rich prize for the Japanese – partly on account of its natural resources, partly as a stepping stone westward to India, and partly as a buffer against the Chinese in the North and Northeast. Japanese troops had reached Burma in December 1941, and had consolidated their position there by the end of 1942. Recapturing the country would take the Allies’ 14th Army, which had nearly one million men in its service, three years of desperate fighting. Thirteen divisions were under control of the 14th Army: eight Indian Divisions, two West African Divisions, two British Divisions, and one East African Division. Little of this is commonly known today, let alone discussed in history lessons and textbooks.

A few publications, however, stand out of the sea of silence.

In his 2001 academic publication “War Bush. 81 (West African) Division in Burma 1943-1945” (Norwich: Michael Russel) John A. L. Hamilton gives a detailed account of events of the war in Burma, but focuses on the involvement of  the 8lst (West African) Division of the 14th Army, which was made up of about 23,000 West Africans from Nigeria, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast, who joined the Allied Forces as volunteers. Hamilton’s research is mainly based on records and personal notes of the British involved in the war in Burma. A few memories of the Africans were investigated, too, but the Burmese view itself is missing completely. Some poems by African soldiers have been included to give an impression of the precarious atmosphere in the jungle.

Hamilton criticises that in the British annals of the Burma campaign much emphasis is put on the Indian Divisions, but the efforts and successes of the West African troops are either completely ignored or underrated.  Not only does Hamilton’s work provide very detailed information on the involvement of Africans in the Burma campaign and many facts concerning the movements and the battles, it also describes the natural environment and aspects of everyday life of the African soldiers, their experiences in the jungle and in villages, their anxieties, and their relationship with their European (mostly British and Polish) officers. A ten page bibliography lists the primary sources analysed by the author, and gives important bibliographical data for further reading and research. As such it is a valuable source for further investigation.

Nearly a decade after the publication of Hamilton’s book, the journalist and film-maker Barnaby Phillips located a rare treasure in the library of the Imperial War Museum in London: Isaac Fadoyebo’s memoir “A Stroke of Unbelievable Luck” (Madison: University of Wisconsin African Studies Centre, 1999). Nigerian Fadoyebo enlisted in the Army in January 1942, aged 16. Once in Burma, he was assigned the job of medical orderly but found himself thrust into active combat in March 1944. After he was seriously injured and spent a precarious time the jungle, a Muslim family in Burma provided support and concealed him and a friend from Japanese patrols. After the war Fadoyebo suffered from impaired mobility due to the wounds he received in Burma, but later recovered and he went on to work in the civil service back home in Nigeria. He was fortunate to find work – many servicemen who returned from Burma struggled to find work and to cope with the trauma of their experiences in the war. Fadoyebo’s memoir offers a unique record of one African soldier’s war service in Burma and tells the story of how he relied on the kindness of a Muslim Rohingya family to survive. Barnaby Phillips’ interview of Fadoyebo resulted in a TV documentary with the title “The Burma Boy” which was published in 2012, not long before Fadoyebo’s death in 2013.

Fadoyebo’s story is also included in Stephen Bourne’s “The Motherland Calls. Britain’s Black Servicemen and Women 1939-45” (Stroud: The History Press, 2012), alongside other black service personnel who joined the Allied Forces like Ulric Cross (Trinidad), Cy Grant (Guyana), Billy Strachan and Sam King (Jamaica), Peter Thomas (Nigeria), Johnny Smythe (Sierra Leone), ‘Joe’ Moody, Lilian Bader and Ramsay Bader (Britain), Connie Mark and Allan Wilmot (Jamaica). Fadoyebo’s account is also the main subject of Barnaby Phillips’ debut book “Another Man’s War: The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain’s Forgotten African Army” (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014). Despite Fadoyebo’s fame as the subject of a TV documentary and two popular books by white authors, his memoir “A Stroke of Unbelievable Luck” is barely known and has remained out of print for many years since its publication in 1999.

Nigerian-born playwright, filmmaker and novelist Biyi Bandele gives a voice to the thousands of Africans who fought in Burma – including Bandele’s own father – who have not been properly memorialised until today. In his novel “Burma Boy” (London: Random House, 2007) he tells the story of the main character, Ali Banana, a fourteen-year old Nigerian blacksmith apprentice who finds himself behind enemy lines in the jungle in Burma, a dangerous place riddled with Japanese snipers, ambush, infection and disease. And most of all, leeches. In the end, it is the jungle that lays bare the truth that black and white are not different after all: all capable of courage, cowardice, compassion, selfishness, intelligence and mindlessness, all human. The brutality and privation of fighting in Burma was a leveller of hierarchy. Bandele’s tragicomic novel is a story of real-life battles, of the violence, the madness and the sacrifice of World War II’s most vicious battleground. Biyi Bandele was named one of the fifty Best African Artists in The Independent in 2006.

Report by Jana Igunma

Buddhist manuscript textiles: Southeast Asia

A major exhibition on Buddhism at the British Library (25 October 2019 – 23 February 2020) focused on Buddhist manuscripts and early printed works, and how they helped to spread Buddhism across Asia and beyond. During the curation process, an unexpected number of manuscript textiles came to light. These are textiles that are used to wrap around manuscripts to protect them from damage and dust, but also textiles that contain information about manuscripts, bags for the storage and transport of manuscripts and textiles attached to manuscripts. Often the textiles are custom-made for one particular manuscript, and in this case these cloths could be made from valuable hand-woven silk brocades, colourful printed cotton or imported materials like chintz and damask. Specially designed textiles were commissioned to add meritorious value to a manuscript or an entire set of manuscripts. However, sometimes discarded textiles like clothing, complete or partial wall hangings or leftover pieces of cloths made for other purposes were used to create manuscript textiles. This practice goes back to the historical Buddha himself who encouraged his disciples and followers to “recycle” material resources by reusing and repurposing them; for example, discarded pieces of clothing were dyed and sewn together as robes for Buddhist monks and nuns.

Three-part tubeskirt (Lao: pha sin) that was repurposed as a wrapper for a small collection of palm leaf bundles containing Buddhist texts in Pali language in Dhamma script. Laos or North Thailand, 19th century (manuscripts) and Laos, mid-20th century (wrapper). © British Library, Or 16886

Buddhist manuscript textiles can be found across Asia, and the artistic creativity in designing and repurposing textiles for the use with manuscripts is truly amazing. In South and Southeast Asia one can find a great variety of manuscript wrappers and bags. The manuscript wrapper (Lao: pha ho khamphi) from northern Laos shown above is made from a repurposed tube-skirt that consists of three parts: a colourful decorative hem-piece with a geometric pattern made in supplementary weft, a main body part dyed in red and purple tones and woven in Ikat technique with woven-in metal strands, and a simple striped waistband at the top. Manuscript wrappers could get very dusty or even mouldy over time and had to be replaced frequently. Therefore, the manuscript(s) found with such wrappers are often much older than the textile itself, like in this case.

Traditional two-pedal loom used for weaving the intricate and colourful Lao textile designs. The pattern is “programmed” in form of bamboo rods that are attached to the yarns of the warp. Lao Textile Museum, Vientiane, Laos, 2019. Photograph by Jana Igunma

Geometric pattern in pink and purple tones on the hem piece of a hand-woven tube-skirt from northern Laos that was repurposed as a wrapper for seven palm leaf bundles containing Jatakas and other Buddhist texts. Laos, 20th century. © British Library, Or 15895

Textiles of high value were sometimes specially commissioned for particularly important Buddhist manuscripts, or for manuscript sets containing the entire Pali canon. George Cœdès who was director of the National Library of Thailand (formerly Vajiranana National Library) from 1918-29, wrote that “It was an old custom in Siam for fine cloths formerly used as garments but worn out, or belonging to deceased persons, to be presented to the priests for use as wrappings for their manuscripts. A considerable number of the manuscripts in the National Library are wrapped in old and beautiful cloths of every description; some delicately embroidered, some made of Indian or Siamese brocade, and others of a special kind of cotton, printed in India with Siamese designs.” (1924, p.17) The latter refers to chintz imported from the Coromandel Coast region in India.

Silk wrapper brocaded with metal thread and a red coloured cotton backing belonging to a royal set of palm leaf bundles containing the Yōjana paṭhama samantapāsādika, a sub-commentary by the 15^th-century scholar Nanakitti in Pali language in Khmer script. Thailand (manuscripts) and India (cloth), 19^th century. British Library, © Or 5107

Detail of a hand-woven purple coloured silk wrapper brocaded with metal-wrapped thread to create a plant or leaf pattern. India, 19^th century. © British Library, Or 5107

The silk brocade wrapper (above) is thought to have been commissioned and designed by an unnamed Thai queen in the nineteenth century. It is one of a set of wrappers, made in India in the Deccan style, to cover palm leaf manuscripts belonging to a Thai royal edition of scriptures of the Pali canon dating back to the reign of Rama III (1824-51), including commentaries and sub-commentaries.

Palm leaf manuscript, containing the Malalankara (Life of the Buddha), with a hand-woven binding tape and a wrapper made from imported printed cotton. Burma, 1883. © British Library, Or 16673

Printed cotton textiles imported from India were frequently used to make wrappers for manuscripts in Burma. A thicker piece of hand-woven Burmese cotton cloth was usually added as a backing to the thinner Indian cotton with colourful printed patterns. The wrapper shown above consists of a printed piece of cotton with a pattern of foliage and butterflies in red and white tones. It is combined with a white layer of cotton at the back. This wrapper was custom-made for a palm leaf manuscript in five bundles containing the Malalankara vatthu, or Life of the Buddha. A hand-woven binding tape (Burmese: sazigyo) of 330 cm length contains a colophon giving details about the donation of this manuscript. The carefully woven-in text in Burmese characters is in white colour on red background.

Printed cotton wrapper for a manuscript containing the Sarasangaha in 13 bundles of palm leaves in Khmer script. India and Thailand, 19^th century. © British Library, Or 1044

Following the Bowring Treaties (1855 and 1874), trade between British Burma and Thailand increased, and Indian cotton cloth was imported via Moulmein while at the same time traders of Indian origin frequented markets in Thailand. As a result, printed Indian cotton was frequently used to produce manuscript textiles in Thailand and subsequently in Laos and Cambodia as well.

The cotton wrapper shown above has two layers: the inner layer was made from a piece of Thai hand-woven cotton in plain red colour, and the outer layer consists of a piece of printed cotton with flowers on a blue background. A note in gilt letters on black lacquer on the manuscript states that the manuscript was given to R. C. Childers, a British Buddhist scholar, by the monk Waskaduwe Subhuti of Colombo.

Gilded and lacquered palm leaf manuscript of the Bhikkhu Pacit Atthakatha Path with a custom-made cotton wrapper with geometric designs and woven-in bamboo slats. Burma, 1856. © British Library, Or 16545

Boards made from wood or bamboo were frequently added to palm leaf manuscripts to protect them from damage, but also to increase the meritorious value with lavishly decorated boards. However, the majority of palm leaf manuscripts do not have wooden boards and are therefore at a higher risk of damage as they can get brittle or break when they are bent and handled frequently. To add stability to palm leaf bundles without wooden boards, they were stored in custom-made cotton wrappers that have woven-in bamboo slats. The variable width of the bamboo slats allowed the creation of colourful geometric patterns.

Two manuscript wrappers and a binding tape (sazigyo) made from Burmese cotton. Burma, 19th century. © British Library, Or 12010

The two manuscript wrappers (above) are made from Burmese cotton that was dyed with natural dyes. Red, blue, yellow, black and green were the most commonly used natural dyes. Red dye can be made from betel nut, sappan wood or the lacquer produced by the Coccus lacca insect (shellac); indigo leaves are used to make blue dye; tamarind leaves, mangosteen sap, turmeric and annatto seeds are used for yellow and orange dyes; black dye is made from ebony seed pods or pepper root; and green dye can be made by mixing blue and yellow dyes, or from pineapple leaves, wild almond bark or the myrobalan fruit and bark. Thin bamboo strips are woven into the cotton for stability. A binding tape, or sazigyo (left) is often tied around the manuscript with the wrapper.

To make indigo dye, indigo leaves are soaked in water for 24 hours, then fermented for several days with a mixture of quicklime, rice wine, citrus leaves and ash water from burnt coconut wood. Lao Textile Museum, Vientiane, Laos, 2019. Photograph by Jana Igunma

In addition to manuscript wrappers custom-made bags were used to store manuscripts in Thailand. These bags could be made from various materials like pieces of plain or printed cotton or Thai silk. Chintz that was imported from India was also used to make manuscript bags. The bag shown below was sewn using printed cotton with a red, brown and white floral design for the outer layer, and a handwoven Thai cotton inlay of cream-white colour. Its size is 87 cm x 45 cm to house a large palm leaf manuscript of at least 10-12 bundles.

Printed cotton bag made to fit a large palm leaf manuscript. India or Sri Lanka (fabric) and Thailand (inlay, cord and tassels), 19^th century. © British Library, Or 15885

Detail of a silk bag with a silk brocade border and Thai saffron coloured cotton inlay, custom-made for a palm leaf manuscript. China (silk) and Thailand (inlay), 19th century. © British Library, Or 16926

Besides locally produced Thai silk, imported silk from China and India was used to produce bags to store palm leaf manuscripts. Shown above is a detail (opening) of a manuscript bag made from imported Chinese damask for the outer layer. The border of the opening is decorated with silk brocade, whereas the inlay is made from saffron coloured Thai cotton. This example shows why a tougher Thai cotton inlay was always added: silk deteriorates faster and, being a protein fibre, is a preferred and easy target for cloth-eating larvae of insects.

Scrolled bound paper book containing the Mahasupina Jataka, with indigo-dyed cotton cover and a cotton binding cord. Shan State, Burma, 1860. © British Library, Or 3494

One special type of manuscript is the scrolled or curled bound book in the Shan tradition. The Shan, an ethnic group living in the Shan State (Burma), southern China, Assam and Thailand, have a very rich manuscript tradition which includes palm leaf manuscripts, paper folding books and scrolled paper books. The latter could be made from long sheets of bamboo shoot paper (also called silk paper) or mulberry paper which were sewn together at the top. At the back mostly a cotton cover was sewn on which served as a cover when the book was scrolled up. The example above contains the Mahasupina Jataka, a Birth Tale of the Buddha, on 20 folios. The cover is made from indigo-dyed hand-woven cotton with an attached braided cotton cord in pink and white colours.

Scrolled bound paper book, half opened, containing a Buddhist text in Shan language, with a printed cotton cover and attached felt binding tape. Shan State, Burma, first half of the 20th century. © British Library, Or 15368. From Soren Egerod’s collection.

The manuscript shown above contains a text with the title ‘Tanasaksesasanathauktikha‘ in Shan script written on 59 folios which are bound together to form a scrolled book. The attached printed cotton cover has a red, green and blue coloured leaf pattern and plain white edges. On the inside is a white cotton inlay. Attached on the lower left corner is a green velvet binding tape to wrap around the scrolled manuscript.

Scrolled bound book containing a Buddhist commentary on the Paṭṭhāna section of the Abhidhamma, written in Shan language, with a cotton and silk cover and hand-woven binding tape. Shan State, Burma, 1800-1867. © British Library, Or 4858

Textiles imported from Europe were also used to make manuscript wrappers, bags or covers for scrolled books. The scrolled book above, made from bamboo shoot paper (silk paper), has a cream-coloured cotton wrapper (34 x 54 cm) with an industrially printed design of small cylinders, combined with a red silk damask border. Attached is a hand-woven binding tape made from red, black and yellow threads. A handwritten note on paper provides the following information: “A Shan translation of one of the books of the Belagat or Pali scriptures. It was obtained by Mr. Cushing, an American missionary of my acquaintance, in the Province of Theinnee some 28 years ago. J E Halliday, 16 January 1895”.

To see Buddhist manuscript textiles as well as textile artefacts and colourful paintings on silk visit the Buddhism exhibition at the British Library which will be open until 23 February 2020.

by Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections, British Library

Further reading

Ruth Barnes, Steven Cohen, Rosemary Crill, Trade, temple and court. Indian textiles from the Tapi collection (Mumbai: India Book House, 2002)

Eric Boudot and Chris Buckley, The roots of Asian weaving: The He Haiyan collection of textiles and and looms from Southwest China (Oxford; Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2015

Patricia Cheesman, Songsak Prangwatthanakun, Pha Lanna. Yuan, Lu, Lao – Lan Na textiles. Yuan, Lue, Lao (Bangkok: Amarin, 1987)

Patricia Cheesman Naenna, Costume and culture. Vanishing textiles of some of the Tai groups in Laos P.D.R. (Chiang Mai: Studio Naenna, 1990)

George Cœdès, The Vajirañāna National Library of Siam (Bangkok: Bangkok Times Press, 1924)

Susan Conway, Thai textiles (London: British Museum, 1992)

Jana Igunma and San San May (editors), Buddhism: Origins, traditions and contemporary life (London: British Library, 2019)

San San May and Jana Igunma, Buddhism illuminated: Manuscript art from Southeast Asia (London: British Library, 2018)

Shelagh Vainker, Chinese silk. A cultural history (London: British Museum, 2004)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mapping the Maps at Cambridge University Library

Imagine maps as big as bedsheets, and then imagine the sheets big enough for beds made wide enough to sleep extended families. Only such a double stretch of the imagination can provide the scale of the three Burmese maps in the University Library’s collection, which have recently been made available online in digital format.

From bedsheet to map is not a great leap: all three maps are inked or painted on to generous lengths of cloth. Yet they do not depict lines on a map as the eye in the 21st century is accustomed to seeing them.  The most colourful of the three maps, the map of the Maingnyaung region [Maps.Ms.Plans.R.c.1] is the one which forces the most abrupt lurch, down from that comfortable view on high of modern mapping convention. Instead, the viewer is positioned near ground level, and invited here to view a stupa, there a crocodile down in the river, away in the distance a noble line of hills. Trees are no mere generic features. While the perspective is mostly from the ground, it co-exists with other even less familiar conventions. Pagodas and stupas either loom large or sit very small, their size and their sanctity apparently intermeshed. Towns and villages, rivers and streams are the sole features which come close to appearing from a bird’s eye view. Yet the neat tracings of brickwork, and of waves on the water’s surface, suggest they may be meant to convey not the lay of the land from the air but other rules of belonging, of enclosure or of flow.

The other two maps, the map of the Royal Lands [Maps.Ms.Plans.R.c.3] and map of Sa-lay township [Maps.Ms.Plans.R.c.2], are less colourful than the first, but in some respects even more intriguing. Like the Maingnyaung map, they take many of their bearings from ground level. Manmade landmarks use scales which vary, apparently, according to their importance rather than their physical size. With vegetation, there is an insistence on specifics. Yet both maps feature grids traced carefully and evenly across the entire surface. These maps present two worlds at once. There are vistas to be contemplated and meaningful features to be explored in the landscape. But there is also a view from on high, where trees were counted and areas under crop were calculated, and probably, somewhere off the surface of the map, converted into tax exactions.

Photographing the Burmese maps was quite a challenge for the Library’s Digital Content Unit. The smallest map was made of 126 images, the largest of 420 and it had to be stitched into 9 parts first before being put into one piece. Some parts of the process took a few hours to complete for the computer with 64 GB RAM memory and 3Ghz 8 core computer. The biggest challenge was obviously handling. It was impossible to move the map without changing the arrangement. Hence the last map, the largest [Maps.Ms.Plans.R.c.3] took a long time to prepare as they had to experiment with different stitching methods.

Great credit goes to the Map Department of the UL, both in finding the will and securing the resources to have the maps conserved and digitised, and to the Cambridge Digital Library, for producing digital pages so effortlessly navigable that they take nothing away from the joy of poring over them. They make it easier, in fact, to hover over the details, whether you are contemplating the view from the ground or from on high. What’s more, the speed of the internet has improved to such an extent in modern Myanmar, that these massive cloth maps can be viewed with ease in Yangon or Mandalay. Maps such as these are rare, non-existent even, in the location where they were originally made. No such maps produced on cloth are known to have survived within Myanmar today. This only adds to the hope and expectation that they will be pored over, enjoyed, and further studied and interpreted from quarters near and far.

To read the full article on these three maps and their provenance written by Natasha Pairaudeau, please visit the Cambridge University Library Special Collections website.

Glimpses of early Siam and Burma (Thailand and Myanmar)

The Royal Commonwealth Society Library has just created an electronic catalogue for one of its largest and most significant manuscript collections: the papers of the diplomat, colonial administrator and orientalist Henry Burney (1792-1845). Burney was born in Calcutta, the son of a Senior Master of the Calcutta Military School for Orphans. His grandfather was the musicologist Dr Charles Burney and his aunt the novelist Frances Burney. Burney was commissioned into the East India Company’s army in 1808, but transferred to its political service when appointed Military Secretary to the Governor of Penang in 1818. From 1825 he served as Political Agent to the states adjacent to Penang and led several political missions. From the beginning of his career, Burney had displayed a gift for oriental languages, soon mastering Hindustani, and during this time he acquired Siamese and Malay. Burney’s grasp of local politics and languages led to his appointment as Envoy to the Court of Siam, and he travelled to Bangkok in September 1825. By June 1826 he had successfully negotiated a treaty with the King.

In 1827 Burney was posted to the new British province of Tenasserim, which had been acquired during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), serving as Deputy Commissioner of Tavoy. Burney immediately began learning Burmese. In 1829, he acted decisively to suppress a rebellion. His diplomatic experience and linguistic skill were further recognised in 1829 with the appointment as the Indian government’s representative to the Burmese Court. Burney arrived at the capital of Ava on 24 April 1830, establishing the first British Residency. Burney’s study of Burmese (with the aid of a tutor) had advanced so rapidly that by April 1832 he was able to communicate directly with the Burmese ministers in their own language. He enjoyed initial success, resolving the problem of banditry on the Arakan and Tenasserim frontiers and a territorial dispute on the Manipur border. He also persuaded the Burmese government to pay the final instalment of the indemnity owed as part of the war’s settlement.

King Bagyidaw appreciated Burney’s efforts to foster good relations, honouring him with a Burmese title inscribed on gold leaf, Mahaz-eyayazanawrahta, accompanied with a badge of office, a nine-stranded salwe. Burney’s position, however, was undermined in 1837 when Bagyidaw was deposed by the Prince of Tharrawaddy, who later became King, and he found it difficult to work with the new regime. Burney was recalled on 8 March 1838 and went on furlough to England. In 1842, he returned to active service with the EIC army, but died at sea in 1845 while travelling to England on medical leave.

The collection preserves important records of Burney’s diplomatic missions: his instructions, travel, correspondence, journals and reports, which include rare insight into the Siamese and Burmese Courts. It also contains examples of traditional texts, such as Siamese kradat phlao and Burmese black parabaiks and palm leaf manuscripts. Burney shared the family’s intellectual curiosity and literary flair, and was fascinated by Siamese and Burmese culture. He researched the two countries’ climate, geography, languages, history, philosophy, religion, astronomy, mathematics and astrology, and collected important translations from original sources. Burney presented papers to learned bodies such as the Royal Asiatic Society and published in the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’, the ‘Asiatic Journal’ and the ‘Journal of the Statistical Society.’ During the early 1840s, Burney received permission from the EIC to publish the journal of his mission to Siam and it is possible that he also contemplated writing a pioneering English language history of Burma. With the resumption of his military career, ill health and an early death at the age of 53, however, these plans never came to fruition. The RCS is also fortunate to possess a number of early photograph collections relating to Burma dating from the 1870s (RCS Y3029A-F), which complement the Burney archive.

The materials constituting the Henry Burney Collection, RCMS 65, have now been fully catalogued and are searchable online via the University of Cambridge website.

Report by Dr John Cardwell, Archivist of the Royal Commonwealth Society collections in Cambridge University Library

Photograph showing Thibaw (d. 1916), the last King of Burma 1878-85, and his wife and half-sister Supyalat [RCS Y3029D_1]

Documenting a frontier: spectacular hand-painted fabric maps of Burma

Cambridge University Library welcomes you to ‘Documenting a frontier’ – an opporturtunity to view some spectacular manuscript maps of Burma dating from the 1860s, alongside rare early photographs of the region from the Royal Commonwealth Society’s collection.

The event forms part of the University of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas (event 66) and takes place on Saturday afternoon, 26th October 2013 in the Map Room, Cambridge University Library. Ticketed entry is at three times: 1:30pm – 2:15pm, 2:30pm – 3:15pm and 3:30pm – 4:15pm.

Please book your place online at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/festival-of-ideas or by phoning: 01223 766766 (lines open Monday-Friday , 10am – 4.30pm)

Event URL: http://www.cam.ac.uk/festival-of-ideas/events-and-booking/documenting-a-frontier
For more information about the event, please email: rcs@lib.cam.ac.uk or phone: 01223 333146

Map of Maingnyaung region (Cambridge University Library, MS.Plans.R.C.1, photograph courtesy of Rachel Rowe)