Man with a dha ?

[~Alaung_Hpaya~]

Eight Men in Indian and Burmese Costume, 19th century
India (Delhi)
Opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper; 10 x 15 1/2 in. (25.4 x 39.4 cm)
Gift of Dr. Julius Hoffman, 1909 (09.227.1)

Courtesy of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art.



The middle three are wearing Burmese clothes but are painted with 'Indian' looking faces . Does anyone notice the extreme similarity between the middle chap and the original picture we've been discussing : clothes and dha . Almost carbon copy perhaps ( who copied who ? )

Also I wonder if these were actually posed or from memory as the uniform is mismatched . During the monarchy there were strict rules about dress code. They are all wearing the incorrect head gear : the middle chap's hat should rightly belong on the head of the chap to his Lt ( our Rt ) . He should be wearing a military helmet as should the other chap .

[Mark]

Very interesting. Perhaps the artist was going by a set of costumes themselves, rather than painting actual people posed wearing them. That could account for the mis-matched head gear. It really could almost be the same dha the middle man is holding.

[RhysMichael]

There was a huge indian influence in burma also so this could be part of what inspired this
Control of Assam, Manipur, Arakan and the Tennasserim was granted to Calcutta after the first Anglo-Burmese war,

After the second Anglo-Burmese war (1852-53) Britain annexed Lower Burma and made it a province of India.

In "AN AUSTRALIAN IN CHINA
BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A QUIET JOURNEY ACROSS CHINA TO BURMA"
BY
GEORGE ERNEST MORRISON, 1902

he says
"There is a wonderful mixture of types in Bhamo. Nowhere in the world, not even in Macao, is there a greater intermingling of races. Here live in cheerful promiscuity Britishers and Chinese, Shans and Kachins, Sikhs and Madrasis, Punjabis, Arabs, German Jews and French adventurers, American missionaries and Japanese ladies."

Wikipedia said this ( and yes I always look on that source as being of mixed use )
"British Rangoon was heavily populated by Burmese Indians in British colonial times constituting 53% in Rangoon alone at its peak (c. 1930). The Burmese dubbed the city kala myo (Indian town) and even the Bamar and the Chinese residents of Yangon learnt to speak Hindi."

In a tread elsewhere on an Indian sword carried by a burmese Ian said
"There is no doubt that in the early 19th C. the Burmese viewed neighboring areas of India as their sovereign territory, extending as far as Assam. "

Couldn't all this be why we see this mix in the picture ?

[~Alaung_Hpaya~]

It explains why we have this picture but not the fanciful and unlikely mingling of dress elements .


These uniforms disappeared with the monarchy. More likely is that this is a representation of a Burmese diplomatic mission to neighbouring India .

[RhysMichael]

Originally Posted by ~Alaung_Hpaya~

It explains why we have this picture but not the fanciful and unlikely mingling of dress elements .


These uniforms disappeared with the monarchy. More likely is that this is a representation of a Burmese diplomatic mission to neighbouring India .

My intial thinking was that there would be a mixing of clothing styles but I keep forgetting sumptuary laws. You and Mark are far better to address that. As to the similarities to the first picture there are clear enough I would not be surprised if they had been done by the same person though they ended different collections here ( One at the Met the other at the Smithsonian )

[~Alaung_Hpaya~]

Dha at Ashoka Arts


I think we all seem to be agreed that the dha looks Thai but the man is Burmese . What do you guys think about the provenance of this sword which does look remarkably similar to the one in the picture . Interestingly I think it was initially advertised as a Thai darb.

[Andrew]

I think the Ashoka sword is Thai. The handle/blade ratio, blade shape and engraving and handle decoration scream Thai to me. Perhaps Stefan will comment.

[Mark]

Yeah, I think Stefan has the attribution wrong on this one, though I notice that he has included one of the pictures of Burmese-Man-With-Thai-Daab that we have been discussing. Its interesting that there is a similar mis-match in two separate paintings, which evidently are contemporaneous. If it were not for the different headware I would have thought one was directly copied the other.

[Ian]

Agree with the sentiments that Stefan has a Thai sword on his site at that URL. The pictures of men in Burmese attire carrying similar style swords are inconclusive with respect to the origins of this style of sword. We know that imitation of styles among the various Burmese and Thai groups was common. Morevoer, "artistic license" may be in play here, with the artist having little understanding of the swords attributable to the various ethnic and national groups (although I think that is unlikely for an indigenous artist -- whereas a foreign artist could easily make such a mistake, especially if painting in his studio remote from the areas of interest).

The long handle to blade lengths are certainly typical of some Thai swords, notably among those in the north of the country and extending into mountainous areas of what is now Laos and Vietnam. Long handled swords are also said to have been used by the Thai cavalry in the 18th and 19th C.

I know of no reliably documented Burmese sword that has this extreme handle length. I would like to be corrected on these views by our resident Burmese and Thai nationals if they have evidence to the contrary.

Ian.

Originally Posted by ~Alaung_Hpaya~

Dha at Ashoka Arts

I think we all seem to be agreed that the dha looks Thai but the man is Burmese . What do you guys think about the provenance of this sword which does look remarkably similar to the one in the picture . Interestingly I think it was initially advertised as a Thai darb.