The Imperial Gazetteer of India
Meyer, William Stevenson, Sir, 1860-1922.
Burn, Richard, Sir, 1871-1947.
Cotton, James Sutherland, 1847-1918.
Risley, Sir Herbert Hope, 1851-1911.
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New edition, published under the authority of His Majesty's secretary of state for India in council.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-1931 [v. 1, 1909]

242 NORTHERN SHAN STATES
States. Many of the Was are said to be adepts at extracting saltpetre,
which they bring from beyond the Salween for sale at the Tangyan
bazar and elsewhere.
The pickling of tea is the chief industry of the Palaungs in Tawng-
peng and Hsipaw. On the evening of the day they are plucked, the
tea-leaves are steamed over a cauldron of boiling
Trade and
communications. They are then spread on a mat, where they
.
are rolled by hand, after which they are thrown into
pits and compressed by means of heavy weights. The leaves ferment
in the pits and become pickled tea. For preparing dry tea the leaves
are steamed and rolled, after which they are spread out in the sun
to dry. After about three days water is sprinkled on the leaves, which
are ag'Ain rolled and allowed to dry. They are then sifted through
a bamboo sieve, only such leaves as pass through the sieve being
accepted. The best quality of pickled tea fetches from Rs. 30 to
Rs. 45 per roo viss (365 lb.), and the best dry tea from Rs. r-4
to Rs. 2 a viss at the gardens. Pickled tea is exported in conical
baskets carried by bullocks. Dry tea is packed in gunny-bags for
mule transport, or is carried by porters to the railway.
Cotton-spinning and weaving are carried on by the women in nearly
every household in the States, a good deal of cotton being grown in
the laungyas and sold in the bazars. The implements used, the
spinning-wheel, loom, and other plant, and the methods of cleaning,
dressing, spinning, and weaving the cotton, are almost identical with
those of the Burmans. The more expensive skirts and blankets are
often interwoven with graceful and artistic patterns. Among the Shans
of North and South Hsenwi curious sleeping webs of cloth are made
with zigzag and diamond-shaped patterns, woven in black, red, green,
and yellow, the cross-threads being often of silk. Still more intricate
is the Kachin work employed in the adornment of shoulder-bags and
of the female costume. The work is usually dark blue, with longitudinal
blue stripes, but is sometimes all white or composed of equal stripes
of red, white, and blue, into which are woven, at intervals, little stars,
crosses, or squares of various colours and irregular shapes. Raw silk
is obtained by the Shans from the Wa and Lao States, and finds
favour in South Hsenwi in the weaving of skirts and blankets. Dyeing
is practised in most Shan households where weaving is done, and in
most parts of South - Hsenwi State, where the beautiful natural dyes
of the country still hold their own against the cruder aniline colours
of European manufacture. The most common dyes used by the
Shans are obtained from the Bkva Orellana, from stick-lac, from indigo,
and from the yellow wood of the jack-fruit tree.
The Shan gold- and silversmiths are clever workers, and occasionally
turn out very good re,pousse work in the shape of gold and silver lime,

Graphics file for this page >> Sourthern Shan State