Apparently, some animals in Burma had a particular loathing for White people. According to the Fitz William Pollok and W. S. Thom’s 1900 guide to wild sports, buffaloes were especially ill-disposed to White skin. Informing would-be imperial hunters of the animal’s general ferocity, they warned that, ‘Even the tame cow, that will allow itself to…
Tag: James Williams
An Elephant’s View of Empire
A few months ago I wrote a blog post about a travel book on Burma purporting to have been written by a dog. Yesterday, whilst I was researching in the British Library, I read a similar book written from the perspective of an elephant from Burma. It was published in 1930 as part of a…
Shape-shifters in Colonial Burma
I’m currently reading a novel by a British judge called Arthur Edgar titled The Hatanee: A Tale of Burman Superstition published in 1906. According to Edgar, the Hatanee is a terrifying, shape-shifting, half-tiger-half-human creature that hunts people when they are alone in the jungle. The novel was inspired by the apparently ‘real life’ murder of…
A Dog’s Life in Colonial Burma
I have just finished reading a traveller’s account of Burma published in 1909 and purportedly written by a dog. The dog, called ‘John’, travelled the northern-most reaches of the colony with his master, ‘the Colonel’, the Colonel’s wife, the ‘Mem Sahib’, their female friend, referred to only as ‘Missy Sahib’, and their entourage of Indian…
Colonizing Animals 