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Updated: April 30, 2025
We saw many Shans at the Nam-ting River, for not only was there a village half a mile beyond our camp, but natives were passing continually along the trail on their way to and from the Burma frontier. The village was named Nam-ka. Its chief was absent when we arrived, but the natives were cordial and agreed to hunt with us; when the head man returned, however, he was most unfriendly.
Shans were continually about our camp where boxes were left unlocked, but not an article of our equipment was missed. The Nam-ka Shans elevated their houses on six-foot poles and built an open porch in front of the door, while the dwellings at Meng-ting and farther up the valley were all placed upon the ground.
The women dress in a white jacket and skirt of either striped or dark blue cloth; their turbans are of similar material and may be worn in a high cylinder, a low oval, or many other shapes according to the particular part of the province in which they live. The camp at Nam-ka was a supremely happy one and we left it on March 7, with much regret.
In the center of the single room, on a large flat stone, a small fire always burned, but much of the cooking was done on the porch where a tiny pavilion had been erected over the hearth. The Shans at Nam-ka had "no visible means of support." The extensive rice paddys indicated that in the past there had been considerable cultivation but the fields were weed-grown and abandoned.
He grudgingly complied and we had no further trouble. We found the Shans at Nam-ka to be simple and honest people but abnormally lazy. During our three weeks' stay not a single trap was stolen, although the natives prized them highly, and often brought to us those in which animals had been caught.
Whether the man had ever been to Ma-li-ling we do not know but we eventually found it to be a tiny village built into the side of a hill in an absolutely barren country where there was not a vestige of cover. Our journey there was not uneventful. We left Nam-ka with high hopes which were somewhat dampened after a day's unsuccessful hunting at the spot where our caravan crossed the Nam-ting River.
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