This post presents page 17 of The History of the Myanmar Labour Movement by Thakin Lwin (Bagan Books, 1968).
Vocabulary:
အစုအဝေး ။ congregation; assembly; gathering; collection
ကြည် ။ clear, clean
မြစ်ဝှမ်း ။ river valley, river basin
မျှတ ။ be sufficient
ရွေးချယ် ။ to choose, pick, select
ဘုံ ။ communal
အမဲလိုက် ။ to hunt game
သီးခြား ။ separate, independent
တိုက်ခိုက် ။ attack ; fight against
ထွန်းကား ။ to be prominent
မှတ်တမ်း ။ record
သုံ့ ။ enemy captured in a battle led by the king himself
အသည် ။ commoner; indigenous person
ကပ်ပါး ။ person taking up residence in a locality which is not his native place
လဲလှယ် ။ exchange
သုံ့ပန်း ။ enemy captured in a battle by a prince and presented to the king, prisoner of war
သုံ့သေး ။ person sent on a diplomatic mission; embassy.
သုံ့ရ ။ civilian prisoners of war
အတန်းအစား ။ grade; class; station; level
ပုဏ္ဏား ။ Brahmin
အသည် ။ chief; lord; lady; artisan; vendor; dealer; merchant; man of wealth; civilian taxpayer; commoner
မှူးမတ် ။ king's counselor
သေနာပတိ ။ (military) general
သူကြွယ် ။ wealth person
မိလက္ခူ ။ ?
စာဆို ။ poet, composer
အချီတော် ။ nursemaid of royal children
အချော့တော် ။ ?
ဆင်ထိန်း ။ elephant keeper or attendant
ဝေါ ။ palanquin
စားတော်ကဲ ။ chef de cuisine of the royal household
ခဝါ ။ laundry
ဆတ္တာသည် ။ barber
မင်းမှုထမ်း ။ person in the service of the kind or state
စစ်မှုထမ်း ။ military personnel
စစ်ကဲ ။ second-in-command of a military unit; civil officer attached to the mayor
ကလန် ။ administrative chief of a hamlet or village
သံဗျင် ။ ?
လမိုင်း ။ paddy land belonging to the royalty
ကြီးကြပ် ။ to supervise
ခမာသံဗျင် ။ ?
မော်ကွန်းထိန်း ။ keeper or custodian of important records; archivist
ပန်းပု ။ woodcarving
ပန်းထိမ် ။ gold and silver smith
ပန်းတဉ်း ။ bronze, copper and brass casting
အစေအပါး ။ servant, slave
လွှဆွဲ ။ to saw with a cross-cut saw
ဝါဖန် ။ gin cotton
ဗိုင်းငင် ။ to spin cotton
ရက်ကန်း ။ loom
စဉ့် ။ glaze
ယွန်းထည် ။ laquerware
Translation:
When the territories were established, each [group of people] resided with their own gathering [of people] and while choosing river valleys that has sufficient clean water, tender grass and agricultural land for basic security and livelihood, each [group] resided independently with a form of ancient communal social system [primitive communism] such as collective agriculture and collective hunting.
After that, with the territories and groups fighting and robbing each other and the winners always making the losers become slaves, the feudal era came to be prominent. According to ancient historical records many kinds of slaves are distinguished and labelled. These include slaves captured in a battle in which the king participates (those captured by oneself), slaves born to an alien resident and indigenous commoner (a slave according to the hereditary status of the mother and the residence of the father), purchased slaves (slaves purchased through monetary transfer or exchange in-kind), companion slaves (a person who willingly accepts to be fed and become a slave), an enemy captured in a battle by a prince and presented to the king (a person captured on the battlefield), diplomats (those who have lost a war and must become slaves), and aside from civilian prisoners of war (those who surrender) there were royal and monastic slaves.
During the ancient feudal period there were four hierarchical levels distinguished. These were (1) royalty, (2) wealthy people, (3) Brahmins, and (4) commoners (poor people). After that [people] were divided according to class. These were the king, the king's counselors, military generals, wealthy people, merchants, cultivators, and poor people.
At that time, the working people included royal servants such as royal poets, royal writers, royal readers, nursemaids of royal children, singers, musicians, dancers, elephant keepers, horse keepers, palanquin carriers, royal chefs, launderers and barbers; as well as civil servants such as military personnel, city mayors, city police, civil officers attached to the mayor, tax collectors, provincial governors, diplomats and village chiefs; as well as officers, record keepers and agricultural workers on the paddy fields belonging to the king and queen, younger brothers and sons of the king, and royal in-laws; as well as artists such as painters, woodcarvers, gold and silversmiths, bronze, copper and brass casters, blacksmiths and architects; and agricultural workers who were farmers or slaves.
Other than that, there were workers [who dug] irrigation, dykes, ponds and wells for agriculture; workers who fell trees, sawed wood and constructed building; as well as cotton planters, weavers, potters, glazers, laquerware workers...
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