Isn't history wonderful...

[mrph]

"The court at Mandalay became notorious for its violence, injustice and squalid immorality under King Thebaw, the last of his line, who succeeded to the Lion Throne after Mindon's death in 1878. Mindon had not nominated a successor and the resulting intrigue for power led to a horrifying slaughter of princes and princesses of the royal house, both adults and children. As in other parts of mainland south-east Asia, it was forbidden to touch the person of any of the royal line, and sacrilege to spill their blood. So the executions ordered by Thebaw were in the macabre tradition of the past. The victims were first sewn inside red velvet sacks and then despatched by breaking their necks with blows from sandalwood clubs."
- Colin Mason, A Short History of Asia.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

I always find it amazing that people who are prepared to murder someone care about the niceties like that. To me it's obvious that "spill their blood" there is equivalent to "injure them". But to obey the letter rather than the spirit of the law to avoid blood-spillage seems weird.

I mean, either you care about the fact that it's sacreligious to kill them (or care that other people might care), in which case don't kill them. Or you don't care, in which case why bother with the elaborate form of death ?

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Pretty much my thoughts on the subject.

Although if Thebaw was ascending to the throne over the bodies of his less-qualified kin, he probably had a certain vested interest in maintaining the 'special' status of royalty, just so that the common people didn't get too many funny ideas.

There's probably a very dark comedy skit in there, actually. A king who's not at all worried about treason when his courtiers carry knives, axes, swords, bottles of horribly toxic poison - but swiftly has them executed when they put in a special order with the draper...

[giolla.livejournal.com]

But is it "sacreligious to kill them"?
Obviously non-royal people aren't worthy to touch them hence the prohibtion on touching. Likewise I'd guess that the spilling of blood is porbably to stop it touching the unclean floor. Much as many faiths have strictures as to how one should handle a sacred object, yet there are still correct ways for disposing of such items.

So I'd say that there may well be non-sacreligious ways of dispatching royalty and probably many good reasons for observing them if you are going to do the dispatching.

"SAcred monarch disposal for dummys" ISAGN

[lsur.livejournal.com]

Chinese history is similar. Buckets of blood. Jonathan Spence's 'God's Chinese Son' is one example, an account of the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century. Hong Xiuquan went delirious and believed himself to be the brother of Jesus. He led a rebellion against the Emperor which resulted in 20 million dead.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0006384412/qid=1103544040/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_8_4/026-3045386-1261227

Then there's Pol Pot, the Nanking massacre by the Japanese, probably loads of other episodes. Are we any better in Europe? Seems that people are the same everywhere.