Armed Rural Folkvides exceptional visual representations of the kind of fighting that took
place, not screened through European military paradigms or forced to
conform to Western visual culture or aesthetics. From the perspective of
this artist, the fighting was very much like the kind of fighting depicted
in Maung Tha Aung’s account. First, the artist emphasizes the taking
of the defeated settlement’s resources (Figure 6.1). Second, the fighting
includes the torching and razing of houses (Figure 6.2). Third, the artist
emphasizes the torture and killing of non-combatants (Figure 6.3).
Weaponry depicted in the illustrations also deserves our attention.
An expected feature, as it is common to mainland Southeast Asia and
in the form of the kris, the island world, is a bladed weapon, because
this would have been used for so many different things in rural society.
What is surprising is the ubiquity of firearms. Chronicles and other state
sources provide a lot of detail on royal contingents of firearm-bearing
troops who specialized in them. We are also told that the court monopo-
lized cannon. We have gotten only a few glimpses though of the spread
of firearms amongst rural populations in the region.
The British view was that those “dacoits” who had arms were those
remnants of the fallen royal army who were not amongst the many
Figure 6.2: The killing of non-combatants (Source: The Graphic, 1 March 1890)