When my parents came back from Thailand and Burma on one of their many foreign adventures, they brought back opium weights and I was awarded a few of them as their gift to me from their trip.

They told me that they got them in an antique store somewhere off the beaten path and they were informed by store personnel that when opium trading became illegal (it looks like that was in 1799 in Burma) people buried their weights in their yards so as not to be caught with opium peripherals. Their use prior to burial was an obvious one: a weight was placed on one side of a scale and the amount of opium to balance on the other side of the scale and that is how you knew you were getting your money's worth. My parents came to understand that "just now" those weights were being dug up and sold by their original owners as it appeared that their use truly was passe.   Mom and Dad bought a number of them and brought the weights and the tale back to the United States and passed some of the weights and the tale on to me.   That was at least 25 years' ago.  In all of that time I have displayed the weights and explained to anyone who asked the history behind them. 

Today for the very first time I found out the truth behind the opium weights when I was doing some internet research for this article.  I was very surprised to learn that the opium weights are not!   Here is a picture of the ones I have and the rest of the story.  (Although I only have the two designs I have three weights in varying "weights".)  So, although the weights my parents bought may indeed be "antique" their purpose was nowhere near so captivating as weighing opium!  Read on...

hintha birds

WIDELY SEEN in curio shops and stalls in both Burma and Thailand are delightful, boldly modelled bronze figures of birds and animals of varying sizes set on solid round or rectangular bases. They are referred to as "opium" weights. The term immediately conjures up visions of dingy secluded rooms off dark winding alleys, where frail trans-parent Orientals with glazed unseeing eyes lie lethargically on platform beds puffing intermittently at long clay pipes packed with a wad of opium which has been carefully measured using one of these weights. It is indeed tempting to contemplate that a notorious substance such as opium, the reliever of pain on the one hand and the cause of untold suffering to many on the other, should have its own distinctive and special set of weights and measures.

This, alas, seems to be but a myth. The term "opium" weight for these measures was probably coined by a foreigner with a vivid imagination and a fascination for the forbidden. While it is true that some of the smaller weights could have been used for measuring this drug, "opium" weights served a much wider, more useful and down-to-earth purpose: they were used to gauge the weight of the daily items of commerce found in the Burmese market-place. All types of food, raw materials and metals, both ordinary and precious, were sold in quantities determined by these weights. Items were measured by a beam hung with two baskets or trays. The correct weight was placed in one basket and the other basket filled with the desired material until the two baskets balanced.

These weights have long attracted the attention of travellers to Burma. Early adventurers to the court of Pegu in the sixteenth century noted that silver bullion was weighed with these "curious animal" weights. Yule, an emissary of Queen Victoria, illustrated one in his book, A Narrative of the Mission Sent by the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava in 1855. It is quite possible that these weights were also once used over much of Thailand and Cambodia, but for the purpose of this article, the discussion of weights has been limited to those actually found in Burma.

It is not known exactly when these weights came into existence. Two small metal figures resembling a lion and hintha bird were uncovered during the 1956 archaeological excavations at Beikthano, near Taung-winggyi in central Burma, a Pyu site thought to date from A.D. 100-400. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to confirm that they were actually used as weights. There are references to weights and measures in the inscriptions of Pagan (A.D. 1044-1287) but to date, no actual examples have been found that can be ascribed to that period with any certainty. U Thaw Bita, an eminent scholar-monk of the Shwegaing Chaung Monastery in the Sagaing Hills of Upper Burma, has made a diligent survey of the chronicles and other written records from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries. He has uncovered many references to weights and the occasions on which they were used. Unfortunately, this material is at present only available in Burmese.

A most exciting find was made by U Maung Maung Tin of the Burma Historical Commission, Mandalay, who recently uncovered a Burmese palm leaf manuscript written by Nandabahu, an administrator in the time of Alaungpaya (1752-1760), one of Burma's most illustrious kings. It contains a list of weights and their dates of usage, beginning with the Pinya-Ava period (thirteenth to fourteenth century A.D.) and continuing to his time of writing in the eighteenth century. The list is as follows:

Chicken	1340-1628
Stork	1342-1421
Stag	1364-1367
Elephant	1526-1542
Goat	1421-1468
Bird of Paradise	1439-1442
Toe Naya	1426-1672
Tibetan Bull	1629-1648
Crested Horse	1394-1750
Crested Bull	1322-1723
Heron	1401-1605
Bear	1425
Mynah	1312-1322
Hintha	1425-1714	A 20 tical duck type hintha bird weight. Height 21 inches. 18th to early 19th century
Red Hintha	1348-1584
Koel (cuckoo)	1367-1590

Semicircular wooden box for keeping "opium" weights. A pairof toe animals are carved in bas relief on the lid. Length 19 inches, width at widest part 9-1/2 inches, height 4 inches. 19th century

So, I will still cherish my opium weights and I will continue to call them that since that is what they are called and I will continue to share the untrue story about opium being weighed with them while I now know that they, although interesting, served a very mundane purpose.   Bah.