MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO BURMA

Going back to find a simpler place and time.

This issue of the tabloid Midnight was published today in 1965, and as you can see the cover touts a story about a girl who gave birth at age four. Her name is Nang Rwan and she’s supposedly from the town of Naung-nga-yan, Burma (now Myanmar). Midnight scribes Leroy Hansen and David Lee tell readers that Rwan is a member of the Pa’O ethnic group, a people whose girls are known for early fertility, like ten years old. But fertility at four is extreme even for the Pa’O, which led village elders to consider her early period to be a gift from the gods. Because of this, even though everyone admits Rwan was raped, and this criminal still walks among them because they have no idea who did it, their belief is that the child is a god-king destined to lead the Pa’O to prosperity and happiness.

We’ll just stop there for a moment and say we consider this all to be very unlikely. Not the rape and pregnancy part—distressingly, a confirmed list of youngest mothers contains girls who bore children at age five and up. No, the unlikely part is that Midnight claims to have caught wind of the pregnancy early on and were able to get to Burma to witness the birth. Hansen and Lee embarked on a “difficult” journey to reach the village and arrived as Nang was nearing full term. Once there, they met her in person, with the story informing readers, creepily: “Nang walked in, dressed in a flowing red robe embroidered with beads. We asked to see her alone and she undressed. With our own eyes we saw her body as mature as 16-year-old girl’s and as pregnant as any mother imminently facing the birth of a baby.”

Thus the two Midnight writers were in the village for the big event, and report that the infant, which was a boy, was whisked away to be cared for various village midwives. Nang Rwan, once recovered, was displayed in the center of the hamlet while people trekked hundreds of miles to offer her gifts that made her the richest person in the region. But the elders never allow her near the golden child. She hears her baby cry in its special god hut but she can’t see him or hold him. So while she’s proud to have given birth to a deity, she’s unhappy.

Bittersweet indeed. But there’s one problem with this whole Nang Hwan story. Actually, there are numerous problems, none of which we need to detail because you’re having the same problems, we suspect. But the problem that concerns us in terms of veracity is that Nang Rwan isn’t on that official list of world’s youngest mothers we mentioned, which seems odd considering Midnight devotes two full pages to her and she should have been well known. But we were not able to confirm any of the tabloid’s assertions outside the story itself. So as interesting and detailed and morbid as the tale is, we have to call it fiction. At least until further evidenced. See more from Midnight by clicking its keyword below.

Burma, Myanmar, Midnight, Nang Rwan, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

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1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

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1972—Munich Massacre

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1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

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