KAREN, the collective name for a group of tribes of variant culture comprising perhaps a sixth of the population of Burma and occupying much of eastern Burma between the Shan States and Siam, and found also in the Irrawaddy delta. Most Karens of Lower Burma are divided into the Sgaw and Pwo (i.e., "male" and "female") Karens, while in Upper Burma the name of Bghai (or Bwe) has been given to the tribes known as Red Karens, White Karens, Padaungs, Bres, Loilong Karens, Sawnti.ings, Ban pas, Zayeins and others. The Taungthus (i.e., hillmen) are also a branch of the Karens. Their religion is animistic, and they wor ship stones and practice fertility ceremonies. Marriage is said to be endogamous but this refers perhaps to the linguistic or tribal group only; the Padaung branch practice exogamy, many Karens permit marriage only between near relatives (? cross-cousin mar riage). The bachelors' hall exists; slavery and the practice of blood-brotherhood formerly existed. Antique bronze drums of unusual type are cherished as sacred objects. The Red Karens used to have a rising sun tattooed on the back. (Cf. IGOROT.) The Padaung women wear a succession of brass coils round their necks which are thereby preposterously elongated. Guns, spears, daos,
cross-bows and poisoned arrows are used as weapons, and a blow-gun with poisoned darts as a quasi-toy by children. Teeth are blackened ; the dead are buried or exposed in boat-shaped coffins; chicken-bones are used for divining, and tabu is prevalent. The Karens have a migration legend involving a river of sand (cf. KACHIN), which has been taken to refer to the Gobi desert, and a river flowing up to its source interpreted by McMahon (Karens of the Golden Chersonese, 1876) as referring to currents in the Bay of Bengal. They have a belief in the continuity of life, the soul of a deceased person taking material form as essential matter which dissolves over the ground, enters growing crops, and thence animals and human beings, and continues the cycle. They are supposed to be the descendants of Chinese tribes driven south wards by the pressure of the Shan races before they were again made to retire into the hills by the expansion of the MOn power.
See Marshall, Karen People of Burma (Ohio, 1922).