Red Karen call themselves Ka-ya ; some of the Bghai clans, Ka-yay. They have traditions pointing to the north as the region whence they migrated, and of having crossed a river of sand (shamo), a desert where the sands rolled before the winds, also of having once been in the posses sion of books of religion, which they had lost. This tradition may refer to Gobi desert, which is intersected from E. to W. by a depressed valley, the Shame or Sea of Sand, which is also mixed with salt. West from it lies the Ilan Hai or Dry Sea, a barren plain of shifting sand blown into high ridges. But they are an impressionable race, and it will be difficult to localize the place to which they allude.
The Karen preceded the Burman in the delta of the Irawadi, and are now the joint occupants with the Mon. They are also found in the lower plains of the Saiwin, the deltas of the Sitaug and Irawadi, the middle basin of the Sitang as far as Tonga, and in Tenasserim. In Martaban there is also a remnant of an allied tribe, the Toungthu. Both the Karen and the Tonngthu belong to the Yuma branch of the Tibeto-Burman family.
The long and narrow hill tract between the valley of the Irawadi and the Salwin as far north as 23° i•occupied by cognate tribes called Karen ni (Red Karen), who are said to speak a very ancient dialect of the Yuma family. This branch has a parallel range on the western side of the Irawadi, and in their traditions they assert that they preceded the Burmans as the dominant people of the basin, and they seem from very ancient times to have occupied the whole of the valley southward from the valley of the Banak on the west to the borders of Yunnan.
No trace of the Mon is left along the Yuma range,—tribes of the Karen family being the exclusive holders of its inner valleys. Some of the very imperfectly described tribes on the eastern side of the Irawadi, to the north of the Karen - ni, viz. the Ze - baing, Ka - Khyen, etc., may belong to the older immigration. But the Mon is the only remnant within the ancient Karen province, and its earlier preservation is doubtless owing to the same causes, its arts, civilisation, and wealth, which have enabled it to hold its own against the Tibeto-Burman horde of the Irawadi.
The Karen in British Burma are over half a million (581,294). Their language differs widely from those of the hill tribes of Arakan, and ethnologists class them by themselves, separate from the members of the Mramma family. They are supposed to have come from the N.W. of China, moving towards Yunnan, and thence along the hills on either side of the Sitang and Salwin rivers into their present .positions, abort the 6th century of the Christian era.
There are three great groups,—the Sgau or Burman Karen, the Pwo or Talaing Karen, and the Bhgeh or Bweh, to one or other of which linguistic groups all the clans are referred.
The Karen languages are monosyllabic and tonic, and show unmistakeable evidence of Chinese influence in their vocabulary. The Bweh Karen are in the Salwin and Martaban district. They include the Karen-ni or Red Karen.
The Karens paint the two posts of their door ways, the one red and the other white. Karens walk round the dead to make a smooth path, like the Bhotani in procession round the shrines of Buddha, and like Jews, who walk seven times round the coffins of their friends. The Jewish
priests, in offering oblations, Psalm xxvi. 6, walked round the altar seven times. The Assam hill tribes, like Karens, consider the touch of the dead pollu tion, as in Numbers six. 13: 'Whosoever toucheth the dead body of a man, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord : because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean.' ICarens are smaller than the Burmans. The White Miaou-tse, who occupy the hill country of Central China, present many points of resemblance to the Karens. They are brave, independent, and at certain intervals sacrifice an ox without blemish to the great Father. It is amongst the Miaou-tse that the Old Testament is said to have existed from time immemorial, which they say came to them from heaven 2000 years. ago. .
The first convert to Christianity was Ko Thah Byn, who was baptized at Tavoy. in 1828 ; but before his death in 1841, there were 1300 native disciples. The missionaries amongst them have been Mr. Boardman, Miss Macombe, and Messrs. Mason, Wade, Bennet, and Abbot. Several of their dialects have been reduced to writing, some in Roman, some in Burman character, and the Scriptures translated.
Sgau tribes speak the Sgau dialect. Sgau is their own designation for themselves, but they likewise claim to be Pgha-ka-nyo, or men. As the seaboard is approached, the Sgau and the Pwo are found mingled together from Bassein to Mergui. They are, however, found from Mergui, in lat. 12° N., to Prome and Tonnghoo, in lat. 19° N. ; a few have passed westerly into Arakan, and on the east they have wandered to the east of Zimmay over the watershed that separates the Meinam from the Salwin. They are the most numerous of all the Karen tribes. They wear a white tunic, with a few horizontal bands of a red colour near the bottom, and from this they are called White Karen. Where the population is sparse, they cultivate the most favourable spots, first, before hewing down the trees, abjuring the departure of all evil, and then dibbling in the rice seed, which they do not sow broadcast like the Burmese ; planting also cotton, capsicum, Indian corn, vege tables of all kinds, and Job's tears between the rows. They also fish largely, for they eat all creatures, lizards, snakes, deer, wild hog, elephant, rhinoceros, wild ox, buffalo ; they gather the wild cardamom, or wash for tin. They have DO mechanical art, but some of the women weave and embroider. Their betrothals are in infancy, and the married couple early associate, but there are frequent separations. All the Sgau and the Pwo burn their dead, but a bone is taken from the ashes, and in the dry season is buried with a festival, with music and dancing. The bone is placed in a booth, and around it the articles be longing to the deceased are hung, with a torch at the head and another at the foot to represent the morning and evening stars. They make offerings to evil spirits, the Na, and to a good spirit, whom they style grandmother.