KAREN is a Burmese word applied to many of the mountaineers in Pegu and Southern Burma. Some of them are known as the White, Red, and Black Karen, from the colours of their clothes ; also Burmese Karen and Talaing Karen, as dwelling amongst these nations. The Shan call them Yang, pronounced in the different parts of Burma as Yen, Yein, Yen-ban, and Yen-seik. The red clothed Karen call themselves Ka-ya, and some of the Bghai clans, Kay-ay. They describe them selves as having conic from the north, and crossed the great sand desert that separates China from Tibet, and believe that formerly they had books. All the Karen family between the mouths of the Tenasserim and sources of the Sitang arrange themselves into the Sgau tribes, the Pwo tribes, and the Bghai tribes. The Karen people are found within the British, Burmese, and Siamese territories, and extend from about lat. 28° to 10° N. The Karen between Burma and China are independent, with a patriarchal constitution, and reckon themselves by families, not by villages or tribes. They are agricultural. Some of the tribes are Buddhist, but two of them, the Sgau and Pgho, are pagan. Sgau tribes, the Pwo tribes, and the Bghai tribes may be thus arranged : Sgau proper. Eghai•ka-ten. Pwo proper.
Maune Pgho. Rghai-mu-htai. Shoung khie.
Paku. Rghai ko hta. Kaya or Ka.
We wa. Lay may. Tarn or Kho thu.
Manu manau. Mopgha.
Hashu.
Toung thu.
Kyen.
The Eastern Bghai, Bghai - mu - htai, or Red Karen, call themselves Ka-ya, their term for man, and are called by the Burmese Kayennee ; by the Shan, Yen-laing, or Red Karen, from the colour of their dress, which was originally all red, but a mixture of black garments is now commonly seen. Every man carries a short knife in his belt, many have swords, and those who have not muskets or matchlocks carry from one to three light spears, which are used in war like javelins, and thrown, from the hand. Every man has a pony, so that in time of war they form a body of light cavalry, when all turn out to service, and the cultivation is then carried on by the women exclusively.
The country inhabited by the Red Karen is the finest in the interior of Burma. They are governed by a Saubwa, and have occupied their present locality for forty generations, having been driven down from the north by the Burmese, and separ ated at Upper Pagan from the Chinese, with whom they were then associated. Here, on the high table-land, they have lived, a terror to both Bur mese and Shan, plundering, kidnapping, and kill ing, as opportunity offered, and selling the slaves they did not need to the opposite nation, Shan to Burmese, and Burmese to Shan. Dr. Mason found the people, with all the savageness which is imputed to them, by far the most civilised Karen known. They are better clad, provide themselves with better food, are better skilled in the arts, are more vigorous, active, and laborious, than any jungle tribe he met. They make their own knives, axes, swords, spears, hoes, bangles, silver orna ments, and earthenware, bits and bridles, saddles and stirrups. Every foot of land they cultivate is hoed with a heavy hoe of the western form, such as is never seen among either Burmese or Karen, but is used by the Chinese. They have cattle in great abundance, which are trained to carry panniers as donkeys are in Europe, and which bring their produce from the fields to the villages. A considerable portion of the population are slaves ; but slavery here exists in its mildest form. There seems to be very little difference between master and slave.
The Karen burn their dead, but rescue from the ashCs a portion of the skull, which they suspend from a tree, with the clothes, ornaments, and arms of the deceased. They dance, singing beauti ful songs, around these relics, which the elders afterwards convey to the foot of distant mountains, and there inter them. Dr. MacGown includes amongst them, the Ka-Khyien, Khyien, Kemmi, Karen-ni or Red Karen, the Pwo and Sgau Karen, who possess characteristics so much in common as to justify them in being regarded as divisions or fragments of one nation.