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centrated than the Pghos and the Chghaws. They occupy the entire northern part of the Toungoo hill tracts, and the chieftains of the independent Karennees are regarded as the heads of the tribe. The Bghai of British Burma is an offshoot of the Karen-nee, or Red Karen. The Red Karen calls one large clan of his brethren in British Burma the trouser-wearing Bghai ;" while the latter speaks of his Red Karen brother as the Eastern Bghai.

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The division of the Karen nation into these three great tribes-the Chghaw, Pgho, and Bghai-is a very ancient one, and although there is perfect cordiality and freedom of intercourse between them, intermarriage is not frequent. This, however, is rather the result of the segregation, under the force of external circumstances, of the three tribes than of any customary law. The division, too, although stoutly maintained, never stands in the way of combination for a common object by the entire nation. Indeed, as will afterwards appear, the power and willingness to combine as a nation for a common end is a characteristic which stands out in the Karens most prominently, and is the main ground of hope for the stability of their national existence.

The Karen language is monosyllabic, and belongs emphatically to the Tonal family of languages. The

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syllables are all open; there is no final consonant, except a nasal occasionally found in the Bghai and Pgho dialects. There are no closed syllables at all. Compound words are formed by agglutination. The case formation and the declension of nouns, as well as the conjugation of verbs, are all by suffixes and affixes to roots. Words in pairs are a peculiarity. They are not reduplicatives, but agglutinatives used to intensify the meaning of the word, or to form a new idea respecting a group. Every word, as the Karens themselves say, has its wife," or its synonym in the same relation as the wife stands to the husband in Burma—that of the better and stronger half! The Burmese language has the same tendency, but not so marked as in the Karen. In formal, polite address both the "husband" and "wife" words are used. For example, kathé-kachaw means " elephants," although kathe by itself means "horses." Again, khai o kwâ o means "sword-sticks," or (in Burmese) dahs, although kwâ means an "axe." The agglutinatives together convey a meaning more intense than either of them singly, and the "wife" word contributes the greater strength of the two. Reduplication of words in Karen conveys an adverbial signification.

The Karen language has no affinity whatever

for the Burmese. It belongs to the same family as the Chinese, but it must early have separated from the parent tongue. It has no written character. It was never written till Dr. Wade, the American missionary, reduced it to writing, using the Burmese consonants.

The Karens thus have no written literature. But they are the possessors of a rich bard literature, which has been transmitted from generation to generation by men whose special business it is to commit to memory the traditions, legends, songs, and homely folk-lore; commend to the young their duties to elders and parents; recount the heroic deeds of old and of the race from memory; and teach students to be their successors as depositaries of the national traditions and folk-lore.

Supreme importance is attached to the correct transmission—exactly as originally rendered by the elders of the story of God's dealings with the nation. They believed that God, who had cursed the Karen for losing the written Word, would certainly call upon them some day-near or distant, they knew not to say how much they remembered of it; and that the blessing to each would be apportioned according to the care with which its words and truths had been treasured up. Hence

the jealous care and extraordinary accuracy with which the God traditions—the Palladium of the nation-have been handed down from generation to generation. A literal translation of the more important of these traditions is given in the Appendix. Most of them could be recited with propriety in any Christian church in England.

The Karens are small in stature, but broad and muscular. Those who live in the hills are not so robust in appearance as those of the plains, the weakly forms of the hill-people being due to the greater hardship of their lives and the toughness of the struggle they often have to fight for very existence, even under a British government. The skin is naturally fair, like that of the Chinese; and the features of those of pure blood are Caucasian in type-a characteristic which has been deemed by some to support their claim to have been one of the lost tribes of Israel. The hair is straight and black. The eyes are black. But in the north sometimes brownish hair and hazel eyes are found.

The houses of the Karens are of various shapes and sizes. In the plains, generally each family occupies a permanent dwelling. In the hills, an entire village community lives in a long barrack of bamboos and rough-hewn timber.

The heathen Karen may be said to be almost omnivorous. 66 Every animal from a rat to an elephant, every reptile from a sand-lizard to a serpent, ants, grubs, every bird, every fish, and the whole vegetable kingdom adorn their tables." But, curiously, they will eat none of the monkey tribe except the white-eyelid monkey.

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The dress of the people varies a good deal. Some of the clans wear tunics, striped and plain; others, chiefly in the north, wear trousers, often handsomely coloured and embroidered; a few go about almost naked. The dress of the Red Karens (Karen-nee) is peculiar. The men wear short red trousers with narrow black or white stripes. Below the knee are black bands of twisted thread. wrapper of white, with a few red or black stripes, is wound round the body. A bright red turban is worn on the head, and an ornamented bag is hung across the shoulder. The female dress is very picturesque. "The head-dress is a large red or black turban wound up to form a small tower on the top of the head. There is no gown, but a cloth like the Roman toga, tied by two corners on the right shoulder, and the left arm is sometimes kept covered, but more often it is drawn out above the garment. A second piece of cloth like the first

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