Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1924-08-15

tPfepared py chs National Geographic 30
ciety, Washington, D. CD.
The ruling classes of Burma, the
Burmese proper. have long civiliza-
ton behind tnem; but in the hills of
their country, strangely enough, are
tribes almost at the level of sayagery.
These are the Karens, known by name
in America because they have respond
ed to the work Of American mission
aries to a greater extent probably
than any other oriental people.
1t is halfway on the railway from
Rangoon to Mandalay that one gets
the first glimpse Of the range of hills
which mark the home of the Karens.
From the train the hills do not look
very formidable, but they are heavily
covered with jungle, there is practi-
cally only one road from the west into
the Karen country. and it is only those
who are accustomed to hill roads on
the borders of China who would call
1t road. Others might call it va
riety of things, none complimentary.
But 1t is this inaccessibility which
has preserved through the centuries a
collection of tribes such as Is to be
found nowhere else on the earth, at
any rate in so circumscribed an area.
The Karen hills do not measure
much over sixty or seventy miles from
north to south, and average, perhaps
thirty miles wide, but they have sew
eral score different clans and tribes,
and all these look upon their neighbors
with the same suspicion and animosity
as the pariah dogs of one quarter Of
an oriental city have for those of any
other quarter.
Even the secret "opium paths" do
Karen hills. The tribesmen had no
wish to come down to the plains, and
the Burmese, the former rulers of the
country, found 1t much easier to come
from the north.
Animals can climb to the villages,
but it Is not we'll to trust to them. 1t
is on record that baggage elephant
took fourteen hours to cover four and
half miles, and would probably have
taken much longer If practically all its
load had not been brought in by COO
lies, and these coolies were the hill
men themselves, not outside men.
Still the visit is worth the trouble,
and it Is an excellent way of reducing
weight. The Karens of the hills are
savages, no doubt, but not Of the kind
that eat one another or cut off heads.
There is no need for the visitor to
take a great amount of money. Beads
and small mirrors and clear glass
bottles are much more useful, though
latterly not few villages have become
sophisticated enough to like rupees,
too. But that is because the girls make
necklaces Of them.
The White karens.
There are great many Karens in
the main province of Burma, and they
were, and still are, commonly referred
TO by their Burmese neighbors and
strangers within their gates as White
Karens. These Karens do not admit
the hill peoples, for convenience sake
called Red Karens, to be their rela-
lions, and have the same feelings with
regard to them that the Abilities have
for the Cainites. 1t is perhaps natural.
Nobody cares for poor and ill-conduct-
ed relatives.
The White Karen women are scru-
pulously clean and neatly, If hardly
smartly, dressed. 1t is matter of
opinion whether they are comedy, but
at any rate they are sleek and built
on substantial lines, and their faces
are Of the kind that appeals to the
Zulu or the story-tellers of the Ara
bian Nights, who preferred the moon
face to one Of the Greek classical type.
The hill Karens, genuine Red or
otherwise, are obtrusively dirty, so
dirty that they cannot get any worse,
because no more matter can find a
place to settle.
Some of these Red Karens wear
clothes that force one to believe they
are heirlooms, and here and there not
a few of the clanswomen might pose
day or night, outdoor or In, at mo-
ment's notice, as the witches in Mac
beth" 1t is pity, for quite number
Of them look as it, after being boiled
and scrubbed, they might be we'll
favored or at any rate personable.
The Karens are the third most na-
merous population In Burma. Natu-