90 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 



does not add to their by-no-means over abundance 

 of good looks. Sometimes the unmarried woman 

 wears a breast cloth, but for the most part men 

 and women wear a loin girdle, and sometimes even 

 that is set aside in hot weather. 



To appreciate thoroughly the Japanese women 

 one should begin the Far Eastern trip at the Malay 

 Peninsula, journeying thence through Siam, 

 Anam, Cambodia and China— though I confess to 

 preferring a good looking Chinese girl to the 

 alleged Japanese beauty. 



Bracelets and necklaces of bamboo are the other 

 usual ornaments, except when they can afford a 

 narrow neckband of silver which protects the 

 wearer, so it is believed, against many evils that 

 lurk along life's wayside, even in the jungle. The 

 men also wear this neckband, and bamboo an inch 

 in diameter and about four inches long stuck 

 through their ear lobes. Some of the boys are 

 rather good looking. They wear their hair in a 

 knot, like a horn— on the forehead, or at one side 

 or the other of the head, or on top ; and usually a 

 turban crowns the topknot. All in all, the Karens 

 differ not a great deal from the Siamese in phys- 

 iognomy, but the people in this section of the Far 

 East shade into one another rather easily. 



Whatever the Karens know of hunting is ac- 

 quired from sitting on platforms in the dry season 



