1865.] Religion &c. among the Karens. 177 
myself by a leap;’ and he called all his children to come and receive 
his dying commands. They came, and after each had been charged, 
he leaped into the sea. MTheiKarens ran away into the jungles, but 
the white foreigners could not run, and they said to the Karens: 
‘Elder brother, I will go to where father commanded me.’ The 
Karen replied: ‘I will not go.’ But the white foreigner went to his 
home, and leaping into the sea, brought up the body of his father. 
His father said to him, ‘I am not dead;’ and he gave orders to his 
children to come and receive his commands again, as he was about to 
go away. But the Karens had run away afar off, so he said to the 
white foreigners: ‘Do not stay here.’ And he washed them over 
with sandal wood, and said: ‘If you stay here, the Karens will perse- 
eute you.’ So they followed their father, and he gave them another 
country. 
“The Red Karens say that anciently, after the transgression, God 
called all the different races of men together to learn to read, and all 
went, and every one studied zealously except the Karen, who did not 
study in earnest like the White Foreigner, the Chinese, and the Bur- 
mese. He went to and fro, and played, and did not understand books 
like the others. After a while, God ‘dismissed the people and all 
returned home, but the Karen was not skilled in books, like the other 
nations. Still God had given him a book, but when he would study 
it at home, his wife scolded him, and drove him off to work. He 
therefore forgot what he had learned, and did not take care of his 
book, 
“One day, while he was absent, his book fell into the fire, and was 
burned, and being unable to write, the Karens have had no books from 
that time to the present. However, they observed the variegated 
marks left by the letters of their books in the ashes where it was burn- 
ed, and they made diligent efforts to embroider those forms on their 
dresses. Hence it is that the Karens are able to embroider different 
forms on their dresses. Had they not looked, and imitated the letters 
of the book that was burned, the Karens would not be skilled in any 
thing.” 
The above is from a Bghai assistant that spent two years among the 
Red Karens. 
24 
