12 Social Customs of the Karens. [No. 1 



after some relative, that the memory of their ancestors may be pre- 

 served. 



Infanticide is rare. Occasionally, when the mother dies, the infant 

 child is killed and buried with her ; and I have known a woman con- 

 fess that she killed her little sister, soon after her birth, because it was 

 ugly ; but such things are not common. Children are not exposed. 



No measures are taken to alter or modify the form of a child, or 

 any of its limbs. It is carried about in a wrapper, naked, till it can 

 walk, when it is sometimes clothed in a loose tunic ; but more often, 

 it is allowed to run about naked. No modification of the limbs is 

 practised. 



Among no people are children taught so little as among the Karens ; 

 and nothing is taught them to modify the character. They grow up 

 like weeds, and are remarkable for nothing so much as for their wilful- 

 ness and disobedience. Yet the Sgaus have a very stringent injunction 

 to obedience to parents. The Elders say : 



" children and grandchildren ! respect and reverence your mother 

 and father ; for, when you were little, they did not suffer so much as a 

 musquito to bite you. To sin against your parents, is a heinous crime. 



" If your father or mother instruct or beat you, fear. If you do 

 not fear, the tigers will not fear you." 



They are also taught to obey kings ; another of the commands of 

 the Elders being : " children and grandchildren ! obey the orders of 

 kings, for kings in former times obeyed the commands of God. If 

 we do not obey them, they will kill us." 



There is nothing remarkable in the sports of the child. 



The age of puberty may be set down at from twelve to fifteen years. 

 The people not having had the means of keeping their ages, nothing 

 precise can be affirmed that depends on a knowledge of the age. The 

 Karens consider fifteen as the marriagable age. 



While writing, six Karens came in, and on inquiry, one says his 

 mother had five children, two say their mothers had eight, two be- 

 longed to families of twelve children, and one man of about fifty years 

 of age is the last surviving child of thirteen by one mother. Women 

 that live to forty-five years of age probably bear on an average from 

 nine to ten children. The Karens consider ten as the proper com- 

 plement. 



