1866.] Social Customs dc. of the Karens. 21 



brains ; evening after evening it is brains. It must be she goes and 

 gets human brains to eat. We cannot get so many brains : and they 

 have no father. Where can so many brains come from?' 



" After awhile they concluded they would kill her for being a 

 witch, and they made known their intentions to an uncle of hers. He 

 said : ' Wait till I can go and see her.' When at leisure, he went to 

 see the family. He killed a deer, took the head to the children, and 

 showed the brains to the children, asking : ' Does your mother feed 

 you with brains like these ? ' They all replied : ' No, uncle, mother 

 feeds us with brains that are bright red.' There are no fibres in them 

 like these.' 



" The uncle then repeated his enquiries successively with the heads 

 of ahorse, an elephant, a bear, a goat-antelope, a bison, a barking deer, 

 a porcupine, a bamboo-rat, a squirrel, a tupai, a rat, a bird, a fowl, a 

 snake, a frog, a fish, and every kind of animal known in the country ; 

 but the children said to all, ' Uncle, our mother feeds us with no such 

 brains as these. ' 



" He thought to himself ; ' It is not this, and it is not that. Surely 

 the woman is a witch, for there is no other kind of brains it can be, 

 but human brains.' So he concluded it was best to kill her. 



u However he went out hunting one day more, and all day he met 

 with nothing ; so on his return home he plucked two sheathes of wild 

 plantain blossoms, and bringing them into the house, he laid them 

 down by the wash stand. One of the children saw the bright red 

 sheathes ; ' My uncle has brought me some brains, I will eat them all 

 myself, I will not give a taste to any one else.' All the children 

 rejoiced greatly, and said ' These are the brains on which mother fed 

 us.' 



" When the uncle knew that his niece was not a witch, he 

 almost fainted at the thought of having so nearly consented to her 

 death." 



Food. 



A Karen is a most omnivorous animal. Always excepting the 

 feline race, he eats every quadruped from a rat to an elephant ; and 

 there is scarcely a reptile unacceptable to his palate, from a sand lizard 

 to a crocodile, and from a toad to a serpent. Flying ants and crawl- 

 ing grubs are in his bill of fare ; and there is no bird too tough, no fish 



