24 Diseases of the Karens. [No. 1, 



Tattooing is a practice quite foreign to all the Karen tribes, except- 

 ing the Red Karens, who are all tattooed across the back with a figure 

 resembling the rays of the rising sun. They can give no account of 

 the origin of the custom. Karens who are brought in contact with 

 the Burmese and Talaings, often adopt their customs, so that Karens 

 are often found, especially among the Pghos, tattooed and dressed like 

 Burmans. 



No characteristic mode of amusement has been observed. The 

 Karens dance, wrestle, and show their agility much like the other 

 nations around them. 



Games of chance are not unknown to the people, but they are little 

 addicted to them, and never bet on them, unless they have been cor- 

 rupted by the Burmese or Shans. 



Every village has a good complement of old people in it, and I have 

 met with two men, who considered themselves a hundred years of age. 

 Every village has persons over sixty, seventy is not uncommon, eighty 

 is rare, but ninety is met occasionally. 



No marked difference has been noticed between the sexes in respect 

 to longevity. 



Sickness. 



Where diseases are not deemed contagious, ordinary attention is 

 bestowed upon the sick by their friends and relatives ; but when conta- 

 gious diseases appear, like the small-pox, the whole population seems 

 struck by a panic, and they abandon their houses and scatter into the 

 jungles, where they build booths, and remain till they consider the 

 disease to have passed away. They deem the cholera as contagious 

 as small -pox, and though husbands and wives, parents and children 

 will unite and watch each other to the end *; yet all often run away, as 

 soon as a person is dead, and leave him unburied. It is extremely 

 difficult to get people buried in times of cholera. 



The Karens attribute diseases to the influence of unseen spirits, and 

 hence, to cure them, they resort to making offerings to appease the 

 spirits that are supposed to be offended. They have twenty or thirty 

 distinct names for different offerings that are made for the sick. They 

 do not, however, exclude the use of medicine altogether ; and the 

 Karen Elders have a large Materia Medica, consisting of roots and 



