1868.] Dwellings, works of art, laws, <&c. of the Karens. 131 



furnishing the zenanas of the Burmese governors with comely Karen 

 girls, whom he kidnapped, the chieftainship of the Burmese district on 

 the plains was given him, and he reigned a king. He died, and his 

 empire died with him. 



Twenty- five years ago, I found some ten thousand Karens in the 

 valley of the Yuneselon, under the rule of a great chief, called La-kee. 

 At his death none of his sons or sons-in-law could keep the kingdom 

 from falling to pieces, or prevent its crystallizing into the same ele- 

 ments in which La-kee found it. 



In many districts the chieftainship is considered hereditary, but in 

 more it is elective ; as much as the chief of the executive is in 

 America. The people select the man that pleases them best for chief, 

 no matter what his antecedents may have been ; and if after a trial, 

 he does not please them, they elect another. In this way divisions 

 sometimes occur, one part of a village adhering to one chief, and 

 another part to another chief, and they perhaps settle the question by 

 a fight. 



In many villages that do not pay taxes or tribute, there are no 

 regularly constituted chiefs. The man with the most property, and 

 the largest family possessing the power without the name. 



57 — 59» There are no divisions of caste among the Karens, and 

 though found in many tribes and clans, the division seems to have 

 arisen from the original separation of families, and communities. 



Laws. 

 60. Although there are no written forms of law among the Karens, 

 yet there is in fact a code of laws preserved in the traditionary 

 commands of the elders that meets all the relations of man to man. 

 The elders are the depositories of the laws, both moral and political, 

 both civil and criminal, and they give them as they receive them, 

 and as they have been brought down from past generations. Every 

 village has its elders, who are expected to teach the young people 

 to do good and to avoid evil. A village without an elder well stored 

 with traditionary instruction would be regarded like a parish in 

 England without a clergyman. To indicate their usefulness, the 

 Karens use this saying : " Where there is no smith, the axes are 

 soft ; where there is no cock, the rooms are still." That is, the 



