1868.] Dwellings, icorl-s of art, laws, Sfc of the Karens. 149 



Some persons are said to keep poison fangs in their possession for 

 the purpose of killing people. These they thrust into the foot marks 

 of the person they wish to kill, who soon finds himself with a sore 

 foot, and the marks on it, as if bitten by a dog. The sore becomes 

 rapidly worse and worse till death ensues. 



Others are represented as having a poison stone, in the shape of a 

 man's hand, which is called the hand of a demon. This is applied to 

 the image of the person to be killed. An image is made of clay, and 

 placed on the variegated leaf of a plant of the -inger family ; and the 

 stone hand is then thrown at the small clay image which it breaks to 

 pieces. This is supposed to represent the destruction of the person 

 represented ; who immediately sickens and dies. It is essential to 

 success, however, that the operator sit on watch over his image three 

 days and three nights. If he goes to sleep in that time, his labour 

 is all in vain ; and he will wake up witli a bit of flesh between his 

 teeth, and become possessed of a demon ; so it is about as dangerous 

 an experiment to the operator, as to the one operated upon. 



Now it is considered unlawful for a man to have such poisons, real 

 or imaginary, in his possession. If found on a man, he is sometimes, 

 by the voice of the people bound and spread out in the sun three days, 

 and after destroying his poisons, he is made to swear the most solemn 

 oaths that he has no more ; and will never procure more ; or he is 

 sold off into slavery. If he has been guilty of poisoning, or supposed 

 to have poisoned any one, it is considered a meritorious deed to put 

 him to death. 



Cursing.— Cursing is, with the Karens, an organised mode of punish- 

 ment for crimes that cannot be reached in any other way. 



When a man will curse another deliberately, he goes on to the 

 verandah of his house, and curses him three evenings in succession. 

 On the third evening, he takes an expiring faggot, an addled egg, 

 and the last droppings of the dishes, which are usually given to the 

 pigs, and he says : " May his life expire, like this dying faggot ; 

 may he be destitute of posterity like this addled egg ; and may his 

 end be like this refuse of the dishes." 



68. Geography and Statistics. — The most southern limit of the 

 Karens is in the province of Mergui, north of Latitude 12° ; and they 

 are found, in an uninterrupted line to beyond lake Nyoung Yue in 



21 



