A Re-Investigation of the Gwe of Eighteenth Century Burma

Abstract

An insuperable difficulty presents itself in tracing with any degree of correctness the origins of a barbarous race of people who possess no written character, and whose history is clothed in the obscurity of legendary traditions handed down to successive generations by oral Agency alone, in which much of the fabulous becomes mixed with certain transactions of a nature to state indefinitely the ‘era’ of their occurrence, but affording no positive source from whence to derive anything approaching a correct ‘data’. It is then thus with the race of the ‘Kaya’, so called by themselves in their own language, that of ‘Karen Nee’ or ‘Red Karens’ being given to them by the Burmese and surrounding people, from the predominating color of their costume — the short drawers and turban being generally of that color, which distinguishes them from other tribes of ‘Karens’ whose attire consists of a white tunic and are on that account termed ‘Karen Pyee’ or ‘White Karens’.