ABSTRACT
The Karens are tillers of the soil. They do not engage, as the Burmese do, in trade. When communities descend into the plains, they take to the ordinary Burmese paddy-growing, in which they very soon outstrip the Burmans. Their villages are always the most prosperous-looking. Those in the hills still follow the primitive and destructive methods of their forefathers. Their system, briefly, is to cut down and burn the trees on a hillside, and then sow their crops on the mixed soil and ashes. Next year they migrate to another hill and repeat the same operation, leaving the first hill to recover its natural vegetation, till after six or seven years they return to it. They thus migrate annually to different hills, and each year finds one hill denuded of its vegetation, cultivated, and then forsaken for another. The proper cycle of rotation is usually regarded as seven years. In the seventh year, the people 88come back to the hill where they had started, and commence their operations over again. In January or February, the cultivator goes out to search for a good site, and, having found one which suits him, he picks up a clod of earth and puts it under his pillow. If his dreams are favourable, he sticks to the site which he has chosen; if unfavourable, he must renew his search till he finds a spot the earth of which brings a good omen to him in his sleep. He then goes out with his family and cuts down the trees on his patch, which is called a toungya. This is done by commencing at the bottom of the hillside, and making slight notches in the biggest trees and leaving the small trees untouched. Ascending gradually, the notches made in the larger trees increase in length and depth till the top of the hill is reached, where all the larger trees are completely cut down. These, falling on those below, push them downwards, and an impetus is created which increases as it moves steadily down the hill, until with one great crash the whole forest vegetation is prostrated. The fallen trees are left as they lie till April, when the mass is dry enough to burn. A house of bamboos is built in a sequestered spot near the toungya, the dry timber is lighted, and soon the whole of the fallen forest is reduced to ashes. The heat of the fire splits up the soil, and 89the ashes enter the crevices and fertilize the land. In May or June, after the first downpour of rain, rice is sown, holes being dibbled in the ground and the seed dropped in. When the rice has come well up, cotton, capsicum, and maize are sown between the ridges. Near the house are planted sugar-cane, yams, and betel. A little hut is built up in the middle of the toungya, or cultivated patch, in which a boy or a girl is placed to frighten away the birds and wild hogs, and, after two or three weedings, the crop is reaped in October. The grain is threshed out by beating the ears against a beam of wood, or treading out the grains with their feet; for they have no cattle like their lowland neighbours. While the crops are still on the ground, the men and the women fish and hunt to supply the family with food, and gather all sorts of forest produce, till harvest-time. When the rice crops have been gathered, the little granary is stored with paddy, and the head of the family, accompanied by his wife, goes down to the plain, and sells his betel, fowls, wild honey, beeswax, and wild cardamoms, and thus obtains money for clothes and taxes. In some parts—notably the hills of Shway Gyin—tobacco is extensively grown, and yields a good return in cash. Burmans and even Chinamen go up to the Karen settlements and make purchases.
