ABSTRACT
The introduction of Western education and schooling to the peoples of Myanmar has historically been linked to the arrival of Catholic missionaries in the Kingdom of Ava and American Baptists in British Burma. However, the value of access to formal knowledge has already been enshrined in mythology. Focusing on the Karen legend of the ‘lost book’, my research examines how oral traditions like myth telling explain social inequalities related to access to formal education. According to this legend, education is a gift that the Karen once received in the form of a golden book from Y’wa, a creating godhead. The gift was received but lost to the Karen’s younger ‘white’ brother. Until today, this legend has been told and retold in various ways, but in essence it explains an original injustice that caused the Karen to remain mostly engaged in subsistence farming whilst other peoples advanced in technology and modern knowledge. The legend became prominent during the Karen’s encounters with nineteenth-century American Baptist missionaries who encouraged the Karen to see in the Bible their ‘lost book’.
