ABSTRACT
The Karens are remarkable for believing in one eternal God, Creator of all things, “who is like the air, and lives in the sky, as does the wind, and like the wind goes everywhere,” but who has no place in their paradise, who originally dwelt amongst them, and only left them after fruitless endeavours to draw them to Himself. They abhor idolatry, and regard Buddhism with contempt. Their belief in the character and attributes of God is absolutely identical with the teachings of Christianity, and requires no modifications to make it a fully developed Christianity save the teachings of Jesus Christ as the Revelation of God and the Saviour of Man. One of their sayings of the elders, handed down from generations, is, “All things in heaven and on earth, O children and grandchildren, God created them. Never forget God; pray to Him every day and every night.” On the other hand, the Karen looks 173upon God as having long since deserted him on account of his sins, and left him to the persecution of demons, which cause sickness, death, and all the ills of life. He insists that the demons are so near and God so far away that he is in no way disloyal to God when he sacrifices to demons. He merely temporizes with them till God’s promised return. To the heathen Karen, “the word is filled with invisible spirits. Every living being, be it man or beast or creeping thing, has its La (spirit); and every mountain peak, tree, cataract, and river has its lord, and every lord a number of attendants, agents to carry out his will, who are the La of those who have died violent deaths. These lords reside near the physical object which they protect, seated on the mossy crag, under the forest tree, or in the foaming torrent. Their attendants, the ghosts, smoking pipes with gold and silver stems, and armed with swords and spears, lurk in every nook and cranny, and should a luckless Karen ignorantly touch one of these powerful guardians, or step upon their attendant’s unseen weapons, they rise in anger and afflict him with sore diseases, and must be propitiated with bloodless sacrifices.”
