THE KAREN OF BURMA: AN ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY

THE KAREN OF BURMA: AN ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY

By M. BRINGAUD,
Society of the Paris Foreign Missions.
Translated from French by EIKHLEIN


The interesting survey which we begin publishing today[1] is due to a missionary who since 1863 has evangelized in these localities. This tells our readers that all information that he gives us on these tribes is highly accurate, even if somewhat surprising to us at first sight. The long apostolate of M. Bringaud was blessed and few missionaries had the consolation to harvest as much grain in the field of the Father.

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During the last forty years ,the interest and the attention of the Protestant world have been called to the nation of the Karen whom the Italian missionaries and their followers, the French missionaries, designated under the name of Carians.
Outside of the other inhabitants of Burma, this people is little known to the Catholic public and nothing yet, I think, has been published on them, apart from some letters of ancient date in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith.
After the successes of the American Baptists and the Anglicans of Great Britain, who baptized 2,500 of them in the course of the last two years in the province of Toung Ngu, there is again for us a large harvest to reap, not only in Lower Burma, but also in kingdom of Siam and independent Burma, among the different tribes of this nation, timid but docile to grace. I take the liberty of addressing this short note to you both to inform you and to involve you even more in sending them apostolic workers.



Geographical Notions


The Karens are scattered in the middle of the Talaing (Mons), the Shan and Burmese, from the borders of China to the gulf of Bengal and from the mountains of the Arakan to the banks of the Menam. However, the hills of the Pégou and the mountain-chain situated between the Salween and the Sittang are almost exclusively occupied by their different tribes that live there, either independent or under the protection of the English. The Italian mission of Toung can be considered as their center.

Under the generic term of Kayen or Karin, the Burmese understand about thirty tribes or sub-tribes whose population can be estimated at a million; half being on the territory of the English. They are classified however in three different groups called Bwe, Sgaw and Dwo (Pwo). The Bwe live in the north and the north-east, but the Sgaw and Pwo are mingled in the South-west, in Siam, in the Tennasserim, and the former Kingdom of Pegou.

All tribes have their own proper name that is almost always the word for "man" in their dialect; but people name ‘Karen Yains’ those that live in the wild state; ‘Shan Karen’ those who, mixed with the Shans and the Siamese, have acquired by their contact some civilisation; ‘Talaing Karen’ those who underwent the influence of the Mons or Talaings, and, finally, ‘Burmese Karen’ those who, having had more rapports with the Burmese, borrowed their language, their religion and their costumes, all of which differ in their case from that of their brothers of the mountains.




Origin and History of These Peoples

The Karens are not the aborigines of the regions that they live in ; all those that took care to study their customs and their traditions agree on this point, however much, to the contrary, each strives to find a different origin for them. Some wished to consider them as the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel; but to prove it could produce nothing else that the agreement of their traditions with Genesis, and the patriarchal customs of some of their tribes. Everything, their physiognomy, language, history, and legends, seems to indicate that they are descendants of the Tartar- Mongols. Others consider them as coming from Bengal, across the bay of this name that they seek to identify with the river of Khan of Karen legend; this took seven days to cross and the monsoon ended on one of its shores when it began on the other. Almost all their traditions, with the numerous borrowings of their language from Chinese, make them of northern descent.

Their migrations consist of three periods. The first, of uncertain date but prior to the Christian era, place their cradle on the northwest plateau of the Himalayas ,at Yunnan, where they lived several centuries. They crossed "a sea of moving sand, the Gobi desert, where they had greatly to suffer and from where they would never have come out, without the protection of mysterious spirits.” Leaving Yunnan, following the Chinese armies to fight the Burmese, as some traditions have it, or, more probably, chased by other tribes, they settled close to Bhamo about the II or III century of our era ,in the rich valleys of the north-east of the Irrawaddy.

Some centuries later ,we find them living on good terms with the Burmese, close to their capital, probably in Pégou; then finally, after wars and disputes, on the plateaux of the mountains to the East of their empire, living miserably of the product of the Toung Yar culture, that consists in cutting the forests and sowing in the ash of the burnt trees, rice and vegetables, tiresome work and of uncertain yield, requiring a displacement every two or three years.

One tradition reports that some scouts advancing towards the East in search of better lands, out the range of the Burmese, arrived at Zimme, today a county seat of a province of Siam, situated toward the 19o of latitude north. They found the country favorable to their purpose, marked it and returned to look for their families. No doubt, the traveling required some time, for, on return the places were occupied by the Shan who had reclaimed and sowed it and retained possession after they had furnished the Karen with the provisions to return themselves to the mountains from where they had come.

It is there that they lived ever since ,multiplying and being subdivided in new families, living in agreement and union, but later turning their weapons against one another, destroying and ruining themselves in sudden wars, up to the time when the English and the American missionaries pacified and reconciled them.

After the struggles with the Talaings, the Burmese and Siamese had depopulated and ravaged the beautiful and the rich plains of the Delta of the Irrawaddy, the Karen risked themselves to the mountains of the Yoma-Pégou and ended by settling themselves in it; on this more healthy and more fertile soil, they grew in strength and numbers stupendously.

Their migration in the south is not earlier than two hundred years ago; today in more than half of the regions they occupy they live under the English protection on the basis of equality with their former enemies and oppressors, who sometimes benefit from their ignorance to deceive them and to steal from them.




Religious traditions

It is among the Karens of this category that there are, in the south-west of the colony, some missions of southern Burma. A mixture of legends and of ridiculous fables, the traditions of the Karens are on more than one point admirable and astonishing. Have they been preserved pure through the ages, without any writing?

It appears improbable; whatever the isolation of the Karen, they always preserved more or less the borrowings made from other peoples and their lack of imagination encouraged them little for the invention of new systems.

During their stay in Yunnan, the Karen were probably in contact either with the Jews established in China some time before or after the beginning of our era, or with the Nestorians who, at the time of Marco-Polo, were widespread in all Asia, having bishops from Jerusalem to Peking. However, as nothing in them speaks of Our Lord or of the New Testament, we should believe, as the most authoritative authors think, that they received their biblical traditions from the children of Israel, where revived in their retelling, the telling of their forefathers was until then imperfectly transmitted. Many have been put in verse to be sung in the solemn funeral ceremonies and in certain circumstances: but the more numerous, fables and proverbs, reach us in prose form.

They believe in the Existence of a supreme Being, eternal, all powerful, creator of all, that the Bwès call Tapay; the Talains Karen, Khyait; and the Burmese Karen, Guas or Kassa Gua, Lord God.

Here now are the most important of their traditions on God, the creation, Eden and the fall of the man; I take them either from the Bwés and the Karenni, or from the Burmese Karen of the south-West, with whom I spent my twenty years of mission.


God

God is immutable, eternal, he existed from the beginning of the world. God is without end and eternal ,he existed from the beginning of the world. God is truly unchangeable and eternal. He existed since ancient time- in the beginning of the world. The life of God is eternal. One succession of world cannot measure the time of his existence. Two successions of the world could not measure the time of his existence. God is perfect in all his attributes, and cannot die in the change and the succession of worlds.


Creation

God created the heavens, the earth and all things. Originally, he communicated himself to men ,but he abandoned them because of their disobedience and withdrew to the seventh region of heaven.

God created the heaven and the earth. The creation of the heaven and the earth was perfect. He created the sun, he created the moon, he created the stars ; the creation of the sun, the moon and of the stars was perfect. He created the man: and of what did he formed the man? First he created the man of the earth. The creation was perfect. He created a woman; how did he create a woman? He took the man's outline and formed the woman. The creation of woman was perfect.

Then he created life. How did he create life? Our Father God says: "I love my son and my daughter; out of consideration for them, I am going to communicate to them my immense life".

He took a small portion of his life and blew it in the navel of the two; these people received life and became real beings and humans. The creation of man was perfect.

God again created foods to eat and to drink. He created rice. He created water. He created fire. He created the cows. He created the elephant, he created the birds. The creation of the birds was perfect.

God existed before all things. Having created the heaven, he placed his home there and formed the earth. All the earth was covered with water; there was no solid ground. God divided the earth and the water; the water formed the big sea and the solid earth appeared. In the former time, God created the world and in it everything was carefully ordered. In the beginning, God created the world; he has the power to enlarge it and to lessen it. God radically created the world; he can enlarge it and lessen it according to his will. In the beginning, God created the world and established solid and liquid foods there.



Terrestrial paradise.

Our Father God says: ' My son and my daughter, your father will plant and will give you a garden. In the garden are seven various different trees producing seven different fruits. Among the seven, one tree is not good to eat .Do not eat of its fruits. If you eat, you will become old ,you will die. Take care ;Do not eat it. All what I created, I give to you. Eat and drink with measure. I will visit you once in seven days. All what I have commanded you, do and observe it .Do not forget me. Pray to me every evening and every morning.’


The temptation, the fall of the man and his punishment

Children, little children, in the beginning ,God, to test if the man would observe his commandments or not, created the tree of death and the tree of life, saying to him about the tree of death: Don't eat its fruit. "God wanted to know if the man had faith in him. The man, not believing, ate the fruit of the tree of death and God hid from him the tree of life, and because the tree of life was hidden, man dies since that time.

Formerly God commanded, but Satan appeared bringing destruction. From the start God commanded, but the devil appeared deceiving for death.

The woman “Eu” and the man “Sanai” were not pleasing to the eyes of the dragon. The dragon watched them with envious eye. The dragon deceived the woman and “Sanai”.How did this happen? The dragon took a yellow fruit and gave it to the children of God. The big dragon took a yellow fruit and gave it to the girl and to the son of God. They transgressed God's commands and God turned away his face from them. They transgressed the commands of God and God abandoned them. They did not keep all the words of God, they were deceived, became prone to sickness. They did not practice the whole law of God, they were deceived, they became the subjects of death.

Temptation, the fruit of temptation, falls on the earth, the fruit of temptation was bad and was a poison for our mother. The fruit of the temptation (Oh! Don’t eat it!) in the beginning, was a deadly poison for our father and our mother. The tree of death comes to us from the woman, but the tree of life comes to us from the man. The day following their disobedience, the big morning, God visited them ,but they did not sustain their custom of continuing singing his praises. He approached and told them: " Why did you eat the fruit of the tree that I had forbidden you? " They dared not answer and God cursed them. " Oh, Yes”, he said, “you didn't observe this that I had commanded you. The fruit that was not good to eat, I had told you not to eat, but you did not obey and you have eaten. In consequence you will be subject to old age, to illnesses, and you will die."


Several of their legends give God a material shape: they make him travel, suffer, die. It is a mixture of Buddhism, probably related to the life of Gautama.

Here, in the plain, when we preach in a new village, it is not rare, to hear one of the old to exclaim in front of people who hear us for the first time:
– " It is what our fathers told us, it is our ancient religion.”

I buried ,toward mid - February, a woman of eighty years who attracted my attention a lot during her instruction in 1879. She found what I said on God and his attributes, the creation and the fall of man, the traps of the demon, etc., similar to what she had heard from her grandfather, one of the first who came from the mountains of the north-east. She interrupted me every other moment by an exclamation or an affirmation. When I wanted to know more about what she knew, I realized that she lent a body to the creator. Questioned on that ,she answered me that God had some big eyes to see all, big ears to hear all, big arms to reach all; that his voice reached unto the extremities of the world, and that it was he who spoke in the clouds to intimidate the mean ones.

I spent some time every day meeting with this good old woman who had affectionate ties to me, calling me her little son. As she passed away during my absence, she requested them to preserve her body until my return, not wanting to be buried by other people. Her son and her relatives, excellent Christians who enjoyed modest riches, had constructed a chapel for the service of the christian community at a distance of several miles from the center of the mission. I buried their mother close to this; we erected a small monument for her and all the tombs of her descendants will be all around.

The legends and the traditions alter themselves and get lost; a new generation in the plains of Pegou, mingled with young Buddhists with whom it shares instruction, pleasures and games, does not know them anymore. Since the establishment of the English, a large and rapid assimilation with the Burmese has occurred among those different in race. Some among the Khiens, Shan and Karen do not teach their children their mother tongue anymore. Fortunately, in the mountains and in the Karen countryside, things are not yet so advanced. The different dialects will be spoken there for a long time yet and the traditions of the forefathers will preserve themselves until all these peoples become Christian, or are absorbed by Buddhism.

The reason that they give for the material and intellectual superiority of the Koulas or inhabitants of the west, is that God, having to cross over a river, called a Karen who excused himself, claiming not to have the time, while a Koulas, engaged by him, exerted himself to cross and received as reward the sacred books of the law where he discovered the secrets of all things.

However, in another situation, God, passing through the Toung-Yar, had also given to the Karen his law written on leather, but he, neglectful and lazy, put it down on a tree-trunk and while he was occupied with his work a dog carried it away and ate it up. Since then the Karen, becoming more and more miserable in their enterprises and under the influence of the bad spirits of the forest, the mountains and rivers, have waited for their brothers, Koulas, to come from the west to deliver them , to instruct them and to return the books carelessly lost.

After having read the traditions of the Karens on God and his attributes, the creation and the fall of the man, you will probably have concluded that this wild people has a cult and that it adores a sovereign Being whose existence, power and bounty they recognize. Unfortunately, there is nothing of the kind and it is inexcusable, as with the philosophers of which Saint Paul speaks. If he knows his creator, he still doesn't adore him, never bends before him, never offers him sacrifice, never returns him any homage and doesn't ask him for anything. The truth is that the Karen is only sensitive to fear and the idea that he has of God is of a God just and good; having nothing to fear in his paternal gentleness, he leaves God to one side. Become christian, he will understand easily that he should honor and glorify him, and if his faith, still weak, doesn't suggest acts of perfect love to him, the desire to defeat the demons and the bad spirits will maintain him nevertheless in his duty and will help him to behave according to divine precepts.

The Karen doesn't have a cult in the proper sense, possessing neither idols, nor statues, nor images. His superstitions, his sacrifices, his offerings to the spirits and to the demons are considered by him as a kind of medicine.

He admits the existence of beings superior to man. They are first of all the angels or Blessed spirits, living in the heavens and executing the orders of the Creator, the Lord of all.

" The sons of heaven are all powerful,” said the tradition, “their seat is close to the throne of God. The sons of heaven are very virtuous. they stay with God. The sons of heaven are good, they lean against the throne of God, all decorated with silver. The Beings which God uses for the execution of his orders, have dwelt until this day in the palace of The Eternal. "

In their language, the angels are called Makas. The Karen believe especially in the demons or bad angels (Dras) whose chief is Conté that keeps the seven doors of the other world. He was not always evil, and it is through his own fault that he fell.

The legend says of him:

" Conté, in the former time, was good; but he transgressed the commands of God. Conté, in the former time was holy, but he stopped loving and honoring God and God chased him. He deceived the daughter and the son of God and God expelled him. Children, little children, if you could wound Satan to death, he would not perish; but, when the time of the redemption will arrive, God himself will kill him. If he still exists, it shows that this time didn't arrive.”

The chief of the tempter spirits is called Mucoli. They are the spirits that make men to fall and to whom all pains are attributed. The air, the earth, the valleys, the mountains, the plains, the forests, the streams, the rivers are full of demons, of spirits, of vampires, of monsters and of ghosts. Everything, even to the innards of the earth, has its guardian spirit; seldom good and indifferent, almost always bad and hostile to man, it is necessary to calm it and to pacify it, as long as one believes himself to be under its influence. If fever or illness seizes a member of the family, one seeks first of all to remove it by the use of the remedies of the local physicians who are almost always the wizards of the region.

These ignorant men possess cures transmitted orally from generation to generation, some natural, that teach how to compose some remedies with fruits, plants, herbs and roots; others magical that consist in superstitious formulas. When all their knowledge is fully exhausted and the illness still resists them, they have recourse to higher superstitions.

Medicine is powerless, they say, there is an invisible and superior being who prevents the effect; it is necessary to calm him and to move him away from the patient whom he has seized.

Then the family consults together, and almost always resolves to obey the sorcerer, that is to say, “to make the devil an offer.”

Late in the evening one takes a hen or a rooster of any colour except white; they attach it by the paw until the morning, or they put it under a pannier, if that was the previous custom of the family. Early in the morning, they kill, cook and eat it with rice prepared at the same time.

The head of the family takes it first, then the wife and the children, turn by turn, beginning from the eldest. If this order is not observed, if a stranger is present, if something falls and gets broken, it is necessary to restart the next day. The ceremony takes place almost without words, the demon to which one sacrifices is supposed to know that one acts thus in order to pacify it and to move it away from the patient that it possesses. Without it being required for validity, but doubtless to ensure a greater effect, some challenge the demon:

“Guardian-spirit of this place”, they say, “if it is you who, maltreating the patient, are the cause of his sufferings, we beg you to leave him and withdraw yourself. Demons of the mountains, demons of the forests, tutelary spirits of the waters and rivers, we beg you, if you oppress this person, if you are the reason of his pains, withdraw yourselves, deliver him. Souls of our forefathers, souls of our neighbors and our relatives, if you came to try this patient, withdraw yourself, go away. "

When the parents of the family that makes the superstitions are dead, a single hen is enough, but if they are still live, it is necessary to sacrifice another the following morning with the same rituals and in the same way.

The following day, one immolates a pig; it must not be white, the devil not approving of this colour. It is necessary to kill it in early morning, in the noblest place of the house, where the master of the house rests the head while sleeping.

It is humiliating, it is true, but it has to occur like that, because the ritual of the big dragon demands it. It needs to be eaten with rice prepared at the same time, like eating the hen in the morning, with the same order and the same observances; only, when the parents still alive, one eats it at two times: the first day, the lower part, the second day, the head and the shoulders, in memory of the ancestors.

These are the ordinary superstitions of the Burmese Karen of my districts; they are the simplest and the more easy. Those of the other tribes are more complicated, demanding more time and bigger expense. The Bives must use hens, pigs, buffalo and oxen, wild animals, dogs and reptiles.

If what a Shan catechumen told me is true, the Lawas of the borders of Yunnan offer to the spirits of their mountains the heads of their enemies killed in war and suspend them then at the top of their houses as a kind of trophy.

The Talaing Karen of the delta of the Irrawaddy use for their superstitions to Komio, the chief of demons, long and complicated formulas and rituals. If there is a patient in the family and if the first remedies don't have effect, one makes the diviner come who searches out the reason and the patterns of the pain. This one takes a stick and a dry coal, makes it wet and spits on it, makes marks at random on the piece of stick, counts them and erases them, makes other marks in the same manner, calculates, counts and reflects. If his verdict is that Komio seized the suffering person or is the reason for the pain, it is necessary to start distilling alcohol with fermented rice and take a bottle of it for the ceremony.

The second thing to do is to cook some rice in the ordinary manner, then, thirdly, it is necessary to kill a hen and to prepare it in an earthen pot. One serves it there in a big dish of wood called "daounglan”; one adds the cooked rice, a cluster of bananas, a coconut fruit and betel, and goes to place all at the bed head. One puts a cup full of water nearby and the bottle of alcohol. The water is poured from the cup: it is thought to fall on the hands of Komio who is invited to approach and to wash his hands. After this ,one pours a little arrack in a cup that one puts in the big dish along with the rice, the hen, the betel and the fruits.

The master of ceremonies then says:
" -Come, great Komio, eat and drink, don't maltreat this sick person , don't cause him pain; if you posses him, withdraw yourself ".
He pours more arrack by three times, takes the legs of the hen, some rice, vegetables and betel and spills them on the floor while adding:
" -Come, the mates of the great Komio, his friends, his servants, his attendants, eat and drink, don't cause any pain to this patient, withdraw yourselves.”
The contents of the big dish and the bottle of alcohol are consumed then by the helpers and the superstition is finished. All parents must take part in it.
If health doesn't come back, he again makes some marks on the stick and announces that, to satisfy Komio, it is necessary to “make the devil of the four heads”, which consists in sacrificing a hen, a pore, a dove, and a turtle that are cooked together in the same pot.

The Burman, the Khien and the Karen believe themselves in possession of two souls; one is called Kala by the Shans of my district, and the other Tha. The Kala is previous to life; it existed before the Tha to which alone are attributed good and bad human acts. The Kala seems to be independent of the man and to be added like a guardian spirit. However, its coexistence with the Tha is indispensable: if it comes to separate itself from it, then death follows. From there come the continual fears, from there also the most frequent superstitions to fix it or to recall it, if one believes it to be distanced.

The dreams, the fantasies, the nightmares are attributed to Kala; during sleep, it can separate itself from the body. To me it seems similar to the genius of the Romans, the immortal souls of those philosophers that gave to man an animal soul dying with the body.

Therefore when it is supposed or when someone lets it be understood that the Kala wants to leave the body one tries to retain it and to remind it by the following superstition, in which the whole family must take part and that is finished all at one time. It is necessary to prepare a rooster and a hen in the same vase with some salt, saffron, peppers, and baked chilly. They cook at the same time a particular species of rice. After it is served, one adds for the dessert a cluster of bananas. The chief of the family, with the palette that serves to clean out the rice, strikes three times on the top of the staircase while saying:... .Parrrrrou!... ..Parrrrou........ ..Parrrrou!...................
" Prrrrrou! Come back, Kala, don't remain outside; if it rains ,you will get wet, if the sun shines, you will get hot, the mosquitos will bite you, the bloodsuckers kill you, the tiger will devour you, the thunder crush you. Kala, Prrrrrrrou! Come back: here you will be well, you will miss nothing; come and eat safe from wind and storms ".


After engaging in this speech, all the family eats the rice, the chicken and the bananas, and to conclude the ceremony, all bind the right wrist with a string charmed by a soothsayer.

The ghosts also play a big role in medicine and the superstitions of the Karen. To pacify them and to keep them away, one puts some red, yellow, and white rice in a small basket of bamboo which is to be placed in the neighboring forest while saying:

" Ghosts who died fallen from a tree, Ghosts died of hunger or of thirst, Ghosts who died of the tooth of the tiger or the bite of the serpents, Ghosts who died of assassination, who died of the pox or of the cholera, Ghosts who died of the leprosy, don't mistreat us, don't compare us, don't make our people suffer, stay here, in the wood, we will take care of you, we will bring you the red rice, yellow rice and white rice for your subsistence ".

These poor people have a strange fear of ghosts. Nothing on earth would make them pass close to cemeteries, or to the places where some accident of violent death took place. The devil for his part does all that is possible and allowed to him to keep them in this state. Often they see, or believe to see and hear, extraordinary things.

Three years ago, having visited a small Christian community situated seven miles in the northwest of Mittagon, I sent ahead in the afternoon three children from the school, aged twelve to fifteen years, to help me to carry some necessary things. When I arrived the following morning at the Christian Shans where they awaited me, they murmured only of the ghost that they had seen on the way, in plain day, toward four o clock in the afternoon, close to a Burmese cemetery. All three of them gave the same description.

What had scared them was the big eyes of the specter: only the eyes and the head were visible; the body was hidden by the bushes and the smoke. On the return, I could not make them go ahead of me. I was obliged to leave with them and on arrival at the place of the apparition they showed it to me from afar, without wanting to come with me when I went with my horse to tread the place and the surrounding brushwood.

I certainly did not see or find anything, but I could not persuade these children that they had been the victims of their imaginations. They told me that the ghosts were afraid of me, a minister of the eternal God, that they were not always visible and changed their place often. .I remained convinced of their perfect good faith, and as we continued on our way, I explained to them how the demon to deceive the living sometimes took human shape, or that of monsters or of animals, but that the souls, after having left them, do not come back to take back and to enliven their bodies.

The Karen have their male and female sorcerers, but they also use those of the Khan or the Burmans. These characters again make a pact with the demons, and have each their speciality. They refuse always to reveal their secrets and the steps they take to get their magic science, but, from what I was able to hear, all is similar to what is practiced by the wizards and witches of Europe. The devil has only one ritual that he accommodates by simple variants to the customs and to the character of the different people that he oppresses.

There are soothsayers who practice necromancy and know the troublesome spirits. If they have not examined the innards of animals, they do not decide on big enterprises, as it is after having known from the shape and the accidents of the bones of a hen that they are assured of success.

An old man expert in the science of the omens is chosen among the elders; a hen is delivered to him which he kills; he invokes the spirits of vision, separates the bones of the wings and the limbs, places them perpendicularly between the inch and the index, the right to the right and the left to the left, plants a frame on the bones and reads the omen according to their position. In doubtful cases, one restarts the operation on another hen.

These wizards are thought to cause much harm; they are accused of many evil things, like the ruin and the death of persons. By their spells and their magic formulas, they cause madness and arouse the strongest and more bestial passions. Above all, they make many dupes.
Before baptizing pagans, I ask them to destroy all superstitious objects.

One day, among the amulets, the bangles and tablets, the ropes and the cords, I found a ball of marble which the children use in their games. I asked about the usage and the chief of the family, an old man of sixty-five, told me he had bought it from a Shan wizard to keep himself from renal pain. The wandering wizard had sold it to him for three rupees ( fr.50).

Handing themselves over to the devil, the wizards obtain in return the power to order it and to make it act. When they want to get funds or to inspire fear, they send the spirit that possesses them to communicate disease. To make this disappear, they have only to recall the spirit: the cure is instantaneous and stupendous.

A Christian told me that, being one day on a journey in the company of a wizard whom he didn't know, that person asked him if he had some acquaintances to receive them and to shelter them in a still distant village where they had to eat and to pass the night.

" I don't know anybody,”he said, “I myself am a foreigner in this place, but on either paying or giving some thing, we will certainly be received ".

" Let me handle it,”says the sorcerer, “then if there is something to pay, I will pay it.”

He crouched down close to a bush, make a few signs right and left, spat on the ground while inscribing a circle, and got himself up, murmuring something unintelligible.

"We continued”, says the Christian, “to walk, speaking of various things. Great was my astonishment when we arrived at the village. I was witness to the greatest confusion; there were cries, tears, lamentations. In every house the children were crying, having fever and the mothers were worried and troubled, not knowing what to do.

“The wizard inquired of all this merry-go-round as one supremely innocent, examined the children, and says that the upset was produced by an invisible spirit, that it was in his power to dismiss.

" Everybody began to beg him, to offer him presents and money. He refused, but, giving in to the requests now that the result he wanted was attained, he crouched down again near to a colonne, renewed the signs that I had seen him make one hour before, and the children were healed.

“They killed some hens for our supper, gave us mats and covers for sleep, and early in the following day, after having offered us some provisions for the journey, they begged us to come again."

For myself, I have lived too long in a milieu where the devil reigns as master and I have witnessed too many extraordinary things not to believe in the action of the demons on men through the intermediary of wizards and magic.

Asked, four or five years ago, to a mixed village to bless a well, one came to tell me, a few minutes after the ceremonies, that a Burmese witch had cast a spell on a pagan woman in a neighboring house. The devil himself was involved and this poor woman was screaming, moaning, crying and asking that I be brought to her to deliver her.

I considered confiding in a local physician, but I was told that he had hidden himself, the devil having claimed not to be afraid of him and having threatened to play him a bad turn if he presented himself. I went therefore to the sick woman, accompanied of some Christians and the children who had followed me from Mittagon. As I entered the house, the poor woman was delivered.

She was breathless, flushed and expressed herself with embarrassment. She showed me her wrists that she told me bore the print of the ropes with which the demon had bound her. She said it was close to the house hidden in a tree, waiting for my departure to come back. She held me by my dress, imploring me to guard her. I gave her holy water, reassuring her that I would do my best, and, at her request, I passed under the tree where she saw the phantom. It left at my approach, she told us afterward, becoming well and reassured.

It is generally believed that if the poor wretches who contract an engagement with the demon do not fill the imposed conditions, they are maltreated, punished and even put to death.

I knew a charmer of snakes of the name of Alambé. He was very poor and walked from village to village after the monsoon, showing the most dangerous species of snakes, the Ngan or Cobra, and receiving for his pains some rice and some money.

He had to mind the reptile, but never strike, injure or mistreat it in any way. One day, half drunk, he forgot himself to the extent of cursing his cobra; the animal refused to play, the furious charmer caught it and it bit him. He was surely pricked by the reptile, because he expired some minutes after. Everybody saw in his death the punishment of his lack of decorum to the demon who possessed him.



Marriage and the Family among the Sgaw Karen of South Burma[2]

In several tribes, the Karen or Carian betroth their children at an early age. These are free to ratify this choice before the celebration of the marriage; only, the one that first breaks the engagement must pay a fine that varies according to the place, the fortunes and the circumstances.

The Sgaw who are the more numerous and most interesting tribe and account for most Christians, Catholics and Protestants, live in the plain or on the border of the forests, near to their rice fields or their gardens, in hamlets of four, five or six houses. There are a few villages of ten to twenty dwellings. Their isolation and family ties preserve them from the contagion and the corruption of other races. The children, almost always related, grow and live together as brothers and sisters, being called such instead of using their proper names, especially if they are cousins.

When a young man has arrived at the age of sixteen to twenty years, his parents look for a girl to marry him. They choose an adult girl of fourteen to eighteen years in the neighboring hamlets and send a mediator to ask on his behalf. If she refuses, one leaves with some confusion and, after some time, looks for another. When the person agrees, they adjust the formalities of the marriage, consulting the wizard to find a favorable month and day. The young man must go to the family and be guided there by the mediator, his parents, his friends and the young people of his age. With his future father-in-law, he constructs a hangar beforehand and brings provisions to feed the guests. The eve of the departure, in the evening ,they extract sounds from a horn of bison or wild buffalo named Padau. The instrument has two notes which carry a great distance.

Early in the morning, they set off, singing, laughing, jumping, sounding the Padau from time to time to warn the neighbors and to rally the stragglers. When they arrive in front of the house of the fiancee, they laugh and shout, they sing and push the future son under the hangar which they try to shake and they call out to the owners of the lodgings.
- " Come to see your son-in-law! Ah! how do you find him? Is he beautiful! Does he suit you? But give us something to drink, to eat; we are not able to stand anymore for we have come from so far!”
Then all of a sudden silence falls, because two people leave the house with two crocks full of water that they pour entirely on the head of the engaged young man. The fiancee, who doesn't appear but who probably watches through some hole or crack the spouse that her parents have chosen for her – since it happens that they may not even know each other – sends new clothes that she wove or bought. The future son takes them and sends back by those that brought them to him the clothes that he had while coming and that he has just changed after the nuptial drenching.

After this they eat and drink. The day is spent in talking, playing, visiting the village and making friends, but the fiancé always remains under the hangar, sad and confused, clothed in the ancestral tunic, today outmoded, with his head surrounded by a white handkerchief. When the night has come, they cook together in a new pot two poultry, a rooster and a hen, to render the spirits favorable and they serve rice.

Then the young man ascends alone for a moment to the house and his wife appears. They crouch down together close to the dish without saying anything, taking each a mouthful of rice and poultry, and running away immediately, one under his hangar, the other into the room that has been prepared for him, for until then she has lived in the room of her mother. The wedding guests throw themselves on the dishes, laughing, singing, shouting, and in one instant they carried off and empty the plates. They do not dance, because dance is unknown, however they continue to eat, to drink, and to have fun until sleep prevents them.


The next day in the early morning, everybody is serious. The last meal is taken quietly in the house where the new host is introduced by his parents and by the mediator who since the beginning has filled the office of master of the ceremonies and who receives a new turban in recognition of his services.

Addressing the father and the mother of the girl, he says, “Here is your son. We give you this man, take him in care and give him work; he will obey you, respect you and submit to you in all things!”

The mediator then goes to show him his lodging and all those that had come go back to their villages.

These are the marriage ceremonies that still more or less take place in the best pagan families of the tribes of the Sgaw. But the custom tends to get lost in the plains of the delta of the Irrawaddy where the young people of the two sexes unfortunately pick up little by little Burmese customs and Burmese habits. Very often parents are not listened to any more and the children get married of a common accord, eloping to far away friends and acquaintances who welcome them and never returning to the family even after these have searched for them and promised them to receive them back.

There are stories also of quite unreasonable parents that push by severity and stubbornness their outraged children to despair. Opposed in their feelings, forced to marry men that they don't love, young girls are sometimes found hanging from a branch of a tree of the neighboring forest ,and sometimes also, much more rarely, an excessively frustrated young man.

The Burmese and the Karen Buddhists, on the occasion of the construction of a pagoda, a bridge, a monastery, or other useful public works, give a big feast accompanied by comedies and dramas, almost always immoral. In a plain close to the village, they raise a hangar for the actors and the musicians, and an immense crowd assembles all around to see and to listen.

It is always night and it is there in the darkness, with only the hangar weakly lit up, that the young contract bad marriages and misalliances. The young people are led astray in every nation, but more often among the Burmese, abusing the ignorance and the weakness of poor children who, impelled by unhealthy curiosity, escape the vigilance of their mothers.

In the localities where the Christians are few in number, the question of marriages is a big obstacle to the propagation of the faith. Here as elsewhere there are three kinds of neophytes everywhere: the good, the mediocre and the indifferent. The last groups have few scruples in allying their children to the pagans or to the heretics when they find it to their temporal interest. Those who make themselves Catholic to marry a girl nearly always apostatize, and the cases where they involve their wife and her family members in their fall are unfortunately very numerous.
Very common among the Burmese and the Shans, divorce hardly ever takes place among the Karen. Though marrying young, they are faithful to their partners until death, and several, the women especially, out of respect for their memory, do not enter a second marriage.

Polygamy is far from common; it is however tolerated. We see a few cases among people of a certain age, but as far as I know among those of the new generation there is no such case. Four or five bigamists have, in the past, asked me to make them Christians. I could not get any of them to send back one of their wives: they argued that after having taken them it would be wrong to separate from them. I could not convince anyone. Only when one of the wives had been separated by death did one man have himself baptized with the children of the two beds, and led afterward an exemplary life, building a chapel for the use of the neophytes of his region.

There are few single adults among the Karen. All get married and at an early age, except those that have an eccentric character and the girls that no one requested. The newly married must remain three years at the girl's parents and help them in their work.

From the first day the son-in-law is no longer a stranger: he is the son of the house. The father-in-law and the mother-in-law call him "my son", the brothers and the sisters of the wife call him "my brother",and treat him in the same way as their equal, unless, to avoid confusion because of the big number, first cousins being also called ‘brother’, they are forced to designate them by their proper name. The father and the mother of his wife become his father and his mother. The uncles, the aunties, the cousins and the other relatives, are, according to the ancient custom, his relatives of the same title and none of his own brothers or his blood sisters can contract marriage henceforth in the whole relationship.

The Karen family is quite patriarchal; the grandfather governs and commands up to the last moment. All recognize his authority and in his old days surround him with care, respect and priority. He is never blamed, even if he relapses again to childhood. His grandchildren laugh sometimes at his lapses, but without any mischief and have fun with him and he laughs with them. He really worships the children, he lives among them and fills them with sweet things. For all, he is the grandfather; everybody calls him this, even the strangers who have never seen him. He also in turn calls everybody his grandchildren or his nephews, including myself also like the others, in his moments of oblivion.

The son or the son-in-law who directs the works and takes care of all things, does not do anything without consulting him. Generally, peace and concord reign in the house and with the neighbors. The husband is full of consideration for his wife whom he helps if need be in the works of the household and the care of the children. The most common usage is to call the husband by the name of their first born child. For example:
- “Father of Paul, come to have a meal! "
- “Mother of Paul ,I will come in a moment ".
The children never name their parents with the proper names of the father and mother. Calling their proper name, even while speaking to a third person would be a lack of respect. For example, I ask a child: "Whose son are you ?" He will answer me: “I am a pa po (the child of the father),or amo po (the child of the mother)”,naming in preference the one of his parents whom he loves more.

I only found one exception and it was in a Christian family. In 1874, three dangerously sick people in succession were brought to me for healing from a hamlet situated eight miles (English) to the north of the Mission: a young man of eighteen years, his mother who was five years a widow, and his aunt. She had had recourse to all superstitions, to all wizards and physicians of the country, and had come to me on the advice of a christian relative. They were fortunately healed and wanted to be baptized before returning home.

Shortly after, twelve families were converted also and form today one of the better small Christian communities of which my vast mission is composed. They have a small chapel constructed by them where I go two times a year to spend some days to baptize new catechumens.

Among this brave people, as among the other Christians of the district, I am entertained, with my assistants, at the expense of the faithful, but here there is a touching particularity to note. The old sexagenarian doesn't want to permit anyone to cook the rice for me, to have more merit because of the pain she took. After the crop she gleans some ears in the fields of her children and it is with the grain of these ears that she prepares my meals.

It is in this house that the younger ones depart from the customs of the ancestors: the children have taken on the habits of the children of the second widow, their grand-mother becomes their “mother”, their mom becomes to them " my elder sister", or merely " Mitou", her proper name.

***************


Getting married young, living an active, sober and ordered life, living generally from fruits and vegetables, rice and fish, the Karen have many children. Half of them died for lack of intelligent care, taken away by cholera, smallpox, whooping cough, fever or diarrhea.

The Christians, however, adjusting themselves to a better hygiene, are less apprehensive and better ordered. Having recourse to our medicines, they conserve a bigger number of their children. There are families of up to seven, eight, or nine children and some have even more. The parents have great affection for their children. Children are their riches and the more the number grows, the more they are happy and content. They never abandon them and give them up, however poor they may be; they always finds ways to feed them and to raise them.

The mothers especially refuse them nothing and it is their blind tenderness that makes a great number perish. Almost always they have two at the breast. Not having the courage to wean the eldest so as not to see his tears and hear his screams and complaints, without understanding, they exhaust themselves, even ruining the health of their small idol maybe forever and sometimes causing him death. A secret to win the mothers and by them the whole family is to pamper and to entertain these poor dirty infants, to heal them, to deliver them of the vers, in short, in one way or another, to make friends with them. With patience and kindnesses, the work is easy and the fruits are abundant.

Really, a Karen finds it difficulty to take a decision; he always finds some objection to defer his conversion. This can be nothing other than his laziness and his nonchalance. Some lever is needed, something to shake him and to motivate him and to direct him. This will sometimes be to satisfy the desire of the child who cries, wanting to go to the church like his young friends and to carry like them a cross or a medal on the neck.

There are no poor people in the south of the colony: all, working a little, can live easily. Those that have some children to support, become prosperous in some years if the pestilence does not remove their livestock, whereas those who don't have children, or those that only have a small number, man-power being expensive and scarce, are almost always poor or of little wealth. There is plenty of land which the government grants non-taxable for the first years; but the arms are lacking to cultivate it.

When one of the children goes away from the house to work on his own account and to let place for a new couple, the parents provide him the means to settle appropriately according to their resources in money, land and animals. The father acts according to his will and gives what he wants without the other children complaining or bewailing.

In giving the children in marriage, he gives to each his part according to what he happens to possess at the time of the separation. At the death of the parents, if there is still something left to divide, it is the eldest son who makes the sharing and from that moment he is the chief of the family, the protector of his brothers and his sisters. Later if one of them falls in need, he will give him a part of his fortune to restore him and if this is not sufficient he will turn for help to the more well-to-do of the other brothers. When one of them doesn't have a child and has not found one to adopt, he gives him one of his own forever or for the time that the child will want to remain with him.

Strangers and travelers are received by their acquaintances as in their families; they are given all attention and the first place, others eating only after they have been served. It is a service that one renders to all, because there are no inns or hostels apart from “zayats” or hangers in the cities and close to the monasteries.

The Karen is good but shy and not very expansive, he speaks little and is reserved; it is the opposite of the Burmese, vain and loquacious like a commercial traveler.

When he gives or lends to someone of his tribe, he will never repent of it, for the other will later return to him if he can the services and the goods that he will have received.

The Burmese only repays when he is forced to and, half of the time, the Karen does not have the courage to resist his importunate demands. A wretched man is driven from the cities by poverty and comes to the uplands where he presents himself in a Karen hamlet; he begs, he cries, he appeals, he shows his wife in rags and his naked and starving children.

They receive him. They cannot see so much misfortune without being affected. They give him rice, clothes, materials to construct a hut. They help him or provide him instruments or work. Everything goes well during one year, two years and even three years. The Burmese behaves himself in whatever way will please the Karen. But when, with his help, he has acquired a small fortune, he becomes impertinent and gross, loud and insolent.

He won't leave the village although he is asked; far from leaving, he will introduce his relative, his friend, his acquaintance. When the position will have become intolerable for them, the owners of the place will sell their houses and their lands and will go in the forests to prepare a new paddy field. Almost all Burmese villages of the uplands have no other origin than this: the Karen prepare the land and the Burmese follow them for cultivation and to seize it for themselves at knock-out prices by violence, deceit and cajolery.

Without doubt, the English remedied a lot of things and corrected many abuses, but the lower races are still exploited and oppressed by the dominant Burman nation. As nearly all subordinate employees are Burmese, justice is rarely and with difficulty delivered to the poor people of the forests. That at which a European would revolt does not have the same effect on them, habituated as they were before the conquest to all kinds of injustices and bad treatment.

A neophyte told me that his father, a slave of the tribute collector of Myanaung, simply because he uttered a wrong word was dragged behind a buffalo until he died. Another told me that his father, in service to the chief of Kanouny, being unable to carry an excessively heavy bag, received two on his back and had his kidneys ruptured. He died after a few days, leaving three orphans. The eldest was eight years of age.

One year before the English occupation in 1851, my first Christian, driving a heavily loaded cart, failed to give way in time to the governor. He was forced to dig his grave on the same place, but someone to rescue him went to a relative of the chief who, when he learned of it, requested and obtained his pardon.

This governor was still alive when I began the mission in 1867. He had found ways to attach himself to the winning side, betraying the Burmese general after his first defeats. He was always hostile to us and on my arrival had consulted the demons who answered "a burning coal falls on the city." The town, in fact, went up in flames three times in the space of two years and the governor's house was twice entirely consumed by the flames along with most of its furnishings. After sometime that man died of a mysterious illness, vomiting blood and confessing his wrongs towards the foreign priest.

But the biggest enemy of the Karen, that which harms him more than the Burmese, is his foolishness and cowardice, the fear he has of demons, diseases and ghosts. He is forever in waking fear of some enemy, visible or invisible, real or imaginary.

"Before my baptism,” a fervent Christian told me, “I was like a traveler in the forest at night, oppressed, trembling, not daring to leave or to move because of fear of the tiger or of walking on snakes. Now, I feel at ease in the plain day, breathing and not dreading the bad spirits anymore, for I know that God's angel keeps me and protects me.”

The ignorance of the Karen well equals his anxieties, for, if a stork perches on his house, it is not anymore habitable; it is necessary to sell it or to destroy it. If a snake climbs up, it is necessary to leave it; if three people die there, if an illness resists the physicians and the rituals, it is necessary to change the place. This means in practice to sell it to the Burmese for whatever he may be willing to give for the house, paddy field and garden, and to go into the forest to prepare another place after having sacrificed to the tutelary spirits to make them favorable and to have a good arrival.

If courage and energy are not the customary virtues of the Karen, one does, however, sometimes meet with rare exceptions. There are ardent characters, virile and audacious, that contrast strangely with the softness and the inertia of the many.

In 1872, when we were explaining the passion of Our Lord, a catechumen that I named Abraham, rising suddenly in his place, asked:
- "And his disciples, what were they doing during this time?"
- "By fear they had run away and hidden. "
- "The lackeys! If I had been there! "
- " Well, what would you have done?”
- "This is what I would have done? With my Dar I would have cut down all these bad Jews and would have killed them and I would have delivered him".
- “We would have thought the same as you thought," said a catechist. "But what could you have done against so many people?
- "This is what I would have been able to do! I would have defended him and would have died with him. "

I obtained silence to continue the instruction, but only after our zealous Abraham made all the reflections that his indignation brought to his mind.
- “Are there people of this kind?” he asked.
- “Yes,” he was told, “they are everywhere on earth." This led to a criticism against the English and the governor of the colony who allowed these deicides to live in peace instead of wiping out them until the last one and purging the earth of them.

Finally we succeeded in calming him, telling him of God's mercy that lets the good and the bad live on the earth that he created, waiting right up to death for a moment of repentance and only then punishing those who do not change for the better.

* * * *

The Karen distill fermented rice and compose also with rice and herbs a kind of beer that they call Cazeau. As much as possible, in receiving them in the church, it is necessary to make them lose the habit of drinking. However, it is necessary to take some precautions with people of Abraham's age and influence and to bring them gradually to a complete abstinence. Before his baptism, he told me about his defect and promised me that it would be impossible for him to abstain entirely. We made an agreement and I tolerated that he would only drink from time to time, only one cup at a time and not more than three times a day.

His village, that today counts twenty-five Christian families and possess a good chapel, is thirteen miles to the north of Mittagon where he had never come before his baptism. I made him to come as early as possible to see the mission and the church, attending in the offices and to make acquaintance with the other christian leaders. He arrived after two weeks. The first thing that he did after having greeted me was to visit the church in the company of a catechist who explained the doctrine to him. He remained there nearly one hour and when he came back to see me, he was all in tears:
- " Father,” he said to me, “this time I promise you, this will be forever!”
- " What?” I asked him; " Explain to me".
- " After having seen what I have come to see, it would be a crime to drink again; because Our Lord suffered so much for me, I really owe him this deprivation."

What he had seen was the stations of the way of the Cross. Abraham still lives, he is now sixty-eight years and until this day faithful to his promise.

A neophyte of his village, hunting deer with a pagan brother on a Friday of Lent, found a skein of honey and gave it to him. He divided it in two and returned half of it to him.
- "No, my brother,” he said, “it is all for you. I will not take anything for today, for us Christians, is a day of fasting ".

They killed a doe, arrived home, and shared it. The neophyte, in the presence of his brother, mixed his portion in some salt to keep it until Sunday. After night had fallen, the pagan came to look for the christian, took him to his home and placed before him a good supper served in a secret place:
- " Go to it, brother,” he says to him, “we ran the whole day, eat now, nobody will know anything of it.”
- " Apart from the fact that we don't eat meat today,” he responded, “I have already taken my supper. I thank you, but I won't touch anything of your dish, because the God that we serve sees and knows all.
- " If it is necessary to behave like this, said the pagan, I won't have strength to practice your religion; it is too strict and difficult ".


He spoke thus, however the grace of good example acted in him: he was baptized three months later with all his family, and although that was five years ago, he has since observed the fasting and abstinence as the other do.

* * * *

In the mountains, changing location every two or three years, the Karen construct a long house in bamboo, in which every family takes the space that is allotted to them, separated by a lattice from the one of his neighbor. The houses are sometimes two hundred feet in length and contain forty to sixty people.

In the plain they are lodged better and some possess solid houses of good posts and boards, well constructed and ventilated, a surface of forty and even fifty feet radius. The ground floor serves as discharge area and provides a roof to pigs and hens. This level also consists of a big room some feet lower than the rest of the building; it is kitchen and refectory, parlor and work-shop combined, the place where the children play and have fun.

Above, in what is properly termed the house, there are as many rooms as families, as well as a place to accommodate visitors and strangers. Next to the house, we find a hanger to house the beasts and to shelter the stored rice.

The Karen doesn't need anybody, he knows how to make everything that is indispensable and useful to him, but only that. He builds his house, makes his mats and his baskets, makes and repairs his vessels, his carts, his wheels and his barrows, and likewise, if he possesses a gun, composes also his hunting powder. The woman possesses the science necessary for the household: she shells and prepares her rice, cards, spins, and dyes cotton picked in the Toung Yas and weaves the dresses of her husband, her children and relatives, giving the warmest to the elderly while they are still alive.

* * * * *

Shy and almost without needs, the Sgaw have few connections between themselves and the Burmans. They seldom go to the town, because the itinerant Shans bring them at home everything that they wish for: cords, needles, mirrors, knifes, glasses, dresses and turbans of silk. After the harvest, the merchants come to buy their rice, while others come from time to time for the purchase or the sale of livestock.

* * * * *

Of exquisite politeness and respect, they do not however have expressions for complimenting and saluting one another. Their salutation consists in saying phrases like: “My uncle, where do you come from? My aunt, where are you going? My nephew, what do you want? " To pass somebody without saying anything is an impoliteness.

Relative or not, a young man will call a young man of his own age “friend”, a child, “nephew”, an old man, “grandfather”, a mature man, “uncle”. For the old persons, the children and the young people will always be their “grandsons” and their “nephews”. In the families, not only the children of the same blood, but first cousins call themselves – and are called by everybody – “brothers”, and that often creates a certain confusion and gives rise to mistakes.


END.
...................

A Note on the Author
Bringaud was born in 1837 at Ussels in Corrèze. He remained a short time in the Seminary of Tulle
Father Jean-Baptiste and entered the Foreign Missionary Seminary in November 1860. His mother accompanied him, hoping to bring him back. Jules Dubernard, his friend from childhood, followed him to the rue de Bac. Ordained a priest on May 30, 1863, he arrived in Burma at the same time as the future Mgr. Bourdon on October 8. On January 21, 1864, Mgr. Bigandet sent him to Thingan-aing to help Fr. Naude in place of Fr, Tardivel who was going to found a new station toward Henzada. The journey by boat and on foot took him one week, and he was exhausted: but Naude and Devos quickly communicated their own good spirits to him. He learned Burmese with the school-master and left soon on tour with the catechist and Gabriel Pô Si, his mass server: this was how he trained the man who was to be his companion in the apostolate during 39 years. On November 8, 1868, he left to settle in Mittagon. It was there that he had to work during 36 years and opened the stations of Sinlu and Yenandaung in the north, and of Danbi and Letthama in the south. Ever since 1875, Mgr. Bigandet admired the intelligent and persistent work of Bringaud. In 1882, he mentioned the famed facility of this Father in communicating his zeal to his catechists and a good number of Christians who prepared the way for the missionary. It was in this way that the series of stations founded by him came by 1904 to comprise 6,000 Christians, of whom 3,000 belonged to Mittagon. He was concerned above all for the Karen and even published an ethnological survey on them. But, unlike Fr. Naude, he did not speak Karen, which may sometimes have affected his judgments. He also worked with the Chin and made a study on them. Above all, the Christians held him in genuine affection because he did not spare himself on their behalf. Like Fr. Tardivel, Bringaud worked many times in the Burmese villages neighboring Mittagon, with a success which he was initially inclined to broadcast but, later, educated by experience, spoke of more circumspectly. In 1900, he had baptized 150 of them and spoke of 200 catechumens, but he had not been able to occupy himself with them sufficiently and he rarely spoke of it. After his operation for cataract in India, in spite of his 67 years, he took up his visits of villages; after Easter he completed a tour of administration at the height of the hot season. Overcome by fever, he had to lie down, but he appeared more exhausted than sick. He had remained in his room fifteen days when, on Saturday May 7, his assistant priest P, Herzog passed by to see him about eleven o’clock to ask him if he wanted to take some food. “Don’t worry, I don’t need anything,” answered the old man. Two hours later, he died. On Tuesday 10, in the midst of a big gathering of priests and Christians, Fr. Saint-Guily sang a solemn Mass. Mgr. Cardot being at that time on visitation in Mandalay, it was Fr. Luce, the Pro Vicar who gave the blessing. His tomb is beside that of his old catechist Gabriel Pô Si who had worked with him for 39 years. They rest together close to the new church now under construction. On that day of his solemn funeral ceremony, the people came in crowds to accompany him to his last home, close to his disciple Pô Si who had died the year before. We recognize in him the moving and inspiring tone of his friend Fr. Tardivel who had arrived in this region of Henzada in 1861, two years before him. It was they who opened up all districts of the region!

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[1] The French source for this opening section of the translation is Les Missions Catholiques, (1888), June 15: 283-285; June 22: 296-299.
[2] The source for this section of the translation is Les Missions Catholiques, (1888), June 29: 306-308; July 6: 316-320.

Catholic Mission in Myaungmya

Catholic Mission in Myaungmya

The Catholic Mission in Myaungmya, in Delta Irrawaddy, was founded by an Italian missionary from Propaganda Fide, called Rev.Fr.Domenico Tarolli. Though he came along with the Barnabite Missionaries, he was a diocesan priest sent directly under the mission of Propagation of Faith.
Originally Fr.Tarolly was from the northern part of Italy, born in 1798 of a devout Catholic family. He a Tyrolese from Castello on the Italian side of the Alps. Economically poor, he had to work hard since he was young. He lost his father at the age of eight and however he could manage to receive his elementary educations like other children. At the age of 16, he found himself called to the holy vocation and consulted with his parish priest about his intention to become a priest and a missionary. Supported and encouraged by his parish priest he entered the seminary and got ordained priest at the age of 24, on September 22, 1822. After his ordination, he was assigned to work in his native parish for some years while preparing himself to go for foreign mission in the far East.
He managed to get in touch with the Congregation of Propagation of Faith through the help of Capuchines Fathers of his native place. He was called to Rome in 1830 and was asked immediately to sail to Burma Mission. At the time in Burma was the time of post Burma-Anglo war. The war broke out between 1824 to 1836 and finally the British conquered and occupied the Arakan and Ternnaserim in lower Burma, leaving Irrawaddy Delta under the administration of the King of Ava.
After a long voyage from Italy by ship Fr.Tarolly and Fr. …..another Barnabite missionary finally arrived Rangoon in 1831. The mission was still under the hands of the Barnabite Mission which started since 1722 by the arrival of the first Barnabite Missionary group led by Fr.Calchi. The yound and energetic missionary Fr.Tarolly was sent to the upper Burma, in the kingdom of Ava and to work around Shwebo district to support the mission of Barnabite Fathers. Just a short stay in the kingdom of Ava,in upper Burma, Fr.Tarolly was called back to Rangoon to take charge of the Catholic community in town and in the neighboring villages. A hard working priest, Fr.Tarolly was always on the move. He was travelling in the region of Delta and along the river of Salwine. He visited Basein and Myaungmya, prominent areas of Delta. He went even to spend some time in Moulmein and travelled Ternnaserim coast. He even thought of setting up a mission centre at the mouth of Tavoy river where the Baptist mission was flourishing under the care of Dr.A.Jusdon. After his intensive survey in the coastal region of Ternnaserim where he could get in touch with the missionaries of MEP, working in the Malay Pinasula, he was again recalled to Rangoon and went about the Irrawaddy Delta establishing contact with local people.
It was said that Fr.Tarolly received a kind invitation from a Portuguese Officer of Bassein to come over and spend some time there in Bassein which was a prominent sea port at that time. Responding to the friendship of the Portuguese Officer Fr.Tarolly went to Bassein and stayed there for three months and then returned to Rangoon. After some time he went again to Bassein to make survey of the region for another two months and decided to make official petition to the King of Ava to grant him permission to build a church and a presbytery.
The permission was granted by the king in the beginning of 1844 when the British government was preparing to wage the second Burma-Anglo war in 1852 to capture the whole region of lower Burma. Fr.Tarolly went over there and settled himself there and started the foundation of the mission by building the church, a presbytery and a school for children. Two years later, in 1846 he was given another young Italian priest called Fr.Pogolotti as his assistant in Bassein. Moved by the Spirit of the Lord, both were working hard in the town as well as in the surrounding area of Bassein. In fact, both of them were gifted physicans. Fr.Tarolly was known for being a good surgeon in this area. The fame of their healing mission spread far and wide throughout the region. Even the governor of Myaungmya requested them to cure the illness of his sick brother. They succeeded restoring him to good health and their fame increased day by day. In Bassein many were flocking to them seeking relief of their pains both physical and spiritual. It was said that in a short time, they could gather over one hundred Catholic in the region.
In the beginning of 1848, an unexpected invitation of the governor of Myaungmya came to Fr.Tarolly requesting him to come and settle down in the region of Myaungmya, known as a very fertile land but sparsely populated at that time. The governor wanted to develop his region by attracting more people to settle in the district. He was firmly convinced that the fame of Fr.Tarolly would certainly attract people to Myaungmya if he were to establish his mission there and promised him of giving him all necessary help.
In the company of a few families of Catholics from Bassein Fr.Tarolly reached Myaungmya on March 9, 1848 in the place called Thazingone village. He began by building a wooden house, a part of which served as a chapel and the other part as his residence. He constructed another small building which he used as chool for children. His healing ministry continued as expected. Many flocked to him. As a result, many conversion followed. By the middle of 1850, there were in Myaungmya, under his care, four hundred Catholics and about six hundred catechumens. That was the first Catholic community established in the Mission of Myaungmya.
Two years later, there was a war. In 1852, the second Anglo-Burman war broke out as expected by all. The Burmese resisted. Many Europeans were targeted. Many of them were arrested and put in heavy chains and transported to Ava. Among them were Fr.Tarolly from Myaungmya and Fr. Gabutti from Bassein who fell in the same fate and were sent to Ava.
When Fr.Tarolly was taken away to Ava as prisonor, the Mission in Myaungmya was severely under attack.The mission buildings were burnt down. Many catholics considered to be followers of foreigners were killed and some escaped to the jungles for their survival.
In Ava, Fr.Tarolly was asked by the king to be the intermediary between the British and the king for peace and negotiation. Finally peace treaty was signed by both parties and ended the second Anglo-Burma war. Fr.Tarolly was released and came back to Myaungmya to find his work completely destroyed and his Catholics scattered in the jungles.
Time of peace was restored. The whole lower Burma was handed to the administ -ration of the British government. Fr.Tarolly reconstructed the buildings; a small chapel and a presbytery in wood, a little better than the previous ones. He reconstructed his class rooms and again the mission revitalized.
He was given as his assistant in the mission, Fr. Tagnet, in 1859. A few months later when the new priest knew how to speak Karen, Fr.Tarolly let him in charge of the mission of Myaungmya.
As the whole region was in peace under the new administration of the British, Fr.Tarolly decided to move away from Myaungmya and make another survey for founding new missions. He came to Rangoon and from there he travelled the whole region of Delta, and then moved to Salween and went down to Ternnasserim coastal region where he had visited about fifteen years ago.
After his second tour of the mission in the lower Burma, in 1863, he established himself with the permission of Bishop Bigandet, somewhere near Twante. That was his new mission. In 1867, he was given a helper, Fr.Schimitt to assist him in the new mission which he recently founded. As he considered the new priest was ready to be charge of the new mission, Fr.Tarolly moved closer to Rangoon and settled in another new place called Chaungqwin or Kyargwin. It was noticed that he did not stay in the new place for a long time as his age advanced.
Then shortly after his last station in Kyargwin, Fr.Tarolly went back to his first mission in Myaungmya to spend the rest of his time as retired priest. He was in Myaungmya until October, 1882 when the third Anglo-Burma war was in preparation in the upper Burma. In that month of October he was feeling very ill. Sensing his end was near, he left for Bassein to be with his spiritual son, Fr.George D’Cruz who was parist priest of Bassein.( It was recorded that Fr.Tarolly baptized little George D’Cruz in Rangoon at the age of two, when he first arrived the mission in 1931) Finally he quietly expired in the hands of Fr. George D’Cruz on December 15, 1882 at the age of 84, after having spent fifty years of long service in the mission of Burma, particularly in the region of Delta Irrawaddy. His remain was brought to Myaungmya for burial.
As noted above Fr. Tagnet took charge of the mission in Myaungmya in 1860. The mission was revitalized under the care of this new priest but not so long in 12864, he was replaced by another MEP priest called Fr.Bertrand who came from Kanazogone mission and became the head of the mission in Myaungmya. Fr.Bertrand stayed in Myaungmya until the end of 1866.
Another energetic MEP priest called Fr. Devos in Myaungmya in 1867 to replace Fr.Bertrand who was called to another mission for service. Fr.Devos did not stay long time in the mission of Myaungmya as he was replaced by another priest coming from Kanazogone, Fr.Cartreau in 1870. It was the time when Bishop Bigandet went to Rome to attend the First Vatican Council and requested the Burma Mission to be divided into three Vicariates : Rangoon, Mandalay and Toungoo. The request was granted and came to effect in the following year.
Fr.Cartreau worked hard in Myaungmya until 1877 when he was asked to hand over the mission to Fr. G.Kern who remained many years in the mission of Myaungmya until his death. After Fr.Tarolly, Fr.G.Kern was known as the second founder of the mission in Myaungmya. He was the one who build the a beautiful brick church in Myaungmya. ( The church was burnt down 1942, during the time of Japanese invasion of Burma). Fr.G.Kern expended the school both for boys and girls. He could managed bringing the Sisters of St.Francis Xavier to take charge of the girls school and boarding house. The mission flourished during his time. The number of Catholics steadily rose. Fr.G.Kern finally expired in Bassein 1905 but his remain was brought to
Myaungmya to be buried.
After the third Anglo-Burma war (1885-86), the whole Burma was under to the administration of the British. The mission flourished along with the protection of the British and good administration of Bishop Bigandet after separating the Burma Mission into three Vicariates. In Myaunmya, Fr. Rieu, another MEP priest took over the mission from the hands of Fr.G.Kern at his death. Fr.Rieu continued faithfully the mission of his predecessor until 1911 when he was replaced by Fr.A Fargeton who became the head of Myaungmya mission until 1920. Fr. A.Fargeton was given Fr.Anthony Paschal, a native Karen priest, to be his assistant since 1916. He became the head of the mission in Myaungmya in 1921. He continued the mission with full enthusiasm during the time when Burma was fully awaken by nationalism and movement for independence from the British’s rule.
The mission of Myaungmya was again destroyed in 1942 when the Japanese took over the administration of Burma from the hands of the British. Fr. Anthony Paschal was murdered together with another priest, his assistant. About 140 boys and girls in the boarding house were pitilessly massacred by the BIA solders. That was another deadly blow to the mission of Myaungmya. However the mission continued under the protection of the Blessed Mother, mother of the Church.
In 1945, when the Japanese left the country and the British recaptured the nation, Fr.Ogent of MEP took over the mission of Myaungmya and was assisted by Fr.George U Kyaw, a Karen priest who later became the first local ordinary of the diocese of Bassein in 1955. Fr.Ogent remained there just one year and replaced by another MEP priest, Fr.Martin Nabaitz in 1946, two years before Burma got the independence from the British in 1948.
Fr.Martin Nabaitz was known as the third founder to the mission in Myaungmya. He rebuilt the presbytery, the convent and built also a famous High School ( No.3.State High School) in affiliation the government school. He built a huge and solid Cahtholic Church in Myaungmya which was solemnly opened for divine service in March 1966.
Burma got the independence in 1948 and under the new administration of the Burmese Government led by U Nu, the country was put on the new road and direction but with much difficulty and hardship to endure. In the midst of these hard moments Fr.Martin Nabaitz energetically rebuilt the mission. The mission flourished from all sides. The first priority of Fr.Martin Nabaitz’s mission was to educate the young boys and girls. He opened the boarding houses for both boys and girls asking the parents to send their children to the mission school for education. He opened the Catechists’ Training School in 1956 when the diocese of Bassein was erected and the first local ordinary Bihsop George U Kyaw was given to the diocese. The Catechist’s Training School, being a National one, welcomed all the candidates from all dioceses of the Church of Burma since that time. Many movements and activities were created under his leadership after the Second Vatican Council ( 1962-65). The parish of St.Mary, Mwe hauk was created during his time about 1976 and the parish of Theyetchaung was established too during his time in 1978. In this way from the main mission of Myaungmya derived two parishes during his time.
When General Ne Win took over the country’s power from the Prime Minister U Nu, in 1962 and nationalized all the missionary buildings and schools in 1965, the mission in Myaungmya was not so much disturbed by the effect.The High School of Fr.Martin Narbaitz was not nationalized and confiscated as the school was affiliated to the government school since its foundation. The health of Fr.Martin Nabaitz was declining since the mid of 1975 due to hard works and multiple responsibilities given to him. However he could manage to handle the mission progressively until his only and final departure from Burma in the end of August 1981 to receive medical treatment in Paris, France. Just three days after his arrival at Paris, France, Fr.Martin Nabaitze expired in one hospital in Paris on September 2, 1981. The whole mission of Myaungmay mourned and regretted for his unexpected departure from this world.
Fr.Paulinus Mahn Eishaung, a Karen priest, a former Professor in St.Joseph’s Catholic Major Seminary, Yangon was appointed as parish priest of Myaungmya in 1982. With new perspectives of reintroducing Karen language and liturgical celebrations Fr.Paulinus Mahn Eischaung launched his mission with much zeal and effort resisting all the obstacles that were coming on his way. He repaired the old buildings of the mission and reinforced the formation of the Catechist’s Training School. The liturgical celebrations in Karen language were reorganized and summer language courses were opened. Youth and children courses were conducted annual according to the seasons and needs. The parish of Myaungmya grew into its maturity and gave birth to another two parish during the time of Fr.Paulinus Mahn Eishauang. One is the parish of Einme which was founded in 1993 and the other one is the parish of Changthagone which was created in 1996.
Fr.Paulinus Mahn Eishaung asked for retirement from the responsibility of parish priest in 1998 due to his poor health and he was replaced by Fr.Raymond Saw Htun Kyi, another young Karen priest to continue the multiple works accomplished by his predecessor. The mission continued with the grace of God until now with new administration of Fr.Raymond Htun Kyi, a quiet and simple priest of the diocese. As all aspects are being affected by the economic and political struggle of the country, not much things can be expected out of this situation. Thanks be to God if things do not get worse and the stability of progress could be maintained in one way or another during this hard time.