THE

JOURNAL

OF

THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO

AND

EASTERN AS I A.

THE KAREAN TRIBES OR ABORIGINES OF MARTABAN AND TAVAI, WITH NOTICES OF THE ABORIGINES IN

KEDDAH AND PERAK.

By Lieut.-Col. JAMES LOW, C. M. R. A. S. & M. A. S. C.

IN almost every region of the globe to which geographical knowledge has introduced us, have been found tribes or hordes of men whom we call aborigines, because the obscurity of their history presents formidable obstacles to investigation into the nature of the stock from which they sprung.

In the Indo or Hindu Chinese countries with a few exceptions, inspection will convince us that wherever such wild tribes exist, their external conformation and bearing, if not their language and habits, bear an analogy more or less strong to the same characteristics displayed by the more civilized nations or tribes which have supplanted them in their ancient rights.

The races throughout that wide portion of the earth lying betwixt India and China, including the eastern islands, exhibit generally in their features and physical conformation the evidences of a common origin and which assimilate them to the hill races of the Himalaya and its spurs and vallies, Tibet and perhaps Tartary -marks which sever them apparently from most of the remaining classes of mankind.

The only perfect exception to these remarks as applicable to VOL. IV. AUGUST, 1850.

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Eastern Asia, with which undoubted research has yet supplied us, is the existence of the woolly haired races, which have been discovered in the Eastern Peninsula, and in the Indo-Chinese Archipelago.

These tribes existing in the lowest state incident perhaps to humanity, if we except the native Australians, without its actually blending itself with the inferior animals, have the fairest claim to the title of aborigines; and there seems to be no reason why we should not allow them to be a distinct variety of the genus man. I may here notice as a curious perhaps a valuable coincidence if it could be traced to its source the similarity in the name given to the jungle tribes by people so wide apart as the Burmans and Malays are.

There is no necessity however for tracing them to Africa, if the African negro is not a distinct species, as some have advanced, from the other races of mankind-since the same physical and perhaps moral causes which contributed to stamp them so indelibly, may have operated with equal force elsewhere to change form, feature, and complexion.

The Kareans or Kayens who inhabit the civilized districts of Lower Burmah, are chiefly distinguished from the Burmans and Peguers by a fairer complexion and by greater strength of muscle. While those tribes, who, going under the same denomination, although often differing from the former and each other in stature, complexion and in language, inhabit the closely wooded and wildest parts of the country, are generally also fairer than these

two races.

Those tribes only will here be described who were visited during my several journeys through Martaban, Ye, and Tavoy, in Perak and in Keddah.

The observations now offered were made by me during various journies over the Tenasserim Provinces immediately after they fell to the British arms.

The wild tribes in Siam will also be adverted to.

The Kareans of Martaban are divided into two tribes, termed respectively by them Kaphlung wa or the civilized, and Asiyang or the barbarous. The latter are likewise termed by the Burmans Kaysnnee or red Kayens. The manners and ideas of the former I have had frequent opportunities of noticing. But although I explored the country up to the wild track inhabited by the latter and lying nearly N. and S. about 140 miles from the sea, I was not so fortunate as to meet any of them. Perhaps this was fortunate in one point of view, as they are represented as very savage and expert at the cross bow, shooting from behind cover of the jungle with deadly precision.

They formerly gave constant annoyance to the Burmans in Martaban, as they made annual attacks in bodies of five, eight, or ten thousand.

The superiority which the Burmans had in fire arms,-weapons with which the Asiyang have no means of supplying themselves, alone saved them.

Besides the two tribes noticed, the Martaban Kareans describe four others whom they consider as belonging to the same general class as themselves; although situation and long estrangement from each other, have created dissimilarities in their respective customs and even in their respective features. These are :

1st. Kaplung Tongsu.

From their history and appearance it is pretty apparent that their origin was not very remote from that of the Chinese.

2nd. Bang Khlang-who inhabit the Taitkilla district. 3rd. Kathang-mong-who live at the foot or in the vicinity of the Tanen-taungki, a Siamese range of hills bounding Martaban. 4th. Kathang-wa, a tribe on the Siamese borders, and rather attached to that nation than to the Burmans or Peguers.

The only information which could be got from the Martaban Kareans respecting their origin, amounted to this, that of old there were two persons, one fair the other dark complexioned, which amounts to no more in my opinion than a compliment to their late_conquerors. They say that the Peguers are allied to the dog, the Burmans to the pig and the Siamese to the monkey. Now we learn from "Mackenzie's Account of the Pacific Ocean" that the Chippewyans have a tradition that they were produced from a dog, and further we know that the worship of the dog pervaded the Indo Chinese countries at a period not very remote. But it is worthy of remark that this physico-geological system of progressive existence is now at least confined to the tribes who have not yet been embued with the doctrines of Buddhism, and that the Burmese, the Peguers and the Siamese follow in their creative system the dogmas of the Indian and Ceylon Buddhas.

The Kareans have no written records, and their traditions are remembered with reference to the periods at which they migrated from one place to another.

The Kareans in the neighbourhood of Padda in Tavai, where I halted a day, told me that there were two tribes in that Province, the Mitkhen and Mitho.* The former have been induced to incline towards Buddhism and they occasionally come within sight merely of a temple, and return satisfied with this distant sort of worship, reminding us of the periods when the newly converted mountaineers of Scotland used to think that if they reached a spot commanding a view of the Parish Church they had sufficiently fulfilled the duties enjoined them.

On being questioned about their religious (or superstitious) ideas, they declared that of old a superior intelligence vouchsafed to

The first wear the cloth, which is ornamented with the seed of a plant. The Mitho do not use the seed, but color their cloth a variety of tints.