The style of cultivation, if indeed it should be dignified by that name, is unique, and will never be adopted by a people of advanced methods of agriculture. The hills are heavily wooded, and when a suitable area is selected for the next year’s cultivation, the whole village proceeds to cut it down with the most complete destruction. After the forest is felled during the dry season it becomes very dry, and just before the rain fire is touched to it, and the flames with a terrific rush cover the entire clearing in a few moments, and consume nearly every stick of wood. The few logs which remain are collected and burned, and with the beginning of the rain the rice is planted on the steep hillsides, the earth being enriched by a heavy coat of fresh ashes. The ground is not plowed, but the grain is dropped into small cuttings made by the thrust of a small spade-like iron on the end of a long handle. The sprouts that spring from the roots in the ground are cut away as the rice grows. The harvesting is with the sickle, and when threshed is carried to the village, frequently a long distance away, on the backs of men and heads of women, the latter carrying the larger loads, as is usual in the East. This is most laborious and tedious. As there are only mountain paths, and as the Karen, even when well to do, does not care for road improvements, he climbs up and down as his fathers have done before him for hundreds of years.
As the soil is never cultivated, they depend on the fresh ashes to force their crop. This requires a fresh clearing every year, while a new jungle growth springs up on the last year’s field. They do not wish to cut the jungle oftener than once in ten years. It will be seen how wasteful is this strange method of cultivation. How wonderful the forest growth that will maintain itself over all these hills under such destructive treatment!
The Christian Karens are a living miracle of the century of Christian missions. They need much teaching yet; but when one sees these people so uplifted from the state they were once in, be what he may, he must believe in Christian missions. The Baptists, under God, deserve nearly all the credit for the conversion of this people.
The Karen, as a man, is a study. He is affectionate, especially toward his missionary. Yet he will often be guilty of conduct quite at variance with that sentiment. Yet of this conduct he will repent again soon; but it is a repentance usually without tears or apparent sense of regret. He will take offense easily, and a little later reappear with a smile on his face, as forgetful of his recent temper as a child. But he is not a child. He enjoys a joke, even at his own expense. He is also a very obstinate man, even when his obstinacy is against all his own interests.
But if you would see the Karen at his best, go to his village and see his children in school, a school which the missionary founded, but which the village now supports. Remember the missionary gave this people their written language. Attend the evening prayers when the village pastor leads their devotions in their simple chapel. Hear them sing! There is probably no more inspiring singing in the world. You will want to hear them again. Go to church on Sunday, and hear a sermon by a trained preacher, whose great-grandfather worshiped “gnats” or demons, who he supposed inhabited the surrounding hills and had his life in their malevolent control. How great is the distance from the demon-worshiper to the intelligent and devout Christian! The missionary was the human agent, and God the author of this transformation through the preaching of the gospel. Yet some people would say they do not believe in missions!
The Chins and Kachins inhabit the hills of North and Northeast Burma. They are kindred peoples. There are possibly two hundred thousand of them. Like other isolated people, they have everything to learn from civilization and the Christian religion. The Government officer and the missionary have undertaken the problem of these people.
The Chins have given much trouble to the Government within the last few years. They lived formerly by raiding the peaceful people of the plains. When the English Government annexed Upper Burma, it punished them for this. Soon the whole hill country rose against the Government. A band of soldiers was dispatched into the hills to subdue them. After some sharp fighting they sued for peace, promising good behavior. Sir Alexander MacKenzie, the efficient chief commissioner, was then the head of the province of Burma. He instructed Mr. Cary, the political officer of the Chin Hills, to bring several Chin chiefs to Rangoon to see the city and the emblems of authority and power of the Government. His idea was that if these savage mountainmen saw the power of the Government they would be induced to keep the peace. He treated them kindly, but told them they must respect their neighbor’s property and obey the Government. But this wholesome exhortation of the chief provincial officer of the great Indian Empire was wholly lost on these daring, but ignorant, men of the hills. Their whole life ran riot over all obligations recognized by civilized men. Almost immediately they began again to rob and kill. This time they were more severely punished. Their villages were burned and they were defeated in any attempt to give battle, though the punitive force, almost all of native soldiery, under the energetic and capable political officer, Mr. Cary, was very small. They were fined fifteen hundred guns. Of course, they protested they did not have three hundred. But under pressure they surrendered the required number.
Here was a revelation! Every antiquated gun of Europe, of fifty or one hundred years ago, had been brought by unscrupulous traders and sold to these wild tribes! The sales had not been made recently, it is true; but nevertheless the only firearms these wild men had they had secured probably of British traders of earlier years, who disposed of them along the coast and they had been carried inland, where years afterward they were used in armed robberies of peaceful subjects of this empire and against British authority. Some so-called civilized men sacrifice much of civilization for a little gain in trade.
After the country was substantially disarmed, a large number of these chiefs were brought to Rangoon by Mr. Cary to attend a more imposing display of the greatness of the Government. On this occasion the viceroy summoned them and their official head, Mr. Cary.
The viceroy is appointed for five years, and usually once in his term he visits Burma. Lord Landsdowne was the viceroy, and held a durbar, an official reception, attended by all officials and the general public. At this durbar he recognized the eminent service of Mr. Cary, and decorated him before the great assembly. His excellency also called forward these Chin chiefs, and gave each a beautifully ornamented large knife, as a token of his good will. He probably could not have given any present so highly valued. Most half-civilized men live with their knives in their hands.