In Burma there are in all some forty different races and tribes. These may be grouped into two classes. First, there are the Buddhist races, consisting of the more civilised peoples, the Burmans, Talaings and Shans, the inhabitants of the best parts of the country, the rich and fertile plains and valleys of the great rivers, and the great plateau country to the east bordering on China. These races form the bulk of the population, have each a language and literature of their own, and far more of the arts and conveniences of life than their more barbarous neighbours. And secondly, we have the many spirit or demon-worshipping races, who have never yet become Buddhist—the wild, unlettered, uncivilised tribes scattered all along the mountains on Burma’s frontiers, north, east and west. They have never got beyond that primitive form of religion which would appear to have been the earlier worship of all the races of that region; and, far removed from the pathways of commerce, their barbarous condition remains much as it was centuries ago.

These hill-races are very various. Bordering on Lower Burma are the Karens, now well known in the history of missions as a remarkable instance of the rapidly regenerating and uplifting power of the Gospel. Theirs is as cheering and striking a narrative as missionary annals afford. What Fiji has been to the Wesleyan Missionary Society the Karen mission in Burma has been to the American Baptist Mission.

There are some fifteen or twenty tribes of them in all, more or less closely connected, all supposed to be of the Aryan stock. There are different languages among them; their unlettered condition naturally resulting in the multiplication of tongues and dialects, and the isolation of the many tribes contributing to the same result.

The American Baptist Mission has done splendid work amongst the Karens. They found them, like all the other hill-tribes, without a trace of a written language. Into two of the Karen languages, the Pwo Karen and the Sgau Karen, the entire Bible has been translated, and quite a considerable literature has been produced. Degraded and oppressed greatly by the Burmans in the days of Burman rule, the Burmans quite needlessly regarding them and treating them as nothing better than animals, they were peculiarly amenable, as all races under similar circumstances are, to the kindly, beneficent message of the Gospel. Like the rest of the hill-tribes, they were utterly ignorant and addicted to drunkenness. But it has ever been found that the hindrances to the Gospel arising from a low state of civilisation are not formidable in comparison with those which spring from the possession of a powerful, well-defined, ancient system of religion such as Buddhism, which claims to have a philosophy which accounts for everything, and whose rites and observances meet all the wants of which its followers are conscious. It is part of the principle of compensation we find running through life, that “these things”—the mysteries of the Kingdom—are ever hid from “the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes.” It is part of the mercy and wisdom of the Divine appointments, and it tends to give the uncivilised nations their fair chance.

The following account of this interesting people, whose manners, language and worship are quite distinct from those of the Burmans, is from the pen of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, the wife of Dr. Judson, the first missionary of the American Baptist Mission.

Since these words were written many years have passed away, and the process of the making and upraising of the Karens has steadily proceeded. In all the principal centres where they are found dwelling the Mission has flourishing churches and schools; and they have been found at all times of unrest and insurrection, when violent crime has been rife, amongst the most loyal subjects of the British power in Burma; and of late years, especially since the annexation of Upper Burma has been accompanied and succeeded by a period of disorder, the British Government has learnt how surely it can confide in the loyalty of the Christian Karens, and what good service they can render in time of need.

The following particulars, taken from the Encyclopædia of Missions recently published, give interesting information concerning the Karen Mission in one of its chief centres.

Well may we exclaim in view of these facts and statistics, “What hath God wrought!” Seldom, indeed, has such a record as this been possible, that in the short space of fifty years so lowly a people should not only embrace the Gospel, but should rise to the happy conditions of civilised life, and of educational and social progress, such as they enjoy. Most gladly do I add my independent testimony to the thorough success of this mission work amongst the Karens, as instances of it have come within my own observation.

I have known intimately in Upper Burma, for years, Karens doing well in different walks of life—in the medical profession, as teachers, as clerks in Government offices, and as surveyors—who are as devout, upright and consistent members of the Christian Church as are to be found anywhere. I have sat and listened in Upper Burma with wonder and admiration to a concert consisting of classical English music, anthems, glees, choruses and solos, rendered by Karen young men and maidens from the High School at Bassein above mentioned, that would have afforded the greatest delight to any English audience, and would have been the rage of the season, if the same had been given with such perfect musical accuracy, sweetness and harmony in London or Manchester. I have been brought into close daily contact for two or three years, in the work of our own Mission, with two Karen young men, members of the Baptist Church in Lower Burma, who came to help us at the outset of our work, and I am able to testify that in regard to educational attainments, Christian character and consistency, truthfulness, purity and integrity of life, I found them all I could wish. If I had never met with any other evidence of the kind, this alone would have been quite sufficient to prove the mighty power of Divine grace to uplift the lowest and the most degraded, if only the circumstances afford a fair chance and the Gospel be fairly presented.

If few fields of missionary labour have yielded such rapid and satisfactory results, it is because in few instances indeed have the social conditions and even the very traditions of a people afforded such a conjuncture of favourable circumstances as was the case with the Karens. In the case of the Mission of the same Society to the Burmans and other Buddhist races of Burma, there has been no such striking and phenomenal success. There are to-day twenty Karen converts to one Burman, and the work throughout has been in like proportion twenty times as hard in regard to obtaining success amongst the latter as amongst the former.

The question of mission work in relation to successful results, and the tractability of different races in respect to the Gospel, is a very wide and complex question, that has never yet received the patient and intelligent study it deserves. People find it difficult to understand why, in the same Mission, Burmese work should yield such different results from Karen work, and why converts should be numbered by units in Benares and by thousands in Tinnevelly; though they can see reasons, when it is brought home to them, why Cornwall should be a much better field for evangelical preaching than County Cork. And the conclusion is often too hastily reached in favour of some pet theory or method as against others. But a wider experience goes to show that though the right methods and the right men are essential to success, success on this large scale is far more than a question of methods and men. It is largely a question of the circumstances in which the people are found. In the prosecution of missionary labours in different lands, and even amongst different races in the same country, the utmost diversity obtains in their conditions.

We meet, for instance, with nations enjoying very ancient civilisations, like the Hindus and the Chinese; some, like the Mahomedans, under the power of a religion which they hold with the utmost tenacity of enthusiasm; others again, like the Buddhists, in proud possession of a philosophy and a literature that fully satisfies them. It is in such cases that the Gospel is confronted with its greatest difficulties. In conjunction with these conditions, others of a social character are sometimes found, that greatly increase the difficulties of the situation, as, for instance, where large communities are hedged round with the restraints of caste, which, while they secure them in the exclusive enjoyment of rank, influence and privilege, greatly cripple them in respect of liberty of conscience and conduct. To win people to the Gospel from such conditions has always been a difficult task, for it usually requires them to give up all that human beings ordinarily value most.

But in the case of races like the Karens of Burma, the Pariahs and other low castes of India, and the negro slaves of the West Indies, Christianity finds human beings suffering from special disabilities, a lowly people, shut out, by the selfishness of those above them, from all the ordinary chances of bettering their lot, ill-used, oppressed, enslaved, kept in unlettered ignorance, deprived of all that makes life worth living. When the Gospel messenger speaks to them hopefully of a better state of things, and holds out a helping hand, it is evident, even to their dark minds, that this is their one chance of improvement, both in temporal and eternal things. They have everything to gain and almost nothing to lose by embracing the Gospel, and the consequence is that the success of the Gospel amongst such races is usually rapid.

Another class of races there is, consisting of tribes wild and barbarous, beyond the confines of civilisation, and from time immemorial left to themselves, whose state of primitive savagery precludes the possibility of any elaborate form of religion, quite unlettered, and without a written language. Such are many of the races of the interior of Africa, many of the hill-tribes of Asia, and the inhabitants of the groups of islands in Polynesia. Here, again, are found the conditions generally favourable for a rapid ingathering, notwithstanding their extreme barbarism and coarse brutality at first, amounting sometimes to cannibalism. For even the savage is conscious before long that he has something to gain by adopting the ways of civilisation. Where mission work has been conducted with perseverance in such countries it has always been successful.

When we have fully recognised the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, to whose gracious influences we are indebted for all Gospel success, and when we have said all we have to say about different methods and men, the student of missions will still feel that he has not fully accounted for the marked diversity in the successes; he must also take account of the social and economic conditions of the different races, when the Gospel addresses them, and the hold their own religions generally have upon their minds. For the Gospel is like every other force in the universe, whether moral or physical, in this, that it always proceeds with most energy along the track of the least resistance; and he will find, if he carefully studies the matter, that the difficulties arising from social disabilities, and from a low state of civilisation, are not the greatest possible hindrances to the Gospel.

In the approaching revival of missionary activity and enthusiasm these questions are sure to receive more careful attention; and when these problems come to be considered, Burma with its different races will contribute not a few interesting facts and experiences.

The success of the Gospel amongst the Karens causes one to look wistfully at some others of the frontier mountain races of Burma. The religious views of all these primitive tribes are of much the same type, and their religious observances, what few they have, are similar. Their religion consists in the worship of nats or demons. They believe all nature is filled with nats; every stone, and tree, and pool, and breath of air has its spirit inhabiting it; and these nats are malevolent in their nature. Their religious observances consist not so much in worshipping them, as in propitiating them by means of offerings. They practise no regular system of worship, but consult the nats occasionally, whenever things do not go well with them, or whenever there seems special reason to fly to the supernatural for guidance. Thus they have not much to cling to in the way of a religion, and their life and surroundings are so barbarous as to appear, even to themselves, obviously capable of improvement.

In the north of Burma, on the mountains in the neighbourhood of Bhamo, are found the Kachins, a warlike hill people who have, since the annexation of Upper Burma, given the British some trouble by their raiding propensities. Amongst them the bones of sacrificed animals and other articles are placed outside the villages, to prevent the nats from entering in search of victims. It is believed that by this means their attention is called off. Some of the Kachins have taken to coming down from the hills and settling in Bhamo for work as labourers; and a successful work is being carried on by the American Baptist Mission there.

Since the annexation a good deal has been done in the way of exploring the country, and bringing to light interesting facts with regard to these barbarous tribes on our frontiers. Lieutenant R. M. Rainey, Commandant of the Chin Frontier Levy, has published some interesting notes of his observations amongst the Chin tribes bordering on the Yaw country in the Pakokku district. The following facts are largely culled from his notes, many of them having been corroborated by what the writer and a missionary companion witnessed, in a recent visit to the tribe of the Chinbôk Chins, living nearest to the district described.

The Chins of that region consist of various tribes all more or less distinct in language, and to some extent in customs, the Weloung Chins, the Boungshès, the Chinbôks, the Yindus, and the Chinbôns. No less than eight different dialects are spoken by these tribes, the Chinbôk language itself subdividing into three.

There is no attempt at any system of laws or government amongst them, beyond the fact that they have something of a village system, and there are certain customs which all observe. Quarrels are wiped out with blood. Their religion, in common with that of all the other mountain tribes of the frontiers, consists in propitiating and consulting the nats. For this an animal must be slaughtered—a buffalo, a bullock, a goat, a pig, a dog, or a fowl. The slaughtered animal is always afterwards eaten. In consulting the nats they observe the direction in which the blood of the sacrificed animal flows; this and similar omens are observed and acted upon. When raiding, or on a journey, or passing through a notoriously unhealthy jungle, sacrifices are frequently made, the animals being taken with them on purpose. Dogs are preferred for this object, as they follow, and require no carrying or leading. If the omens prove unfavourable they fear to carry out their purpose. Raids are frequently abandoned in this way at the last moment, and after they have travelled long distances.

If, when the omens prove unfavourable, the parties are nevertheless desirous of accomplishing their purpose, as for instance in the case of an intended marriage, the nats are periodically consulted until they are favourable. This must always happen in time if they are only consulted frequently enough.

The Chins are very much given to drunkenness, and are inclined to make of any and every incident a special occasion for getting drunk. A visitor, a birth, a marriage, a death, a case of sickness, are all possible and likely occasions for a carousal. In this worship of Bacchus they differ essentially from their Buddhist neighbours; but they may fairly claim to resemble in that respect many individuals of a distant race, and a race laying claim to a far higher civilisation. They have a novel mode of drinking the rice beer they manufacture for these occasions. The liquor is stored in jars standing two feet in height, and half full of fermenting grain. A hollow bamboo, the thickness of one’s little finger, is thrust into the jar and pressed well down into the grain. The company sit round and take sucks in turn.

Of medicine and surgery they know nothing. When they fall sick they make no attempt at medicine, but merely consult the nats to ascertain the result, and propitiate them to avert the calamity.

Scarcely any clothing is worn by the men, and that of the women, though sufficient for mere decency, is scanty, the legs being entirely bare. They are all fond of ornaments. Necklaces of beads of all kinds are much worn, cocks’ feathers appear in the topknots of the men, and a kind of brass skewer is worn in the hair. They are also fond of wearing deer’s teeth and cowries. Telegraph wire, a new importation into their territory, forms a great temptation to them, inasmuch as a few inches of that metal, bent into a circle, forms a most becoming earring.

Their weapons consist of bows and arrows, which they use with great dexterity. They often carry a short spear, and every man has a kind of weapon, which is dagger, knife and hatchet all in one, which sadly too often does murderous execution in their quarrels, and which, when not in use, is worn on the person in a bone scabbard consisting of the shoulder-blade of the buffalo.

Their cultivation, though of a very rude description, is a laborious business. They have first to fell the jungle on the steep slopes of the hills, and after some months, during which it has had time to dry, they burn what has been felled. The grain is then sown without further preparation. They can only cultivate in the same place in this primitive fashion for two years together. In the third year the grass has grown so strong that cultivation is impossible. They then usually leave the land for five years, during which the jungle again grows up, when it is again cleared and cultivated as before. Their crops consist of rice and other grains, a considerable variety of yams and roots, including ginger, beans and vegetables, also cotton.

The propensity of the Chins for raiding upon their weaker neighbours, and especially upon the Burman villages, is that which has compelled the British as the governing power to take account of them. Several military expeditions have had to be organised in order to punish this raiding, and to impress upon them the fact that it cannot be allowed. Many are the tales of the sudden descents of the Chins upon the peaceful villagers in the plains, robbing them of money, cattle and other property, and taking away prisoners, who are removed to the Chin villages, and held to ransom. If not quickly redeemed by their people they are often sold from village to village, which renders it difficult to trace and recover them. Many of these unfortunate captives have been rescued through our military expeditions.

Perhaps the most extraordinary custom they have is that of tattooing the faces of their women. The process is commenced when they are young, and is gradually completed. Although the result is hideous to our eyes, it is said that the beauty of a woman is judged by the style in which the tattooing has been done. Thus fashion rules the world despite appearances and common sense. The Yindu women are tattooed in lines across the face. The Chinbôns tattoo jet black, and are the most repulsive in appearance, though often fair-skinned. The Chinbôk method is to have several lines down the forehead, the nose and the chin; and the cheeks are covered with rows of little circles.