Karen - Settlements



Contemporary Karen settlement patterns vary considerably as a result of geographical diversity and cultural contact. Research in the past twenty years has focused on Thai Karen; no comparable research has been done in Burma. Traditional Karen villages, compact and stockaded, consist of houses and granaries. Population figures for Thai highland Karen indicate an average of twenty-three houses in a village (Kunstadter 1983), a figure similar to those reported in the 1920s by Marshall for Karen hill villages in Burma. In upland and lowland Pwo Karen villages matrilineal kin arrange their houses together; this practice may derive from the traditional Karen longhouse. Stern (1979) includes David Richardson's description of Karen villages on the upper Khwae Noi in 1839-1840 containing three to six longhouses, each holding several families with a separate ladder for each. Sgaw Karen village names often reflect their pattern of settlement in valleys at the headwaters of streams. The history of Karen settlement indicates the importance of the village as a community, as village sites are frequently moved but continue to retain their name and identity.

The predominant village unit is the house, usually inhabited by five to seven family members. Anderson and Marshall in the 1920s described villages in which longhouses were characteristic (and in some cases the only structure), accommodating twenty to thirty families. Both longhouses and separate houses in the hill villages are made from bamboo, sometimes in combination with wood timbers; they have thatched roofs and require reconstruction in a new location every few years. Houses in upland valleys are generally more substantial, made of wooden posts with plank floors and walls, although bamboo is often used. Today roofs of teak leaf or grass thatch, which must be rethatched annually, are being replaced by corrugated iron sheets by those who can afford them in both hill and valley villages. In the plains Karen villages of Myanmar, the housing follows lowland-Burmese style. Traditionally and still today, most Karen houses in Myanmar and Thailand are raised above the ground with the multiple purposes of protection from floods or wild animals and shelter for domestic animals.

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