The Academic Life of Savages

The tiger returned and finding no prey within reach set up a howl as he vainly tried to jump to the platform. The children stood it as long as they could and then threw down a pig to appease the beast. This they did at intervals while all the time they were longing to hear the twang of the father’s bowstring that would send an arrow quivering through the heart of the tiger. This, the Karens said, represented their condition as they waited for the ‘white brother’ to come and free them from the slavery to evil sprits and give them the Book that would enable them to hold up their heads among the peoples of Burma.

— Harry I. Marshall, The Karens of Burma (Calcutta: Longman, 1945), 24.

Because many of these suffering voices — living in rural, jungle, or mountainous areas — are illiterate, their voices are not considered to be part of the logos. The illiterate Karens are thus not political beings but beings without qualified voices.

— Decha Tangseefa, “Taking Flight in Condemned Grounds: Forcibly Displaced Karens and the Thai-Burmese in-between Spaces,” Alternatives 31 (2006): 408.

	How did we (“Karen”) become savages? Wild, mountain subjects Poe/S’gaw/Bwe
	Others see us from the sunset (West) as primitive, to the Rangoon academy savages, as to some K’nyoh
	White faces to our country brought with them text to save us a papery salvation
	Men from Rangoon, with notebooks know us, hill Karen calling us wild Kayin and Naw Ta Por (Miss Scabies)
	Over time Naw K’nyoh wishes us like her knowing to read and write luring children to the light
	In the past, mother gave us hta we knew how to speak Father’s hta voice sang the night and day
	Our grandmother in the past kept hta Our grandfather in the past held hta She whispered hta to her children He sang hta to his children
	When Kawlah came to visit waving texts to read and write in that short appearance he brought us words to write
	he came with many heads like Kali: missionary scientist, anthropologist bureaucrat
	Karen life and knowledge recorded by Kawlahwah with rulers, they measured us and we became vicious
	Kawlah brought the golden book passed it to Poe who cannot read Kawlah brought the silver book passed it to S’gaw who cannot write
	Golden texts placed in the church Silver books inhabit school Asked to learn to write we forgot to speak in hta
	Since then, the spoken hta vanished kept safe in the liver With death it decomposes
	Mother gave birth to me in the ’80s I became “Karen” Without a hta voice schooled to read and write
	Mother, for literacy displaced hta I learn for father at the Kawlah academy
	I wish I could be wild and speak through hta — an imagined past I wish I could be a savage Will it ever be?
	I can’t speak hta with my mouth so I write on this white sheet I can’t sing hta, with my voice I’ve written hta as I’ve learnt it
	If I can verbalise hta I’ll sing away the texts If I know the hta of speaking I’ll escape from writing passed
	In the academy of savages we search for that which can’t be read In the academy of spirits we produce what can’t be written
	In the academy of savages and spirits decolonization can be our ethics
	But living in Kawlahwah’s land the savage academy is no more than written words.

Some Notes On Writing

Hta is an originary S’gaw Karen literary form and is a fundamental part of “Karen” culture. According to the nineteenthcentury Thesaurus of Karen Knowledge, a colonial project to render oral knowledge to text, hta refers to conventionalized speech and song for multiple purposes. These include encouragement, fantasy, criticism, dialogue, argument, humor, praise and the discussion of taboo topics.² According to Wade’s definition, speech becomes hta when it follows rhyming conventions.³ Roland Mischung, who did research on...