________________
JONE, 1998.]
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
147
Having thus explained how I came by the trapeeription of Karen herein adopted, I will proceed at once to the main subject in hand.
The Karen ponderary scale can be made out thus from the Sgau Dictionary: -
Page.
Karen Term
Burmese Eqnivalents.
ywdji (4 grs.) 72
8 bghè 2 o'gha73 2 bi ...
704 - 667; 1, 111 585 1286 651 664 690; 1, 180 655 ... 670 ...
2
port
2 ba75
rwe ... 10 pò
10 mö...
mu:
mat ..(half tiekal) ... kyåt (tickal) ... (10 rupees, tiokals) ... (100 rupees), pêkba (viss)
(1,000 rupees, ten viss)76
...
The ton is clearly thon the Adenanthera seed or candareen. The word for the ABrus plant in Sgau Karen is given by Mason, Natural Productions of Burma, 1850, p. 196, As Daléghd and for the Adenanthera tree as baléghòp'ads (pʻadó = great). In the Sgar Dictionary baléghờ is defined as a "* tree of the genus Adenanthera" (p. 1270). The Karen scale is most interesting in its use of põ for the half tickal, thus making the Troy weights each the half of the next higher denomination; and in its ingenious decimal division of the Avoirdupois scale,77 growing out of the Troy scale..
I have given the words for weights above in their unattached form. They do not however appear to be so used, but always in conjunction with a numeral ; e. 9. they are to be found in the Dietionary as tari, tabgle, and so on; all s.v. ta, the prefix for "one." TS is a weight in a scale (p. 768% and sò is a scale, balance (p. 514): but the word for balance does not appear to be used also for the standard weight, as is usual in the East; i. e., for the weight which turns the scale. Unless one may take the synonyms (p. 1180) tarwe, srud, sòpò (po, nam. coeff. for viss, p. 1007) to indicate the standard Avoirdupois weiglat (rwe, po that turns the scale (so).78 That the Karens have a clear comprehension of a standard weight for turning the scale is to be seen from the term lòlayi on p. 1218 (18 to descend, p. 1215, and' tayö, the force or impetus of gravity, p. 677), which means "to be of a definite weight," clearly by turning the balance.
My informant's statement of the Karen terms for British money shows the usual mixture of the ideas of bullion weights with cash denominations, but in simple form. Oddly enough he did not know any word for "pie," nor did he recognise a pie when shown one, but we get the word from the Sgar Dictionary (p. 212) where it is kà, and also from a sentence in the dnglo-Karen Dictionary, 8.v. pice, which is of value here: -
bö ki mê tô ta bê three pie are copper one-piece
I. e., three pie make one pice. 71 My teacher gave me yrébà : bn is seed in Karen, and yued is Burmese. I should say that he picked up the name from his Burmese neighbours.
T3 Pronounced ako. 14 Page 767 gives synonyme töki, toka, obviously for taka, tiokal. 16 Bà seems also to be used as a numeral co-efficient : e. 9. alba, Anglo- Karen Pocao... V., "silver coin, rapee."
76 Curiously described in the Dict, as "tep biketha:" "bikatha" being an attempt at the Burmese word pékba; "like" as in the well known slang word for bicyele.
11 The Karen decimal numeration series is, like that of most Far Eastern nations, remarkable: Thus r'f. ten. and then kaya, 10 x 10, hundred kat8, 100 10, thousand : kald, 1,000 * 10, ten thousand : kale, 10.000 * 10. hundred-thousand : kaku, 100,000 x 10, million : kabi, 1,000,000 * 10, ten million kawa, 10,000,000 x 10, hundred. million. Each of these words is a unit, preceded by the prefix ta, one : 6.9., fas's, takaya, and so on. Dict., p. 608.
18 See also Dict., p. 516, 3.0., popo.
