Zoya Phan

“Ywa was neither man nor woman, and was not in a human form. Ywa was the creator of the world and a force for good. To balance Ywa there was also a force for evil, called Mu Kaw Lee. Ywa created three sons in human form. The eldest was a Karen, the second a Burman, and the youngest was a white man. To the Karen son Ywa gave a golden book, to the Burman a silver book, and to the white man Ywa gave a book bound in normal paper. When the rains began and the Karen son went to plant his rice field, he placed the golden book nearby, on a tree stump. But his youngest brother, the white man, had grown jealous and coveted his beautiful golden book. When the Karen man wasn’t looking the white man came along and took it, replacing it with his own. Then the white man built a boat and escaped to a far-off country. He carried his prize with him–the golden book that contained the teachings Ywa had given to his eldest son. After a long day working under the heavy rain, the Karen man went to fetch his golden book. The book that the white man had left in its place had fallen apart in the rain, and there was nothing left. A chicken had been scratching around the stump searching for food, and all the Karen man found was chicken scratch marks. He concluded that the golden book had been replaced by the scratch marks, and that those must embody the message that Ywa had left him. And so the Karen man taught himself to read and write in chicken scratch. Over time, he learned the truth about the golden book being stolen, but by then it was too late–chicken scratch had become the official language of the Karen. The Karen man wrote down the story of how the golden book was stolen, and the word of Ywa lost, in a new book. He called this book Li Hsaw Weh–‘the book of chicken scratch teachings’. Centuries later the first white missionaries came to Burma. Many Karen believed that this was the younger brother returning, bringing the golden book in the form of the Bible, and so they welcomed them. Many Karen believe this story absolutely, and that one day the younger brother–a white man–will come again to help save our people.”
― Zoya Phan, Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West