I knew a ‘revolutionary teacher’ called Bastion. He was an educated, intelligent man who took the traditions seriously, and so I asked him if he'd tell me the story of Toh Meh Pah, the ancestral culture-hero of the Karen. A few days later we met on his verandah for a cigar and a recital:

THE STORY OF TOH MEH PAH

Once there were two brothers who lived and farmed together in the far north. In time, both married and raised large families, but they stayed living and farming close to one another.

One day a wild boar came and wrecked the rice fields. The elder brother, although sixty years old, pursued the boar through the forest and found its lair. The boar was rooting about nearby. The old man raised his spear and aimed for the pig's head, just where the long and lethally sharp tusks joined the skull on each cheek. He thrust forward with his spear which passed through the boar's head and pinned it to a tree. The animal was so big that the old man couldn't move it by himself, so he returned home and told his sons to go and fetch the carcase.