Tha Nai

Tha Nai is the first man of Karen tradition, formed by Y'wa and set with his wife Ee-u in a state of innocence under a single prohibition. Deceived by Mu Kaw li into eating the fruit of trial, the couple forfeited that innocence, and through them sickness, ageing and death passed to all their descendants. The pair function as the Karen Adam and Eve, and the episode is the hinge of the tradition's account of why humans die. The exact form of the names is unstable in the record: the nineteenth-century collectors transcribed the first parents variously, so that Tha Nai and Ee-u appear in several spellings.

Domains

• first humanity

Powers

• stands with Ee-u as ancestor of humankind

Relations

• spouse: Ee-uH. I. Marshall, The Karen People of Burma (1922), 211 (secondary)
• enemy: Mu Kaw liDeceived by Mu Kaw li.H. I. Marshall, The Karen People of Burma (1922), 211 (secondary)

Sources

• Marshall records Tha Nai as the first man formed by Y'wa and, with Ee-u, the parent of humankind who fell through the deceit of Mu Kaw li.: H. I. Marshall, The Karen People of Burma (1922), 211-212 (secondary)
• The names of the first human pair vary across the missionary sources, which transcribe them somewhat differently.: Francis Mason, 'Religion, Mythology, and Astronomy among the Karens,' JASB 34 (1865): 175 (primary)