Y'wa

Y'wa is the supreme creator of Karen tradition: the eternal, self-existent being who formed the world, ordained food and drink, and set the 'fruit of trial' by which humankind first fell subject to death. In the oral hta hymns recorded by Francis Mason and Harry Marshall, Y'wa gives the first human pair detailed commands before the deceiver Mu Kaw li leads them astray. Y'wa also stands at the head of the celebrated golden-book myth, in which he entrusts a book of gold to a younger, fair-skinned son who departs across the sea and is one day expected to return it. When American Baptist missionaries reached the Karen in the 1820s and 1830s they found this high-god tradition already in place and adopted the name Y'wa to translate the God of the Bible, a convergence that fuelled rapid conversion.

Children

• The White Younger Brother

Domains

• creation
• cosmic order

Powers

• formed the world and all living things
• appointed the fruit of trial that brought death

Epithets

• Ta Y'wa

Relations

• child: The White Younger Brother

Sources

• Francis Mason, 'Religion, Mythology, and Astronomy among the Karens,' JASB 34 (1865): 173-176
• H. I. Marshall, The Karen People of Burma (1922), 210-214
• Mikael Gravers, 'Conversion and Identity: Religion and the Formation of Karen Ethnic Identity in Burma,' in Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma, ed. M. Gravers (NIAS Press, 2007), 227-258