Karen of the Andamans

The Karen of the Andamans are Karen people who live in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Karen were encouraged to settle in the Andaman islands in 1924 by Dr Marshall, the principal of the Karen Baptist Theological Seminary, following a visit to his cousin, who was the commissioner there. In 1925, the first thirteen families arrived, led by a priest, Reverend Luygi. In 1926, another fifty families arrived and the first Karen village, Webi, was founded on the Middle Andaman Island. They worked as foresters, for which purpose the British government had moved them to the Islands with the help of the missionaries, and the population of the village was about 500 people in 2009.

In 2004, the total population of Karen in the Andamans was about 2000 people, living in eight villages in the Mayabunder tehsil of the North and Middle Andaman district: Borang, Chipon, Deopur, Lataw, Karmatang 9 and 10, Lucknow (Burmadera) and Webi.

A government declaration was made on 12 December 2005, reserving some government jobs and places in higher education for the Karen as one of the Other Backward Classes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Karen respect the natural forest in a spiritual way and so avoid defiling it by spitting or urinating. Their harvesting of its resources for their community is sensitive to the need for sustainability and so they avoid killing female animals in their hunting. They use a variety of forest plants for construction, food and medicine. For example, they make canoes from the trunks of mulberry trees (artocarpus chaplasha Roxb.) and use a paste of the sweet flag laniti with other aromatic plants as a poultice for colds and headaches.