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White Karens (Mepu) are a distinct clan (vide page 550 of the Upper Burma Gazetteer) which is possibly connected with the Taungthus and may thus be Pwo in origin. There is no record of their total, but it is probably smaller than that of either the Padaungs or the Bres.
The Padaungs are not to be confused with the Padons to whom reference has from time to time been made in some of the older works dealing with Burma Who the Padons were is doubtful, but Mr. C. E. Browne has ascertained that they once had a dialect of their own and that their women used to wear a striped smock. Though not Padaung they were probably, like the Padaungs, of Karen origin; possibly an off-shoot of the Taungthus, though it is just possible that they were of the same stock as the Yanghseks and therefore Mon Khmers. Their habitat lay apparently at the northern end of the Southern Shan States. Apparently they have by now been absorbed into other communities.
The Taungthus
As noted above, the Taungthus are a tribe of Karens probably more closely connected with the Pwo branch than with the Bghai, though they are found in their greatest strength in the Bghai country in the southern half of the Southern Shan States. They have been dealt with separately from the other Karens in this work merely because, like the Kamis and Mros of the western hills, they were studied on the spot and described long before the annexation of Upper Burma brought a full knowledge of the Karens as a whole. Taungthu merely means in Burmese a hill man or, even more frequently, a husbandman, and it should be borne in mind that occasionally persons referred to by Burmans as Taungthus
