Padaung or Long Necks Karen.
According to the physiology feature of Karen-Padaung (Long Necked) you can see that they have stemmed from Southern Mongoloids, but if you consider deliberately from their cultures, and social feature you will be able to specify that the Padaung is a group of  Karen living on the plateau area, slopes down to be  steps above the Salween River in Kayah state of Burma near the North of the Thai border.  The total population is approximately 30,000 people. 
The Padaung love to stay peacefully and hard working.  If compare the life of living of Padaung with the Karen in Thailand they are both alike.  The main works of them are growing rice on the steps rice field and the circulative rice field.  The other cultivated plants are cotton, tobacco, vegetables, and fruits.
The Padaung’s house generally is made of Teak wood, and Bamboo with elephant grass roof, raises the ground high and has a ladder reaches to the premises.  Inside the house normally has provided the place to put a stove,  there is a mattress for the bed,  cooking utensils, and some other valuable things. The Padaung always keep the pets around the area and space under the house.
Most of the Padaung believe in Catholicism but ,anyway, some of them still believe in Buddhism together with ghost and soul.
The one prominent tradition of wearing one winding brass ring around the neck begins since the Padaung have the age of 5-9.  In former time the Padaung who need to wear the rings have to be the ones who were born on Wednesday and with the full moon day only, besides they have to be also the original Padaung women without mixing with any other tribes.  But later it becomes the popular tradition among all Padaung women who were born on any day.  The rings formerly are made of gold but nowadays they are made of brass instead. The special features of the rings are solid, 1/3 inches diameter. Seeing that the hollow brass cannot be made to be the beautiful rings, the solid brass has been used since then. The Padaung who wear the rings have to be skillful in bending the brass; otherwise, it will hurt themselves.  Before wearing, the brass must be dipped into the lemonade to make it soft, and then roll it into a coil up around the neck which is as same as coil spring.
The majority of people say that the reasons for Padaung women to wear the rings are to show their beauty, class status and position.  But the other important reason is to protect the marriage over the tribe. We can see the difference of all the hill tribes in Burma from the women  typical costumes. Each tribe of women dresses in their deferent ways; some tribes make themselves more different than the others by making tattoo on their bodies in order to avoid the attraction from the others outside the tribes.  Moreover, there are still two ancient stories that mentioned about the reasons of wearing the rings: the first one told that in the ancient time the ghost and the soul felt dissatisfied the Padaung group then sent the tiger to bite them all. The ancestor of Padaung worried to lose all Padaung women in the meantime, finally, they found out the way to solve the problem by asking all Padaung women to wear the rings in protecting them from the tiger. The second story said that in the past the Padaung’s parents were a dragon and a swan. This reason makes them need to wear the rings in order to have a beautiful long neck in dignified and handsome movement, and also suitable for them to be the heirs of a dragon and a swan.

The Padaung in Mae Hong Son, Thailand.
The Padaung, in Mae Hong Son, Thailand, have evacuated from the war and entering to Mae Hong Son in the years  1895-1896. They settle their village along the Thai-Burma border. They still maintain the unique symbols of their life style of living which including their traditions and the cultures to attract all the tourists to come and visit them. Therefore, this is the best way for them to bring into their main income.

Following article written by Peter Ole Kvint.
Karen is the old days Burman. The Burman, is dominate of men, and a widow is living in monastery and make food to the monk and ask Buddha about her reborn as a man. Opposite is an old Karen widow is the centre of the village, surrounded by her daughters and daughters’ daughters. In Bronze Age, at that time where the male dominated Burman arrive the queen (a female king) and all the gold decorate princesses been killed, except a single young princess, who get away to the hill and been the first ancestress to all the Long Neck Karen. In the female dominated society a man's position based on his sisters’ status and his personal competence. Especially if he saves a child from one bad illness ghost, his positions grow. Of that cause Karen have low infant mortality rate and relatively high duration of life. When the mother expects the children's survive, she was more attached to her children, and the widespread love for children been transferred to unfamiliar children and harmless tourists. When princesses use long neck ornament, the cause is the authoritative posture. If you were preventing as bow the neck to for anybody, your self-respect was forced to grow.

The several thousand year old war between Burman and Karen been restarted 1948, so quickly after independence as possible, and it continue today without a chance of peace. The Burma say as Karen have 8,500 guerillas against about 500,000 soldiers, but today modern arms had forced the army to a retreat.