inaccessible to the outside world and are only penetrated by
missionaries. One of our friends describes her descent from one such
village, with a man on each side holding her on to the saddle, while a
third held on to the pony’s tail to prevent him going down headlong!
The Miao huts are small and dark, and their love of colour is entirely
confined to personal adornment. Red, white and blue are the dominant
colours in their dress, and the material is hempen, the hemp for which
is grown, spun, woven and dyed by themselves. The dyes are vegetable,
and are of vivid colour. The different tribes have various designs, but,
roughly speaking, all the women wear short full kilts and jackets.
The Ta Wha Miao (Great Flowery Tribe) are the gayest in colour that we
saw: their designs are bold and effective, the colours used are scarlet
and dark blue on a whitish ground, and very exact in line. The design
consists of simple geometrical outlines, but these are often filled in
with colour, and use is made of a roughly-stencilled pattern which is
tacked on the material and worked over in coarse thread. I succeeded in
purchasing a partly-worked piece of embroidery from one of the men of
this tribe, his wife being away from home, though he evinced some anxiety
as to what she would say on finding out that he had done so when she
returned. The women seem very strong and independent, do most of the
work in the fields, and I can fancy she might have a heavy hand! Also
they are thoroughly feminine in their love of clothes. Many of them make
quite an elaborate wardrobe, and when a girl is going to a festival of
any sort she will take as much as forty pounds weight of clothes, which
her young swain will carry for her, so as to have a variety of costume!
One kilt I possess weighs nearly four pounds, and some kilts will have as
many as thirty-one breadths of material in them. They swing their kilts
with all the jauntiness of a Harry Lauder. Although the men are only
about five feet in height and the women about half an inch less and very
sturdy, their erect carriage lends them a certain attractive dignity. The
women cling tenaciously to their national dress, but not infrequently the
men discard their loose-flowing clothes for Chinese trousers, and many of
them speak the local Chinese dialects.
Formerly these people had no distinctive names and kept no count of their
age. Probably it is due to Western influence that they now have adopted
them. Sometimes the Chinese would take the women as wives and settle down
among them, but no Miao was allowed to marry a Chinese wife. One of them
told this to my interpreter.
As a rule they wear nothing on their feet; but some of those who could
afford it wear sandals, and the wealthier Miao (if so they can be called)
had prettily embroidered ones for special occasions, with an embroidered
band along the outer side of the foot, and fastened across the instep
with a scarlet thread. The Miaos of both sexes wear stout puttees wound
round and round their legs till they look like pillars; or a piece of
felt tied with a white band. They are generally dyed a dark blue colour.
Sometimes the girls’ unprotected feet get the skin cracked or cut with
the stones on their rough mountain paths. They think nothing of sewing
them up with needle and thread, as if they were stockings.
The style of hairdressing among the Great Flowery Miao is quite
different from those of other Miao tribes. Their coarse black hair is
very abundant; as long as they are unmarried girls they wear it in two
plaits, hanging from close behind the ears to well below the waist. When
a girl marries she coils her hair into a long horn, which stands out just
above, and in a line with the shoulder. When she becomes a proud mother
her horn is exalted into a lofty pyramid, rising straight upwards from
the crown of her head.
The men wear the same kind of embroideries as the women, placed like a
shawl across their shoulders, and a sort of long hempen garment falling
below the knees and girded in at the waist. Their upper garment has loose
sleeves, looped up about the elbow with ornamental braid, which they make
on primitive little looms. Round their heads they wind cloth turbanwise,
or else wear nothing. They live on the simplest diet, nothing but flour
cooked before grinding, which they mix with water into a kind of porridge
and eat twice a day: this, with some vegetables or herbs, is their staple
food. They are addicted to drinking and fed no shame in it; both sexes
have drinking bouts. No Chinese woman is ever seen drunk, and it is a
most unusual vice among them: but if she should be drunk, she would be
far too proud to be seen out of doors in such a condition. Morally the Ta
Wha Miao seem to be at the bottom of the scale, and the Heh (black) Miao
at the top.
Considering their extreme poverty we were much touched by these people
asking Mr. Slichter to express to us their regret at not being able, on
that account, to offer us hospitality. This was in reply to a message he
had given them from us, expressing our pleasure at being with them and
regret at not being able to visit their various villages, or talk to them
in their own language.
[Illustration: Little Flowery Miao Coat.
_Page 120_]
There are supposed to be a very large number of different Miao tribes;
the Chinese put the number at seventy. No one has yet attempted to
classify them. Their language is practically the same throughout the
tribes, with considerable local variations; but none of them have any
written language, so that unless a careful study is soon made of it,
there will be no lasting record kept. As they become assimilated with the
Chinese, such a study will become increasingly difficult. The language
seems to be limited in range, as one might expect. There is no word to
express joy, gaiety, and it almost seems as if the reason may be that
they experience so little happiness under usual conditions. All those we
met in markets or on the road looked extremely dull and sullen, in marked
contrast to the Chinese. I watched carefully and never saw a smile; yet
those who have become Christians are the very reverse. A merrier crew it
has never been my lot to see, and they beam from ear to ear. The Great
Flowery Miao are never to be seen away from their own villages unless
they are on the road to religious services. When they come to these
services they often travel long distances, sixty or seventy miles, and
bring their food in a bag on their backs; as they receive nothing from
the missionaries of a material nature, it is evident that they are not
“rice Christians.”
The Little Flowery Miao are so called because their clothes are
embroidered in the finest little designs and remarkably beautiful both in
design and colour. There are subtle touches of spring green introduced
into a harmony of brown, black, white and yellow. There are no less
than thirty-four rows of cross-stitch to the inch, and as accurate as
though they had been ruled. To heighten the value of this delicate
design there are long narrow rows of different-coloured superimposed
folded pieces of material, sometimes as many as eight in number in the
following order—orange, red, white; or orange, green, red, bright blue,
indigo, orange, red, white. The last three colours are especially used in
conjunction, sometimes as a sort of small panel of _appliqué_ work in the
midst of cross-stitch designs.
It is most interesting to note the complete contrast in design of the
needlework of all these tribes with that of the Chinese. The latter is
exclusively naturalistic, more so in fact than that of any other people,
and includes the widest possible range of subject. The inexhaustible
fertility of Chinese imagination is shown in their treatment of
landscape, life in all its many forms, the unseen world, human and
demonic passion; and everything depicted by the needle just as much as
by the brush is full of life and action. The tribes-people, on the other
hand, depict nothing naturalistic; all their designs are geometrical
and of no mean quality. The fact that in primitive art elsewhere the
naturalistic comes first and in course of time becomes conventionalized
and geometric makes the work of these tribes an interesting problem.
The only figures in their work are little rows of men and animals in
cross-stitch. These are worked in red, blue, yellow, white and black on
a black ground, only two or three stitches of each colour together, and
other little designs mixed in with it. The result is ineffective. The
figures are so small and inconspicuous that you only see them on close
scrutiny.
The material on which the embroidery is made is a fine hempen native-made
cloth, and it takes at least two years to complete the making of a
garment, from the time the hemp is grown till the workmanship is
finished. The general material worn is remarkably like the hessian cloth
used in our kitchens, only more closely woven.
The Black Miao form a very striking contrast to the Flowery Miao. They
are so called because their clothes, even the head-dress, are practically
all black, and the embroidery on them is so small, so fine, so subdued
in colour that the general effect is sombre. The men wear also very dark
brown or black clothes. They live mostly in the south-eastern part of the
province, but we met them in various places, and they looked decidedly
more intelligent and less sulky than the others. They are quite a
different type, though they all have very broad faces and black hair.
We met a large number of the “Wooden Comb” Miao at Tenten. They are much
taller than the other Miao. They are so called because both men and women
wear their long black hair rolled up and fastened on the top of the head
with a wooden comb. These combs are mostly plain and unvarnished, but I
have one which is very prettily decorated in several colours. They have
quite a peculiar type of face, large Semitic noses, and the men wear a
thickly-folded white band round their head. Their clothes are for the
most part white, with a touch of blue, for instance, in the waistband,
on to which a pocket is slung in front. The women dress mainly in dark
blue, with an occasional touch of red in the skirts. The girls wear their
jackets open down to the waist; but married women wear a kind of felt
apron suspended from just above the breast. This felt is made of wool,
which is beaten until it reaches the required thickness and density and
becomes a solid mass. The cloth of which the jacket is made has a shiny
surface like sateen, which also is produced by beating. Some of them wear
thick twisted coils of scarlet thread wound twice round the head and
fixed with a scarlet wooden comb.
I got my interpreter to make a list of the different Miao tribes living
in the part of the province we visited. He did this at the dictation
of one of their number. The various Miao-chia (chia means “family”)
are mainly named on account of differences of clothing, especially as
regards colour, but also sometimes by their occupation, as the “Shrimps”
(Sa Miao), so called because they sell fresh-water fish and shrimps;
the “Magpies,” called after the birds, because their dress is black and
white; and the “West of the Water Miao” (Hsen-hsi Miao) because they live
on the west of the river that we crossed between Anshunfu and Ta-ting:
they are said to number only six villages.
Pei Chun Miao (they wear aprons on their backs).
Ta Hsiang ” ( ” ” broad sleeves).
Hsiao Hsiang ” ( ” ” small sleeves).
Ching ” ( ” ” green clothes).
Ching[24] ” ( ” ” large combs).
Yi Chun ” ( ” ” their clothes tucked up into their belts).
Wu Chian ”
Chuan ” (= River Miao).
Fu Tu ”
Han ”
In S. R. Clarke’s book, _Among the Tribes in South-West China_, much
useful information is given about these tribes, under the headings of
four groups, the Miao, the Heh-lao, the Chung-chia and the I-chia, or
Lolo, or Nosu. Having lived for thirty-three years in China, mainly in
Kweichow, he has collected many legends and details of their beliefs.
The most interesting group to me was the I-chia, of whom my interpreter
made a long list at the dictation of an evangelist, who was an I-chia.
The tribes seem to have kept pretty distinct from one another up to the
present time, but if peace reigns and they all become civilized, it is
likely that the barrier to intermarriage will tend to break down.
The “Wooden Combs” are ancestor worshippers like the Chinese, and we had
the good fortune to be given three of their “dooteepoussas” (I do not
know how this word should be spelt, but have written it phonetically),
namely sections of bamboo, each containing “a soul,” wrapped in cotton
wool and fastened with a thread. A wooden pin runs crosswise through
the bamboo, which prevents the “soul” being drawn out by a tiny bunch
of grass, which protrudes from the top of the soul-carrier. As will be
seen by the illustration, these are exactly in the shape of crosses and
they have little cuts on the bamboo varying in number, which refer to the
deceased. The Lolos also have these soul-carriers. In Yünnan Province
the shape of these soul-carriers approximates to the Chinese ancestral
tablets and Clarke gives another form of them which he calls a spirit
hamper. The name “lolo” given to these tribes by the Chinese is said to
come from this fact, lolo meaning a basket. The Lolos consider the name
to be a term of terrible reproach, but do not object to be called Nosu
or I-chia. They keep these spirits in their houses, or a tree, or hidden
in a rock. The ones I possess are kept in a long box fastened against the
outer wall of a house, with a shelter over it like a shrine: sometimes
more than one family keeps their soul-carriers in the same box. The
funeral rites of these people are very elaborate and extend over a whole
year. Dr. A. Henry has kindly given me permission to quote his account of
these people and their language from the _Journal of the Anthropological
Society_ for 1903. He spent much time studying their habits and language
in Yünnan, and brought back from there large quantities of MSS.,
ancestral tablets and dresses.
“The ceremonies and rituals in case of death and burial are numerous and
complicated. After death a hole is made with a pole in the roof of the
house to enable the breath or soul to escape. A cow is brought to the
door of the house, and from its head is extended a white cord, which
is fastened to the hand of the corpse lying inside the coffin, and a
ritual called Su-pu is read. If the death is unclean (all cases of death
by accident, childbirth, suicide, etc., are impure, also a death is
considered impure unless some one has been present when it occurred),
a preliminary purificatory ritual is necessary, after which the usual
rituals can be recited. On the second and third days after death two
important rituals, the meh-cha and wu-cha, are read. When the coffin
is being carried out for burial, a paper effigy is placed on it, which
represents clothes for the soul of the dead man. At this time also the
priest recites the “Jo-mo” or road ritual, and he accompanies the coffin
a hundred paces from the house. The ritual begins by stating that as
in life the father teaches the son, and the husband the wife, it is
only the priest who can teach the dead man the road that his soul must
travel after death. The threshold of the house is first mentioned, then
the various places on the road to the grave, and beyond that all the
towns and rivers and mountains that must be traversed by the soul till
it reaches the Taliang Mountain, the home of the Lolo race. (The Lolos
come mainly from Szechwan and the borders of Tibet.) Here the priest says
that he himself must return, and entreats the dead man to pursue his
way beyond the grave alone. The dead man then enters Hades, and stands
beside the Thought Tree and the Tree of Talk, and there he thinks of the
dear ones left behind and weeps bitterly. After this ritual is read, the
priest returns to the house, and the coffin goes on to the grave.
The Lolos believe that for each person on earth there is a corresponding
star in the sky. So when a man is ill, a sacrifice is often made of wine
in cups to his star, and four-and-twenty lamps are lighted outside his
room. On the day after a funeral a hole is dug in the death-chamber at a
spot indicated by rolling an egg on the ground till it stops. A ritual is
recited praying the star of the dead man to descend and be buried in this
hole. If this were not done the star would fall and possibly hurt some
one.
The ancestral tablet is made on the second day after the funeral
and erected in the central room of the house on the ninth day, with
an appropriate ritual. It is worshipped on certain dates and on all
important occasions in life. It is called I-pu (= ancestor). It consists
of a structure of wooden pieces, made out of the Pieris tree, the log of
which was the ark of the Lolo deluge. A transverse bundle of grass is
made of the same grass as is used for thatch. Two pieces of bamboo root
represent the deceased father and mother, one having nine, the other
seven joints. The inscription reads: “The dwelling place of so-and-so
(giving the name), the pair, man and woman, our ancestors.” It is written
by the priest with ink, the water of which is brought by the son of the
house from a secret spring in the forest, from a locality only known to
the family of the deceased.”
My three soul-carriers contain the souls of the men of three
generations—son, father, grandfather. The Lolos have a Book of the Dead
which Dr. Henry considers to be not unlike that of the ancient Egyptians.
There are a great many Lolo tribes, and the one which we came in contact
with at Ta-ting is of great antiquity, showing virile and intellectual
qualities that promise well for future development, should they leave
their old isolation and get drawn into the stream of present-day Chinese
progress. They are tall and well built, quite unlike the Chinese in
appearance and carriage. Naturally the open-air life of all these
tribesmen gives them a freer gait, and the absence of etiquette and
formality shows itself in all their movements. The shape of their faces
is oval, unlike the broad Miao type; their eyes are large and level;
their cheekbones prominent and the contour of the face rounded; their
noses long, arched and rather broad; their chins pointed. Their faces are
apt to grow very wrinkled. The poise of the head of all these men struck
me as indicative of an independent spirit.
All the tribes are practically autonomous, although nominally under
Chinese rule: they have their own rulers, but these are responsible to,
and many of them nominated by, the Chinese authorities. They frequently
rent lands from them for cultivation, and law suits are very common
among the I-chia about land and about daughters-in-law. Since the
recrudescence of opium-poppy growing they have been compelled to use a
certain proportion of land for its cultivation. They are not addicted to
opium-smoking, and the Christians object to it on moral grounds: they
have in consequence suffered considerable persecution and have even been
evicted from the lands they had previously cultivated. They are terribly
poor, and when the crops fail many of them die of starvation; this has
happened during the last two years, which has been a period of great
scarcity.
I quote in full Dr. Henry’s extremely interesting account of their
language. “The Lolo language is of extreme simplicity, both as regards
its phonology and syntax, and its manner of making new words. It belongs
to the monosyllabic class of languages, of which Chinese is the most
highly developed member. Attempts have been made to deny the primitive
monosyllabic nature of the Chinese language, and to consider it as broken
down from some pre-existent polysyllabic agglutinative tongue. I am of
opinion that a comparative study of Chinese, Lolo, Miao, etc., will
establish that this tonal monosyllabic class is primitive, and that we
have the vocabularies of these languages’ original roots unchanged.
“To illustrate the simplicity of Lolo phonology, I may state that all
words are monosyllables, composed of either a vowel or of a consonant
followed by a vowel, as A, O, BA, BO, BI, BU. Such combinations as
AB, ARD, STO, STAR are impossible. The initial consonants may all be
considered simple, though such varieties occur as T and aspirated T, and
four sibilants, as S, Z, TS and DZ. There is one apparent exception,
namely SL, in SLA, SLO, SLU; but I found that this occurred in another
district as THL, showing a certain instability of sound; and further
research established that the original sound, still kept in Lolodom, is
an aspirated L, so that we have L’O, L’A, L’U. Similar aspirations occur
in connexion with T, P, CH, K and NG.
“Tones in Lolo are three or four, according to locality. There are
no inflections whatsoever, the simple roots being unchangeable. All
the words are simple roots, but by simple addition they can be used
to express new ideas, thus _gunpowder_ is now called _fire-rice_. I
could only find one modification of the simple roots, occurring in four
causative verbs, and they are these:
DZO, to eat. CHO, to give to eat, to feed.
DA, to drink. TA, to give to drink.
DU, to go out. TU, to cause to go out.
DEH, to wear. TEH, to give to wear.
“The syntax is very simple, the place of words in the sentence being
the most important factor. Post-positions, personal and demonstrative
pronouns, interrogative words, adverbs of time, and a few auxiliary verbs
occur; but relatives and conjunctions are absent. Numeral co-efficients
are present, as in all the Chinese group of languages and in Malay. We
cannot say _two men_, _ten trees_, but must say _man two person_, _tree
ten stem_. The plural, tenses of verbs, etc., are rarely expressed,
unless absolutely needed; and a Lolo sentence is very suggestive of baby
talk. Thus, ‘If he comes I shall not see him,’ is expressed as ‘He come I
he not see’; and ‘When he came I did not see him’ as ‘He come that time I
not see.’
“I consider that the simple phonology and primitive syntax of the Lolo
language are important to study, as we there see a primitive monosyllabic
tongue, composed of simple roots, the type by which all languages must
have begun.”
[Illustration: Ancient I-chia Script.
_Page 130_]
The Miao people were invited many years ago by the missionaries to learn
to write their own language in romanized script, but they refused, saying
they preferred their children to learn to read and write Chinese. It is
obvious that this would be far better for them from a practical point of
view. A Miao who knows Chinese thus can make a good living by translating
Chinese contracts or official documents for his neighbours.
The religion of all these tribes is mainly animistic, but the Lolos have
priests, though not temples. The priests have tents, divided into two
parts, of which one is holy and the other holier. Their sacrifices have
to be of flawless creatures, cows and fowls. Their creed might be summed
up as “I believe in evil spirits, necromancy, ancestor worship and a
future life.” By far the most potent factor in their existence is terror
of demons. All their existence is overshadowed by fear. There are all
kinds of horrible demons of various colours, green and red and blue: some
have dishevelled hair and some have hair standing on end. To add to the
horror, although they are like men in appearance, they are invisible.
They shoot arrows of disease and send bad dreams to men.
“Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near:
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now—
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear.”