THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
_Travel up the Salwen Valley_. _My motive for travelling and how I
travel_. _Valley not a death-trap_. _Meet the Li-su_. _Buddhistic
beliefs_. _Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler_. _Resemblance in religion
to Kachins_. _Ghost of ancestral spirits_. _Li-su graves_. _Description
of the people_. _Racial differences_. _John the Baptist's hardship_.
_The cross-bow and author's previous experience_. _Plans for subsequent
travel fall through_. _Mission work among the Li-su_.
On my return journey into Yün-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,[BB] and
left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.
I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
see, nothing to fear.
During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
of them anywhere in Yün-nan--and they are found in many places in
central and eastern Yün-nan--bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous "nats" or spirits
which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. "It is probably from
foundations such as these," writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
journey after the death of his companion, "that the fabric of Chinese
ancestor worship was constructed," a view which I doubt very much
indeed.
I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25°
30' to 27° 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.
Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: "Every Li-su with
any pretensions to _chic_ possesses at least one of these weapons--one
for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
tubers of a species of _aconitum_, which grows on those ranges at an
altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
the body."[BC]
Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
Yün-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote BB: The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.]
[Footnote BC: The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
of the Malay Peninsula.]
FIFTH JOURNEY
TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA