by Jim Goodman
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| Miao in the Laomeng market,Jinping County |
Besides the creation of the
universe and origins of the gods, Chinese mythology also narrates battles among
the gods themselves over control of heaven and earth. These culminated in the final victory of the Yellow Emperor
over his challenger Chi You, a demon deity with a bovine bronze head, four
eyes, six arms and a human body. The
long and tumultuous final battle took place at Zhuolou, near the present
provincial border between Hebei and Liaoning.
Both sides had
allies. The Yellow Emperor’s
support came from gods and ghosts, bears, leopards, jackals and tigers. Chi You had his brothers, demons and
devils and the Miao. The Yellow
Emperor prevailed and killed Chi You and most of his army, including the Miao
warriors. It was also a
territorial victory, for now the Yellow Emperor’s people, the Han, would occupy
the lower Yellow River Plain and make it their heartland, pushing the Miao
further south.
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| Miao girl in Mengzi |
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| older Miao woman in the Mengzi market |
Chinese used the term Miao
back then, and for many centuries afterwards, to identify any people who lived
south of them who were not Han.
Even today ethnologists and some of the sub-groups themselves dispute
the classification as Miao all the different people who have been grouped as
such, making the, China’s fifth largest ethnic minority. Yet Chi You is part of Miao mythology,
though as a sagacious king and not, as the Chinese would have it, an oppressive
monster. And he’s still revered as
a war god by both Han and Miao.
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| Miao women at the Duoyi River |
Nevertheless, the myth
establishes that animosity between Han and Miao dates back to ancient
times.
Under successive dynasties
the Han continued to expand south, constantly confronting indigenous Miao and
other peoples in the way of new settlements.
Because they consistently clung to their own culture and
traditions and did not adopt Chinese ways, the Chinese considered them
uncivilized barbarians and felt no compunction about evicting them.
Throughout the Song and Ming
Dynasties the same scenario played out repeatedly in the central provinces of
Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou.
Han migrants would encroach on Miao land. The Miao would drive them out and repulse local military
attacks. But then the Han
government would send in a much bigger force that eventually defeated the Miao
and forced them to abandon the area.
Some moved out of the region entirely, all the way to western Sichuan
and northern Guangxi.
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| Miao girl embroidering at Haizibian, Wenshan |
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| Miao woman gathering edibles in Haizibian Lake |
The Miao were never a nation,
nor ever tried to become one.
Authority lay with each clan chief, not with an overall sovereign. Yet out of the dreary pattern of
encroachment, revolt, repression and expulsion, a new Miao myth developed—the
Miao King. Heaven would send him
and he would be recognized by certain signs and powers, unite all the Miao
clans around, drive out the Han and reestablish the old order.
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| Miao house in Haizibian, with the loom on the upper floor |
This pattern continued under
the Qing Dynasty, especially in Guizhou in the 18
th century.
Always successful initially, for the Miao were defending
their own territory, not seeking to expand it, in the end they always
lost.
In this period, some
migrated out of the region altogether, to northern Vietnam and Laos or faraway
Yunnan.
While they were no longer
subject to periodic Han land grabs, the Miao experience in Yunnan varied
depending upon where they settled.
Northeast Yunnan is heavily Han-dominated, though the Han government
turned over administration of the hill areas, and tax collection, to nobles of
the Yi ethnic minority. The Miao
of Zhaotong Prefecture suffered more under the Yi than they had under Han
officials in Guizhou or Hunan.
Besides taxes and forced labor, they were also conscripted to serve as
soldiers in the Yi nobles’ incessant feuds with each other.
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| Miao woman prepares herself for market day in Tongchang |
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| Miao woman on the way to Tongchang |
By the late 19
th
century they were on the verge of revolt, only awaiting the emergence of a
charismatic figure to proclaim he was the new Miao King.
But the situation was different this
time, for the Qing Dynasty was in terminal decline, forced into granting
concessions to Western powers, one of which was the right of foreign
missionaries to proselytize in the country.
Among its many assignments, the China Inland Mission
dispatched Samuel Pollard and James R. Adam to Zhaotong, who concentrated their
preaching among the downtrodden Miao.
Pollard even devised a script for the Miao language.
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| Miao village near Tongchang, Jinping County |
The Miao took
special interest in the story of Christ, identifying emotionally with the
tortures of the crucifixion, so like those inflicted on them by the landlords
and bureaucrats.
Attendance at the
sermons mushroomed.
Mass
conversions soon followed as whole villages enlisted in the new religion.
At the same time they awaited the Miao
King, so obviously predicted in the missionaries' story of the Second
Coming.
Some even conjectured that
Pollard himself was the Miao King.
Meanwhile the Miao coming into
town in such massive numbers aroused the suspicions of both Yi and Han. A campaign
of repression of the Christian Miao commenced, burning villages, seizing
property, beating, torturing and imprisoning them. Yet the more severe the persecution the more the Christian
movement spread. It was not long
before virtually all the Miao of Zhaotong Prefecture had embraced
Christianity. The movement even
spread to the Miao in Wuding and Luquan Counties, north of Kunming, under the
stewardship of Arthur Nichols of China Inland Mission.
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| Miao women in Mrngla for market day |
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| Miao in Mrngla, Jinping County |
Just as the situation reached
the boiling point in late 1904, Pollard intervened.
He persuaded the magistrates to issue proclamations protecting
the Christians. Things simmered down for a while but the landlords launched a
fresh campaign in 1906-7.
Again
the missionaries obtained proclamations from the magistrates, this time sent
directly to the Yi lords.
Pollard
and Adam themselves visited the lords to urge their compliance.
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| twisting hemp thread while in the market |
Han officials resented the
foreigners' interference and talked openly of expelling them.
When Pollard found out he threatened
them with reports to their superiors, a threat that implied their dismissal.
The local officials at once backed down
and even promised to take no action against the Christians.
Hostilities continued off-and-on for the
next several years.
But gradually
some of the Yi also became Christians, while the millenarian aspects of Miao
Christianity faded, as did expectations of the Miao King's imminence.
Yet the missionaries' prestige was so
high the Miao remained faithful adherents of the new religion.
Elsewhere in Yunnan, migrant
Miao met with a different experience.
Most moved into Honghe and Wenshan Prefectures, in counties where the
Han were not so numerous, which were already densely settled by other ethnic
minorities like the Hani, Yao, Dai, Buyi, Zhuang and other Yi.
Neither the Han nor any single ethnic
minority dominated the area as in the northeast.
Miao culture was not under stress and missionaries had
little or no impact.
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| Miao on the road to Laomeng |
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| selling firewood in Jinshuihe, Jinping County |
Much of this part of Yunnan
had been occupied for many centuries before the Miao arrived.
For the most part they had to make do
with the narrowest valleys and stony soil--lands nobody else wanted.
A diligent, practical and adaptable
people, they managed to eke out a living in such environments, raising corn,
millet, sugarcane, vegetables and hemp.
And where they could settle on more fertile lands they became expert
agro-engineers, creating extensive terracing for growing rice, as in Pingbian
and Jinping Counties in Yunnan and around Sapa in northern Vietnam.
With a history of resisting or
fleeing forced assimilation, the Miao were shyer and more reclusive then their
neighbors, rarely marrying out of their own sub-groups, and tenacious about
preserving their culture and identity.
Though in recent decades they have become more involved with the society
around them, and no longer face aggressive designs on their lands, this remains
a chief Miao characteristic, exemplified by the almost universal preference of
the women for their traditional clothing.
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| Miao leg wrappers |
For most Miao sub-groups in Honghe
or Wenshan the most striking component is the bulky, pleated, indigo batik
skirt, appliquéd with lavish embroidery.
The colors and batik patterns may differ from one sub-group to
another, and one group wears plain pleated white skirts, but the shape is the
same and no other ethnic group wears a similar skirt.
Some don a plain black jacket, but for most the rest of the
outfit is also heavily embroidered and includes leg-wrappers, a wide belt,
apron, jacket and some kind of headgear.
Perhaps one reason Miao women
are so attached to their traditional costumes is the great amount of time and
effort expended to produce them.
The process begins with the cultivation of the hemp plant, the dried
stalks of which can be turned into thread, but only after a long, laborious process. The women strip off the skins of the
stalks and tear them into thin strips.
Then they bundle and beat them until all foreign matter is removed and
start twining them into something resembling thread, a common spare time
activity at home, walking to the fields or sitting around a market stall. That done, the next step is to wind
them onto the spinning wheel and further twist the threads.
Following that, loops of spun
thread get bleached by repeatedly boiling in water and lime. Then women mount the thread on a large
winding frame to prepare the warp threads to put on the loom. Now it’s ready to be woven into a strip
of cloth, usually 30-40 cm wide.
After that they lay out the cloth on a table to begin the batik process,
a form of resist dyeing, by applying beeswax in complicated patterns, dyeing with
indigo and removing the wax. The
patterns appear in white. The
final step is to cut the cloth into appropriate lengths for a skirt, stitch
narrow folds together while it is wet and after it is dry, remove the stitches
for permanent pleats.
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| festival dance for Trekking the FloweryMountain |
It’s still not ready to
wear.
Women add narrow bands of
heavily embroidered cloth to the sides and hems of the skirt, obliterating much
of the batik designs.
They also
add these bands to the jacket, belt, apron, cap and leg-wrappers.
Drawing on a vast repertoire of
traditional cross-stitch patterns they may also create new ones, for it is in
these details that individualism comes into play.
Young women spend much time improving their embroidering
skills, for they are highly regarded in Miao society.
Cultivation of this art requires certain
character traits—diligence, a sense of beauty, attention to detail, skill with
the hands—that are desirable in a prospective wife and mother.
Traditionally Miao youth were free to socialize and engage in
romance, though parents arranged their weddings. Should romance blossom into love the couple sought parental
approval, but if they didn’t get it they might take the option of elopement and
make a new home for themselves somewhere far away, alone or joining another
couple or two who also eloped.
Courtship was usually a group
affair in the beginning stage, especially at big public events, though it could
also occur spontaneously in the fields or at a rest stop on the way back from a
market. Antiphonal singing was a
favorite method, groups responding to the songs of each other. It was common at the festivals,
particularly the event called Trekking the Flowery Mountain, celebrated by
several villages together, held in southern Yunnan the 3rd to 5th
days of the first lunar month, honoring a pair of mythical lovers.
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| the Flower Pole for the festival |
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| Miao girl dressed up for the festival |
For this event villagers
select the bravest boy and most beautiful girl and erect a tall Flower Pole at
the festival site. The girl presents the boy with a ball of red silk and a reed
pipe.
He must climb the pole and
deposit them at the top.
After
descending to the ground he returns to inform the girl of his success, holding
a flowery umbrella.
The crowd
encourages them to get closer until in the end he retreats with her behind the
umbrella.
The crowd cheers, hoping
that true love sprouts behind that umbrella.
If the couple does fall in love and wed, that will be a
happy marriage and bring good luck to the village.
On selecting the couple in the first place the villagers
collectively play the role of matchmaking parents.
So if love indeed is the result of their selection, it is
seen as a tribute to their collective wisdom.
Besides various rituals
performed by the elders, the festival features song and dance shows, the music
of lutes, flutes and reed pipes and antiphonal singing. Girls begin with a common folk
song. Boys respond with the next
stanza. Eventually they will
invent new stanzas expressing their feelings and compete to come up with
imaginative lyrics. The older
folks improvise lyrics within a set rhyme scheme and sing about nature, agriculture,
Miao history and legends, also in a call-and-response style, which becomes a
test of traditional knowledge.
Many romances might result
from this. But more important to
the participants, the festival is a celebration of being Miao, of being a
people whose traditions and culture have persisted, despite tragedies and
displacements, ever since the time of the Yellow Emperor.
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| festival participants, Trekking the Flowery Mountain |
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for more on the Miao, see my e-book The Terrace Builders
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