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THE MIAOTZE. 215
Hundred Families," perhaps to indicate their present dispersed condition. Several
of the subject tribes have become gradually assimilated to the conquering race, and
some Miao scholars have already passed the university examinations and been
raised to the rank of mandarins. On the other hand, many
half-caste Chinese
live in the savage state, while the still independent Miao Seng have taken refuge
in the mountain fastnesses. Here they have built their fortified villages on the
hill-tops ; but, with the exception of one or two marauding tribes, they remain
mostly on the defensive. They cultivate maize, and even a little rice in the more
sheltered districts. They also raise cattle, and are skilful hunters, exchanging the
skins, hartshorn, musk, and other produce of the chase for the supplies brought by
the hawkers and pedlars from the surrounding plains. Being of a haughty tem-
perament and intolerant of injustice, the Miao are unable to endure the oppression
of the mandarins, and are consequently in a chronic state of revolt. But their
highland recesses are everywhere surrounded by Chinese settlements ; the area of
their domain is being continually encroached upon, and whole tribes have already
insurrections the
been exterminated. During the late Taiping and Panthay
Chinese forces destroyed several of their villages, and many of their chiefs were
sent to Peking, where they were beheaded after undergoing frightful tortures.
Not only are the Miaotze thus cruelly treated, but they are also accused of
every crime, and scarcely regarded as human beings worthy of the least considera-
tion. The Yao of the Lipo district, south of the Nanling range, are credited by
their neighbours with short tails like monkeys, and there can be no doubt that
some of the tribes have lost their former culture and relapsed into barbarism under
the treatment to which they have been subjected.
In certain places they dwell in
caves or huts made of branches, or else in the fissures of steep rocks approached by
bamboo ladders. Yet the Chinese annals, and even modern accounts, have spoken
of the Miaotze as possessing a knowledge of writing, and composing works in their
language written on wooden tablets or on palm-leaves. They
are also skilful
weavers, their women manufacturing fine silken, linen, cotton, and woollen
materials in great demand amongst the Canton dealers. They are good musicians,
playing on a kind of flute more agreeable than that of the Chinese. Some of the
national dances, accompanied by drum and guitar, have a religious character, while
others are highly expressive of sad or joyous emotions. But their great vice is
drunkenness, which increases the contempt in which they are held by the people
of the plains.
It is to be feared that the survivors of this ancient race will have disappeared
before their true affinities have been determined. They are regarded as of Tibetan
stock by most Chinese writers, who include the Miaotze amongst the Pa-Fan, or
" Eight Strangers," of whom the Si-Fan are only a branch. Yet their language
would seem to affiliate them to the Siamese family, in common with the I'ai, Papeh,
and other peoples of South Yunnan. In general of smaller stature than the Chinese,
they have more regular features, and their eyes are round and straight like those of
Europeans. Both sexes bind up their flowing hair like a chignon at the back of the
head, while the women of some tribes gather it round a flat board, which serves to