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252
EAST ASIA.
proper, and which by them are regarded as barbarians of alien blood. Thus some
Miaotze tribes are found in the north-west of Kwangtung, about the sources of the
Lienchu, a western affluent of the Pe-kiang. Others occupy parts of Kwangsi,
where they form autonomous communities, settled on lands conceded to them by the
Emperor Yungching in 1730. In the seventeenth century other Miaotze tribes
seem to have peopled the uplands about the head-waters of the Han-kiang, but
all this region on the Fokien frontier is now settled by Chinese colonists. The
Yao (Yiu), a large group said to be of Burmese origin, occupy a highland district
in the south-west of the province, near the Annam frontier. The Yao of distinct
Fig.
117. INHABITANTS OF KWANGTUNG.
Scale 1 : 8.500,000.
Punti. Uakka. Hiaolo. Yao.
. 150
Miles.
Minkia, or Tnnki.i.
speech appear to number altogether less than 30,000, yet they have hitherto
succeeded, more by policy than open force, in maintaining their independence. The
custom of the vendetta, or blood vengeance, pursued from generation to generation,
common amongst the Cherkesses, Albanians, Corsicans, and some other Western
peoples, but extremely rare in the far East, still survives amongst the Yao tribes.
Although belonging, if not to one original stock, at least to one nation fused
together by a common language and historic development, the natives of Canton
and surrounding regions are divided into three distinct groups
and Hakka.
the Iloklo, Punti,.
The Hoklo (Iliolo, Hiaolo) dwell chiefly on the seaboard and about the river