governments

24 THE ORIGINS OF THE MIA0 PEOPLE
found that the weeds were present again every morning. They watched and
caught the two spirits who were replanting the weeds just before dawn. One
man wanted to shoot them but his companion said they should ask the spirits
why they were replanting the weeds. The spirits said that they should not be
weeding the fields because a great flood was coming. Instead they should be
preparing drums. Only one man followed the advice. When the flood came
he placed his two children, a brother and a sister, in the drum and they floated
up to the sky. The children were beating on the inside of the drum. Joser
heard them and looking down saw that the earth was flooded. He took a long
stick and punched holes in the earth to let the water run away. This accounts
for the unevenness of the earth's surface. When the surface of the earth was
dry the drum with the children in it rested on it. Joser asked which child was
the older and found out that it was the boy. He told them to marry as there
were no other people on earth. When they had married the girl gave birth
to a baby which had no head, legs, or arms. It was just like a marrow. The
parents complained to Joser. He told them to cut the baby up and it would
give rise to many people. He told them to cut it into many pieces and to throw
the pieces in every direction. Each piece gave rise to a different people-the
Chinese, the Thai, the Miao, and the other peoples in the world.
Another version of the story says that the pieces of the child formed
the different Miao clans and does not mention them as accounting for
the different peoples of the earth.*Z
The variations in the story can be accounted for by lack of written
records and its adaptation to the local environment. In Szechwan
Ye Seo (or Joser as we have rendered his name) was interfering with
a ploughed field and in Meto with a swidden; appropriately in the
former place he used a fork and in the latter a digging stick to let the
water out. But in both places he was the same deity doing the same
general things and thereby helping to establish a common tradition for
the Miao.
THE NUMBER OF MIAO IN CHINA
According to Chinese sources the Miao population of China in 1957
was estimated to number 2,680,000.~~ In 1959 Bruk, on the basis of
a total population estimate of 2,51 ~,ooo, listed their provincial distribution.
His figures are given in Table I.
it is the same god as that referred to by Graham as Ye Seal He is the main protective deity of
the Meto Miao. The thunder is his voice and the lightning his sign.
"A third version collected by Nusit Chindarsi brings in the four spirits who carry the
earth on their shoulders, causing earthquakes when they shift their burden. When Jmer
looked down and saw the earth flooded he called out to these spirits to punch holes in it to let
the water out. A further version I collected says the man who heeded Joser's advice got into
hi drum himself with his own sister.
" Moseley (ed.), 1966, Appendix A, p. 162. The figures are derived from Jen-min shou-ts'e
(People's Handbook), Pekin, 1965, pp. 10&16.