The Ta Wha Miao (Great Flowery Tribe) are the gayest in colour that we saw: their designs are bold and effective, the colours used are scarlet and dark blue on a whitish ground, and very exact in line. The design consists of simple geometrical outlines, but these are often filled in with colour, and use is made of a roughly-stencilled pattern which is tacked on the material and worked over in coarse thread. I succeeded in purchasing a partly-worked piece of embroidery from one of the men of this tribe, his wife being away from home, though he evinced some anxiety as to what she would say on finding out that he had done so when she returned. The women seem very strong and independent, do most of the work in the fields, and I can fancy she might have a heavy hand! Also they are thoroughly feminine in their love of clothes. Many of them make quite an elaborate wardrobe, and when a girl is going to a festival of any sort she will take as much as forty pounds weight of clothes, which her young swain will carry for her, so as to have a variety of costume! One kilt I possess weighs nearly four pounds, and some kilts will have as many as thirty-one breadths of material in them. They swing their kilts with all the jauntiness of a Harry Lauder. Although the men are only about five feet in height and the women about half an inch less and very sturdy, their erect carriage lends them a certain attractive dignity. The women cling tenaciously to their national dress, but not infrequently the men discard their loose-flowing clothes for Chinese trousers, and many of them speak the local Chinese dialects.
Formerly these people had no distinctive names and kept no count of their age. Probably it is due to Western influence that they now have adopted them. Sometimes the Chinese would take the women as wives and settle down among them, but no Miao was allowed to marry a Chinese wife. One of them told this to my interpreter.
As a rule they wear nothing on their feet; but some of those who could afford it wear sandals, and the wealthier Miao (if so they can be called) had prettily embroidered ones for special occasions, with an embroidered band along the outer side of the foot, and fastened across the instep with a scarlet thread. The Miaos of both sexes wear stout puttees wound round and round their legs till they look like pillars; or a piece of felt tied with a white band. They are generally dyed a dark blue colour. Sometimes the girls’ unprotected feet get the skin cracked or cut with the stones on their rough mountain paths. They think nothing of sewing them up with needle and thread, as if they were stockings.
The style of hairdressing among the Great Flowery Miao is quite different from those of other Miao tribes. Their coarse black hair is very abundant; as long as they are unmarried girls they wear it in two plaits, hanging from close behind the ears to well below the waist. When a girl marries she coils her hair into a long horn, which stands out just above, and in a line with the shoulder. When she becomes a proud mother her horn is exalted into a lofty pyramid, rising straight upwards from the crown of her head.
The men wear the same kind of embroideries as the women, placed like a shawl across their shoulders, and a sort of long hempen garment falling below the knees and girded in at the waist. Their upper garment has loose sleeves, looped up about the elbow with ornamental braid, which they make on primitive little looms. Round their heads they wind cloth turbanwise, or else wear nothing. They live on the simplest diet, nothing but flour cooked before grinding, which they mix with water into a kind of porridge and eat twice a day: this, with some vegetables or herbs, is their staple food. They are addicted to drinking and fed no shame in it; both sexes have drinking bouts. No Chinese woman is ever seen drunk, and it is a most unusual vice among them: but if she should be drunk, she would be far too proud to be seen out of doors in such a condition. Morally the Ta Wha Miao seem to be at the bottom of the scale, and the Heh (black) Miao at the top.
Considering their extreme poverty we were much touched by these people asking Mr. Slichter to express to us their regret at not being able, on that account, to offer us hospitality. This was in reply to a message he had given them from us, expressing our pleasure at being with them and regret at not being able to visit their various villages, or talk to them in their own language.
Little Flowery Miao Coat.
There are supposed to be a very large number of different Miao tribes; the Chinese put the number at seventy. No one has yet attempted to classify them. Their language is practically the same throughout the tribes, with considerable local variations; but none of them have any written language, so that unless a careful study is soon made of it, there will be no lasting record kept. As they become assimilated with the Chinese, such a study will become increasingly difficult. The language seems to be limited in range, as one might expect. There is no word to express joy, gaiety, and it almost seems as if the reason may be that they experience so little happiness under usual conditions. All those we met in markets or on the road looked extremely dull and sullen, in marked contrast to the Chinese. I watched carefully and never saw a smile; yet those who have become Christians are the very reverse. A merrier crew it has never been my lot to see, and they beam from ear to ear. The Great Flowery Miao are never to be seen away from their own villages unless they are on the road to religious services. When they come to these services they often travel long distances, sixty or seventy miles, and bring their food in a bag on their backs; as they receive nothing from the missionaries of a material nature, it is evident that they are not “rice Christians.”