The very imperfect nature of our knowledge regarding the non-Chinese races of Western and South-western China, constitutes the great impediment to their exact scientific classification. Notwithstanding this, however, there are certain well-marked distinctions that cannot fail to attract the eye and the ear of the traveller. So great a contrast do the Lolos bear to the Chinese, that not for a single moment can any idea of affinity be entertained. And the same holds good with the Miao-tzŭ of Kuei-chow and the Shans of Yün-nan who, with the Lolos, form the three great distinctive races of Kuei-chow, Yün-nan, and Ssŭ-ch’uan. With regard to the Ku-tsung of North-western Yün-nan and the Sifan of North-western Ssŭ-ch’uan, the former, from their physique, dress and language, are undoubted Tibetans, while the latter are in all probability a branch of the same stock. The term Man-tzŭ, although applied by the Ssŭ-ch’uanese to the inhabitants of the region to the west of Lolodom and often to the Lolos themselves, is generically used to designate the non-Chinese races of Western China.
Our knowledge of these races is defective, for the simple reason that no foreigner has ever paid them a lengthened visit, which is essential to a thorough grasp of their ethnological characteristics. Nor is this a matter for surprise, as the opportunities, which foreigners possess of visiting these tribes, whose haunts are removed from beaten tracks, are few and far between; and those few who have had such opportunities have been too much occupied with other work to study ethnological details or acquire a new language.
As recorded in the preceding pages, I passed through the countries of most of these tribes; but, like others, I found myself wanting in leisure to cultivate a closer intimacy with them. I need only appeal to travellers in Western China as to the facilities afforded for undertaking such a task. In what does the traveller’s day usually consist? He gets up at daybreak, hurries on to the end of the stage, writes up an account of the day’s journey, endeavours to get something to eat, and tries to enjoy a few hours’ sleep ere the labours of another day begin. The miseries of travel, too, breed a feeling of restlessness and a hankering after something more comfortable than his present experiences. But all the comfort the traveller in these regions may expect, and too frequently gets, is shelter in a miserable mud hovel without chair or table—hardly a promising spot in which to commence ethnological studies.
Nor is this all; given a chair and a table, the next difficulty is to find the man whose characteristics it is intended to study. The treatment which these aborigines receive at the hands of the Chinese, and the contempt in which they are held by them, have induced a timidity which is hard to overcome, and they have often expressed to me their fears that they would get into trouble through accepting my invitation to visit me.
In traversing the country between the Ta-tu River in Western Ssŭ-ch’uan and the north-west frontier of Yün-nan, I have frequently seen so-called Man-tzŭ suddenly quit the roadway and conceal themselves in the bordering brushwood and tall reeds until we had passed. And even when an interview has with difficulty been obtained, my visitors were always anxious to get away as soon as possible, so that the most the traveller can do is to note down a few of their more common words, without attempting the analysis of even a few simple sentences.
A few short vocabularies are all that I was able to collect during my journeys; but, towards the end of 1884, chance threw in my way an opportunity of entering more fully into the language of the principal branch of the aborigines of Kuei-chow, known to the Chinese as the Hei or Black Miao, or, as they call themselves, the Phö.
In that year Mr. Broumton, who was then in charge of the China Inland Mission station at Kuei-yang, came to Ch’ung-k’ing bringing with him a man belonging to this tribe from the south-east of Kuei-chow, and he was good enough to place the services of this individual at my disposal. He was fairly well versed in Chinese, and I endeavoured to learn something of his language, and, with his assistance, to translate a few of the easy exercises of Sir Thomas Wade’s Chinese Colloquial Course into Phö.
SUBJUGATION OF THE PHÖ.
I should state that, according to my teacher, there is no written character, and my aim was to preserve a specimen of a tongue which must sooner or later become extinct. Of late years, the authorities of the province of Kuei-chow have been endeavouring to compel the Miao-tzŭ to adopt the Chinese dress and learn the Chinese language. Their efforts, too, are meeting with considerable success, and it is safe to predict that the Phö tongue is within a measurable distance of extinction.
About twenty years ago a desperate struggle commenced between the Chinese and the Phö, the alleged origin being attempted extortion on the part of the former. The struggle lasted for five years, and had it not been, so say the Phö, that the Chinese obtained a supply of foreign rifles, it would not have ended so disastrously for the aborigines. In bright clear weather no advantage was gained by the Chinese; but the Phö were pressed hard in rainy weather, when they were unable to keep the powder of their matchlocks dry. In this connection I may state that the Phö manufacture their own guns and ammunition—their powder, which is of a brown colour, being famous for its strength and superiority even among the Chinese.