Quaint Customs in Kwel-Chow.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 132, 21 May 1872, Page 7

Quaint Customs in Kwel-Chow.

There are four subdivisions of this tribe, known respectively as the "Stirrups," the " Bigheads," and the "Tsang-bamboos." Though there may be said t > be little in common between the clan known as the Flowery Miao and ourselves, there is one bond that connects us : their women wear false hair. Their manner, however, of obtaining it is somewhat different to that adopted amongst ourselves, for, not having arrived at a sullicieutly civilised state to have established a market in human hair, they take what they want from the tails of hj uses. These people, too, delight in open-air amusements, and vary their al fresco musical performances on the " sang," a kind of hand-organ, and castanets, with dancing and frolicsome play, which not unfrequently ends in precipitate marriages. Their funeral rites are peculiar. Tiiev bury their dead without coffins of any kind, and choose the ground for the grave by throwing down an egg. If the egg breaks in the fall, the omen is not propitious, and they trv elsewhere ; if it does not break, they accept the as marking the spot as a fitting one for their purpose. One other chin of .Miao, named the "Black," manage their love affairs in the same unrestricted fashion. They also choose the spring for their amours, and at that season the youth of both sexes assemble on the lofty mountain peaks to feast and make merry. The act of drinking together out of the same horn is considered as equivalent to ijje marriage-bond. A peculiar and

fantastic device is adopted by the youths and iiai lens of the Kee-yew-chung tribe to mark thdr preference for one another. In the ' leaping month," they mike coloured balls «ith scrubs attached, and t'row them ac tiiose Wiii.se thev desire to gain. IV ng t.ie balls together is eonaidered a ioinnl engagement of marriage. Only in on..' of these mountain tribes does there apnearto be any trace of " marriage by capture." The queerest, but not the least-known custom observable among the Miao-tsze, is that of the "couvade." When a woman of the tribe gives birth to a child, her husband takes her place in the bed, while she gets up, and performs not only her household duties, but nurses with the utmost ca- e the pseudo invalid. For a whole month the husband "lies in," and the completion of this period is made the occasion of feasting and rejoicing. Marco Polo mentions this custom as prevailing with the natives of Yunnan : and as it is entirely unknown amongst the Chinese, the probability is that the clan of which we speak are descendants of the Lao who inhabited that province in the days of the great Venetian traveller.— CornhiU Majaune.