QUAINT CUSTOMS IN KWEI-CHOW

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 224, 16 May 1872, Page 9

QUAINT CUSTOMS IN KWEI-CHOW

(From, " CornldU.")

There are four subdivisions of this tribe, known respectively as the "Stirrups," the " Big-heads," and the "Tsangbamboos." Though there may be said to be little in common between the clan known as the Flowry Miao and ourselves, there is one bond which 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 sufficiently civilised state to have established a- market in human hair, they take what they want from the tails of horses. These people, also, delight in. open-air amusements, and vary their al fresco musical performances on the "sang," a kind of hand-onran, and castanets, with dancing and frolicsome play, which not unfrequently ends in precipitate marriagea. Their funeral rites are peculiar. They 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 in the fall the omen is unpropitious, and they try elsewhere ; if it does not break, they accept the sign as marking the spot as a fitting one for their pur-" pose. One other clan of Miao, named the " Black," manage their love affairs in the same unrestricted fashion. They also choose the spring for their amours, and at thaff season the youth of both iLexes 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 the marriage bond. The young men of this tribe are called Lohan, and the young women Laoupti. These words are not Chinese, but are probably in the dialect of one of the many mountain tribes who inhabit the country between Burtnah and China. A peculiar and fantastic device is adopted by the youths and maidens of the Kee-yew-chung tribe to mark their preference for one another. In the " leaping month " they make coloured balls with strings attached, and throw them at those whose affections they desire to gain. Tying the balls together is considered a formal engagement of marriage. Only in one of these mountain tribes does there appear to be any trace of "marriage by capture." Ta-ya-kuh-lao tribe go through the marriage ceremony with dishevelled hair and naked feet — evidently a relic of the time when brides were snatched from savage parents by savage wooers. Amongst them also we find the custom prevalent of disfiguring a woman on her marriage. The Chinese writers tell us that brides are compelled to submit to the extraction of their two front teeth iv order to prevent their biting their husbands. The actual reason for which this piece of cruelty is perpetrated is of course the same as that which induces Japanese girls to blacken their teeth on marriage, namely, to diminish their personal attractions in the eyes of strange men. The queerest, but not the least known, custom observable among the Miao-ts/e is that of the " couvade." When a woman of the Tse-tsze-miao tribe gives birth to a child, her husband takes her place in the bed, while she gets up and performs not only the household duties, but nurses with the utmost care the pseudo invalid. For a whole month the husband " lies id," and the completion of his period is mn.de the occasion of feasting and rejoicing. Marco Polo mentions this custom as prevailing among 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 tlie Lao who inhabited that province in the days of the great Venetian traveller.