Joakim Enwall

A Myth Become RealityHistory and Development

of the Miao Written LanguageVolume 1

A Myth Become Reality

History and Development of the Miao Written Language

Volume 1

By Joakim Enwall, B.A.

Doctoral Dissertation 1994 Department of Chinese Studies Institute of Oriental Languages

Stockholm University

To Be Publicly Defended on September 17, 1994, at 10.00 A.M. in the Aula, Kräftriket 4

Abstract

This dissertation, volume one of the study A Myth Become Reality - History and Development of the Miao Written Language, contains historical descriptions and graphonomic analyses of the Miao writing systems devised in China before 1949. The first volume contains an introduction and parts I and II out of four parts. In the introduction the author discusses the notion ‘Miao’, the Miao dialects and presents their phonological systems. Part I deals with the Miao myth about a prehistoric writing system which has subsequently been lost and with undeciphered writing systems, usually referred to as examples of Miao writing. Part II is concerned with the efforts of various missionaries, mainly British and American, to devise writing systems for Miao in order to translate Christian Uterature. As the Pollard script for the A-Hmao dialect is still widely employed and the writing system devised for Hmu has left few traces, the author has analysed both writing systems in detail, especially their allegedly deficient tone marking systems in order to find a reason for this difference in success. No substantial differences in the exactness of representation have, however, been found, so the causes have to be sought elsewhere, both in the reinterpretation of the writing systems in accordance with the myth about the loss of writing, and in the differences in bilingual competence, economic development etc., factors which will be discussed in more detail, especially in view of the developments after 1949, in the general conclusions to volume 2 of this study. In the analysis of the Pollard script, the author shows that the Pollard script is more widely used than earlier believed, and that this is due to its simplicity, especially its ingenious tone marking system, and the dissimilarity from other scripts, a trait which made the A-Hmao feel that this was their own national writing, and not a writing system adapted from another language.

© 1994, Joakim EnwallISBN 91-7153-269-2ISSN 1101-5993

Joakim Enwall

A Myth Become RealityHistory and Development

of the Miao Written Language

Volume 1

Stockholm East Asian Monographs no. 5

Abstract

This dissertation, volume one of the study A Myth Become Reality - History and Development of the Miao Written Language, contains historical descriptions and graphonomic analyses of the Miao writing systems devised in China before 1949. The first volume contains an introduction and parts I and II out of four parts. In the introduction the author discusses the notion ‘Miao’, the Miao dialects and presents their phonological systems. Part I deals with the Miao myth about a prehistoric writing system which has subsequently been lost and with undeciphered writing systems, usually referred to as examples of Miao writing. Part II is concerned with the efforts of various missionaries, mainly British and American, to devise writing systems for Miao in order to translate Christian literature. As the Pollard script for the A-Hmao dialect is still widely employed and the writing system devised for Hmu has left few traces, the author has analysed both writing systems in detail, especially their allegedly deficient tone marking systems in order to find a reason for this difference in success. No substantial differences in the exacmess of representation have, however, been found, so the causes have to be sought elsewhere, both in the reinterpretation of the writing systems in accordance with the myth about the loss of writing, and in the differences in bilingual competence, economic development etc., factors which will be discussed in more detail, especially in view of the developments after 1949, in the general conclusions to volume 2 of this study. In the analysis of the Pollard script, the author shows that the Pollard script is more widely used than earlier believed, and that this is due to its simplicity, especially its ingenious tone marking system, and the dissimilarity from other scripts, a trait which made the A-Hmao feel that this was their own national writing, and not a writing system adapted from another language.

Published by the Institute of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University©Joakim EnwallLayout and cover design by Susanna & Thomas HellsingCover illustration: Pollard script ‘Oh, Closer God, to Thee’ in A-Hmao and one of LuCiyun’s Miao charactersPrinted by Graphic Systems, StockholmISBN 91-7153-269-2ISSN 1101-5993

- Liu Er, please, said the professor.The student Liu Er stood up, in his hand there was a book with a dark blue cover.- Professor Ma, you told us that the Miao people, living in the south of our country, did not have writing. This Sunday I was at the Central Library and got acquainted with a book by the Czech scholar Loukotka - he claims the opposite.Liu Er went to the professor and handed him the book.- You already read Russian, Liu Er, that is very commendable [...]. The professor opened the book, and, after some pondering he said:- On your question, Liu Er, the answer can be very short or very long. The short one is that Loukotka repeated the mistakes of the French writers Devéria and d’Ollone, and for the long answer we have no time now. It is a curious, but confused story.- Professor Ma - the students became interested - tell us why Devéria and d’Ollone were wrong and what they mistook as Miao writing.- No, my young friends, now you rest, have lunch and, if the interest does not decHne, come this evening to the Department for the Peoples of the Southwest, there we will have a talk.

R G Its, ‘V poiskax mjaoskogo manuskripta’, Vokrug sveta, 1955, no. 4, p. 39.

De todas formas, el hecho de que los mismos miaotse niegen tener escritura no es sufrciente prueba para creerlo, pues podrian poseer una escritura criptica desconocida para todos excepto para unos cuantos versados que tendrian interés en mantenerla sécréta, [...].

Manuel Aguirre, La Escritura en el mundo, 1961, p. 92.

Acknowledgments

In preparing this thesis I have received help from many of the persons engaged in Miaology and neighbouring fields, both in China and in other countries. I am especially indebted to my teachers in Peking, Professor Wang Fushi ZEWItfr and Mr Wang Deguang ZEof the Research Institute of Nationalities (CASS) and Professor Dai Qingxia HcMX, Professor Chen Qiguang Mr Pan Wenzhong and Mr Shi Rujin of the Central Institute of Nationalities in Peking.

During my trips in the Miao areas I was helped by a great number of people, and it is only possible to mention a few of them: Mr Zhang Jinwen

of the Xiangxi Nationalities Affairs Commission, Mr Pan Shihua M •0^ of the Guizhou NAC, Mr Pan Yuan’en îSjg® of the Qiangdongnan NAC, Mr Yang Zhongde and Mr Zhang Youlun in Weining, Mr Yang Yingxin and Mrs Yang Zhaofei of the Yunnan Nationalities Language Commission, Mr Yang Qingbai of the SichuanNAC, Mr Long Zhengxue WE^P of the Southwest Institute of Nationalities in Chengdu and Mr Fang Yunzang in Canton. My two field-work assistants, Mr Yang Yadong of the Guizhou NAC and Mr Xiong Yuyou of the Yunnan Nationality Language Commission have had enormous patience in helping me during my trips to Guizhou and Yunnan.

Outside China I have been in touch with most people engaged in Miaology, and I particularly want to thank Rev R Keith Parsons in Torquay, Rev P Kenneth Parsons on the Isle of Wight, Dr David Bradley at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Mrs Faith Ledgard in Sydney, Dr Nerida Jarkey in Uppsala/Canberra, Dr Nicholas Tapp at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Gary Lee and Mr Pao Lee in Sydney.

My supervisor Professor Torbjörn Lodén and my former supervisor, Professor emeritus Göran Malmqvist, who also came up with the idea of investigating one of China’s minority languages, have both helped me a great deal in arranging contacts with relevant persons in China and also with the funding of my field trips, and have, in addition, given me much encouragement at various stages of this work.

Many librarians have spared no effort to help me with the necessary materials, and have also granted me permission to use the unpublished manuscripts in their collections. I am particularly grateful for the help I have recieved at the University Library of Gothenburg, the British Library, the SOAS Library, Bible Society’s Library at Cambridge University Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the library of the Central University of Nationalities in Peking, the National Library of China, the library of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Fu Ssu-nien Library in Taipei, the Australian National Library in Canberra and the library and archives at the Bible College of Victoria, Melbourne.

Mr Per Aarne Fritzon has helped me with the Miao fonts and Mr Roberto Menkes has assisted with other computer technology. Mr Bradley Kendall and Mr Folke Sandgren have provided valuable comments both on the language and the contents. The vice-secretary of the Chinese Esperanto association, Mr Zhu Mingyi 352,has arranged many valuable contacts among the Esperantists in the south of China. Furthermore, I want to thank Dr William Smith for polishing my English.

I wish to express my gratitude for generous financial support from the King Gustaf VI Adolf Foundation for Swedish Culture, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, The Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation, The Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation and the China Committee in Stockholm, which has made possible several field trips to the Miao areas. The basic research was carried out thanks to an exchange scholarship at the Central Institute of Nationalities in Peking (1989-91), granted by the Chinese Commission of Higher Education.

List of Contents

Acknowledgements 4Preface 10

Introduction

Miao 13

The Miao Language 17

The Miao Dialects 20

Phonology of the Miao Dialects

Ghao-Xong 25Hmu 28Hmong 29A-Hmao 32

Writing 36

State of Research 39

Sources 41

Spelling, Symbols and Abbreviations 42

Part I. Myth and Indigenous Writing Systems

Preliminaries 45

The Myth 47

Writing and Embroidery 47Eating Books and Getting a Good Memory 52Books Lost and Later Brought Back 54

Early Mnemotechnic Methods 56

Early Indigenous Writing Systems 59

Lu Ciyun 59The Baoqing fuzhi and the Chengbu Stele 67The Leigongshan Stele

Chinese Character-based Writing 75

D’Ollone 77Chinese Character-based Writing in Western Hunan 83Further Development of the Chinese Character-basedWriting in Western Hunan 87

Part II. Missionary Writing Systems

Writing Systems Devised by Catholic Missionaries 89

Early Protestant Mission 92

China Inland Mission in Guizhou (before 1915) 93

J R Adam fs Mission at Anshun 93Contacts with the A-Hmao 94The Cebu Church 96Adam’s A-Hmao Writing 97Expansion of the Mission 99

The Methodist Mission before 1915 102

Samuel Pollard 102The A-Hmao Movement Starts 103The Pollard Script 104Stone Gateway 107The First Books in A-Hmao 107Development of the Mission 110

CIM Mission in Yunnan before 1915 114

CIM Mission among the Hmu before 1912 117

Early Mission among the Hmu 117Panghai 117The Murder of William S Fleming 119Reestablishing the Panghai Mission 119Robert Powell 121

CIM in Guizhou after 1915 122

Changes (fier Adam’s Death 122After the Long March 124

The Mission at Stone Gateway after Pollard’s Death 129

Organizational Changes 130Indigenization of the Church 131The Last Years of the Foreign Mission 134

CIM in Yunnan after 1915 137

Developments in the f40s 138

Mission among the Sichuan Hmong 140

Methodist Mission 141CIM in South Sichuan 144

Mission among the Hmu after 1912 146

Maurice H Hutton 147NFS-Writing 149Missionary Activities during the ’20s 150Back to Panghai in 1930 151Panghai after Hutton’s Return to Australia 155

Ge (Keh Deo) Writing 158

The Debate about Pollard’s and Adam’sWriting Systems for A-Hmao 161

The Development of the Pollard script 1904-1949 163

Questions Concerning the Phonemic System of A-Hmao 163The Experiment in 1904 166The First A-Hmao Primers 172Tone Marking in the Pollard Script 174The Gospel Texts 176Changes after Pollard’s Death 180The Letters of the Pollard Script 185

Analysis of Adam’s A-Hmao Writing 190

Analysis of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script 192

The Latin-based Hmu Writing 195

Hutton’s Hmu Writing 197

Hutton ’s NPS~writing for Hmu 197Analysis of Hutton’s Orthography 199Tone Marking 203Hutton’s List of NPS Letters and their Actual Values 210

Concluding Remarks Regarding the MissionaryWriting Systems 213

The Number of Christians and the Number who Learnt the Missionary Writing Systems 213Differences between the Miao Areas 218The Miao Attitude towards Chinese and Miao 221Differences Between the Writing Systems 223Myth and Reality 225

Bibliograhies

Bibliography of Works in MissionaryWriting Systems 229

A-Hmao (Adam’s Latin-based Writing) 229Pollard Script A-Hmao (before 1952) 230Pollard Script Hmong (Chüan Miao and Small Flowery Miao) 235Latin-based Hmu Writing (pre-1949) 236NPS- Writing for Hmu 237NPS- Writing for Keh Deo 238

Unpublished Sources 239

Manuscripts 239Letters to the author 240Personal Communications 241

Bibliography to Volume 1 243

Preface

The main purpose of this thesis is to describe the history of the Miao writing systems encountered in China, and to provide some theoretical discussions on related topics. As so much is still unknown about the history of Miao writing I consider it of utmost importance to provide a fairly accurate description of the historical background.

I became interested in the history of Miao writing while studying the Miao language at the Central Institute of Nationalities, now renamed the Central University of Nationalities, in Peking, and I soon realized that very little had been achieved in this field, although many works had already been published. The main characteristic of an overwhelming majority of the references to Miao writing found in books and articles, Chinese and non­Chinese alike, is the repetition of earlier mistakes and misunderstandings, often combined with groundless speculations and political-ideological mishmash. Prejudice or idealization take the place of analyses of the relevant sources, including the various writing systems actually existing. There has also been too much credulity and wishful thinking among Western writers basing themselves on Chinese sources, and this has led to conclusions far removed from the Miao reality even among people engaged in or at least partly dealing with Miaology.

My descriptions are long and detailed as the source materials are scattered and often incompatible, and hence leave many lacunae in the historical development. In this way I avoid conclusions which lack an actual foundation in the available materials. Furthermore, many of the texts quoted are so difficult to find that it would be unfair to the reader if I only were to provide the references.

This study is divided into four parts and also contains an introduction to the Miao language and detailed bibliographies of books published in Miao. For practical reasons it has been necessary to divide it into two volumes, although they are quite closely connected. The first volume, which contains parts I and II, is concerned with the history of the writing systems until the establishment of the PRC and the second volume, containing parts III and IV, deals mainly with the the development after 1949. The second volume also contains a discussion of the subsequent mythologization of Miao writing systems.

Part I consists of an account of the Miao myths of a lost writing system and early, still extant writing systems of more or less obscure origin; part II is dedicated to the efforts of various missionaries, mainly British and Australian, to devise writing systems for the Miao language. Part III is concerned with the development of the Miao written language from 1949 until about 1991, a period during which, at times, much has been done to devise and propagate

io

writing systems for the Miao language. This part also takes up the policies towards Miao writing during the Republican period (1911—49). The fourth and last part is dedicated to the factors underlying the Miao reaction on writing as a concept, and to the mythologization of various writing systems of well-known origin. Furthermore it deals with writing systems developed in accordance with the Miao tradition of an early lost writing system.

Each part contains the history of the writing systems concerned, detailed analyses of most of them, sample texts, the state of research and an estimate of the number of people who have actually learnt the writing system in question. The historical side and the more linguistic-bibliographical side are clearly divided, as the intention is that the thesis be readable for varying audiences; not all literacy researchers are interested in the technicalities of various orthographies; not all linguists need necessarily be acquainted with the discussions and debates preceding the devising of a writing system. In this way it should also be easier for those working in neighbouring fields to find references.

As the Miao writing systems used outside China have already been analysed, I will refer to them only en passant and as a point of reference while discussing Miao writing in China. Of course, the Miao groups in China and those outside have much in common, but for practical reasons I have found it necessary to set up these limitations, especially as the material on the Miao outside China is available elsewhere, while the Chinese situation has hitherto not been described, probably due both to the relative difficulty in gaining access to relevant source material and lack of field experience.

The thesis is written within the framework of Sinology, a science which can be defined in various ways. I fully agree with Bernhard Karlgren’s *11 n’y a guère de science qui embrasse un plus vaste domaine que la sinologie’, and I thus feel free to use a rather wide definition, corresponding to the Chinese term zhöngguéxué ‘China studies’, rather than hànxué ‘Studies in the tradition of Han-dynasty scholars’. Hence, I include topics like linguistics (graphonomy, phonetics), sociolinguistics (bilingualism, neologisms, literacy campaigns), history, missiology, political science, bibliography and anthropology.

I sincerely hope that this thesis within the relatively young science of Miaology shall serve as a point of departure for future researchers in this fascinating field of study, and not only be considered as ‘fit for covering sauce jars’.

n

Map of the Miao Areas

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12

Introduction

Miao1

1 This general discussion about the Miao has earlier been published (slightly difierent) as ‘Miao or Hmong?’, (1992), pp. 25-6.2 1990 census.3 In Oct. 1992. Cf. Tribal Research Institute in Chiang Mai, Tribal Population Summary in Thailand, 1992.4 Philippe Chanson, ‘Les Hmong: portrait d’un peuple méconnu’, (1993), p. 9.5 Li Guo, Xu Shaoli, Yuenan minzu, 1989, p. 142.6 Haiv Hmoob, 1987, no. 2. Quoted from Xiong Yuyou, Kuaguo miaoyu bijiao yanjiu - Chuanqiandian miaoyu guowai yuguonei de bijiao, 1992, unpubl. MA thesis, p. 3.7 Philippe Chanson, ‘Les Hmong: portrait d’un peuple méconnu*, (1993), p. 9.8 Philippe Chanson, ‘Les Hmong: portrait d’un peuple méconnu*, (1993), p. 9.9 Haiv Hmoob, 1987, no. 2. Quoted from Xiong Yuyou, Kuaguo miaoyu bijiao yanjiu — Chuanqiandian miaoyu guowai yuguonei de bijiao, 1992, unpubl. MA thesis, p. 3.10 Pao Lee, personal communication, Sydney, 3 May 1992.

The Miao people is one of the indigenous peoples of China. They live mainly in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and Hubei in south China. The number of Miao living in China was 7,398,035 for 1 July 1990,2 3 including the ‘Miao’ of the Hainan Province, who are actually a subgroup of the Yao.

Due to migrations starting in the eighteenth century, they also live outside China, in:

Thailand Laos Vietnam Burma

91,537250.0004400,0005

10.0006

Almost all the Miao living outside China belong to the Hmong subgroup and as a result of recent migrations in the aftermath of the Indochinese wars there are now quite a few Hmong living in other parts of the world:

United States 100,0007France 10,0008French Guiana l,5009Australia 1,OOO10

U

Altogether there are approximately eight million Miao, out of which some six or seven millions speak the Miao language. This language, which consists of 30-40 mutually unintelligible dialects, belongs, together with the Bunu language, to the Miao branch of the Miao-Yao language family.11 Culturally, the Bunu are Yao, and the so called Miao of Hainan speak Yao, and therefore those two groups are not included in my study.12 The groups included are both culturally and linguistically Miao.

11 There are several intermediary groups between Miao and Yao: Pa Hng (including Na-e), Hm Nai, Kiong Nai, Yu Nuo and Ho Nte or She Cf. David Strecker, ‘Some Comments on Benedict’s “Miao-Yao Enigma: the Na-e language’”, (1987), p. 22; and Chen Qiguang, ‘Sheyu zai Miao-Yao yuzu zhong de diwei’, (1984), pp. 200-14.12 Cf. Lu Yichang, ‘Hainandao miaozu de yuyan ji qi xishu’, (1987), pp. 53-63.ü For a detailed discussion on the terminology see Ruey Yih-fu, ‘A Study of the Miao People’, 1967, pp. 49-58; and Its, ‘Mjao - istoriko-êtnografïëeskij oöerk’, 1960, pp. 38-49.14 J Wheaton Fuller, Topic and Comment in Hmong, 1985. This usage also appears in David Strecker’s preface to vol. 10, no. 2 of LTBA, Fall 1987, a volume dedicated entirely to the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) language family.15 W A Smalley, Chia Koua Vang and Gnia Yee Yang, Mother of Writing, 1990, p. 3.

The term Miao was first used by the Chinese in pre-Qin times, i.e. before 221 BC, for designating non-Chinese groups living south of the Han Chinese area. It was often used in the combinations miäomin Mß, yöumiåo W® and sänmiäo HU. At that time the Miao people lived in the Yangtze valley, but later they were forced by the Han Chinese to move further southwards. During the Tang (ad 613-907) and Song dynasties (ad 960-1279) the term nånmån MH ‘southern barbarians* was used for the same peoples. However, the name miâo reappeared in Fan Chuo’s Mans/iw, a book on the southern tribes, in ad 862. During the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) miåo and mån were both used, the second possibly mainly to designate the Yao people.13

Western scholars do not treat the terminological problems in a uniform way. Early writers used Chinese-based names in various transcriptions: miao, miao-tse, miao-tsze. Mean, meo, méo, miao-tseu etc., but due to the influence of the Hmong of Laos (a sub-group of the Miao people) some contemporary scholars have adopted another terminology. Judith Wheaton Fuller, in her PhD dissertation, defined the Miao language as ‘the hmongic (Miao) branch of the Miao-Yao language family’.14 The American missionary linguist William A Smalley uses the term Miao for the Miao of China, while using the term Hmong: (1) as a general term for the entire people, and (2) as a specific term for the speakers of the Hmong dialect spoken by one part of the Miao in China and by almost all Miao outside China. This results in statements like ‘In the eighteenth century antagonism between the Miao peoples and ethnic Chinese came to a head as some Hmong revolted against steady Chinese incursion into the areas where they lived, [...]*. 15 To the

14

present writer, at least, this appears somewhat confusing.The Miao themselves use various self-designations: [qo35 çoq35] (west

Hunan); [mu33], [qa33 ns13], [içs33] (all for speakers of the same dialect in southeast Guizhou); [a55 mau54] (northwest Guizhou and northeast Yunnan) and [mog43] (south Sichuan, west Guizhou and south Yunnan). There is no Miao word in any dialect which denotes the whole people as opposed to the sub-group. In China the Miao use either their own self-designation or the self-designation of the group they are talking about. Thus only one group out of four uses the term Hmong. Furthermore, it is only this group which has speakers living outside China. It is these non-Chinese Hmong who advocate that the term Hmong be used not only for designating their dialect group, but also for the other groups living in China. They generally claim that the word Miao is a derogatory term which should not be used at all. Instead the term Hmong is to be used to designate all groups of the people.16

16 Yang Dao, personal communication, Peking, May 1990.17 Yang Dao, ‘Why did the Hmong Leave Laos?’, 1982, p. 6.18 E Lunet de Lajonquière, Ethnographie du Tonkin Septentrional, 1906, p. 296 and Lam Tam, ‘Coup d’œil sur les Meo’, (1973), p. 10. Lam Tam wrote: ‘Ce fut sous les Tang, au Vile siècle de notre ère, qu’apparut le terme Miaozu (Sii^), Miao étant écrit avec la

Dr Yang Dao, one of the leading Hmong intellectuals, wrote: ‘These [Chinese] invaders gave to the Hmong the appelation “Miao,” which later became “Meo” and which means “barbarian” - an expression formerly used, in Europe, by the Romans to designate other peoples?17 This meaning15 not found in any dictionary available to me. There is, thus, no lexical correspondence between the word Miao and the meaning ‘barbarian’. I suppose that Yang Dao based his statement more on prejudice than on textual research. His argument is thus based on the erroneous assumption that Miao has the meaning ‘barbarian’.

The Chinese word miâo has been taken over by other peoples in southeast Asia, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai etc. in the form ‘meo’. Though many of the speakers of those languages (and of Chinese) undoubtedly consider the Miao to be barbarians, this by no means proves that the word itself has that denotation. It is, of course, also possible that when the speakers of Lao, Thai and Vietnamese took over the word miâo from Chinese, it lost its original meaning ‘seedling’ and came to be used only to designate a people which they consider to be barbarian. If pronounced with the wrong tone in Thai the word means ‘cat’. This might partly explain the strong resentment against the term Miao among the Hmong groups in southeast Asia.

It is interesting to note that the only two instances that I have found of using the dog radical 5 for writing Miao H, the normal radical for other characters designating various minority peoples, like Yao få, appear in publications on the Miao in north Vietnam.18 In Chinese the character få is

15

an allograph for IS , i.e. with the reptile radical %, which means ‘cat’ and is pronounced mâo.19 This usage is, furthermore, exactly the same in the Vietnamese Chinese character-based writing chü nôm, in which the character

refers to the Miao people, whereas the character IS means ‘cat’ just like in Chinese.20 In the simplification scheme of the PRC the radical of the character meaning ‘cat’ has been changed from the reptile radical % to the dog radical , thus blurring the possible distinction between these two characters.

In China, however, the situation is different from the other Miao areas for two main reasons. The first is that the Miao groups have different self-designations and only a small proportion uses the word Hmong. The rest have no feeling that Hmong is in any way preferable to Miao as a common designator. Since the official classification of the minorities in the 1950s, some minority groups have complained about the word used in Chinese to designate them and have asked the government to change the official usage. The Miao groups of China have, to my knowledge, voiced no such concern.

The second reason is purely pragmatic: it is impossible to introduce the word ‘hmong’ into Chinese as this syllable does not exist in the Chinese language.21 As a matter of fact, this is also the case for the English language, as few speakers are able to pronounce an unvoiced nasal. However, in Engjish, unlike Chinese, it is at least possible to write the word Hmong.

I limit my use of the term Hmong to the Miao groups speaking the Western dialect of Miao in China (the Chuan-Qian-Dian subdialect of the Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect according to the Chinese official classification), and outside China in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. When referring to specific sub-groups of the Miao people I use their etnonyms, viz. Ghao-

clé < désignant l’espèce animale, ou tribu Mao, encore en usage en nos jours. (2) Miao écrit à présent avec la clé { désignant l’espèce humaine: < M.’ In this case, however, the reptile radical is used and not the dog radical. The second instance, with a man radical, does not appear in chü nôm, but it is found in the Chinese dictionary Hanyu dazidian, where it is defined either as meaning ‘good son’, pronounced miåo, or as an allograph for ictS, a character meaning ‘with beautiful eyes’ or ‘prostitute’. Cf. Hanyu dazidian bianji weiyuanhui, Hanyu dazidian, Chengdu, 1986-90, vol. 1, p. 186; and vol.8, p. 1056.19 The unsimplified character ® miâo is also an allograph for a (very rare) meaning of the character "få miåo, viz. ‘summer hunt’. Cf. Hanyu dazidian bianji weiyuanhui, Hanyu dazidian, Chengdu, 1986-90, vol. 2, p. 1352; and vol. 5, p. 3191.20 Cf. Nguyen Quang-xy & Vu Van-klnh, Ttf-EXén ChüNôm, 1971, p. 479.21 Actually I have encountered one attempt to render this syllable with two syllables in Chinese, viz. hèméng in a book on the minorities of Vietnam. The usage was also explained: ‘All the Miao inhabitants living in Vietnam call themselves the hèméng people, and therefore the former etnonym “miao” of these inhabitants has been changed to “hèméng” in Names of all nationalities in Vietnam, published by the Vietnamese government’. Li Guo & Xu Shaoli, Yuenan minzu, 1989, p. 143.

i6

Xong, Hmu, Hmong and A-Hmao, but I use Miao as a general term, especially as this is in accord with tradition and also practical for making the situation clear for persons not versed in Miaology. I also use the word Miao when I am not sure of which Miao group a person belongs to. Furthermore, the word Miao is used in all translations from Chinese where the character

is encountered.In principle it would be preferable to avaoid a designation which by

some people is viewed as derogatory, but at present I can find no good alternative to Miao, as Hmong is the self-designation for only one group out of four.

The basic meaning of the word miâo in Chinese is ‘young plant’, which in an agrarian culture certainly is a more positive concept than that of a ‘swede’ in the Western world.

The Miao Language

The Miao language belongs together with the Yao language to the Miao-Yao language group. Chinese linguists consider Miao-Yao to be a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, but Western scholars tend not to be assertive concerning any relationship between Miao-Yao and other languages, although the Chinese hypothesis is not overtly rejected.22 They generally claim that much basic reconstruction work needs to be done within the Miao-Yao family before any wider relationships can be determined.23 24 Benedict considers it to be a subgroup of the Austro-Tai family.2* For the purposes of my present research this question is entirely irrelevant.

22 Wang Fushi, Miaoyu jianzhi, 1985, p. 3.23 H C Purnell, Toward a Reconstruction of Proto-Miao-Yao, 1970, p. 195.24 Cf. P K Benedict, Austro-Thai: Language and Culture with a Glossary of Roots, 1975.

Structurally, Miao phonology is similar to that of Chinese, with initials, finals and tones as the main components of the syllable. It is generally monosyllabic and isolating, i.e. there is basically no inflection.

Initials

The number of possible syllables is quite restricted, if compared to Indo- European languages, but much more numerous than in any Chinese dialect, and almost all positions of articulation are used for the initials. Furthermore there are prenasalized initials in all varieties except Hmu. The most common form of an initial is:

[nasal] + stop or fricative + [lateral]

17

Finals

The finals always end in vowels or nasals. There are no finals ending in stops in any Miao dialect. The nasals are also rather restricted and normally there is only one nasal, which is pronounced [-nJ after front vowels and [-q] after back vowels. In modem Miao dialects the system of finals has been enlarged because of Chinese influence through a large influx of loanwords. In the lists of finals below they will be indicated in brackets, as they cannot be considered as completely integrated into the Miao phonological system. Nowadays, only Miao with a certain competence in Chinese are capable of pronouncing them. However, unlee the influence and the knowledge of Chinese amongst Miao speakers are not drastically diminished for some reason these will certainly become a part of the Miao phonological system in the future.

Just like in Mandarin the final /i/ has two allophones, which can be represented in various ways. In Mandarin they are the finals of s'i E3 ‘four’ and slù ‘to be’ respectively. In Chinese publications two symbols originally not present in IPA are used in IPA transcriptions, namely [a] and [t]. These symbols originally appeared in the Swedish dialectologist Professor J A Lundell’s phonetic script ‘Landsmålsalfabetet’, devised in 1879, and were later used by Bernhard Karlgren in his PhD dissertation Études sur la Phonologie Chinoise I. Karlgren described the first as ‘voyelle apico-gingivale, haute, tendue, délabialisée ou à l’ouverture labiale large’, whereas the second was characterized as ‘voyelle apico-alvéolaire, haute, tendue, délabialisée ou à l’ouverture labiale large’. He furthermore elaborated on the problems encountered by people trying to transcribe these sounds with Latin letters and concluded that syllabic [z] was a good solution for the first and syllabic [zj for the second, as many individuals speaking the dialects in which they appear use these as alternative pronunciations for [i] and [i]. This way of transcribing them was used by Jerry Norman in his introduction to the Chinese language Chinese, in the form [z] and [j]. The Chinese linguists have obviously considered this transcription too approximative and have retained Lundell’s symbols. For the A-Hmao dialect there are furthermore rounded varieties of these phones, viz. fi] and [h|. For practical reasons I use [z] and [j] for the unrounded varieties, and [zj and [jJ for the rounded varieties.25

25 Cf. B Karlgren, Études sur la phonologie chinoise I, 1915, pp. 294-9 and J Norman, Chinese, 1988, pp. 141-2.

i8

Tones

The Miao language has eight basic tone categories which seem to derive from four original tone categories, much in the same way as the Chinese or the Thai tone systems have developed. These tone categories in Miao were first worked out by Zhang Kun in 1947, and later investigated by André Haudricourt, Herbert C Purnell, Wang Fushi and Chen Qiguang.25 26 The tone category can manifest itself in various ways, and it is therefore important to distinguish it from tone value, the actual representation of the tone tonemically. This leads to the possibility of assigning etymological tone categories to words pronounced with different tone values in different varieties of Miao, but deriving from the same word in proto-Miao.

25 Zhang Kun, ‘Miao-Yaoyu shengdiao wentf, (1947); André G Haudricourt, 'Introduction à la phonologie historique des langues miao-yao’, (1954), pp. 555-76; H C Purnell, Toward a Reconstruction of Proto-Miao-Yao, 1970; Wang Fushi, Miaoyu fangyanshengyunmu bijiao, 1979; Chen Qiguang, ‘Miao-Yaoyu rusheng de fazhan’, (1979), pp. 25-30 and ‘Miao-Yao yuzu yuyan de ji zhong diaobian’, (1989), pp. 8-14.27 This system was devised by Y R Chao in 1930.

These tone categories are, of course, not completely static and are subject to common processes of change such as split, often triggered by traits of the initial (voice, aspiration), and merger, caused by a similarity in tone value.

A further factor influencing the change of tone categories is tone sandhi, which is rampant in some Miao varieties. Tone sandhi appears when two or more syllables appear together in certain rather stable constructions like nouns consisting of two syllables, numerals, and attributive constructions.

In a few varieties of Miao the sandhi also influences the initial and in rare cases even the final, so that nothing remains of the original syllable after the change. Although the sandhi changes are generally surface phenomena they can sometimes be lexicalized. There are also some changes caused by analogy, when words acquire the tone category of a word similar in meaning or appear near it in typical series like numerals.

The tone sandhi mentioned above often blurs the picture of original tone categories in the spoken language as the tone values are changed when one tone is pronounced together with certain other tones. In many cases, for example in composite words, i.e. words consisting of two or more syllables, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the original tone category.

The tones are indicated on a five level scale, with 5 as the highest and 1 as the lowest level.27 For example (51) is a falling tone, from the highest to the lowest, and (435) is a tone starting above the middle, going down to the middle and then going up to the highest level. In some dialects the tones cause voicing of the initial and also the addition of an [fi] between the initial and the final. These rules generally apply to original Miao words only.

19

The Miao Dialects28

28 A general overview of the Miao dialects, including details of the area in which theyare spoken, is to be found in Wang Fushi, Miaoyu jianzhi, 1985, pp. 103-6 etc.

The Miao language is not a language in the popular sense of the term, but rather a language group, like, for example, the Romance languages. In China the terminology is somewhat different. Otherwise several varieties of Chinese would be considered as different languages, a classification certainly not very pleasing to those who support a unified China. In Europe various languages may be mutually comprehensible to a large extent, like Swedish and Norwegian, or Spanish and Portuguese. In China dialects are usually not mutually comprehensible, and in many cases speakers of various subdialects have considerable difficulty in understanding each other. However, the Chinese dialects differ mainly on the phonetic level, and much less in vocabulary and grammar. The Miao dialects differ in all these aspects. It is thus, from a linguistic point of view, doubtful whether the many varieties of Miao could be classified as a single language. In order to facilitate comparison with Chinese sources I retain the Chinese terminology in this study, although it does not correspond to the normal way these terms are used in Western literature. My terminology when discussing Miao corresponds to the Chinese and the Western usage in the following way:

Chinese

yöyån fås fangyân ctfangyån W tûyû ±æ fôngÿïn or difanghuà

English term used to render the Chinese

language dialectsubdialectvernacular local variety

Corresponds approximately to (in a European context)

language familylanguage dialect group dialectsubdialect

In this thesis I use the modem official self-designations in Miao writing (without tone-markers) for the speakers of each of the three dialects as dialect names, viz.: Ghao-Xong, Hmu and Hmong.

I also use a special name for one subdialect, as I consider it to be sufficiently different from the Hmong. It was earlier considered as a separate dialect by Chinese linguists, but it was later integrated into the enlarged Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect, of which Hmong is the most important representative, viz. A-Hmao.

These four ‘dialects’ actually consist of more than thirty mutually

20

incomprehensible varieties and present a continuum. They were defined at the Conference on Miao Writing in Guiyang 1956 and in the subsequent research (1957—59), and as they correspond fairly well to the four normative varieties used for writing systems, I adopt them without à profound analysis of the reasons for the classification.29 30

29 Cf. Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui, ‘Miaoyu fàngyan de huafen he chuangli miaowen de wend’, 1957, pp. 11-73.30 Wang Fushi, Miaoyu jianzhi, 1985, pp. 103-4.

In early Chinese publications and in foreign works on the Miao groups in China, the Miao were often characterized by the ‘most characteristic’ colour of the women’s clothes, e.g. red, black, flowery etc., or even by cultural characteristics, like wood comb Miao, wash bones Miao etc. Some of these older terms will also be referred to below. The number of speakers is given according to Wang Fushi’s Miaôyu jianzhi.20 His figures are based on the 1982 census, and unfortunately no separate statistics for the various dialects are found in later sources. In 1982 the total Miao population was 5,030,000 and in 1990 it had increased to just over 7 million. For the number of speakers of the various dialects in 1990 it thus seems reasonable to add approximately 40% to the figures mentioned below.

Ghao-Xong

Ghao-Xong is spoken by approximately 770,000 persons mainly in Hunan, in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao AP. It is also used in Songtao County in Guizhou, Xiushan County in Sichuan, and in some places in Hubei and Guangxi. It is called the eastern dialect W or the Xiangxi dialect

in Chinese publications. The self-designation most commonly used is <ghaob xongb> [qo35 çog35]. Other self-designations are [tei53 sou53] and [qui22 suaq53]. In foreign pubheations and in older Chinese sources they are often referred to as Red Miao [héng miâo This dialect has two vernaculars, the western with over 90 per cent of the speakers and the eastern with less than 10 per cent.

Hmu

Hmu is spoken by approximately 1,4 million people, mainly in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong AP in Guizhou. There are also some Hmu who live in Guangxi and Hunan. The Hmu dialect is called the central dialect or the Qiandong(nan) dialect W in Chinesepubheations. There are two self-designations in the modem written language: <hmub> [mhi33] in the official language and <hmeb> [iq1^33] in a semi-official

21

variety of Huangping County. In the spoken language many of the speakers of both varieties refer to themselves as <ghab nes> [qa33 no13]. Other self­designations are [mo33] and [mu13]. These Miao groups were earlier referred to as Black Miao or Heh (Hei) Miao [hêi miåo Uffi]. This dialect has three vernaculars, the northern with 65 per cent of the speakers, the eastern with 15 per cent and the southern with 20 per cent.

Hmong

Hmong is spoken by approximately one million people in a vast area, including central and west Guizhou, south Sichuan and many parts of Yunnan. In Chinese publications it is referred to as the western dialect ® rB jjs or the Chuan-Qian-Dian subdialect of the Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect JI The number of speakers mentioned above refers to the speakersof this subdialect, and not the dialect as a whole, as it now also includes A-Hmao and some other varieties referred to below. This dialect is also spoken outside China, in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and more recently in the United States, French Guyana, Australia and France by more than half a million people. The self-designation is <hmongb> (modem official orthography) [moi]43] in China and <hmoob> [mog55] or <moob> [mog55] outside China (in RPA orthography). The major colour designations are White Miao (båi miåo Öfå), Blue/Green Miao (qing miåo Wffi) and Small Flowery Miao (xiäo huä miåo d^’S’). Closely related to this dialect are the south central Guizhou dialects, discussed below.

A-Hmao

A-Hmao is the smallest Miao dialect, and generally called a subdialect of the Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect in the Chinese terminology. It is spoken in northwest Guizhou and northeast and central Yunnan. In Chinese publications it is called the Diandongbei subdialect , but it has also beenreferred to as the northern dialect . The number of speakers wasestimated as about 200,000 in 1982. The self-designation is <ad hmaob> [a55 mau54]. Formerly this group was referred to as Big Flowery Miao, Ta Hwa Miao [då huä miåo ÀTËI^i] or Variegated Miao.

22

Other Varieties

Many varieties of Miao do not fit well into any of the above four dialects and for them no great effort has been made to devise writing systems, although there were discussions in 1956-7 about one other dialect area, central Guizhou.31 The dialects of this area were investigated in 1956 and divided into four dialect groups, represented by the following speech varieties:

31 Cf., however, Xian Songkui, ‘Miaowen yu fangyin jiaoxue fang’an’, 1989, pp. 145-53.32 Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan yanjiusuo, Zhongguo shaoshu minzu yuyan jianzhi - miaoyao yuzu bufen, 1959, pp. 3-4.33 Wang Fushi, Miaoyu jianzhi, 1985, pp. 103-6.

Locality No. of speakers (Î956) Self designation

Kaisa in Pingba Gaopo in Huishui Zongdi in Ziyun Ximahe in Longli

40,000 mor, içsui, muq80,000 mhnrj, ipho, ne mhoq60,000 maq30,000 iq»o, rq0q

As these dialects are most closely related to Hmong, they were made part of an expanded Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect in 1959. The original Chuan-Qian- Dian dialect was considered as one of the subdialects of the expanded Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect together with A-Hmao and five other subdialects.32 Below I list these five subdialects of Chuan-Qian-Dian together with the number of speakers in 1982.33 Kaisa and some other varieties near Guiyang form the Guiyang subdialect, Gaopo is called Huishui, Zongdi is called Mashan and Ximahe is referred to as Luobohe.

Subdialed Vernacular No. of speakers

Guiyang northern (eastern in 1959) 60,000southwestern 50,000southern 20,000

Huishui northern 35,000southwestern 40,000central 30,000eastern 10,000

23

Mashan MlU central 50,000northern 25,000western 10,000southern 7,000

Luobohe 40,000(includes the so-called Xijia language)

Chong’anjiang Ü&ÖL (Eastern in 1959) 40,000(also called the Gedou language)34

34 Both characters are usually written with the man radical. In older writings the second character is sometimes repheed by the character 9E.æ Wang Fushi, Miaoyujianzhi, 1985, p. 106.

In his Miaoyu jianzhi (1985), Wang Fushi furthermore mentioned nine hitherto unclassified varieties, of which eight seem to be rather close to the Chuan-Qian-Dian dialect and one to Hmu.35

Phonology of the Miao Dialects

The phonemes are given in IPA without brackets. The phonetic value, if difierent from the phonemic value, is given in square brackets. An explanation is given below of the circumstances in which the phoneme appears in this form instead of the basic form. Phonetic alternatives are are preceded by a slash. Phonemes in ordinary brackets are used in some Chinese loanwords, mainly by people who have a certain knowledge of Chinese. Extremely rare, and therefore doubtful, phonemes are preceded by an ♦. The tone values are indicated for the eight etymological tone categories which is the system currently used in China. In some dialects two or more of the tones categories have merged and in others they have split. For each dialect I use the contemporary standard pronunciation as representative of the dialect. I base my analyses of the phonological systems on the knowledge gained from sources published in China, from my teachers at the CIN and from my field recordings in the Miao areas.

24

Ghao-Xong

Layiping Village, Jiwei Xiang, Huayuan County, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao AP, Hunan Province

Initials

0R]

p P- mpA*b] ntpM’h“] m w

P1 pih (mpl/['bl]) mi .

pi pj» ♦ mpj /[“bjJmpjh/[,nbifi] mi

ts ts11 nts /[“dzj ntsM’dz8] s

t nt /[nd] nth /["d“] n 1 p

t 1” m/l’MJ nfÆ’Mfl n §tc tçh nite 4rtd2] nW/r'dz11) Ç

c & jic/Pj] JicMYl ♦ji P/[X] iwik kh ijk/I'g] nkM’«11] qk* kwh ■Jk’/t’g') q*

q qh Nq/To] NqTo“] h/lxl

qw qwh Nqw /["owl Nqwl,4V>] hw/[xwWl

36 In the Guizhou variety of Ghao-Xong, spoken mainly in Songtao County in Guizhou, the finals [o] and [o] have merged to [o].

With the exception of interjections and modal particles all syllables without an initial are pronounced with an initial glottal stop.

Finals36

fi/ becomes [z] after the dental affricates and [j] after the retroflex initials.

i Iw) e £ a UI y /M a u

0 0 ei (in/Til) en/[3] oij /[a] oq/löj 9-0

25

Tones

Categories HI and VII have merged (indicated as III), as well as categories IV and VIII (indicated as IV).

I 35fl 42 (or 31)III 44IV 22 (or 33)V 54VI 31 (or 42)

In many official publications, like Wang Fushi’s Miaoyu jianzhi, the tone values indicated in brackets above are given, but Shi Kujin, lecturer in Ghao-Xong at the CIN, claims that the correct values are those indicated as primary above. I have not been permitted to carry out field work in Jiwei, so all the values come from printed publications. In an article on the use of Ghao-Xong writing in Jiwei, published around 1986, the frequent confusion of tone categories II and V is pointed out, and in my view it seems more likely that the students would confuse the values (42) and (54) than (31) and (S4).37

37 Wu Yaling, ‘Wo shi zenyang cong miaowen jiaoxue guodu dao hanwen jiaoxue de’, 1987, p. 142.38 Zhou Chunlu, ‘Miaoyu Xiangxi fimgyan xibu tuyu ge difanghua de yuyin chayi ji qi duiying guilü qianxi*, 1987, p. 180.

The tone values vary quite a lot in the Ghao-Xong area, and this is sometimes reflected in the publications on the language. The Songuo tone values seem to be the same as Jiwei, but in Xiangxi AP some further values are present. Zhou Chunlu uses the same values for cat. I and VI as Wang Fushi:38

Category Jiwei Shanjiang ill HI Aizhai Shuitian tKH

I 35 32 53 55n 31 53 21 24m 44 24 23 44Illb (=VII) 43 43IV 22 21 33 22IVb (=VIII) 12V 53 35 35 42VI 42 22 22 21

26

Tone sandhi and other phonetic processes

In Ghao-Xong the sandhi rules are relatively simple. There are, however, three kinds of sandhi, namely: regressive, progressive and equative. Regressive means that the following syllable triggers sandhi on the preceding, progressive means the opposite, and equative sandhi gives the same value to both syllables when they appear together. Equative sandhi is thus a combination of regressive and progressive sandhi.

Rule no. Cat. +value becomes if in connection with category

1. 1=35 -» 43 / _ cat. 1(35)1=35 43 / _cat. 11(42)11=42 13 / cat. I (35) _11=42 13 / cat. II (42) _

5. 111=44 33 / cat. IV (22) _IV=22 33 / __ cat. Ill (44)V=54 43 / _cat. V (54)

An example of the regressive kind is <bleib wanb blab canb bub> ‘45,300’: /piei35 wë35 pia35 tshëæ pu36/ -» [piei43 wë43 pia43 ts^43 pu35]. The progressive sandhi can be illustrated with <jex mex nex> ‘there is not anybody [here]’: /tçe42 me42 ne42/ -> [tçe42 me13 neB], and equative sandhi with <wel nangd> ‘my’: /we22 naq44/ -> [we33 naq33]. Another example of the effects of regressive and progressive sandhi combined is: <hanb ngangx> ‘to make an appointment’ /hë35 qoq42/ -» [hë43 gfiaq13].

When the unaspirated stops and affricates (pre-nasalized not included) and the voiced continuants (nasals, fricatives and laterals) appear in tone categories IV and VI, and when words in cat. II appear in the sandhi variety 13, they become voiced aspirated, eg. <nhangs> ‘with’: /qaq31/-> ^qfiâ31].

27

Hmu

Yanghao Village, Guading Xiangf Kaili City, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong AP, Guizhou Province

Initials

p p“ m ip” f f* V

ts tsf* s sJ* z

t n P* 1 1 p 1

tj t* nJ 5* P p

tc tc» çh a

k kh n xh Y

q qh

h

0 [?1

With the exception of interjections and modal particles all syllables without an initial are pronounced with an initial glottal stop.

Finals

i [i,?l (e) e 9 [9,901] a u 0 ei

au (ie) (io) (uei) (ue) (ua) en a»)

orj/luql (ien) (uen) (uorj)

IH becomes [z] after the dental affricates, /si becomes [aui] after the dental affricates, dentals and uvulars.

Tones

I 33H 55III 35IV 11V 44VI 13VII 53VIII 31

28

Tone sandhi and other phonetic processes

Hmu lacks tone sandhi. The unaspirated stops and af&icates, the voiced nasals and the unaspirated continuants (both unvoiced and voiced) are given a weak voiced aspiration when they appear in tone cat. IV and a strong voiced aspiration in tone cat. VI, e.g.<bil> ‘hand’: /pi”/ [pfii”l and <das> ‘to die’: /ta13/ -» [tfiaDJ.

Hmong

Dananshan Village, Xianjin Xiang, Bijie County, Guizhou Province.

Initials

0R]

p p” mp mph m rç V f

pl pbl mpl mp1’!

ts tsh nts nts1* s

t nt nt* 1 n Pti tf* 1[1J1 1

t f* nt itf1

nfe nt?1* $

k tch n>tc njtçh n» P1 7 c

k kh * rjkh q X

q qh Nq Nqh

HI also appears in a syllabic form as a separate syllable, e.g. <er£> ‘two’: [I34].39 With the exception of interjections and modal particles, all syllables without an initial are pronounced with an initial glottal stop.

Finals

i 1 e a U [U,yl 0 (ei) eui au

ai au (ie) iau (iau) ua/[D] (ue) (uei)

(uai) en oq oq (ien) (uen) (uaq)

x This is an old Chinese loanword, which appears in expressions like <erf hnob> ‘on the following day’ and <erfxongt> ‘next year’.

29

HI becomes [z] after the dental affricates and [j] after the retroflex initials. AV becomes [y] after alveo-palatals.

Tones

I 43fl 31III 55IV 21V 44VI 13VII 33VIII 24

Tone sandhi and other phonetic processes

The tone sandhi rules of Hmong are relatively simple. It is always of the progressive type, and is triggered by categories I and II.

Rule no. Cat.+value becomes if after category

1. 11=31 13 / cat. I (43) _111=55 44IV=21 13V=44 33

5. VII1=24 13

11=31 13 / cat. II (31) _111=55 44IV=21 13V=44 33

10. VIII=24 -» 13

Varieties of Hmong

Apart from the Hmong variety spoken in Xianjin Xiang, several other varieties have been used as norms for writing, both inside and outside China. The norm for the Sichuan Hmong Pollard script was most probably Wangwuzhai in Gong County

30

and the first variety selected by the linguists during the massive field research in 1956 was Gusong County 'Ä’5^ in south Sichuan. In the 1957 report from the Conference on Miao Writing, four requirements were stated for a new place for a standard pronunciation, as Gusong had, for some reason, been considered as unsuitable. These four requirements were:• Retroflex stops and retroflex aflricates shall be difierentiated, i.e. ‘table’ shall be called [too ]. 2 4041• There must be stop-laterals and not glottal stops, i.e. ‘water’ shall be called [tie ].2• Voiceless nasals shall be difierentiated from voiced nasals, i.e. ‘Miao’ shall be called [rçoq1].• Dentals shall be difierentiated from retroflexes, i.e. ‘house’ shall be called [tge ].c3

40 Cf. Joakim Enwall, ‘In Search of the Entering Tone: The Importance of Sichuanese Tones for Understanding the Tone Marking System of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script’, 1994, pp. 70-84.41 The numbers in this and the following examples refers to tone category and not to tone value.42 Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui, ‘Miaoyu fàngyan de huafen he chuangli miaowen de wenti’, 1957, p. 67.45 Cf. W A Smalley, Chia Koua Vang, Gnia Yee Yang, Mother of Writing - The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script, 1990, p. 45 and pp. 50-1.44 The value for this and the following phoneme are taken from N Jarkey, ‘An investigation of two alveolar stop consonants in White Hmong’, (1987), p. 68.

As seen above, these requirements were all fulfilled by the Hmong speech of Xianjin Xiang, but in order to facilitate comparisons with the Hmong varieties spoken outside China, I think it is important to see which variations exist within this dialect. Outside China the Hmong dialect is usually divided into Hmong Daw (White Hmong) and Mong Leng (Blue/Green Hmong). These two dialects are generally mutually comprehensible, but considerable difierences exist, both systematic and unsystematic. In Hmong Daw and Mong Leng as spoken in Laos (and now also in the US) the basic systematic difierences are:43

Hmong Daw mP

pl [rçll

d44

ia a

Mong Leng m n n» nl [ml}

ti tf* nti ntih

a aij

3i

Obviously the variety chosen as a norm for Hmong in China is somewhere in between Hmong Daw and Mong Leng, as there are voiceless nasals as well as lateral affricates. The finals correspond to Mong Leng. Two of the criteria mentioned in the 1957 report are that there shall be both retroflex stops and retroflex affricates, and that the retroflex affricates shall be differentiated from the dental affricates. In his description of the differences between the Hmong varieties in China and outside China, Xiong Yuyou writes that in his own home village near Hekou, the retroflex stops and affricates have all merged to retroflex affricates.* The Hekou variety quoted by Xiong appears to be a kind of Mong (no unvoiced nasals, but lateral affricates). The vowels, however, as in Xianjin Xiang, represent the Hmong Daw system. To complicate the matter further there is no one-to-one correspondence between Xianjin /o/ and Hmong Daw /o/ and /u/. The words which appear in Wang Fushi’s category 13 of proto-Miao become /o/, whereas the other words which in Xianjin are pronounced with an /o/ become /u/.*

* In his grammar of Green Miao, as spoken in the provinces Phrae and Nan in Thailand, Thomas A Lyman writes: ‘In the pronunciation of certain speakers (seemingly a minority in each village). Stops and Oral Continuants of the Alveolar and Retroflex Orders become assibilants, ...’, i.e. /t§/ and /y become Äs/ etc. Cf. T A Lyman, Grammar of Mong Njua (Green Miao), 1979, p. 8.* Cf. Wang Fushi, Miaoyu fangyan shengyunmu bijiao, 1979, pp. 150-4.

A-Hmao

Shimenkan (Stone Gateway), Weining Yi, Hui and Miao AC, Guizhou Province

Initials

0 Rl h [fi, hr, fT]

p P“ mp mph m n? f V

ts ts»1 nts ntsh s z

t nt nt* 1

d d1' nd ndh n P 1 1

t f* nt nt”

t? tgh nis qtgh R $ (2)

fc (çh nhç nW1 ni P1 G z

k kh qk rjkh n 0 X Y

q qh Nq Nq** X

32

With the exception of interjections and modal particles all syllables without an initial are pronounced with an initial glottal stop. 41/ is pronounced [fi] in tone categories II and IV, and as [RJ when the final is a simple vowel and it appears in tone category VII.

Finals

i [i,?.j] e y [y.?»^»] a a ui u 0

ei oey ai am au ie [ie,ie] (ia) (iaui)

(iau) (iu) (io /[ye]) (uei) (ua) (uai) (uaui) (no)

(in) (en) (an) (oq /[uql) (ian) (uan)

/i/ is pronounced [z] after dental fricatives and affricates and [j] after retroflex initials, /y/ is pronounced [zj after dental fricatives and affricates and [ij after retroflex initials, /ei/ is a distinct phoneme only in the speech of elder persons, e.g. /ei54 zau44/ ‘very good’, now spelt <aib raot>. It was clearly distinguished in the Pollard script, but later the original A-Hmao words with /ei/ as final have merged with /ai/, whereas the phoneme is retained for representing Chinese loanwords, /ie/ is pronounced [iej after retroflex initials, /io/ is pronounced [ye] by persons who have a good knowledge of standard Mandarin. /«]/ is often pronounced somewhere between [oq] and [uq].

Tones

I 54 (or 55)Il 24 (324)III 55IVa 22 (23/11

This tone is very often indicated as 11 or 22, but I have actually found no justification for this. According to Wang Deguang there is a difference between original A-Hmao words and Chinese loanwords, A-Hmao words having the tone value 23 and Chinese loanwords having the tone value 112. In Wang Fushi’s and Wang Deguang’s analysis of the A-Hmao tone system we find the following explanation: ‘11 (actually 22. Because there is no lower tone, it has been regularized as 11. In syllables with a voiced aspirated initial, the tone is 12, i.e. it is slightly rising. As this is phonetically conditioned, it is also regularized as 11).’ However, in the explanation of the tone system in the 1959 scheme, it is stated that ‘all initials which appear in tones 1 [IV] and f [VIII] have a voiced aspiration component’. Consequently, it seems that the tone value 22 never actually appears. In his Miaoyu jianzhi Wang Fushi mentions that there are Chinese loanwords with unvoiced initials in cat. IV, but he gives no examples, so it still remains to be investigated if this tone value is a reality or if it is just a theoretical construction to make the tone system more simple and logical, from the Chinese point of view. In his analysis of tone changes in Miao-Yao Chen Qiguang gives only the value 13 to this category. Cf. Wang Deguang, personal communication, Peking, 14 July 1993; Wang Fushi & Wang Deguang, ‘Guizhou Weining miaoyu de shengdiao’, 1986, pp. 91—2; Diandongbei miaowengaigefang’an caoan, 1959, p. 6; Wang Fushi, Miaoyu jianzhi, 1985, p. 148; Chen Qiguang, ‘Miao-Yao yuzu yuyan de ji zhong diaobian’, (1989), p. 14.

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IVb 44V 44Via 21VIb 53VII 22Villa 21VUIb 53

At Stone Gateway category I is now pronounced (55),* and has thus merged with category III. In Yunnan the pronunciation of category I is (54) or (53) and in some areas this tone category appears to have split into (55) and (44), thus merging with categories

* In the speech of some old people at Stone Gateway the pronunciation 54 is, however, still retained. Wang Deguang, personal communication, Peking, 6 June 1993.49 Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui, ‘Miaoyu beibu fangyan wenzi gaige fang’an (cao’an)’, 1957, pp. 169-80 and Wang Fushi & Wang Deguang, ‘Guizhou Weining miaoyu de shengdiao’, 1986, pp. 99-124.

III and IVb / V respectively.Cat. II also contains some classifiers which are actually pronounced (324). They do

not follow the voicing rule for cat. II (cf. below), and are all either unvoiced or voiced, but never voiced aspirated. Chinese loanwords from Chinese cat. IV appear in Miao cat.IV as (112).

Tone sandhi and other phonetic processes

The tone sandhi rules in A-Hmao are extremely complicated, and below I list only the most important ones. For further clarifications see Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui and Wang Fushi & Wang Deguang.* Wang & Wang recognize 33 basic sandhi rules. In A-Hmao the tone sandhi always affects the second syllable in a compound or phrase, while the first remains unchanged. Sandhi is found mainly in head-modifier compunds, juxtaposed compounds and numeral-numeral phrases. As some tone categories add voice or voice and voiced aspiration to the initial (cf. below), I indicate the category after the value when relevant. Please note that the value (54) is always used for category I:

Rule no. Cat. +value becomes if after category

1. 11=24 -> 54 / cat. I (54) _111=55 44IVa=22 53IVb=44 53

5. V=44 22 VIIVIa=21 22 IVaVIb=53 22 IVa

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8. VIIIa=21VIIIb=53

22 IVa22 IVa

10. 11=24 55 / cat. II (24) _111=55 44IVa=22 53IVb=44 53V=44 22 VII

15. VIa=21 22 IVaVIb=53 22 IVaVIIIa=21 22 IVaVIIIb=53 22 IVa

IVb=44 -> 22 IVa / cat. Ill (55) _20. VIb=53 22 IVa

VIb=53 -> 21 Via / cat. IVb (44) _VIIIb=53 21 VUIa/VIa

VIb=53 —4 21 Via / cat. V (44) _VIIIb=53 21 VUIa/VIa

25. IVb=44 -> 22 IVa / cat. VIb (53) _VIb=53 21 ViaVIIIb=53 21 VUIa/VIa

IVb=44 -> 22 IVa / cat. VII (22) _VIb=53 21 Via

30. Vlllb=53 21 Villa

IVb=44 -> 22 IVa / cat. VUIb (53) _VIb=53 21 ViaVIIIb=53 21 VUIa/VIa

When the compounds or phrases consist of three or more syllables» the sandhi rules are applied from the last syllable towards the preceding syllable. For example: <dub at nrus> Au54 a44 rju53/ ‘worker’ consists of syllables in the tone categories I+V+VIIIb. First VUIb becomes (21) (rule no. 24), then V becomes (22) (rule no. 5). The result is: [tu54 a2 qfiu21] or [tu54 a2 qu21]. As seen in rule no. 24 the resulting tone can either be equivalent to category Villa (always voiced aspirated) or Via (always voiced, but q. is already voiced).

In A-Hmao the tones strongly influence the initials. Stops and affricates (including pre-nasalized) become voiced when appearing in categories IVb, Via, VIb and VUIb.

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Stops, afiricates and voiced continuants (nasals, fricatives and laterals) become voiced aspirated in tone categories II, I Va and Villa. There is also a significant number of exceptions to this rule (as opposed to the corresponding rules in the other dialects), which has led some linguists and language workers (including Wang Deguang and those reforming the Pollard script for A-Hmao in the 1980s) to consider these allophones as separate phonemes. Such a system would contain 110 initials, viz.:30

30 Wang Deguang, Weining miaoyu huayu cailiao’, (1986), pp. 69-80.51 For a good introduction to the question of standard language and orthography, cf. Carina Jahani, Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language, 1989, pp. 35-46. These questions are also extensively discussed in J A Fishman et al. (eds.). Language Problems of Developing Nations, New York etc., 1968.

p p" b bfi mp mp* 1 mb mbfi n? m mfi f V vfi w

ts ts* 1 dz dzfi nts ntsh ndz ndzfi s z zfi

t f1 d dfi nt nth nd ndfi p n nfi

d tf* <$ dfcfi nd ntf1 ik% ndfcfi 1 1 Ifi

t f* 4 nt nf* n4 n4fi

t? tgh cK d2Lfi nts ntsh ndzi qdzfi n nß $ 21 20

tc tch dz dzfi irtc nfch njdz ndzfi ni nifi G z zfi

k kh g gfi r* i]kh ng ngfi Q n nR X V yfi

q qh G cfi wq Nqh NG NGfi Xh" fi* h fi

Writing

I use a rather wide definition of writing, including subjects ranging from mnemotechnic methods like knots and notched sticks, the classical way for the Chinese of describing the preliterate culture of the Miao, to the development of the actual written language; the establishment of a standard language, spelhng conventions, treatment of loanwords and publishing policies.51 My approach is focused both on the communicative aspect of writing and on the physical form of the actual graphemes.

Before discussing the various Miao writing systems it is certainly of interest to make the basic distinctions clear, although this thesis is focused more on the descriptive aspects than on the theoretical implications.

When a writing system is devised for a language previously lacking one two basic approaches are possible. The first, and probably most common, is to strive for maximum transfer from another language, i.e. to use the writing system employed for a language of great prestige or which is spoken by a

36

dominate people, e.g. the use of the Cyrillic alphabet for the various languages of the former Soviet Union and the use of the Arabic script for the languages spoken by many Moslem peoples. This can be useful for contacts between the two linguistic communities, especially if there is bilingualism or diglossia. In this case there is usually a conflict between the spelling conventions of the donor language and the language receiving the writing system, as the phonemic systems are almost always different. Spelling conventions of historical origin in the donor language can also be taken over by the recipient language, although they play no role in the phonemic system of that language, neither synchronically nor diachronically. In the case of the Miao in China this problem is aggravated by the complexity of the Chinese writing system, which cannot be easily adapted to other languages, although there are a few cases like Japanese and Korean. The official Latin transcription system for Chinese, the Hanyu Pinyin, has, however, played a similar role in the devising of writing systems for the minority languages in the PRC, in spite of the extremely limited knowledge of the Pinyin system among the Chinese. The desire to use the same kind of distinctions has created quite a few problems, especially for languages with voiced stops, a category which is absent in standard Chinese.52 To a limited extent this was also the case for the National Phonetic Script which was launched around 1918 and subsequently used by missionaries for writing some of the minority languages in China.

The second approach is to devise a writing system which is different from those of neighbouring peoples, or ideally from all other writing systems. In this case the persons who devise the writing system look for uniqueness instead of transfer. The devising of writing systems of this kind has often been connected with the creation of national myths and reinterpretation of history in order to make them fit better in with the establishment of nations. In many cases a foreign model has been used, but this foreign influence has been obscured through the invention of graphic symbols completely different or partly different from those of the donor language. This approach was used for the glagolitsa, the Slav alphabet devised by St Cyril and St Methodius, which was later replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet, which is basically the Greek alphabet with a few additional letters. It was also employed by St Mesrop when he devised the Armenian alphabet and also by the creator of the Georgian alphabet. The latter was so successful that the Georgian alphabet has long been thought to be of indigenous origin. Thomas V Gamkrelidze writes:

s Hiroshi Shöji, ‘Monji chösö - kaiketsu ni mita Chûgoku shôsu minzoku seisaku’, 1987, p. 1193.

37

The only possible explanation for this phenomenon would be the assumption that the creator of the asomtavruli alphabet in this way tried to conceal the dependence and the connection between the newly devised Georgian writing and the Greek writing system of that time. [...] The compiler of the Old Georgian asomtavruli alphabet creates a national writing for writing texts in the national language, but in accordance with that kind of ideas a national writing has to be different from all other writing - it should not repeat the graphic form of any other writing.53

53 Tamaz Gamqrelije, Çeris anbanuri sistema da jveli kartuli danuerloba, 1989, p. 183,

The tendency to develop independent or superficially independent writing systems is found also in southeast Asia, and for the Miao writing system most widely used today, the Pollard script for the A-Hmao dialect, this factor has probably played a role which can hardly be overestimated.

Writing is generally viewed as representation of speech in some way. It can be phonemic/phonetic, syllabic och more or less ideographic/ pictographic. The different types of writing pose different kinds of problems for the analysis, but the basic assumption that writing represents the spoken language is not wholly uncomplicated. In most languages the written form is considerably different from the spoken form. In languages with a long written tradition these differences tend to be conventionalized to a great extent, but difficulties arise when the written norm is acquired by somebody not familiar with its conventions. In creating a written language the problems are not so much to be sought in the graphic representation of the phonemes, as in the establishment of a conventional written standard which can be used and appreciated by the speakers of the language in question. When an orthography has been devised for a language and no subsequent measures have been taken to establish a written standard, the effort have often been unsuccessfill.

The success of a particular writing system depends both on its inherent effectiveness as a means of representing a language and on the subsequent propagation, including status and corpus planning. However, the most important single factor is hard to find, as those who invented or propagated the writing systems for Miao generally possessed only a superficial knowledge of the factors influencing the adaption or rejection of a writing system, and could, as a consequence, not take full advantage of the possibifities presented.

A less important factor seems to be the exactness of the representation, a factor which constantly has been strongly emphasized by Chinese Hnguists engaged in the endeavours to devise writing systems for the Miao language. Underrepresentation certainly complicates reading, especially if two potentially contrasting phonemes are represented in the same way, but overrepresentation, when all allophones are written with separate symbols, or when historical distinctions, now lost, are still represented, creates

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considerable difficulties both for writing and reading.Practical considerations have also played a role as some Miao writing

systems have suffered from printing difficulties, but these are typically emphasized by specialists in the devising of writing systems and not by the Miao themselves, who tend to favour other criteria for evaluation and subsequent rejection and acceptance.

State of Research

Hitherto, only very limited research has been carried out in the field of Miao writing in China. This does not mean that references to Miao writing are absent from books and articles on the Miao people or general works on writing systems in China. On the contrary, Miao writing is often mentioned. Nevertheless, the references almost always concern the same writing systems, and usually repeat some standard opinions about Miao writing. Few authors have taken time to look at the actual writing systems, and if they have, it has more often than not been just a cursory glance. Therefore, I have considered it my task not only to investigate the history of the writing systems and the social framework within which they were devised, but also the ways these writing systems actually worked from a graphonomic point of view.

Some early Chinese sources mention Miao writing, though in a vague, and often quite unreliable way. The traveller Lu Ciyun’s appendix to his book Dongqixianzhi [Detailed description of Dongqi], 1683,contains a disputed sample of Miao writing without detailed comments,54 * and the Baoqingfuzhi WJSWtè [Annals of the Baoqing Prefecture], written during Daoguang’s reign, 1821-51, has a passage about the prohibition of a kind of Miao writing by the Qing authorities in 1740.®

54 Lu Ciyun, Lu Yunshi zazhu, 1683.® Baoqing fuzhi (Daoguang), juan 5.® P Vial, De la langue et de Vécriture indigènes au Yûn-ndn, 1890 and Miao-tse et autres, 1908.57 G Devéria, ‘Les Lolos et les Miao-tze, à propos d’une brochure de M. P. Vial, Missionnaire apostolique au Yun-nan’, (1891), pp. 356-69.* d’Ollone, ‘L’Écriture des Miao tseu’, 1912, pp. 269-73,

Paul Vial wrote about the Miao in Yunnan in 1890 and later,56 and in 1891 G Devéria wrote an article in which he presented Lu Ciyun’s Miao writing.57 In 1912 the French traveller and explorer d’Ollone published a work on the writing systems in China, and there he mentioned a kind of Miao writing, ressembling Chinese characters and used in south Sichuan.58

Some other missionaries and travellers from the beginning of the nineteenth

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century onwards have also mentioned Miao writing, but the first scholarly analysis in a Western language is Jacques Lemoine’s ‘Les écritures du Hmong’, in which the Miao writing systems outside China are discussed together with the main Miao writing systems used in China.39 This article is, however, just an overview, and leaves out many of the important Miao writing systems, while making quite inadequate descriptions of others, like the Pollard script. An article by Zeb Thoj on various Miao writing systems was published in Australia in 1992, but apparently it is mainly based on Lemoine’s article and is much more superficial.60

One of the Miao scripts used in Laos has been thoroughly analysed by the American missionary linguist William A Smalley and two Hmong, Chia Koua Vang and Gnia Yee Yang, in Mother of Writing - The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script.61 One chapter of this book is dedicated to the other Hmong writing systems, but it draws heavily on Lemoine’s article. The British anthropologist Nicholas Tapp has done research on the Hmong of Thailand, on the myth about the lost Miao writing system and on how it influenced the Miao to adopt Christianity and missionary writing systems.62 His references to Miao writing in China are, however, almost exclusively based on Lemoine’s article. Father Yves Bertrais, who together with William A Smalley and G Linwood Barney devised the Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) for the Hmong in 1953 has described the history of this writing system in a pamphlet in Hmong which was later translated into French.63

In China Wen You HW of the Central Institute of Nationalities (CIN), Jiang Yongxing of the Canton Nationalities Affairs Commission (NAC), Chen Qiguang of the CIN, and Li Bingze also of the CIN, have written articles on the various Miao writing systems.64 Their articles are rather short and contain only limited samples of Miao writing. Furthermore, they all have a character of been general surveys and contains no analyses, with the exception of Chen Qiguang, who has studied Lu Ciyun’s Miao writing as well as some of the writing systems devised by missionaries.

® J Lemoine, ‘Les écritures du Hmong’, (1972), pp. 123-65.® Zeb Thoj, ‘Ntawv Hmoob muaj pes tsawg yam thiab leej twg yog tus sau’, (1992), pp. 5-8.61 WA Smalley, Chia Koua Vang, Gnia Yee Yang, Mother of Writing - The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script, 1990.® N Tapp, Sovereignty and Rebellion-The White Hmong of Northern Thailand, 1989.° Nyiaj Pov, Cov Ntawv Hmoob R.P.A. Sawv Los Zoo Li Cos?, 1991 and Y Bertrais, ‘Comment a été créé et s’est répandu le «R.P.A. Hmong» de 1953 à 1991’, (1993).64 Wen You, ‘Lun Pollard Script’, (1938), pp. 43-53; Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, 1951. Reprinted in Wen You, 1985, pp. 62-70; Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), pp. 112-16; Chen Qiguang, Zhongguo yuwengaiyao, 1990 and Li Bingze, ‘Miaozu de wenzi*, (1985), pp. 23-4.

40

Recently Xiong Yuyou of the Yunnan Nationalities Language Commission has published an article in which he compares the Latin-based writing systems for Hmong in China, Laos and Vietnam.65 Zhao Liming fê! Ht1#! at Qinghua University and Liu Ziqi of the JishouTelecommunication University have written a hitherto unpublished manuscript about the Chinese character-based Miao writing in Western Hunan. Zhang Tan SIS, of Guizhou University, has pubUshed a work on the mission among the A-Hmao, in which he gives an outline of the history of the Pollard script, unfortunately basing himself only on sources available in Chinese and by undiscriminately compiling the facts and fantasies mentioned in them.

Some Miao writing systems are mentioned in general introductions to writing, usually Lu Ciyun, d’Ollone and the Pollard script, e.g. in Dirringer’s The Alphabet, Hans Jensen’s Die Schrift, Katzner’s The Languages of the World and in some works on writing in China, e.g. Coulmas’s ‘Writing and Literacy in China’.66

Sources (a note on neibu materials)

The Chinese sources present many problems, some of which are rarely encountered in Western materials. Quite a few of the sources used for this thesis are so-called neibu materials, i.e. publications intended for internal use only or ‘restricted materials’. These publications are in principle never for sale, are not available in ordinary libraries and are not listed in official bibhographies. They are simply not intended for outsiders, especially not foreigners, and are not supposed to be taken out of China. In the bibHography they are all glossed as neibu, although the Chinese authorities actually distinguish between different kinds of neibu materials, at least terminologically. Except for the standard indication ‘internal’ (nèibù there are other wordings like ‘reference material’ (cänkäo ziliào ), ‘internal reference, payattention to conservation’ (nèibù cänkäo, zhùÿi bäocunand even the absence of price indication and absence of ISBN number (although there are a few books which are considered as neibu in spite of having an ISBN number). Neibu books usually have a local book number (shûhào and neibu periodicals may have a provincial neibu periodical registration number (shëng nèibù bàokân jizhèng %).

Basically, there are two reasons for publishing a book or a periodical as neibu. One is that the material is politically sensitive or simply has not yet

® Xiong Yuyou, ‘Guowai miaozu de wenzi’, (1990), pp. 151-6.“ H Jensen, Die Schrift, 1969, pp. 181—2; K Katzner, The Languages of the World, 1977, p. 213 and F Coulmas, ‘Writing and Literacy in China’, 1983.

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checked by the relevant authorities in order to ascertain whether it is politically acceptable or not. Thus some materials are not very controversial at all, but considering that many political opinions from the Cultural Revolution are still lingering in the countryside, local leaders are often uncertain about how the questions are to be looked at in view of the current policies in Peking. Fortunately, quite a few people feel relatively free when they discuss questions in neibu publications, and real problems and conflicts are pointed out, instead of hidden.

There is, however, one more group of neibu materials which is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the first. Those materials are more often than not published locally in out-of-the-way places, and may contain almost anything. An official publication has been impossible, either because the scope is too narrow (and the large publishing house has no money) or because the article is simply not reliable, but written by somebody who has good local contacts. Almost all materials hitherto published in the Miao language are neibu, as well as the greater part of the research reports and the statistical publications.

Another major source for my research is oral information from people involved in Miao writing activities, like teachers and scholars at the institutes of nationalities and various Miao intellectuals, but also from scholars in Western countries.

Spelling, Symbols and Abbreviations

Chinese names are generally spelt according to the Hanyu Pinyin system, except for some already established forms like Peking (Beijing), Nanking (Nanjing), Kuomintang (Guomindang) etc. In most cases a Chinese character is given after the first instance of a name, to indicate the exact spelling, and I therefore refrain from indicating the tones in Pinyin in most cases.

For the purpose of facilitating matters for readers who want to consult Chinese works, I indicate the Chinese names of foreign persons where this may be relevant. Foreigners living in China generally use a Chinese name, i.e. a name devised according to Chinese rules of name-giving, instead of just using an often clumsy, Chinese transcription. It is often not at all obvious which Western name corresponds to a Chinese name, and this has led to numerous misunderstandings in earlier accounts, especially concerning the history of the writing systems devised by missionaries.

As the unsimplified characters are the only ones used outside the People’s Republic of China as well as being used parallel to the simplified characters in the PRC, I have chosen to use unsimplified characters for all purposes except for titles of books and articles published in the PRC after 1964, the year when the standard list of simplified characters was published.

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Simplified characters are also retained when they appear as clarifications in a text originally written in simplified characters but which I have translated into English, e.g. the names of persons and places.

Transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are put in square brackets, but in tables these brackets are often left out, and this will be indicated. Graphemes and words in Miao are put between < >. In the discussion on sound systems, parentheses are used to indicate phones or phonemes which have an uncertain status in the system, for example special sounds used only in Chinese loanwords.

In the bibliography and in book references the Pinyin transcription of titles of articles, books, periodicals etc. is put before the Chinese characters and the English translation is put in square brackets afterwards. Books in Miao usually have a secondary tide in Chinese, either on the tide page or in connection with general information about the publication (usually on the last page). I do not give a transcription of the Chinese tide in this case.

In order to economize on space, I refrain from giving full references in the footnotes, as all the necessary information is available in the bibhography. I indicate only the title of articles, and not the journal in which they have been published. In this case, the year of publication appears in parentheses, followed by the page reference. Articles in books appear in the same way, except that the year is not given in parentheses. Book titles are given in italics, followed by the year of publication and the page reference.

The Miao, Chinese, Russian, Italian and Georgian quotations are translated into English by the present writer if not otherwise indicated.

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Abbreviations

AC Autonomous County ÈAP Autonomous Prefecture gBEFEO Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-OrientBFBS British & Foreign Bible SocietyBSL Bible Society LibraryCASS Chinese Academy of Social SciencesCCP Chinese Communist Party tMÄjÜMCIM China Inland MissionCIN Central Institute of Nationalities (Peking)CM China’s MillionsCMA China’s Millions (Australasian edition)GMY Guizhou minzu yanjiuIPA International Phonetic AlphabetKMT Kuomintang Party (Guomindang)LTBA Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman AreaMY Minzu yuwen [Nationality linguistics]NAC Nationalities Affairs CommissionNBSS National Bible Society of ScotlandNPH Nationalities Publishing HouseNPS National Phonetic ScriptNT New TestamentOMF Overseas Missionary FellowshipOT Old TestamentPRC People’s Republic of ChinaRPA Romanized Popular Alphabet (for Hmong and Mong in Laos etc.)UMM United Methodist Mission

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What was Heaven’s qd^fia-l til aul good at doing? He was good at writing characters. He wrote a book and carried it on his back. What was Earth’s rjiN ntshai-l gaul good at doing? She was good at writing characters. She wrote a beautiful book and carried it on her back. [...] Heaven’s qdzjia-l til aul and Earth’s iju4 ntshai-l $aul let the moon go its distant way, let the sun go its near way. The Miao script was created at this time by Heaven’s qdzjfia-l til aul and Earth’s guJ ntshai-J gaul.

t$auil mi-4 [Zhang Ming], ‘qhaul ndfiæl qdzjia-l til aul ndljfiie'l til gu-4 ntshai-l gaul qdzJia-J ndfiu'l qd^fia-l til ijgfiau'l’ [The Song about how Heaven’s qd^ßau til aul and Earth’s qu-J ntshai4 gaul Created Heaven and Earth], al rçaul lal pi-J tçhœy-l al toauil al koi qui kuJ tçhauil lfiœy-l [A Bundle of Miao Traditions and their Origins in the Past], maul li>i nfia>l [Stone Gateway], 1952.

Myth and Indigenous Writing Systems

Preliminaries

The history of the Miao writing systems is very much the story of the myth about the loss of the old Miao writing system and how this was later recovered. In all parts of the area inhabited by the Miao there are legends of a lost writing system, allegedly created while the Miao and the Han Chinese still lived close together. Due to the expansion of the Han people, the Miao had to migrate southwards, and in connection with that, the writing was lost during a river crossing or eaten accidentally.

This kind of myth is not unique; a similar legend exists among the Karen in Burma. In the beginning, when the creator was dispensing books to the various peoples of the earth, the Karen overslept and missed out on the gift of literacy. In some versions of this myth, they were given a book, but it was consumed in the fires with which they bum their swidden fields. The Kachin also have a myth that they devoured their own writing out of hunger,1 as do the Akha,1 while Graham mentions that the ‘legend of a lost book* was also found among the Qiang of west Sichuan.2 This myth about lost books radically influenced the readiness of the Miao to accept writing.

1 C Gilhodes, ‘Mythologie et Religion des Kachins (Birmanie)’, (1909).1 A von Gesau, ‘Dialecticts of Akhazaq: The Interiorizations of a Perennial Minority Group*, 1983.2 DC Graham, Songs and Stories of the Ch’uan Miao, 1954, p. 129.

Peter Mühlhäusler states that it is almost never the case that writing is created to meet the needs of an aboriginal society, and that writing systems

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introduced from the outside are often met with suspicion as the potentialities of writing are unknown to the people.3 It may seem quite useless, or at best as some kind of magic. However, counter-examples do exist, like the Maori in New Zealand and the Cree in Canada. The Miao have, of course, had contacts with their neighbours, and, with the Chinese as their main neighbour, the power of writing must always have been well known to them. The Chinese have probably attached more importance to writing than any other people in history and this may have strengthened the need for explaining the absence of writing in Miao society. Although only a few Miao learnt to use the Chinese writing system, they would have seen the Chinese books and interpreted them as one of the main symbols for the Chinese power over the Miao.

3 P Mühlhäusler, ‘“Reducing” Pacific languages to writing’, 1990, p. 203.4 C Lombard-Salmon, Un example d'acculturation chinoise: La Province du Gui Zhou au XVIIP Siècle, 1972; R D Jenks, The Miao Rebellion, 1854-1872: Insurgency and Social Disorder in Kweichow During the Taiping Era, 1985.5 J Amiot, ‘Lettre du P. Amiot, Miss, de la Chine, sur la réduction des miao-tseu, en 1755’ and Anon., ‘Autre relation de la conquête du pays Miao-tsee’, 1778, pp. 387-412 and 412—22; F M Savina, Histoire des Miao, 1924.

Historically the Miao had lived close to the Chinese in the Yangtze valley, but as the Chinese expanded towards the south, the Miao were driven to the mountainous and isolated parts of southern China, where the contacts with the Chinese were more restricted. From the eighteenth century onwards the Chinese tried to pacify the Miao on a large scale, though seldom with more than partial success. This process is described in Claudine Lombard-Salmon’s Un example d’acculturation chinoise, and in Jenks’s PhD dissertation on the Miao Rebellion 1854-1872.4

The biggest unit in Miao society is usually the village, not the region or the people, but in order to organize the defence when the Chinese became too intrusive, many villages had to join together. The results of this defence movement, which was organized several times and subsequendy quelled, are also described in a French missionary handbook and in Savina’s Histoire des Miao.5

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The Myth

Although the basic theme of the various versions of this myth is the same, it is fruitful to divide them into three subgroups which give partly different interpretation models for subsequent concrete writing systems.

Writing and Embroidery

The first group is concerned with a loss of books, which is followed by the embroidering of the old writing on traditional Miao clothes. The Miao are famous for their embroidery and usually attach very strong importance to the amount and quality of embroidery, especially on wedding dresses and even on the ordinary dresses still worn in most Miao areas even today. The myth is also partly an explanation of the intricate patterns found in those embroideries. One such myth is presented by Wang Jianguang:

The Miao people originally had writing, but unfortunately it has not been preserved. As Chiyou was beaten at the battle of Zhuolu by the Yellow Emperor, the Miao were driven towards the south. When they had to cross various waters, they did not have time to build boats, so when they forded the rivers they were afraid that their books should become wet. In order to avoid such a disaster they carried the books on their heads. In this way the people wandered. When they came to the Yangtze river they all wanted to cross as quickly as possible, but unfortunately the current was very strong as they came to the middle, and most of them were drowned and only a few managed to get over. The books were also lost and they could not be retrieved. As [the migration] continued somebody invented a method of embroidering these characters onto the clothes as a memorial. Therefore traces of the Miao history are preserved in their clothes and skirts.6

6 Wang Jianguang, ‘Miaomin de wenzi’, (1940), p. 49. Wang Jianguang was a Miao from the A-Hmao area. He went to the mission school at Shimenkan (Stone Gateway) in Weining County, Guizhou Province. In the 1940s he moved to Yanjin in Yunnan.

In an article on various writing systems used in southwest China, Jiang Yingliang presents a version of this myth. Perhaps it is an elaboration of Wang Jianguang’s story. Wang unfortunately does not indicate its origin, nor does Jiang, and it is thus impossible to know exactly in which Miao group it is current.

They [the Miao] say that the Miao ancestor was Chiyou, and originally, five thousand years ago, he lived in the area of the Yellow River basin. After being defeated by the Yellow Emperor he led his people to the south. While he was leading his people to the south, it was impractical to carry the books that the people had, and he feared

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that the writing would be forgotten after the migration. Therefore he ordered the women to embroider the writing onto the comers of their dresses and the edgings of their skirts. Thus the Miao writing was preserved.7

7 Jiang Yingliang, ‘Xinan bianqu tezhong wenzi’, (1945), p. 285.8 RK Parsons, letter of 17 Febr. 1992.9 ‘The Old Homeland That Was Lost’, ms. Translation by R K Parsons from [Yang Rongxin & Wang Peicheng (eds)] /a55 mau54 qgfiau24 pi55 tau21/, 1949, p. 31.10 A Schotter, ‘Notes Ethnographiques sur les Tribus du Kouy-tcheou (Chine)’, (1908), p. 419.

In a song which was published in a collection of traditional A-Hmao songs in 1949 and translated into English by R K Parsons, an alternative interpretation of the meaning hidden in the clothes* patterns is given. They are not seen as a representation of writing, but as a representation of reality. Sometimes the embroidery patterns were described as being as beautiful as their original ‘Golden Homeland’, sometimes as a direct depiction of their legendary prosperous homeland, from which they were driven away by the Chinese:8

So the Elder Ki:-jye, the Elder Ki:-ch*r and the Horseman M’ou-py took, Took the rice fields, the long flat fields and designed. Took and designed cotton skirts for the grown-up daughters to wear around the waist, To wear for all the old folk to see, To wear for all the children to see. So the grown up daughters’ cotton skirts resembled. Resembled the ricefields, the long flat fields of the plain of the Shi:-p.wng, the Nt.u-na-shi:m.o, While the braids of the grown-up daughters’ decorated skirts were like streams watering the ricefields.9

The first myth referrred to above describes the embroidery patterns as a way of preserving the ancient Miao writing. Early references to the possible Unking between the embroidery patterns and writing are found in Schotter’s articles. He was a Cathohc missionary in Guizhou around the turn of the century. Unfortunately he did not distinguish clearly between the Miao and the Yao:

On a voulu voir des traces d’une écriture dans certaines broderies sur leurs habits, les bonnets des enfants. Il y a peu de temps encore deux jeunes gens yao-jen m’ont affirmé que dans leur village on trouvait dans quatre familles des livres écrits en caractères non chinois, sont-ce des caractères? une écriture propre aux Miao? N’ayant pas encore pu voir ces livres rares, je n’ose rien affirmer.10

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In a later article he writes:

On trouve ces broderies chez d’autres tribus miao, par ex. chez les Hë-miao, qui les appellent tu-tu. J’ai vu des caractères sur le bonnet des enfants. Il m’a semblé y voir la forme antique du caractère fou félicité, bonheur. Ce caractère «bonheur», on le trouve prodigué partout, et sous toutes les formes.11

The use of Chinese characters for certain purposes is also mentioned for the Hmong living in Vietnam. Lam Tam described Hmong name-giving and wrote:

Dans les établissements encore fortement marqués par l’influence chinoise, il était généralement constitué par un mot chinois prononcé à la Meo, qu’on gravait en idéogramme sur une plaque rectangulaire attachée à un collier de bronze.12

In a description of the altars of the ancestors he noted:

[...], l’autel des ancêtres, qui occupe toujours h place centrale contre le paroi du fond [...], se réduit en règle générale à un rectangle de papier local fabriqué avec de l’ecorce du «cay zo» d’environ un empan de large sur un et demi de long, le plus souvent de couleur rouge. Ce papier, acheté chez le maître de culte, [...] porte quelques idéogrammes chinois et est omé de quelques plumes du coq sacrifié à cette occasion, [...J.13

The above is thus more of a talismanic use of writing, well attested in many cultures, for example in Ghana.14 Nicholas Tapp notes that in addition to the embroidery patterns there are also other instruments for communication:

A rumour that the lost Hmong writing was concealed in the intricate patterns of the women’s embroidery points to the importance of other forms of communication in an oral culture. Embroidery patterns, costume, and the music of the qeej (which can be transmuted into Unguistic tones) all provide codes of communication whose meanings can be ‘read’ by an initiate.15 The importance of such methods of non-veibal communication in an oral tradition should not be underestimated.16

In later years some Miao researchers have worked on the designs and their

11 A Schotter, ‘Notes Ethnographiques sur les Tribus du Kouy-tcheou (Chine)’, (1909), p. 323.12 Lam Tarn, ‘Coup d’œil sur les Meo’, (1973), p. 42.° Lam Tam, ‘Coup d’œil sur les Meo’, (1973), p. 51.14 J Goody, ‘Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana’, 1968.15 The qeej is the most important musical instrument of the Miao, a wind instrument consisting of several pipes. This instrument is called lûshêng 31^ in Chinese, and is sometimes referred to as lusheng also in English sources.16 N Tapp, Sovereignty and Rebellion-The White Hmong of Northern Thailand, 1989, p. 130.

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significance, notably Li Tinggui, whose results are quoted in an article by Jiang Yongxing:

The Miao picture recordings and pictographic writing is nowadays preserved mainly on the traditional hand-crafted embroidery. The Miao embroidery has a long history, its unique national style and superb artistic technique have caused a sensation in the world’s art circles. However, very few people are aware of the fact that the designs on Miao embroidery are the actual fruits of the Miao having acquired rudimentary writing. According to what Miao intellectuals have explored and investigated, for the moment, it is already possible to distinguish in the embroidery design forty odd pictographic words. Below we quote a few of them, as a piece of evidence.

5 . tn (frame)17

Examples:

/H. (man) ♦ (dragon) Y (bird) M (butterfly)

(water, river) (sieve,water mill) X (rotor)

X (fork) ? » 'V/ (hook) (clamp) dji, l5| (claw)

N (curved) (pupa) e (insect) (bud, fruit)

Ä (basket) anr w M (road) (measuring tool)

The above embroidery writing is complete in all varieties as to form, sound and meaning. It eloquently proves that the early Miao culture indeed had reached the level of pictographic writing. One could say that the writing preserved on Miao embroidery is a milestone in the history of the development of Miao writing.

Of course, from a scientific point of view, the embroidery writing is only a kind of pictographic way of expressing one’s ideas; it belongs to the initial period of pictographic writing. It cannot satisfactorily record the language of the people and it is even more helpless when it comes to the great number of words that cannot be expressed by any [concrete] form. Nor can the embroidery writing be used in order to accumulate knowledge or to spread culture.17 18

17 Tinggui and Jiusu, Gu miaowen tanjiu, s.a. and Yuangu shiqi miaozu huodong diyu kao, s.a. Probably not published.18 Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 113.

An alternative explanation for this interpretation is that the Miao had noted the Chinese use of characters as decoration and thus concluded that anything reminiscent of writing in their own decorative patterns must originally have been actual writing.

Special names for various patterns are also recorded in a catalogue from the museum of Michigan State University. 36 patterns are depicted and for

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Tl of them Hmong names are given, but there is no claim that this should be an early stage of writing.19 * Jiang Yongxing has also taken an interest in the Miao writing myths and their connection to old songs about paper making, viz.:

19 K Schoonmaker (ed.), Hmong Arts, 1983, pp. 70-1.® ‘Miaozu “chuangzhi ge” youguan ziliao chutan’, (1984).21 Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 113.22 GR Cardona, Antropologia della scrittura, 1981, p. 39.

There are furthermore some legends which narrate that the Miao writing was recorded on sheepskin and on bark. There are also some that say that a Miao mother burnt the books to ashes and fed it to a few children etc. [...] The ancient song “Narration on the origin of writing”, records how the Miao writing ancestor Bang Xiang instructed his first student, Tong Yang to create writing, and in “The song of making paper, the song of writing characters” we learn that Tong Yang and a Chinese gentleman wrote characters together, “The teacher wrote characters [i.e. Chinese characters]: one stroke became five buds and the five buds looked like a mosquito; Tong Yang wrote characters [i.e. Miao characters], he wielded [the brush] and it became five lines, the strokes became a horse’s foot”. This ancient song figuratively provides the form of the Miao writing. It is very similar to the designs of embroidery. It is even more valuable that the Miao still have ancient songs and legends which in detail narrate the technique and the history of paper making.® [...] If the Miao historically have been aquainted with the art of paper making, [...] then this makes us believe on rational grounds that the Miao perhaps have had writing.21

Jiang’s approach is, however, far from critical, as he takes all records at free value. A further unclear point is how the description above could be equated with any concrete pattern, although it is interesting to note that it seems to imply a strong connection between the old writing and the embroidery patterns. No explanation is given for the disappearance of the writing as a medium on its own right. It seems that the depiction of objects has been confused with pictographic writing and this has led to the assertion that the traces of writing appear in the patterns of Miao embroidery. Actually the patterns could have led to the emergence of a pictographic writing system. However, this process did not come about, and although there is a strong linkage between pictures of objects and pictographic writing, the latter does require a higher level of abstraction and standardization. It is, nevertheless, most probably true that the, often geometric, patterns in Miao embroidery are derived from pictures. Cardona discusses this question in a general way in his Antropologia della scrittura:

It is much more probable, that all the graphs that we usually classify briefly as “geometrical decorations” are the last stage of a process of abstraction starting from pictographic signs.22

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For a more profound analysis of the impact of this kind of myth on the explanation of a writing system, completely unconnected with the actual embroidery patterns, see part IV.

Eating Books and Getting a Good Memory

The second group of stories claims that the writing was for some reason eaten by the Miao, resulting in inner qualities, like a good memory for traditional songs and stories and general cleverness. The first is a legend from the ‘short skirt Miao’ in Leishan County, Guizhou Province, recorded by Li Tinggui during the Spring Festival of 1980:

In the past the Miao and the Han were brothers who studied under the same teacher. Both invented a script. Once they had to cross a river and big brother Miao carried his younger brother Han on his back and therefore he put his script in his mouth. As he came to the middle of the river he slipped and happened to swallow the script. Therefore the Miao script is in the stomach and is recorded in the heart, whereas little brother, who sat on his back, held the script in his hand and preserved it. Thus the Han have a script which they write with their hands and see with their eyes.25

23 Li Tinggui, Shenghuo zai Leigong shanlu de miaozu (diaochao baogao), 1983, p. 14.24 Li Haiying et al., Yanbian xian hongbao gongshe miaozu diaocha’, 1986, p. 180.

As in the preceding stories this tale also explains the difierence between the Miao and the Chinese.

A second example from China was recorded by a research group which carried out field research on June 21-24, 1982, in the Hongbao People’s Commune in Yanbian County, Sichuan Province:

It is said that both the Han and the Miao possessed writing, but later they were driven across the sea to Sichuan. During the voyage the Miao carelessly threw their books on history and folk customs into the sea, but the Han kept theirs. Therefore the Miao do not have any writing, and have to rely on repeating the contents of the [old] books from memory and transmit it from generation to generation. Nowadays less and less people remember it.2*

Similar myths are also found among the Hmong who live outside China, and are discussed by Tapp. He quotes an account by a man called Xeeb Thoj at Hapo, Thailand in June 1981:

This is why we Hmong have no books. It was like this. Long, long ago, Hmong were the eldest sons. They went to the fields to make a living for themselves, but they did not, could not, study books. According to the elders, a long time ago, everybody moved, and crossed the great waters. The Mab Suav (Chinese and others) 23 24

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carried their books across on their heads, so that they would be able to learn letters. But we Hmong were so afraid of our books getting wet that we could not do that, and we were hungry, so we ate them all up. That is the reason why now we can only be clever inside, in our hearts and only remember in our hearts, not in books. But before that, we had books of our own. That was in China, where I have heard the Hmong still have books (writing).25

25 N Tapp, Sovereignty and Rebellion-The White Hmong of Northern Thailand, 1989, p. 122.25 P Lewis, Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas of Burma, 1969-70, pp. 787-9. Quoted from C A Kammerer, ‘Customs and Christian conversion among Akha highlanders of Burma and Thailand’, (1990), pp. 282-3.27 C A Kammerer, ‘Customs and Christian Conversion Among Akha Highlanders of Burma and Thailand’, (1990), p. 283.

It is interesting to note that writing is viewed as an object and not as an instrument or method. This may indicate that although the Miao had seen books and had understood their importance they had not fully understood the difference between the writing as a system of representing language and the actual books and their contents. I suppose that the reference to Miao writing in China means that they had heard about the Pollard script.

The notion of cleverness as a result of eating writing is also found among the Akha, who according to a legend received a book written on buffalo skin from the creator. On the way home the Akha got hungry and ate the book.26 Cornelia Ann Kammerer compares this Akha myth to the Hmong myths reported by Tapp and writes:

In another variant, the book is written on a rice cake, which, like the buffalo skin, is consumed. Although in the version reported by Lewis the loss of literacy is associated with the loss of “right to rule,” no mention is made of the anticipated return of either one. While other highlanders were awaiting the return of their book and sometimes also their king, Akha were content with their excellent memories, said to result from their having ingested the written word.27

Tapp considers the state of the Hmong as an intermediary stage between illiteracy and aliteracy, illiteracy meaning the lack of literacy in a literate society and aliteracy the same lack of literacy in a culture which has no writing. This is probably valid for the other groups of the Miao people as well. They were aware of writing, but as seen from the above examples, they had not grasped some of the essential qualities of writing, e.g. that it is not necessarily manifest in a material way, but that it is a skill which can be preserved even without books (for some time at least).

The anthropologist Geddes has heard a similar explanation for the loss of writing, although no positive consequences of this eating of the writing are mentioned. It was recorded in Pasamlien, Thailand, and published in 1976:

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At Pasamlien, I was told by some of the people that long ago, when they were still in China, they had a book like the Chinese. But one day it got cooked up and was eaten by them with their rice.28

28 W R Geddes, Migrants of the Mountains: The Cultural Ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand, 1976, p. 20.29 O Scheuzger, The New Trail: Among the Tribes in North Thailand, 1966, p. 92.30 SR Clarke,‘The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province’, (1904), pp. 198-9.

The missionary Scheuzger in northern Thailand recorded another myth, where the Chinese aggressor element is much stronger than in the others:

Why ever did those horses have to eat the books of our forefathers, many, many years ago? These Meo kings were the first there were in the whole great northern kingdom. Indeed in those days we had a land of our own. A Meo king ruled over us. We were the most powerful nation on earth. But the wicked Chinese were more cunning than we. They fell upon us in great hordes. They had better weapons than we had. We fought bitterly and courageously, but it was in vain. The Chinese knew no mercy. They murdered, enslaved and pillaged. We had to surrender. But not quite everyone gave in; whoever could escape (fid so. When the exhausted fugitives came to a wide river they rested, leaving their packs among the bushes. They were all overcome with sleep. When at last they woke up - O horror - the horses had eaten up the Meo books! Not a single one remained. Since then we have possessed neither books nor script [...].29

In China one account about the Miao swallowing the writing was recorded by an English missionary:

The Heh Miao say that long ago they lived in the same region as the Chinese, but the Chinese were too cunning for them, so they determined to remove. They travelled a long way and at length came to a broad sheet of water which, as they had no boats, they were unable to cross. At the time they knew a few characters, but appear to have known litde else. As they stood by the side of the water pondering over what was to be done they noticed water spiders walking about on the surface of it, and they said, if these little things can walk on the water why cannot we? So they tried, with the result that they were nearly drowned. In struggling to regain the bank they swallowed a lot of water, and, as they say, with the water they swallowed all the characters they knew, and have been without characters ever since.30

Books Lost and Later Brought Back

In the third subgroup of myths the writing is simply lost in the river crossing, and because of that it seems to be easy to associate this kind of myth with the emergence of actual writing systems, which are interpreted as the bringing back of the writing lost in the water. When the missionaries

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devised writing systems these were sometimes viewed as the old Miao writing brought back to the Miao people. Most probably this also influenced their readiness to adopt Christianity, as it was considered to be the original Miao religion, recorded in the books which were lost during the river crossing.

Similar rumours came about when the modem Miao writing was devised at the Conference on Miao Writing in Guiyang in 1956, but it is difficult to assess to what extent this influenced the Miao to learn that kind of writing.31 This myth will be further discussed in parts II, III and IV.

31 Li Bingze, ‘Chuanshuo zhong de wenzi faming’, (1988), pp. 80-1.32 J Lemoine, ‘Les écritures du Hmong’, (1972), pp. 124-5.

The above-mentioned myths on writing have often been connected with messianic movements in which some person has claimed to be the Miao king and bolsters his status by providing a Miao writing. Lemoine writes:

Cette absence d’écriture pour la grande majorité des Hmong ne signifiait pas pour autant manque d’intérêt. Bien au contraire. Frappés sans doute de l’importance accordée au document écrit par l’administration chinoise, les Hmong rêvaient d’une écriture tombée du ciel et qui leur serait propre. Ce thème revint constamment au cours des divers mouvements messianiques qui pendant des siècles ont tenté à intervalles plus ou moins longs de secouer le joug chinois et surtout d’établir un “royaume hmong”.

Selon le mythe messianique un roi allait naître ou était né [...] pour rassembler les Hmong et les délivrer de la tutelle des autres peuples. Le roi ou son prophète ne manquait pas d’annoncer qu’il avait eu la révélation d’une écriture. C’était la marque même de l’investiture par le Ciel.32

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Early Mnemotechnic Methods

In order to regularize various economic and social agreements the Miao made use of methods known in almost all parts of the world, namely knots

and notched sticks The latter method was generally used while concluding marriage agreements on brideprice etc.

Chinese sources mention the early forms of memory aids used by the Miao, e.g.:

Tsing chung Kiâ, “Families of the Blue Secondary.” These reside in the districts of Kû-chau [Jiuzhou W^H], Tsing-kiâng [Qing(shui)jiang iWWil], and Tân-kiâng [Danjiang ^Ü=Leishan Will], in the south-eastern part of Kwei-chau [Guizhou]. [...] The people of this tribe have no knowledge of any written language, or of a regular calendar. For records of events they use pieces of carved or notched wood.®

Chinese works on the Miao generally mention the knots and notched sticks, but seldom specify exactly how these methods were used: what could be recorded and what concrete form the recordings took. In other cultures these methods have sometimes been developed to a very advanced degree, e.g. among the Incas. The French Catholic missionary F M Savina, who lived among the Miao in Tonkin and Laos for a long time, wrote that he had seen simple imitations of Chinese writing among the Miao. A kind of pictographic writing used for communicative purposes during rebellions was, however, also mentioned:

J’ai vu aussi quelques feuilles de papier griffonnées au charbon au moyen desquelles les Miao révoltés correspondaient entre-eux. Mais on ne peut pas donner le nom d’écriture à ces griffonages figurant grossièrement quelques objets seulement, comme les hommes, les chevaux, les chemins, les cours d’eau et les montagnes.33 34

33 EC Bridgman (transi.), ‘Sketches of the Miau-tsze’, (1859), pp. 259.34 FM Savina, Histoire des Miao, 1924.

Savina also mentioned the most widely spread mnemotechnic method among the Miao: notched sticks. Jacques Lemoine takes this up and compares it to what he has seen more recently. Savina wrote that only the person who had made the notches could interpret them, but Lemoine does not agree and gives examples to prove the versatility of communication with notched sticks:

Savina limite son usage à une sorte d’aide-mémoire sur lequel seraient consignés les événements marquants: “chaque chef de famille possède son bâtonnet entaillé et il est le seul à pouvoir le comprendre”. En fait l’usage de ces baguettes à encoches des Hmong est assez généralisé et diversifié pour constituer un moyen de communication,

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ou de notation, capable de se substituer avec succès au message transmis de bouche à oreille ou à h mémoire orale.

Les conventions sont simples puisque l’auteur du message ne dispose que d’encoches dont les formes ne varient guère: encoche pointue ou encoche carrée. On peut jouer seulement sur le nombre et sur la largeur de l’encoche. Sa position sur la planchette fait aussi l’objet de conventions, qui permettent, en introduisant des circonstances de temps et de lieu, de construire un énoncé complexe.38

38 J Lemoine, ‘Les écritures du Hmong’, (1972), p. 134.36 In the book the name of the county is given as Fengzhen, but as there is no county called Fengzhen in southwest Guizhou, I assume that this is a simple mistake for Zhenfeng made during the translation.37 Bai Ziran (ed.), A Happy People - The Miaos, 1988, p. 113.38 E.g. Pan Hongbo, ‘Miaozu “gebang” wenzi fuhao qianxi’, 1988, pp. 115-7.39 Chen Shiruo, ‘Miaojia youle wenzi’, (1957), p. 3.

Lemoine further gives some examples from the various provinces in Laos: Sieng Khouang, Louang Phrabang and Saiyaboury. The notched sticks are still in use in China, and an example is given in a Chinese propaganda book about the Miao people, in which a marriage in Zhenfeng County in southwest Guizhou is described:36

After the bride’s family had accepted the gifts and checked them against a list, the girl’s uncle produced a bamboo pole about a metre long with marks made on both ends of it. The number of marks on each end was identical, representing the kind, number and value of the gifts as specified by the bridegroom’s family beforehand. The bamboo pole was passed around the dinner table for a check. Finally it was split in two by the elderly people present, one half for each family, to keep as a marriage certificate.37

Examples are also given in various articles in Guizhou journals and collections of historical materials.38 Living dispersed on the mountains, the Miao sometimes had to communicate with each other, and during the rebeUions against the Chinese other writing systems may have been devised, for example the so called feather letters. In connection with the Conference on Miao Writing in 1956 this communication method was mentioned:

In the exposition of the Miao writing conference, a “feather letter” was exhibited. [...] It was a long wood stick, about one inch thick, one end was split, and there were inserted two feathers, a piece of fuse [...], and two red peppers. This was said to be a Miao emergency message: the feather means emergency, the pepper means that the enemy is strong and the fuse means that the enemy already opened fire. If somebody received such a “feather letter” he would bring armed troops and come to their support.39

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Similar kinds of sign systems are also mentioned by Jiang Yongxing, who discusses the development from sign language to writing:

The Miao people in all regions have all invented many sets of “sign language” 's for the exchange of ideas and for recording material objects in order to satisfy the needs of production and of life. If one, for example, inserts a grass mark in front of the door, this notifies strangers that they are not entitled to walk in on their own accord; if a branch is set up at a road crossing, this indicates the direction for wanderers; in the forest bamboo shoots and leaves are used as arrows for people to get in touch with one another; in courting, boys and girls give keepsakes as a token of love. If some important accident has happened, the Miao fight beacon-fires or blow ox horns. When they are on guard for enemies making a surprise attack, information transmission is strengthened and they send “notched sticks”. In times of emergency they add chicken feathers mixed with charcoal. The content of the Miao unwritten law is depicted on wood. When two tribes or clans conclude a treaty of alliance, it is also based on “notched sticks”. When the masses get together the person in charge holds cogongrass in his hands as a symbol of power and authority. “The Chuan Miao, like other peoples, often make records, mostly in the form of notched bamboo sticks or knots on grass strings, like the knot writing of ancient times”.* ’ The internal economic contacts of the Miao are also based on notched sticks and grass knots “Hence, in Yin times, the chests of the rich families were brimming with cogongrass and wooden sticks”/1 Tied knots, notched sticks and even picture recordings are methods for memory aid and for assisting communication. Many peoples without writing have had these. Although it, after all, has a fundamental difference from writing, it must however be noted that the working people of the Miao have in their own practical fife, on the basis of tied knots, notched sticks and picture recordings, devised a pictographic writing which has a definite connection with words in the language, which can be read aloud and which can evoke a thought of a certain material object. This is obviously a bit more advanced than other peoples without writing.* 2

These mnemotechnic methods constitute an intermediary stage between mythological writing and the later concrete writing systems.43

Lin Mingjun, ‘Chuan miao gaikuang’, (1936).41 Liu Xifàn, Miaohuang xiaoji, 1934.42 Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 113.43 The Naxi people, who like the Miao also five in the Yunnan province, early on devised a pictographic writing (according to legend already in the thirteenth century). It was (and still is to a very limited extent) used by the Naxi shamans, the dongba; hence the name ‘Dongba writing’ for this kind of writing. The Naxi people also developed a syllabary, inspired by the form of Tibetan writing, but incorporating some graphemes from the Yi writing. These two systems were sometimes used in the same text somewhat like Japanese writing or Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, especially for clarifying the pronunciation of rare pictographs.

5»

Early Writing Systems

In order to analyse this subject further we will first discuss the hitherto undeciphered writing systems which could have been real Miao writing systems. Due to the lack of material and reliable information about their origin these writing systems are only included to show that Miao writing systems might actually have been devised, for example during the Miao rebellions against the Chinese. The need for communication in such circumstances is obvious and has also been mentioned by Savina, but the writing systems discussed below are of a more advanced nature than those noted by Savina.

Furthermore it is, undoubtedly valuable to have this information collected in this general survey of Miao writing, as these writing systems are often referred to in a very vague and mysterious way in Chinese and Western works on Miao writing. Unfortunately the early Chinese authors usually do not separate the southern minorities into relevant ethnic groups, and their mistakes in classification are sometimes inherited by Western scholars. The confusion of the Miao with the Yi, who really have an old writing system, still in use is notorious. Chinese scholars have recently taken an interest in these alleged Miao writing systems and this description will be based mainly on their research.

Lu CiyunThe first example of a Miao writing is given in Lu Ciyun’s book Dongqi xianzhi [Detailed description of Dongqi], an account of atrip to south China, dated 1683. In an appendix (zhiyu têM), not found in all editions, he stated under the heading ‘Miao writing’ &W:

The Miao have writing, which is not like that on ancient bronze vessels, nor like the kedou script. One cannot find out who invented it; we publish two chapters of it in order to get it sorted out by the learned scholars.44

44 The appendix has been found only in an edition of his collected writings with the tide Lu Yunshi zazhu.e The ‘Bailangge’ in Houhanshu is not in Miao, but probably in some kind of pre-Yi.

He proceeded to give an example of the actual script, with parallel text in Chinese. The Chinese text is similar in contents to the edifying song ‘Bailangge’

in the historical work Houhanshu, and the Miao text would therefore appear to be a translation.45 It consists of the two songs ‘Duoxun’ and ‘Gezhang’ The first consists of 28 characters, and the second of 152. Every Chinese character corresponds to one Miao character.

Lu Ciyun’s book has been discussed by Western authors in the nineteenth century. The general discussion on non-Chinese scripts in China started

59

with Terrien de Lacouperie’s book The Languages of China Before the Chinese in 1886,46 and continued with the discovery of two manuscripts, one in Yi and one in an unknown script, by the British consul Bourne.47

46 A Terrien de Lacouperie, The Languages of China before the Chinese, 1886.47 P Vial, De la langue et de récriture indigènes au Yûn-nân, 1890, p. 13. Mr Bourne had been a consul at Tchông-Kiu [?=Zhongzhou now called Zhong County in Sichuan.48 The writing of the Shui people (also called Sui) is described by Robert Ramsey in The Languages of China, 1987, p. 245: ‘The Sui have a system of symbols that is used for divination and geomancy. It is far too simple to have much of a linguistic function and seems to be little more than a set of magic symbols. A few of the 150 or so graphs are real drawings (such as of a bird or fish), and a few others are schematic representations of some characteristic quality (“snail” is indicated by an inward-curving spiral). Most of the rest are borrowings from Chinese and are often written upside-down or backwards, apparently to give the symbol more magical power. For obvious reasons, the Chinese name for Sui writing is “backward writing”.’* Probably a travel account entitled Yueshu by Min Xu, from the seventeenth century.50 Chongjia was the old name for the Buyi a Kam-Dai people living in Guizhou.51 G Devéria, ‘Les Lolos et les Miao-tze, à propos d’une brochure de M. P. Vial, Missionnaire apostolique au Yun-nan’, (1891), pp. 356-69.s Now called Longiin All-Nationalities AC

This writing was referred to in an article in the journal Cosmos of May 7, 1887. Bourne supposed that he had found Shui writing.48 Terrien de Lacouperie, however, thought that this was an example of the Yao writing called bangbu or ‘model volume’, in zhuan style. A Mr Douglas thought that most of the characters were adopted from Chinese, but a few seemed to be other pictographic signs. In Chinese sources writing and books were historically attributed to the Yao, of which the Shui, according to Min Xiu, was a subgroup.49 50 A French missionary in Yunnan, Paul Vial, thought that the manuscript did not belong to the Shui, but rather to the Chongjia or Chajen, who together with the Miao and Yao live in Guizhou.30 In 1891, G Devéria published an article à propos Vial’s brochure, in which he mentioned that he had discovered two songs attributed to the Miao, with an interhnear translation in Chinese. A facsimile of one of the songs was attached to the article.51

According to the preface of the Dongqi xianzhi by Lu Ciyun, the term Miao was used for other ethnic groups as well, like the Lang, the Yao and the Zhuang. The material had probably been collected in the prefecture Xinzhou in Guangxi.52 Devéria proceeded to compare the Miao writing in the Dongqi xianzhi to Yi characters listed in Vial’s brochure. He arrived at the conclusion that it was not the same script and that neither the Yi script nor the Miao script was alphabetic.

In 1912 the French explorer d’Ollone criticized Devéria by pointing out the unreliability of his source, Lu Ciyun:

6o

[...] mais pour que ce document, tiré du Sien tchi tchi yu, pût faire foi, il eût fallu que l’auteur chinois s’abstînt de révéler une déplorable ignorance de l’ethnographie - ignorance partagée d’ailleurs par la plupart de ses compatriotes, qui confondent ou séparent les races indigènes avec un arbitraire déconcertant.®

He proceeded to remark that the Yao had writing and that their books were similar to the writing recorded in the Dongqi xianzhi in having two columns of characters, Yao and Chinese, in which the latter were not to be interpreted in their ideographic sense, but read as a phonetic transcription of Yao. He concluded that the Yao hypothesis was more plausible, although he himself had no means of proving his point. He also clarified the possible relation with Yi by emphasizing that the Yi writing was not ideographic, but phonetic. He finally remarked that, given the fact that the Chinese authors often get the Miao and Yi mixed up, this single example was totally insufficient to prove that the Miao had a writing system.

In 1938 the Chinese minority researcher Wen You published an article, mainly on the missionary Samuel Pollard’s script, in which he also mentioned Lu Ciyun. He discussed Devéria’s analysis and compared the Chinese text to edifying songs by Chinese officials. He wrote:

When we discuss this today, we know that there is this kind of rather ancient record of Miao writing, but we cannot talk in detail about its meaning. Furthermore, the so-called Miao is not a special name for one nationality in a narrow sense, but a general term for aborigines in a broad sense. Today it is impossible to give it [the writing] a special name.54

In another article, in 1951, he returned to Lu Ciyun, and went a bit further as to the origin of the Chinese text:

The author thinks that the wording of the two songs is similar in character to the “Bailangge” in Houhanshu.. First comes the Chinese text and then a translation into a different language. There is today no way of determining the authenticity of this kind of writing.®

The most original and learned analysis, however, belongs to Professor Chen Qiguang of the CIN, who claims that the script is not a translation, but a transcription of the Chinese text. In order to facilitate an evaluation the whole analysis appears below. For further clarity all the equivalents in the unknown script are given from the source text, as opposed to Chen, who

® d’Ollone, ‘L’Écriture des Miao tseu’, 1912, pp. 269-70.54 Wen You, ‘Lun Pollard Script’, (1938), p. 43.® Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 67.

6i

presents only one example for every character in an appendix:

“Duoxun” and “Gezhang” contain 180 characters altogether, and there is an equal number of Chinese characters and undeciphered characters. As some Chinese characters appear several times, there are 141 different Chinese characters. As the characters are parallelly translated, it is possible to draw some conclusions from the relations in the parallel translations. Among the 141 characters, some of them appear several times, like zhöng få. and xiào which each appears five times; chén gî, zlü Ä T and mù which each appears three times; fù à and näi 75 which each appears twice. These repeatedly appearing Chinese characters appear in different positions in the phrases; the grammatical components are also different, but the undeciphered characters appear in the same position, and the form of the characters is the same. We can thus see that this is similar to the Fanhan heshi zhangzhongzhuit is a character by character “transliteration”, and not a translation. If it had been a translation, and the language had not been a dialect of Chinese, the grammatical structure would have been different, and the number of syllables in the words would have been different; they could not have reappeared on the same position when appearing several times. As it consists of 180 characters against 180 characters, the characters being arranged parallelly, we can see that the undeciphered characters are also based on syllables. From the undeciphered characters we can see that the Chinese characters Ä and â are rendered with the same undeciphered character “[ C ■C and U ]”; and in the same way fi Jg, fi S and fi 38 with the same undeciphered character “[ & , & and di and di ife by “[5k and 2fc]”; xiông 5?, and xiöng by “[^ and 12.]”; nûng and nfing $1 by “[^ and ±)]”. It is thus clear that different meanings are not distinguished by different character forms; it is a kind of syllabic script. From the form of the undeciphered characters we can see that the Chinese characters jin and jing are rendered with the same undeciphered character “[ £ and Ä]”; the Chinese characters chén ë and chéng fà by “[£■ ft and ^]”. Jin belongs to the rhyme category shên fing and chéng belong to the rhyme category géng and chén belongs to zhën We can thus see that this writing cannot distinguish the three nasal finals of Chinese (m,n,ij ). But the Chinese character qi > is rendered by “[vit.]”, and the Chinese character qm by “[t> =^-]”. The initial and the tone of qi and qin are the same, and the main difference is that qi has no nasal final, while qin does have one. Thus this writing is capable of distinguishing between the existence or absence of nasal final. We know that if we analyse the minority languages of southern China from their nasal finals, the Kam-Dai languages generally have -m, -n, -rj, the Yi lacks nasal finals, the Miao-Yao languages have nasal finals, but Miao generally lacks -m, while the difference between -n and -q is not phonematic. Thus the language which is written down with this writing is not Kam-Dai, nor Yi; the most plausible is Miao. In parallel text to “Fengxun” and “Gezhang” fi S and fi & are represented by the same character, in the same way as (ft and eft Ll £ and (ft & belong to the rhyme zlü ik, grade 3; fi 31 and (fi % belong to the rhyme xiè fi, grade 4. Thus, at the time of the transliteration, the Chinese grades three and four (zlü ih. and xiè fi) had already merged to one class. Di

is rising tone, (ft ife is departing tone. They are represented by one character, thus the change of Chinese voiced rising tone to a departing tone had already occurred. In the parallel text slù £ and dû ßc are represented by “[*> *> and ^J”; dû tï becomes “[Ä]”, and the two are different. Slù S is a rising tone with the rhyme zlü it; slù is a departing tone with the rhyme xiè fi. As the voiced rising tone has

62

already become a departing tone; the zhl iE and xiè third and fourth grade have already merged, the tone and the final should be the same, but the two are different. It is clear that the initials are different, thus the initials shû W and chån had not yet merged. From the fact that the voiced rising tone has become a departing tone, that the rhymes zfii and xiè and the grades three and four have already merged, and that there is a difierence between shû W and chån W, the Song dynasty is a rather reasonable time of transliteration. From the above conclusions we can see that the statement “The Miao have writing” in the Dongqi xianzhi is far from groundless.56

56 Chen Qiguang, Zhongguo yuwen gaiyao, 1990, pp. 286-8.57 Manuscript no. H 3258, National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.

Although his analysis is in itself rather convincing, it does indeed seem strange that only one single example of this writing should have been preserved to this day. The ‘Miao’ characters, which Chen Qiguang considers identical, actually show notable differences, but it is certainly not possible to dismiss his hypothesis just because of this, as the strokes can have been somewhat distorted between the time Lu Ciyun wrote them down (or copied them) and that when they appeared in a printed Chinese book. Lu Ciyun does not elaborate on his source for this writing, and the question has to remain open until further materials have been found. A transcription does not prove the existence of an old Miao script, in spite of Chen Qiguang’s arguments, possibly, though, it might have been created by a Miao for writing Chinese.

According to the specialists consulted by Chen Qiguang, the writing recorded in the Dongqi xianzhi is not Yi, but as there are many varieties of Yi, I do not want to exclude this possibility, especially as some of the characters are strongly reminiscent of Yi writing, for example as in the sample found at the National Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm.57

63

Lu Ciyun’s Miao Writing

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â& $ « ft & # Æ<+ ë> A» Vt Ä kl Ti « tuft >2* vS- « Â cT * » A % & « k Z I %* t- Æ JaL ft # fc l'iz W '&an *À 9l H 07 ftIft e© & ±. e-o r$r . i1 Å .4

64

The Baoqing fiizhi and the Chengbu Stele

During the reign of the Daoguang emperor (1821—51) the local history of Baoqing (now Shaoyang fåfå) in Hunan Province mentioned a decree from 1740, which supposedly contains a prohibition of a (widely spread?) Miao writing:

The seal writing which has been invented should at once be destroyed, it is forever forbidden to study it. If somebody intentionally violates this [prohibition] and does not give himself up, the [whole] family within the ten-household-unit will be held responsible, and the remaining nine [families] will be considered as associated. The village elder will be punished for neglecting his supervisory duties.®

The reEability of this source can be doubted as the actual book has not been found by the present writer. The reference is, however, given both in Jiang’s article and in the Miaozu jianshi, and it thus seems reasonable to assume that the reference itself is correct.

This writing is discussed in the article by Jiang Yongxing, but apart from the reference to Baoqing fuzhi, he gives no source for the rest of his account:

A kind of Miao writing in seal character style was very early devised in the Miao areas in Chengbu in west Hunan. Then schools were set up, teachers were trained in its use and it was taught to the Miao children. In the sixth year of Qianlong’s reign (1740) a struggle broke out against the Qing government by the people of all nationalities in Chengbu and Suining in Hunan and Yining in Guangxi, led by the Miao leader Li Tianbao." In the following year the rebellion was quelled and the Ministry of War passed a resolution of gaituguiliu [the transfer of power from local leaders to Chinese administrators], the installation of the jia -system, and ordered that the Miao writing be suppressed by force. We can see that the Miao writing of Chengbu was widespread, like floodwater and beasts of prey. It made the Qing court fear. It is impossible to get to know when the Miao writing of Chengbu was created. The year in which the writing was destroyed and forbidden was the sixth year of Qianlong’s reign.®

The harsh punishment for learning the writing could indicate that it had reached some degree of diffusion. Afterwards it is not mentioned; the order had perhaps been prompdy carried out.

In the 1980s, however, this script again came to the surface, only to disappear before any examination of it had been made. I have two versions of this second appearance, which probably go back to one single event. The

® Baoqing fuzhi, juan 5. Quoted from Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 114.® Another source states that the rebellion was led by Yang Qingbao Cf. Miaozu jianshi bianxiezu, Miaozu jianshi, 1985, p. 116.® Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 114.

65

first was recorded by Chen Qiguang during his field research in Chengbu in 1984:

[Some years before] a culture cadre from Chengbu, Ma Shaoqiao had been to the Miao village Chang’anying In the evening he was shown a stele with an unknown writing which the villagers claimed to be Miao writing. When he returned in the morning the stele was gone.61

61 Chen Qiguang, personal communication, Peking, 10 May 1990.62 Zhao Liming, personal communication, Peking, 4 June 1990.63 Chen Qiguang, Zhongguo yuwengaiyao, 1990, pp. 288-9.

The second account belongs to Zhao Liming of Qinghua University, who did field work in the area of Chengbu in 1987 and 1988. She described what happened as follows:

The village Baimaoping 03^ in Chengbu County was visited by the culture cadres Ding Zhongyan Tand Wu Zhonghua in 1979 or 1980. In the village there were two stelae, one called the “Three Carps Stele” and the other one called the “Miao Writing Stele” (or the “Dong Writing Stele”) ( få) . The “Miao Writing Stele” was approximately 1 x 0.5 m. and lay with the inscription downwards, but the villagers turned it around and showed the writing to the cadres. It looked like seal writing.62

When Zhao Liming visited the place the villagers said that they knew nothing about the ‘Miao writing stele’. The ‘Three carps stele’ was, however, still there.

There is one further account which could be connected to the Chengbu writing, although Chen Qiguang apparently does not think so. In reference to another kind of Miao stele writing from the Leigongshan stele (actually extant, and discussed below) he adds the following account:

Finally I present a phenomenon that I have seen myself. In the second half of 1969, the Public Security Bureau of Hunan Province discovered a woman in the area of Shaoyang [i.e. the former Baoqing], who had broken her leg. She could not speak Chinese, but she could write characters. However, nobody could recognize the characters that she wrote. The comrades of the Public Security Bureau brought her to the Central Institute of Nationalities in Peking, and asked the teachers and students for help in identifying the writing, but nobody did recognize it. The author also saw the characters written by the woman. As I think back about them now, it is as if they were very similar to the writing on the Leigong stele, though a bit more hasty and careless. Unfortunately, everybody was fully occupied with the Cultural Revolution at that time, so nobody was inclined to investigate it. If the Public Security Bureau of Hunan province has preserved the things written by that woman, one ought to look for it today and make a contrastive research with the fragments of the Leigong stele. Perhaps something could be discovered.63

66

Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is the ‘women’s writing’ used in Hunan Province. But as this writing was used only by Chinese women, and not by women belonging to the national minorities, and as the woman referred to above did not speak Chinese, this possibility can be excluded.

However, a possible connection between these two scripts has been found by Chen Qiguang. The Chengbu writing is mentioned in a local history from Baoqing (now Shaoyang), and in Jiangyong, the only place where the ‘women’s writing’ is used, there is a group of the Yao people called Baoqing Yao. This probably indicates that they have migrated from Baoqing to Jiangyong, and in doing this they can have brought the writing with them. Because of the prohibition against using this writing, the men did not dare to use it any longer, but the women might have continued to use it in the home, and only taught it to other women, in this way avoiding discovery. Some of the Baoqing Yao can have been assimilated by the Chinese, and thus the writing spread among the Chinese women.6* The modem Baoqing Yao in Jiangyong do not use the ‘women’s writing’.

64 Chen Qiguang, unpubl. paper at the Niishu Conference Jiangyong (Hunan), Nov. 1991.® Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu miaowen canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, pp. 62-70.

The Miao dialects of Chengbu and of Leishan are not mutually comprehensible, and as cultural contacts between these Miao groups have been very limited (if at all existing), it seems highly improbable that the Miao in Hunan should have used the same writing as in Leishan. It seems more plausible that the writing of Chengbu could have survived in Hunan (if it really was as widespread as Jiang Yongxing supposes), but as neither the stele writing, nor the writing done by the non-Chinese woman in 1969 can be found, it is, of course, impossible to draw any clear conclusions.

The Leigongshan Stele

For this instance of Miao writing, there is only one major source, Wen You’s article ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu miaowen chukao’ [Preliminary investigation of the fragments of a newly discovered Miao writing from Leishan of Guizhou] from 1951, containing 39 unknown characters.64 65 Later Chen Qiguang and some others have also touched on this writing, but drawing heavily on Wen You’s article.

Furthermore, Li Tinggui, deputy director of the Guizhou Institute of Nationalities, has allegedly carried out some research on this kind of writing and claims to have written an article, hitherto unpublished, with the title:

6?

‘Gu miaowen kaolüe’ [Brief investigation of the old Miao writing].However, he has not read Wen You’s article [at least not before writing the article in question].66

In 1982, Chen Qiguang received a rubbing of a third fragment of the Leigong stele from Li Tinggui; on it there were 13 characters. The form of the characters was exactly the same as of those obtained by Wen You. Furthermore, there were six characters copies by hand on the paper Li Tinggui sent to Chen Qiguang. In this way we have altogether 58 characters. All the extant characters are given in facsimile, pp. 73-4.

In his article Wen You recounted the circumstances of his investigation of this stele:

In the winter of 1949 the author received a letter from a certain lady in the Guizhou province. She related how she had visited the Miao areas of southeast Guizhou, mainly Leishan Will County (formerly called Danjiang HÜ County) during her summer vacation, and enclosed a stone rubbing. She wrote:

According to local legends, during the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi, there were some Miao who lived on the top of the Leigongshan mountain. Now they have all moved to more lowlying areas. When they lived on the mountaintop, they had a Miao king and erected a platform for assigning tasks (to officers). At the same time they also had a carved stone with an inscription that nobody can [could?] read. This carved stone was later damaged, but fragmentary broken pieces can still be found nowadays. There is a township magistrate who lives by the foot of the mountain who has preserved one small piece. I got a rubbing of it, which I now enclose for you. There is one more rather big piece, which is stored in the town of Leishan. I got a rubbing of that one too.

The author received this letter and then asked the lady to lend him the rubbing of the rather big piece. In January 1950, she sent it, and also enclosed some additional information:

In that place there are no other peoples but the Miao. According to an old man, the inscription on this carved stone was originally very long; it probably recorded the history of the Miao people. This is of course only a guess. These Jiugu Miao ÄSSlSi constitute a branch of the Black Miao. They now live below the mountain, but they still sometimes ascend the mountain in order to collect medicinal herbs, bamboo shoots etc.67

Wen You compared the lady’s story to older sources on Miao history, tike Xu Jiagan’s Miaojiang wenjianlu [Record of things heardand seen in the Miao areas] of 1898:

[...] during the reign of Tongzhi the Miao chieftain Zhang Xiumi and others were defeated by the troops of Chu [Hubei and Hunan]. They fled and hid around the mountain, [...] Leigongping H&ëp [...].

“ Li Tinggui, personal communication, Guiyang, 15 Nov. 1990.67 Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 62.

68

The top of the Leigongshan mountain is called the Zhuge platform. During the reign of Xianfeng there was a Miao rebellion. The [Taiping] religious rebel Yang Dahe , of unknwon origins, (he saw himself as Zhu Geliang), was entrenchedhere, incited all the Miao chieftains and was looked upon as a military counsellor M SÇ. He also set up a false royal court, and coined and printed counterfeit money.®

On the rubbing of the bigger fragment there is a post-script by Yang Xiheng probably an official in the Leishan County administration. It is dated 1947. It relates the rebellion led by Zhang Xiumei69 and ends:

There are still extant vestiges of the stele from the platform for assigning tasks. Its popular name is the Kongming TIÆ - stele.70

I have not seen the actual extant fragments of the stele and it is even difficult to determine when the stele was destroyed. Wen You*s informant writes that it was destroyed after the Miao rebellion in the nineteenth century and that in 1949 fragments could still be found. Li Tinggui says that it was destroyed during the Kuomintang period (which does not contradict Wen You) and Jiang Yongxing and Li Bingze claim that it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, which obviously is wrong. Wen You’s informant writes that there was a township magistrate who lived at the foot of the mountain who had preserved one small piece. The informant had got a rubbing of it, which she enclosed in the letter to Wen You. There was one more rather big piece which was stored in the town of Leishan. She had got a rubbing of that one too. This seems to contradict its being destroyed during the Kuomintang period. As it had been preserved in this way, this probably indicates that the destruction of the stele is to be dated earlier. The time the rebellion was quelled seems to be more plausible.

According to Li Tinggui, two fragments are preserved at the provincial museum of Guizhou and one fragment is preserved in the museum of the Qiandongnan AP (probably those from which his rubbing and copy are made). The latter, however, was denied when I visited the museum in 1990. I have not been able to find the actual rubbings which Wen You received in 1949, but only a picture of them in Wen You lunji.

It is not clear by which method of reproduction this picture was made, but probably it was simply copied by hand, as brush strokes are clearly

® Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 68.® This Miao rebel leader had the Chinese surname Zhang, the Miao name [cog44 ] and a Miao nickname meaning ‘broad (mouth)’ ([mi22 ] in the Hmu dialect). This name has been transcribed in various ways into Chinese and tends to be written xiumei ‘elegant eyebrows’ nowadays.70 Kong Ming is another name for Zhu Geliang, a famous Chinese general in the third century ad.

69

recognizable, and the size is too small for a stele inscription.However, two other rubbings of the stele were probably seen by Zhang

Yongxiang, when he visited Liang Juwu in Chongqing in 1952. Liang Juwuwas a Hmu, originally from Leishan, and he told Zhang that he had made the rubbings at Leigongping.71 The two rubbings were about one meter high and the writing consisted of separate characters, i.e. characters not written together.72

71 This writing was, however, not mentioned in Liang Juwu’s book on the history of the Miao people, published in 1950. Cf. Liang Juwu, Miaoyi minzu fazhan shi, 1950.72 Zhang Yongxiang, personal communication, Peking, 16 April 1992.

Wen You made an analysis of the writing on the two rubbings:

As can be seen from the whole of these 39 characters, this kind of characters is obviously not pictographs, nor is it phonographs. It could be ideographs or syllabic symbols. If we want to determine to which kind it actually belongs we have to begin with an analysis. As to the form of the characters, no. 29 and no. 39 are very similar; only the first stroke is turned. Moreover, no. 29 has two additional strokes. The lower parts of no. 19 and no. 28 are similar; the only difference is that some strokes are turned. Of course, these phenomena very easily make us conjecture that these characters are ideographs; moreover these structures are taken over from Chinese characters. But if we examine them a bit more carefully, we can see that some of their components appear several times. [...] From all this we can see that these characters do have a clear and definite structure. [.,..] Moreover, as there are so many similar components among only 39 characters, we can be convinced that these components are phonetic and not signifie symbols. Because, if they had been ideographs, we would have been able to see more different components. There is also one more thing which can allow us to make a guess; that is that the preserved piece is probably inscribed with personal names or place names, and thus everything is made up of two or three characters written together. If that is not the case, then the writing of these characters is based on words or sentences as basic units and not on syllables. But the last guess is not very probable at all. Because, if we look at modem Miao, we see that monosyllabic words are more common than polysyllabic. Thus in old Miao it is impossible that all words or a great majority of the words would be made up of two or three syllables. In short, the present material is too scanty, and it does not, naturally, allow us to draw any positive inference, but looking at the general picture, this writing could very well be syllabic. Although most of these components have the same form as or are created in the same way as Chinese characters, their nature is not like that of Chinese characters, but rather more close to Khitan, Tangut or Nuchen characters. To go a bit further: although there is no way of recognizing this kind of characters today, after all, they do come from a pure Miao area.

After this tentative analysis he asked himself two questions: (1) do the Miao actually have writing and (2) was this kind of writing really devised by a Miao?

After coming to the conclusion that earlier claims about Miao writing were most probably false, i.e. Lu Ciyun (cf. above) and d’Ollone (discussed

70

below), he considered as rather probable that the writing really had been devised by a Miao, as the Leishan area is a pure Miao area which has been rather isolated and untouched by cultural influence from outside. He did, though, find it strange that the Miao writing should be completely unknown to all the Miao in Leishan only a hundred years after its creation. One explanation could be that the stele was not erected during the reign of Xianfeng, but earlier. There is thus no absolutely necessary connection between this engraved stele and the ‘Miao king’. Wen You also mentioned the possibility of the Leishan stele having been engraved with a shamanistic script which was unknown to all but the shamans. As shamanism disappeared there was nobody who could read it any longer. Another problem was the person Yang Dahe, mentioned in the Miaojiang wenjianlu, who is called a ‘religious rebel*, which probably indicated that he was a Taiping rebel, and thus a Chinese and not a Miao. Wen You did not further elaborate on this but wrote:

73 Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 68.74 JR Adam, ‘Persecution of The Black Miao in Kwei-chau, (1902), p. 11.75 Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 69.

If this “religious rebel” was able to “set up a false royal court, and coin and print counterfeit money”, he could of course devise a set of false characters, and engrave a false stele.73

Another reference to the Taiping rebellion, partly supporting the story referred to above, is found in an article by the Scottish missionary James R Adam in China’s Millions, the journal of the China Inland Mission. He wrote that ‘so-called “Religious people” (Chiao Min)’ looted Kaili, the main Chinese town in the Hmu area, and fled to Leigongshan:

[...] crossing the river they made straight for the high-wooded hill known as Lui- kong-shan. Later, they were surrounded by Imperial troops on these same hills, and scores and scores of them were put to death.74

Wen You further claimed that through his analysis he had come to the conclusion that this writing could not be a complete fake, because

[...] it obviously has an organized system; it is certainly not only components similar to Chinese characters arbitrarily and randomly used; nor is it some deliberately winding strokes like the kind used in Daoist magic writings.75

Wen You saw it as a part of the Chinese minority writing tradition, which includes the Nanzhao writing, the Yi writing and the Geba writing of the

Moso [a subgroup of the Naxi] people. These writing systems are ideographic or have developed from ideographic into syllabic.

Chen Qiguang remarked:

[...] the strokes of these characters are very similar to strokes of the Chinese Official Script, there is the horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, left filling stroke, right falling stroke, dot stroke, hook stroke and turning stroke; the left falling stroke and the right falling stroke both have hooks at the end, the dot stroke is forceful. The characters are arranged from above downwards. They are not in the form of “rectangular” Chinese characters, but they make up a long string, the longest string contains 16 strokes. It is as if what one character records is not one syllable, but several syllables. If one compares it to the writing systems of northern China, Khitan, Nuchen, Tangut and other scripts of the Arameic line, one can see that its origin may have relations to Chinese characters*

* Chen Qiguang, Zhongguo yuwengaiyao, 1990, p. 288.77 Miaozu jianshi biamtiezu, Miaozu jianshi, 1985, p. 3.

In the Miaozu jianshi, a reference is made to another stele, viz.:

In recent years some stele writings have been found in the Miao areas of Leigongshan and Yueliangshan (in the Qiandongnan Prefecture), the local people call them “Miao writing stelae”, but unfortunately there is nobody who can read them.77

No further references to the Yuebangshan stele have, however, been found in the materials available to the present writer.

The materials from the Leigongshan stele are insufficient for a profound analysis, so at present we will not venture further into the question of the origin of this writing.

72

The Writing on the Leigongshan Stele (Wen You’s Fragments)

73

The Writing on the Leigongshan Stele (Li Tinggui’s Fragments)

74

Chinese Character-based Writing

The Miao have often borrowed writing systems from their neighbours, principally for ritual purposes in shamanism. Sometimes the meaning of the characters has been known and the writing could be read. Sometimes the characters were just used for their inherent magic powers, without reference to their actual meaning in the original writing system. Apart from using notched sticks the shamans recorded their ritual formulae and other relevant texts with Chinese characters. This was attested by Schotter in 1908:

Quant à l’écriture, les Miao dans leur Récitatifs et prières de sorciers se contentent de les rendre tant bien que mal avec les caractères de l’écriture chinoise. Les Miao n’ont pas d’écriture. N’en avaient-ils pas autrefois?78

78 A Schotter, ‘Notes Ethnographiques sur les Tribus du Kouy-tcheou (Chine)’, (1908), p. 419.79 Shi Qigui, Xiangxi miaozu shidi diaocha haogao, 1986, illustrations 56-9.80 Hunan tongzhi, 1885.81 Yan Ruyu, Miaofang heilan, 1820.82 C Lombard-Salmon, Un example d’acculturation chinoise: La Province du Gui Zhou au XVIIT Siècle, 1972, pp. 301-13.

The use of Chinese characters mixed with other symbols is attested in the Xiangxi Ghao-Xong area in Hunan Province. This kind of writing was used in shamanistic seances while curing various illnesses. Examples are given in Shi Qigui’s field report from the Ghao-Xong area.79 80

A somewhat different use is documented in several Chinese sources from the eighteenth century onwards. In those cases Chinese characters are used unchanged for recording Miao words. In doing this there are, of course, many difficulties, as the pronunciation of the Chinese characters does not correspond to the Miao sound system. Thus Chinese characters with approximately the same pronunciation as the Miao words have to be used, which makes this way of recording Miao texts very irregular and unstable. Usually it has been difficult even for the writer to read the recorded Miao texts. This method has been used both for presenting the Miao language to Chinese readers and for recording Miao songs. Examples of the first category are to be found in Hunan tongzhi® and in Yan Ruyu’s Miaofang heilan.* 1 The Miao (Ghao-Xong) words recorded with Chinese characters in the Miaofang heilan are analysed by Claudine Lombard-Salmon.82

The use of Chinese characters for recording Miao songs is documented in several Miao areas, but this method seems to have been most widely used in west Hunan and southeast Guizhou. In west Hunan the knowledge of Chinese characters was much more widespread than in the other Miao areas

75

and that was a prerequisite for this method of recording Miao. It was, however, considered as rather clumsy and inexact and this led to further elaboration of this system in west Hunan with additional Miao characters - new characters devised in accordance with Chinese principles (cf. below, pp. 83-7).

The use of unchanged Chinese characters was also continued and in 1956, in connection with the Conference on Miao Writing in Guiyang, this way of recording Miao was criticized as it failed to distinguish the eight Miao tones. At that time the method of marking Chinese characters with an ‘o’ or an ‘x’ at the comer to indicate that it symboUzed a Miao word was also mentioned.® This kind of recordings are also found in more recent works on Miao culture, e.g. on Hmu songs in the Qiandongnan AP in Guizhou84 and songs in the Gaopo subdialect of Hmong.85

Sample of the Chinese Character Hmu writing in Leishan County96

Char. A »J IS % få A [...]Pinyin bào fu mëng niång liù län bié bào fù mëng liùLocal Ch. puu fu mog n>ag lu le p’e pou fu mog luHmu po35 fhl44 mog® niag® lu” le® pi® ««36 po fu44 mog® lu11Engl. thanks you be old part. we thank you old

Char. 1® ÖE * ia APinyin yä niång wäng yâ hè shüî niång xiông jû liùLocal Ch. ja rVag vag ja ho sei rVag ç’og tçu luHmu a® nJag33 vagu ^3» za ho” sei® riag® cog44 tçu31 lu11Engl. not be 10,000 8 part. also be 7 10 old

Char. Pi & $Pinyin wäng yä chàng jiê guöLocal Ch. vag ja tshag tçie koHmu vag° za31 tshag® tci® ko"Engl. 10,000 8 sing expensive song

Thank you, may you become old. We thank you, may you become old. But don’t become 18,000 years old, seventy is also [to be considered] old. [To wish] 18,000 is to sing an exaggerated song.

® Zhang Tianlai, ‘Miaozu wenzi de dansheng, 4’, (1956), p. 1.84 Li Tinggui, Leigongshanshang de miaojia, 1991, pp. 32-90.® Luo Rongzong, Miaozu geyao chutan— Guiyang Gaopo miaozu, 1984, pp. 246-9.M Li Tinggui, Leigongshanshang de miaojia, 1991, pp. 87-8.

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A parallel to this use of Chinese characters is found in the Zhuang writing which is described in The Languages of China by Robert Ramsey.87

87 'But Chinese characters were also occasionally adapted to transcribe the Zhuang language itself. This transference was accomplished through a tortured combination of methods, much like those of the traditional chu nom writing system of Vietnam. Some characters were directly borrowed for their sound or meaning: [...] At other times the Zhuang wrote a word with two Chinese characters - one for the sound and one for the meaning - placed together to form a single, hybrid character. [...] Beyond these basic methods there were many other, even more esoteric ways to transcribe Zhuang words. Chinese characters could be made into Zhuang graphs by deleting or adding strokes; pieces of characters could be lopped off (the side of the character for ‘gate’ meant ‘side’ in Zhuang); and totally new characters, somewhat like the kokuji of Japan, could be made up, sometimes by principles obscure to us today. And finally, since there was very little common agreement among the Zhuang about the use of these characters, Zhuang texts are often a farrago of nonce creations and individual and regional variations. A specimen of Zhuang writing has been preserved from the eighteenth century, but the system may have been devised long before that. Yet, in spite of a respectably long history, this method of writing never became widespread. Taoist priests occasionally used it, and ordinary Zhuang merchants sometimes found it convenient for keeping accounts and records. Songs, where the sounds of the Zhuang language itself had to be recorded and preserved, were almost the only things that were ever regularly written down in it. For other purposes the Zhuang found that the Chinese language served them just as well.’ S R Ramsey, The Languages of China, 1987, pp. 242-3.* d’Ollone, ‘L’Écriture des Miao tseu’, 1912.

d’Ollone

The Miao writing most commonly referred to in Western general works on the history of writing was recorded in south Sichuan by a French military researcher between 1906 and 1909, and was published in the book Écritures de Peuples non Chinois de la Chined D’Ollone first criticized earlier claims about Miao writing and then went on to say that, although he had not believed it himself at first, he seemed to have found Miao writing. He came across it in the following way:

Je l’ai dressé de concert avec le Miao tseu Tchang te tsong, de Heou chan pou1g], à 30 kilomètres au Sud de Yong ning [now Xuyong ££&]: cet homme, qui désirait mon appui pour un procès devant le mandarin, se laissa arracher le secret de son écriture nationale; je n’hésitai pas - crime que l’amour de la science me fera pardonner - à le séqustrer jusqu’à l’achèvement complet du travail. Après avoir lui-même tracé de sa main, sans aucune hésitation, tous les caractères ci-après reproduits et quelques courts textes prouvant son habitude de cette écriture, il m’a révélé l’existence de livres, dont quelques-uns d’histoire, et m’a indiqué où ils se trouvaient. J’ai fait plusieurs jours de marche, dans des montagnes difficiles, pour me rendre chez leurs possesseurs: ceux-ci ont juré n’avoir ni livres, ni écriture. Mais j’avais avec moi quelques soldats d’escorte que le préfet m’avait imposés et le propre chef de sa gendarmerie, et il est bien possible, comme me l’avait annoncé mon initiateur, que

77

les Miao tseu aient eu peur de voir leurs livres confisqués et détruits par les Chinois, et d’être eux-mêmes punis pour avoir conservé ces monuments d’une civilisation impitoyablement proscrite. Bref, j’apporte un dictionnaire de 338 caractères d’une écriture que personne n’a jamais vue, et que tout le monde assure ne pas exister.

Cependant, il me semble que ce dictionnaire porte en lui-même les preuves de son authenticité. Comment croire qu’un simple paysan miao tseu, considéré comme un sauvage, a pu séance tenante et sans hésitation inventer une si longue suite de caractères? Par quel prodige de mémoire et d’intelligence aurait-il su, dans plusieurs cas où les idées étaint apparentées, écrire, à plusieurs heures et même à plusieurs jours d’intervalle, des caractères où se retrouve la même clef, qu’un examen un peu attentif révélera facilement, et qui correspond assurément à l’idée fondamentale.

Except for his informant, nobody else seemed to know this writing. D’Ollone checked if this was a kind of local cursive script, but this was denied by the persons he asked. A professor at the University of Yunnanfu (now Kunming) assured him that it was a cursive form of seal characters, the use of which was discontinued in 213 bc. D’Ollone mentioned the possibility that the modem Miao could be the descendants of the people of the Zhou state, who, according to Chinese sources, had their own language, although no separate writing system had been mentioned. Another, decidedly more plausible theory is that this was a kind of secret writing, used to keep things hidden from the Chinese. Such writing systems had been reported by Father Kircher at Mong tseu (Mengzi in Yunnan Province) in a letter to d’Ollone. That system had been invented only about twenty years earlier, i.e. by the end of the nineteenth century.

Capitaine Robert, a French colonial officer in Yunnan, was asked by the commander Bonifacy to check if d’Ollone’s Miao writing existed in other Miao areas. In a report published in 1919 he wrote:

Je crois que M. le Commandant d’Ollones [sic!] a du voir des antiques caractères chinois, employés souvent pour les grimoires, et que, ne connaissant pas ce genre d’écriture, il en aura déduit que c’étaient des caractères spéciaux, d’autant que les Méo ignorent eux aussi l’origine de ces grimoires et sont bien incapables de dire que ce ne sont que des vieux caractères chinois eux qui ne connaissent même pas l’écriture chinoise actuelle. Us répondent à toute question: oh! ce sont des papiers employés par les sorciers.89

He thus supposed that the characters were actually a kind of Chinese characters used for magic purposes.

D’Ollone’s characters are thoroughly examined in an article by Jacques Lemoine. He states that the Miao pronunciation given for the characters corresponds to the Hmong dialect, although the transcription itself is rather summary. He divides the characters into three categories:

® Robert, ‘Écriture magique et hypnotisme chez les Méo’, (1919), pp. 6-7.

78

• 1. Cursive Chinese characters. The bulk of the dictionary; this excludes the possibility of this being an indigenous Miao writing.

• 2. Characters reconstructed from Chinese characters and characters for numbers, some invented according to Miao pronunciation and some like those used by Chinese merchants.

• 3. Aberrant characters, perhaps invented by the informant. This last group is certainly the most interesting, if they really have been invented by a Miao, but Lemoine writes:

Quant aux caractères aberrants comme on en trouve gravés parfois sur des bijoux hmong, ils sont bien souvent des fragments de caractères chinois oubliés et réinvestis tels quels d’un sens identique ou différent.90

Wen You had already in 1951 published an article on this writing, in which he doubted its authenticity:

After superficially examining the writing collected by the Mission d’Ollone, it obviously has vestiges of having been forged by a Chinese (although the recorded pronunciation really is Miao). Therefore the author has already doubted it in a certain article [i.e. Wen You, 1938]. In 1942 the author’s friend Mr Rui Yifu went to Xuyong to do research, and confirmed this doubt. Mr Rui says in a letter dated January 12, 1943:

On December 1st, I arrived in Xuyong from Lizhuang On the 15th I reached the place Houshanbao ^llj^, which was visited by the French d’Ollone more than thirty years ago; in this area there are approximately 200 odd Miao households. I visited quite a few old Miao; actually not a single one knew of a Miao writing in the form of Chinese character grass script It cannot be doubted that the Miao writing recorded by d’Ollone is a fake.91

Jiang Yongxing stated:

From the “Miao writing” collected by d’Ollone we can see that the Miao use of Chinese characters had many forms. This phenomenon should not be seen as uncomplicated; it also is a creation of [human] intelligence. Japanese writing, Vietnamese writing, Korean writing and the historical Tangut script are all imitations of Chinese characters or have assimilated the characteristics of Chinese characters in order to create a writing for the [respective] people. If the Miao people had had a suitable soil and conditions to cultivate it, it could, in the same way, have made use of Chinese characters in order to create a writing for the people, like Shi Bantang’s Miao writing [cf. below, p. 83].®

This last remark is perhaps the most interesting, because, if the writing was

90 J Lemoine, ‘Les écritures du Hmong’, (1972), p. 142.91 Wen You, ‘Guizhou Leishan xin chu canshi chukao’, (1951). Reprinted in Wen You, Wen You lunji, 1985, p. 67.® Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), p. 115.

79

not a complete fake, it could certainly have been a primitive stage of a writing system in the making, developing from Chinese characters, like the modem Japanese kanji and more specifically the kokuji, like Vietnamese chff nom or like the Chinese character-based Korean writing.

It appears that Chinese scholars do not consider d’Ollone’s ‘Miao characters’ as writing, because Chinese characters are obviously included in the list.93 In my opinion two factors make a further study of this Miao writing necessary. The Miao pronunciation is correct, which implies that the informant was a Miao (or had good knowledge of Miao, which is extremely rare among Han Chinese) and there are characters which were obviously created by someone who understood the basic principles of Chinese characters and applied this knowledge to devising new characters for Miao. If d’Ollone’s claim that he double-checked the informant by asking for the same word several times and got the same answer is correct, this ought to imply that at

® In 1955 the Soviet ethnographer Rudolf Its published an article with the title ‘V poiskax mjaoskogo manuskripta* [In search of a Miao manuscript] in the Soviet travel journal Vokrug sveta [Around the world]. There he described, in a literary way, the Chinese theory about d’Ollone’s Miao writing. The hero of the story, professor Ma Sujiang [alias Ma Xueliang?], related how an old Miao man told him what had really happened: ‘This happened just before the crushing of the Manchu emperor in China. I was still young. My father wanted to make a wise man out of me and, entrusting me to his Chinese friends, he sent me to study the Chinese language. I knew everything, I knew how to write as the stems of grass write on the meadows - simply, unintelligibly and beautifully. I knew abbreviations and shorthand. Proudly I returned home, but my home lay waste. While I had been living far away from my father he had died. The neighbours said that he had been killed by some foreigners, who wanted to make him a son of Jesus. They had baptized him by force, and the old man had died of cold. Our fields had become overgrown with weeds. I had a lot of knowledge, but very little money. I started working in the fields. The owner of the fields - the landowner - took it all away. He talked about the debts of my father. I had no way out. Once I heard that somebody, probably Colon [sic!] d’Ollone, had arrived at our neighbours’ place, and had asked if we had written characters. He was ready to pay for it in gold. If he gave a lot, it would be possible for me to pay back my father’s debts immediately. My grandfather and my father had both been tuugkao [i.e. A-Hmao <dub hxut ngaox> ‘ballad singer’]. I knew better than anyone else that we did not have, and had not ever had, any written characters, but I resolved to get the money and revenge. I wrote like the stems of grass, with ink on old papers. I wrote what came into my head. I laid the papers in the sun, under a stone, so that they should look ancient, like tortoise shells. Afterwards I took them to d’Ollone. He was pleased and gav me money.’ R G Its, ‘V poiskax mjaoskogo manuskripta*, Vokrug sveta, (1955), p. 43. Unfortunately, I have not been able to check Its’s background material, but his view obviously correlates very well with the general attitude among Chinese minority researchers towards d’Ollone’s Miao writing. Many facts in the story are improbable, to say the least. Two examples may suffice. In the introduction to the story related above it is stated that the village where the story is told is a ‘dahuamiao’ village, i.e. A-Hmao. D’Ollone’s writing was recorded in a Hmong area in Sichuan, and the pronunciation given after each character is Hmong and not A-Hmao. Furthermore d’Ollone described how he worked with his informant who wrote the characters in front of his eyes and did not bring him any old writing.

8o

least that one person knew the writing. It does, however, seem inexplicable how this writing can have remained unknown to all outsiders, if it had actually been used for communicative purposes. Rui Yifu’s letter from 1942 cannot prove very much, as his question could have been misunderstood, or the existence of Miao writing could have been deliberately denied, as Rui Yifu, a Han Chinese, was a potential threat to the Miao. D’Ollone himself also pointed out that fear among the Miao might have caused them to hide their books in order not to have them confiscated and destroyed.Unfortunately the Xuyong area is closed to foreigners and I have not been granted permission to do any field work there in order to check if traces of this writing could be found nowadays.

81

The First Page of d’Ollone’s Dictionary of Miao Writing94

A(9 1 do ciel 1 21 kai chemin 37 h riale feuC) 2 no . soleil 1 22 \tVe1 kl’e eau

38 pang Is’io fumée

$ 3 hri lune 1 23 haokl'c ruisseau ✓P 39 tch'eou cendre

4 noko étoile J 24 mi kl’e rivière40 l’en charbon

25 hà lac 41 leal hr laie allumer le feu

6 no pong hao le soleil se couche 2G hà mer ?» 42 Ich'oua hrlale éteindre le feui T 27 lama marais

è 28 la-liè boue 43 jong forêt^8 7 houa nuage

i»29 ne y poussière 1 44 dong arbre

Vit 6 nang pluie 30 cita sable1^ 31 Je (J“‘) pierre 1 45 kiang long racine

ft. 9 kia vent 32 ko or 46 tronc10 sou tonnerre

33 gna argent48 lè en long écorce

ll 11 tchà éclair 34 hrlo fer

12 jouang arc-en-ciel (s) 35 i^ng cuivre 49 h bourgeon

30 Ich'ou plomb O1 50 pénig- fleur

91 d’Ollone, ‘L’Écriture des Miao tseu’, 1912, p. 274.

82

Chinese Character-Based Writing in West Hunan

This Ghao-Xong writing was first investigated by the Ghao-Xong Liu Ziqi, at the Telecommunication University of Jishou, the capital of the Xiangxi AP in Hunan.95 Later Zhao Liming at Qinghua University took an interest in this writing and she has published several articles introducing this Ghao- Xong writing both on her own,96 and together with Liu Ziqi.97 They also have a hirtherto unpublished manuscript with the title Xiangxi fangkuai miaowen jC [Xiangxi Chinese character-based Miao writing], which

95 Liu Ziqi, ‘Miaozu gesheng Shi Bantang’, (1981).% Zhao Liming, "Xiangxi fangkuai miaowen’, Paper presented at the 22nd Sino-Tibetan Conference, and Zhao Liming, "Xiangxi fangkuai miaowen’, (1990), pp. 168—73.97 Zhao Liming & Liu Ziqi, "Xiangxi fangkuai miaowen’, (1990), pp. 44-9.98 Zhao Liming, personal communication, Peking, 4 June 1990.

contains an introduction to three kinds of Chinese character-based Ghao-Xong writing and an annotated fist of 650 Miao characters. For the description below the present writer draws heavily on the above-mentioned works.

Shi Bantang

The Ghao-Xong folk singer and scholar Shi Bantang (1863—1927) devised special Ghao-Xong characters which were used mainly in two counties of Xiangxi: Huayuan and Guzhang The main purpose for this writing was to record folk songs. According to Zhao Liming the preserved material contains approximately 200,000 characters altogether.98 Shi collected the Miao characters in a dictionary called Miaowen zizheng pu

[Miao orthography] (or Yuedu miaowen xizi [Exercisesin Miao reading]). This dictionary contained more than one thousand Ghao- Xong characters and existed in two hand-written copies. One was borrowed by a company commander in the Liberation Army who wanted to learn some Ghao-Xong in order to quell the resistance in the Ghao-Xong mountains. Later he was killed and the book disappeared. The second copy was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

»3

Guzhang

The Guzhang writing was probably devised by Dong Hongxun H:$110.99 It has never been widely used, but was preserved in a local history,100 in great contrast to Shi Bantang’s writing which spread among the people, without being recorded in local histories or in other Chinese books.

99 Liu Ziqi, personal communication, Jishou, 13 Oct. 1990.100 Guzhang pingtingzhi, 1907, jïmh 9, pp. 38-44.

Laozhai

This Ghao-Xong writing system was devised in the beginning of the 1950s by the Ghao-Xong Shi Chengjian in the village Laozhai in Huayuan County for developing folk culture - not only songs, but alsodrama and novels. Shi Chengjian had founded a Ghao-Xong theatre company and this writing system was used for the librettos. It was simpler than Shi Bantang’s; there were fewer strokes in the characters, but the principles were not as clear.

«4

Sample of the Shi Bantang Ghao-Xong Writing™

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»5

Comparative Chart of the Shi Bantang, Laozhai and Guzhang Writing Systems102 103

102 Adapted from Zhao Liming, ‘Xiangxi fângkuai miaowen’, (1990), p. 169.103 Adapted from Zhao Liming, ‘Xiangxi fàngkuai miaowen’, (1990), p. 171.

Shi Bantang Laozhai Guzhang

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86

Further Developments of Chinese Character-Based Ghao-Xong Writing

Liu Ziqi, who together with Zhao Liming has investigated the various writing systems used among the Ghao-Xong in west Hunan, wants himself to introduce a new Chinese character-based writing based on the earlier systems in order to facilitate the integration of the Miao people into the Chinese people. It is to consist mainly of ordinary Chinese characters, but along with some specially devised characters as well. According to him this would diminish the distance between the Miao and the Han. Liu plans to translate works from folk poetry with his own writing system, adding an IPA transcription. ‘The effect will be the same as in Japanese; there is no opposition between Chinese characters and Pinyin.* Possibly old Miao words with Chinese etymological parallels (in Classical Chinese) could be written with old Chinese characters, which are no longer in current use; a kind of etymological spelling principle. The main principles are, however, the same as for Chinese characters, liushu, but with slight modifications. It could be compared to the Zhuang W writing and the chü nom of Vietnam.104

104 Liu Ziqi, personal communication, Jishou, 13 Oct. 1990.

«7

Map of the Miao Areas in SIV China

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The mission set itself to provide the Miao with a Bible in their own tongue. As Mesrop had done for the Armenians, and Cyril for the Slavs, Pollard and his colleagues devised a script for the Miao. It was a syllabary, an alphabet of syllables, such as Evans had invented earlier for the Cree Indians of Canada, and its success was immediate and phenomenal. When the first copies of one of the Miao Gospels reached Yunnan-fii, the provincial capital, every copy was sold within two hours, although the consignment had been carried in on the backs of twenty-nine horses. Twice the entire font of Miao-script was destroyed (in the Yokohama earthquake and in the Japanese Shanghai Campaign of 1932), and twice it was remade so that the Bible might be read in this strange writing.

The Book of A Thousand Tongues, United Bible Societies, 1972, p. 295.

Missionary Approach to Miao Writing

Writing Systems Devised by Catholic Missionaries1

The Catholic mission to the Miao areas started during the latter half of the nineteenth century with Paul Vial in Yunnan Province, Kircher at Mongtseu (Mengzi in Yunnan Province, Savina in northern Vietnam and Renault, Schotter, Esquirol and others in Zhenfeng in Guizhou Province.

Paul Vial’s Yi and Hmong Writing

One Miao writing system, allegedly devised by a Frenchman, was mentioned in an article by Li Bingze in 1985. It is said to have been devised for the Hmong in the area of Luxi M®, Lunan UM and Luliang ÊÈZÉt in Yunnan by a French missionary called Luxidai ÊÈWfÇ. The writing system was devised in the beginning of the twentieth century and was a pictographic script in the seal character style.2 Jiang Yongxing also mentioned this writing system in 1989, but called the French missionary LuyadaiHe mentioned as a reference Yunnan shaoshu minzu-miaozu [The minority nationalities of Yunnan - the Miao], 1980.3

This source has, however, not been found by the present writer, but

’ For a more detailed account of the Catholic mission and the writing systems devised by Catholic missionaries, cf. Joakim Enwall, ‘Catholic Hmong Writing in Sichuan and Yunnan: A Preliminary Survey’, in Jan-Olof Svantesson et al. (eds), Festschrift Kristina Lindell, forthcoming.2 Li Bingze, ‘Miaozu de wenzi’, (1985), pp. 23-4.3 Jiang Yongxing, ‘Miaowen tanjiu’, (1989), pp. 112-6.

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only a revised edidon of this book which was published in 1983, and there no such script was mentioned.4 In 1982, a research report on the society and history of the Miao and the Yao in Yunnan was pubhshed, and this may have been Li Bingze’s source.5 In the chapter on the Qujing district, where Lunan is located, one page from the part about minority nationahties in the local history of Xuanwei was reproduced. This local history was first printed in 1934. There Vial’s writing was discussed, and it was called Miao writing, although the writing quoted was obviously the one used in Vial’s Yi dictionary from 1909.6 This is a typical case of mistaking Yi writing for Miao.

4 Yunnan sheng lishi yanjiusuo (ed.), Yunnan shaoshu minzu (xiudingben), 1983.5 Song Enchang, ‘Yunnan miaozu lüeshu’, 1982, pp. 1-11. The research was carried out 1958-76.6 P Vial, Dictionnaire Français-Lolo, Dialecte Gni, 1909. Paul Vial’s dictionary of Yi was for the Yi dialects of Lunan subprefecture Luliang subprefecture ÊÊîSvMi and Guangxi subprefecture ÄBHtl in Yunnan Province.7 This description is based on two articles by Esquirol. Cf. J Esquirol, ‘Les ’Ka Tnao A du Tchên fông ÄW au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)’, (1931), pp. 40-9 and (1931), pp. 117-35.8 Zhenfeng County and Xincheng (in 1913 changed to Xingren County ^CJ^) in the present Qianxinan Buyi and Miao9 J Esquirol, ‘Les ’Ka Tnao K du Tchên fông MS au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)’, (1931),p. 41.

Esquirol’s Htnu writing7

In the eighteenth century a group of Hmu migrated from Huangping in southeast Guizhou to an area in the southwest of Guizhou, to a valley situated on the border between Tchen fong [Zhenfeng] and Sin t’chên [Xincheng].8 Their ethnonym was Kanao, which can be compared to the alternative ethnonym for the Hmu, [qa33 noui13]. By the 1920s the contacts with their relatives at Huangping had already been broken, but the Hmu in Zhenfeng still considered Huangping their ancestral home:

Toutefois pour nos Kanao, Hoâng p’în reste Valma mater. Dans toutes les cérémonies de conjuration, l’officiant se tourne du côté de Hoâng p’în, comme les Juifs exilés vers Jérusalem. Après sa mort, le Kanao n’est conduit au ciel qu’après un détour par Hoâng p’în.9 *

The Catholic mission among the Hmu in this area had started around 1870. Later Paulin Renault was stationed at Zhenfeng for six years and baptized more than 300 Hmu. Afterwards other missionaries took over: Michel, Aubry and Alphonse [Aloys] Schotter. Between 1908 and 1911 Schotter

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published three articles on the minorities in Guizhou, mainly on various groups of Miao. He also included short wordlists in a very inadequate orthography.10

10 A Schotter, ‘Notes Ethnographiques sur les Tribus du Kouy-tcheou (Chine)’, (1908), pp. 397-425; (1909), pp. 318-53; (1911), pp. 318-44.11 By him referred to as Lan long, i.e. Nanlong Fu Already in 1797, the name had, however, been changed to Xingyi Fu In 1922 it was changed to Anlong County12 J Esquirol, Dictionnaire ’Ka T noo ^-Français et Français—’Ka T nao , 1931.u Qianxinan Buyizu Miaozu Zizhizhou gaikuang biamdezu, Qianxinan Buyizu Miaozu Zizhizhou gaikuang, 1985, p. 67.14 Qianxinan Buyizu Miaozu Zizhizhou gaikuang biamdezu, Qianxinan Buyizu Miaozu Zizhizhou gaikuang, 1985, pp. 67-8.15 J Esquirol, ‘Les ’Ka Tnao Ä du Tchën fông MJS au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)’, (1931), p. 133.

In 1927 Carlo, the first ‘vicaire apostolique’ at Lan long [Anlong],11 baptized 150 Hmu. Sometime before 1931 Joseph Esquirol devised a writing system for the Hmu dialect and in 1931 his Hmu—French, French—Hmu dictionary was published in Hong Kong.12 I do not know if this writing system has ever been used for other publications than the dictionary. In the local history of the Qianxinan Buyi and Miao AP, it is noted that, ‘although the Miao did have writing before the Liberation it was not in common use’.13 It is also mentioned that some of the minority peoples are Catholics and that in 1985 there were nine Cathofic churches in the area.14

The Hmu variety spoken in Zhenfeng was thus similar to that of Huangping (as will be shown below, p. 202), but there were also some differences, mainly due to borrowing from other languages. Esquirol wrote:

Ce petit dialecte évolue rapidement; il ne sera peut-être plus bientôt qu’un souvenir, supplanté par le chinois. Les Kanao proclament eux-mêmes que déjà ils ne parlent plus comme leurs cousins demeurés au Hoâng p’în. Et ils n’ont quitté la ruche que depuis quelques générations. Il se compose actuellement:1. - D’un fond de miao fortement différencié et s’appauvrissant sans cesse.2. - D’un stock de chinois qui n’a pas été tout entier amassé ici, mais a été en partie incorporé par la langue au cours de son long pèlerinage à travers la Chine.3. - D’un léger bagage de dioï, de là lô et d’autres parlers, sans que l’on comprenne où et comment il s’en est ainsi frotté; car les Kanao ne sont pas actuellement en contact avec ces races, du moins en contact assez étroit pour en adopter le langage.15

9i

Early Protestant Mission

The China Inland Mission (henceforth CIM), in Chinese called neidihuï P9 was founded by James Hudson Taylor in London in 1865.16 In the

following year the first missionaries sailed to China for the purpose of working in the hitherto unpenetrated inland provinces. Earlier Protestant mission had been confined to some of the larger cities and the first missionaries of the CIM also had to stay there.

16 The early years of the CIM are described in Dr and Mrs H Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, 1931, and in many articles in the CIM journal China’s Millions, founded in 1875.17 This treaty is usually referred to as the Yantai Treaty.18 H Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, 1931, p. 285.19 AG Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan, without tide), [dated 1946], unpubl. ms, p. 7.

In 1876, however, a treaty was signed at Chefoo in Shandong Province which made mission in the inland possible.17 Howard Taylor described the effects of this treaty in his biography of Hudson Taylor:

[...] that foreigners were at liberty to travel in any part of the Emperor’s dominions; that they did so under his protection, and were to be received with respect and in no wise hindered on their journeys. [...] As a matter of fact, representatives of the C.I.M. were the first, and for years almost the only foreigners, to avail themeselves of this great opportunity.18

The treaty permitted the British to build a road from Burma to the Yunnan province and also to hold soldiers in Yunnan for five years. In 1877 Judd and J F Broumton rented premises for a mission-station in Guiyang, the first permanent station in the inland. Judd soon returned to Chefoo to take charge of the building of the mission school, and Broumton remained in Guiyang alone. In 1882 he baptized two Miao,19 but during the following ten years few if any contacts were made with Miao. In Yunnan the first station was opened in 1881 by J McCarthy.

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CIM Mission in the Guizhou Province before 1915

Adamfs Mission at Anshun

The British missionary Samuel R Clarke,20 who had been stationed in the Guizhou Province in order to work with the aboriginal peoples, described how the missionaries’ contacts with the Hua Miao at Anshun started:

20 Chinese name Kelake21 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p. 141.22 James R Adam (Chinese name was Dang Juren MHt) was bom in Dundee in 1863 and sailed for China in 1887. At the language school in Anqing he studied Chinese together with Samuel Pollard among others. Cf. M Broomhall, Some a Hundredfold - the Life and work of James R. Adam Among the Tribes of South-West China, [1916], p. 6.23 Windsor’s Chinese name was Wen Zao XM.21 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p.172 ff.25 Chinese name Zhai Songkuan SSiM.25 M Broomhall, Some a Hundredfold — the Life and work of James R. Adam Among the Tribes of South-West China, [1916], p. 13.

[1895/1896] After studying my teacher’s dialect [Hmu] for about three months we went to Anshunfu, three days west of Kweiyang, where there are a great many Hua or Flowery Miao, and found their dialect so different that my teacher could not understand anything said by the Hua Miao. However, in consequence of this visit, Mr. James R. Adam, who was in charge of the station at Anshunfu, began to study the language of the Hua Miao.21

He further wrote that the missionary work at Anshun was started in 1888 by James R Adam.22 The CIM missionary Windsor had already rented premises,23 but he soon returned to Guiyang and after some initial difficulties with the authorities, Adam established the mission and started to have frequent contacts with the Miao in the neighbouring villages.24 At times he was joined by Curtis Waters,25 Cecil Smith and Preedy.26

After a furlough in 1896-7 he returned to Anshun and took up the mission among the Miao again, encouraged by Hudson Taylor to whom he had spoken about the Miao during his furlough. He taught them to sing Christian hymns in Miao, which indicates that some translation work had already been undertaken at that time. In 1898 candidates for baptism were enrolled and in the following year the first Miao chapel was built in a village two miles from Anshunfu and a boys’ school was opened. Zhang Chengyao wrote about this school in 1985:

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Adam successively took in a group of poor Miao children and orphans to the “free school” for studies, [...]. These Miao children all came from different dialect areas and they often taught Adam Miao and Adam taught them the Latin writing. Within less than a year Adam could speak the Miao language of several dialect areas, and this is the origin of the nickname “Miao king”, which he later was given.27

27 Zhang Chengyao, ‘Jidujiao neidihui chuanru Bijie diqu de lishi qingkuang*, [1985], p. 7.28 The Miao dialect spoken in the area is a Hmong variety called Flowery Miao or Hwa Miao [hua miao TEjSÏ]. Cf. also A S Wurm et al., Language Atlas of China, 1987-91.29 Lanlongqiao Village in Langdai County ÊPtSJfé, now belonging to Liuzhi Special Area30 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, pp. 173-4.

In 1898 Adam took part in the burial of the murdered missionary William S Fleming at Panghai (cf. below, p. 119), after which he managed to buy land for a church there. After the Boxer uprising of 1900, Adam returned to Anshun (in 1901), but by then, due to the strong anti-Christian tendencies of the Boxers, interest in Christianity had drastically declined among the Miao. However, some who had already been baptized remained Christians, and in 1902 twenty more were baptized. Thirty kilometers from Anshun there was a Shui-hsi (shuixi) Miao village called Ten-ten (Dengdeng

in Puding County and there a chapel was built and the village became an out-station of the mission.28 In 1905 there were one hundred Church members at Dengdeng.

Contacts with the A-Hmao

In 1903 the first contacts with the A-Hmao were made. This was a Miao group living a bit further away from Anshun and speaking a different dialect:

During the summer of 1903 Mr. Adam spent the month of August among the Shui-hsi Miao at Ten-ten. One day he saw a group of men dressed in strange garments, the like of which he had never seen before, [.,..] Adam inquired [...] and learned they belonged to the Ta-hua Miao tribe, or “Great Flowery Miao”, [...] As the men were going away, after their meal, they were invited to attend the service on Sunday. They came to the service, and continued to attend it. One old man among them, the first of that tribe to hear the Gospel, said: “It is not good for us to keep such good news for ourselves, let us go and tell our kinsmen at Lan-lung-chiao.”29 So this old man at once went there and told the people about the Lord Jesus. His name for Jesus was Klang Meng, the “Miao King.” The people from that place came down in great numbers to see the missionary. [...] Within three years of the time they first heard the Gospel they had built a chapel for themselves, two hundred and fifty were baptized believers, and hundreds of others were attending the services.30

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These men were originally from the A-Hmao areas in Weining County but they had moved to Lanlongqiao near Langdai County, southwest

of Anshun. Their (later, Christian) names were Zhang Make Zhang Yage Zhang Yuehan and Li Matai They came to attend service on Sunday, and Adam taught them the basics of Christianity. Later, one day, they were out hunting and killed a wild boar. It was, however, stolen by the local Chinese. They then went to Adam in Anshun who arranged with the magistrate that they should get a recompensation.

In 1903 Luo Yabo MSrfâ in Xinglongchang RÜJfö in Weining was to sacrifice an ox to the ancestors, and as Li Matai was a relative of Luo Yabo, he also returned from Lanlongqiao to Xinglongchang to participate in the family sacrifice ceremony. At the place of the ceremony Li Matai talked to his friends and relatives and said:

There has appeared a Miao king in Anshun. He is very affectionate and kindhearted to the Miao. He calls the Miao his brothers, and he helps the ordinary hardworking Miao as fir as possible.31

31 Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefang qian Gebu jiaohui shf, [1985], p. 10.32 According to Zhang Youlun, the grandson of Zhang Make, it was Zhang Make who went on this first preaching tour. Zhang Youlun, personal communication, Weining, 20 Nov. 1990.33 Kele now belongs to Hezhang County.34 Zhang Youlun, personal communicadon, Weining, 20 Nov. 1990.35 ES Fish, ‘A Medical Tour Among the Aborigines’, (1914), p. 5.

After the ceremony the people broke up and went to their respective villages, where the tale of the Miao king spread to more people. Luo Yabo’s eldest son Luo Bide and his brother-in-law Zhang Chaoxiang 51^9IrJ followed Li Matai to Anshun to visit Adam. Later Luo Side’s brother Luo Danyili and his uncle Zhang Baoluo went to Anshun.When they returned from Anshun Adam sent Zhang Yage to preach in the Gebu Äfö area in Weining, where Xinglongchang is situated.32 33 34 The newly converted Miao wanted to build a church, and they asked for land from a Yi landlord at Kele in Weining County but they did not get

34 any.

It is interesting to note how the Miao themselves started to propagate Christianity and how they linked it with their own myth of the Miao king. The word quoted in the text above corresponds to Hmong [tiaq45 mog43] ‘Miao spirit’. This misconception was also mentioned by Edward S Fish, in a report from a trip to the Miao areas in Anshun in 1914: ‘Was it possible that men were actually willing to teach them to read? Of course their ideas of “the doctrine” were far from clear, and they thought JESUS was as earthly king.’35 According to Wang Mingdao it was not Jesus, but Adam,

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who was called the Miao king.36 It is, of course, not to be excluded that all three - Adam, Jesus and the Miao king - were considered to be one.37

36 Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefàng qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [1985], p. 10.37 The importance of this reinterpretation has been thoroughly investigated by Siu-woo Cheung. Cf. Siu-woo Cheung, Millennialism, Christian Movement, and Ethnic Change Among the Miao in Southwest China, 1989, unpubl. MA thesis.38 Zhang Youlun, personal communication, Weining, 20 Nov. 1990.39 ‘Anshunfu’, 1906, p. 68.** Chinese name: Pei Zhongqian If&W-41 Wang Mingdao, Jiefàng qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [1985], p. 12.

The Gebu Church

Somewhat later Adam made plans for building a church at Gebu, but as Gebu was situated rather far away from Anshun, Adam remained undecided about how to act. He was visited by more Miao from that district and they asked him to move to Gebu.38 The Miao came from places even farther away and Adam then wrote a letter of introduction to Samuel Pollard of the Bible Christian Mission at Zhaotong HSU in Yunnan. This letter was given to Pollard on July 12, 1904, by the first A-Hmao visiting the mission station at Zhaotong. (See below, p. 103).

Later Pollard and Adam visited the district, and established friendly relations with many of the landholders. The mission among the A-Hmao took two partly different courses, starting at that time, one area being missionized by the CIM, and one by the Methodists. A somewhat different approach was taken towards baptism, and generally the Methodists were stricter about formal qualifications than the CIM missionaries. In most cases, however, the difference seems to have been only nominal.

Although Adam asked some of the Miao to go to Pollard in Zhaotong instead, he, nonetheless, sent two A-Hmao, Yang Qing’an and Chen Ziming IW2? to Gebu, to lead the building of a church. Yang and Chen started a very active and agressive campaign against all traditional culture, which led to conflicts with the non-Christian A-Hmao. In 1904 the work on the chapel started and in 1905 it was ready.39

In 1905 Isaac Page arrived as a new worker at Anshun,40 and when Adam left on furlough in 1906, Curtis Waters, who had been at Anshun from time to time in the 1890s took over. In 1906 an elementary school was opened at Gebu.41 Already at an early stage many Miao, both A-Hmao and Hmong, were baptised in Anshun. A discussion about this is related by S R Clarke in 1910:

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In September, 1906, I was passing through Anshunfu, and there I saw Mr. Curtis Waters, who had recently returned from Kweiyangfu, which was, and is now, the chief centre of our work there. He was full of joy and thanksgiving for what he had seen. He had baptized about a thousand Miao, and he told me of his experiences. I said to him: “That is all very well, but those people are very ignorant. They are very far away, and there is no resident missionary. Who is going to look after them, and who is going to teach them?” His answer was something like this: “Do not be anxious about those people. They have received the Holy Spirit. They are manifestly led of the Spirit. When I was there I was sometimes afraid to say anything lest I should hinder the work of the Spirit in their hearts.” Time has justified our brother’s confidence in the Holy Spirit of GOD. Those people, simple and ignorant as they are, have not lapsed but they have grown in the knowledge of Christ and have developed Christian character.c

Adatnfs A-Hmao Writing

When Adam returned from his second furlough in May 1908, he started to do extensive translation work:

On his return to Anshunfu, with the aid of some Miao Christians, Mr. Adam began to translate the Gospel of Mark into the Ta-hua Miao dialect, using the romanised system. Hitherto the Christians and inquirers had used the Chinese version, which few of them could read, though many of them were learning to read Chinese. Already many of the hymns and a catechism had been translated and printed in this romanised Miao, and some of them had been taught to read it. Compared with learning to read Chinese characters, it is very easy for them to read their own language phonetically, written or printed in Roman letters. In May the following year, 1909, the first copies of Mark’s Gospel arrived from the printer. Later on, the Gospel according to Matthew was printed, and the Gospel according to John, with the Epistles, are now in the hands of the printer, if they are not already in circuhtion. Soon the whole New Testament will be in the hands of the Christians. They are eager to learn to read, and those who can read are zealous in teaching others. Very soon they will be a reading community. At most of the services the hymns, prayers, and addresses were partly in Chinese and partly in Miao.41

42 SR Clarke, ‘The Aborigines in Kweichow’, (1910), p. 7.41 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p. 248.44 ‘The Province of Kweichow’, 1909, p. 79.

The yearbook for 1909 reported that at Anshunfu there were 2,979 Miao in full church fellowship, 800 had been baptized during the year 1908, and two Bible schools had been held. Nine Miao Gospel Halls were already established and 32 Miao had been recognized as local leaders.42 * 44 The yearbook also mentioned that ‘[a] primer has been printed for the Water Miao people*. This probably refers to the Shuixi Miao (west-of-the-water Miao, a Hmong sub-group, living near Anshun). No extant copy of this text book has been

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found. S R Clarke has, however, pubhshed a word-list of the Hua Miao of Anshun, and probably the orthography used was the same as that of the Water Miao primer."6 The basic spelling principles in the word-list are the same as those in Adam’s books in romanized A-Hmao (cf. below, p. 190), and in the one example of early romanized Hmu (cf. below, pp. 195-6).

At the end of 1909 the Anshun church had 3,297 members, in 17 centres. Every night meetings were held in hundreds of villages, and the leaders of these meetings had a monthly gathering at Gebu.46 In 1909 there were already four out-stations of Gebu (formally, however, Gebu remained an out-station of Anshun until 1917), viz. Xinglongchang, Dasongshu Äfö W and Yuqiuwan in Weining County and Xinlufang in Hezhang County. In 1910 Adam’s romanised script was taught on a large scale:

* SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, pp. 307-12. As the orthography suffers from great deficiencies it is difficult to know exactly which variety this Hua Miao really was. To me it seems to be similar to the Mong Leng spoken in south Yunnan.* ‘The Province of Kweichow’, 1910, p. 71.47 ‘Anshunfu’, 1911, p. 70.48 ‘Anshunfu’, 1911, p. 71.* ‘Anshunfu’, 1912, pp. 72-3.

A Bible school for Miao women was held for one month, and another for Miao men for six weeks. In both schools the teaching of the men and women to read and write the Miao romanised was an important branch of study. A special feature of the winter’s work has been running four schools in different centres in far-away districts for teaching Miao romanised, a goodly number of young and old attending.47

At the end of 1910 the church had 3,504 members, 19 evangelists, 192 local leaders, 3 Bible women. The 13 schools had been continued.48 In 1911 the work at Anshun was very successful:

Four new chapels have been opened during the year among the Water Miao. At one of these centres called Pa-djia [...] Another man and his wife are conducting a two months’ school for teaching Miao Romanisation, [...] One of the special needs in Anshunfu district is a missionary to undertake the school section of the work, who could train Miao teachers for the hill schools. There have been eight regular students, [...] The students of past years are now running ten schools for teaching Miao Romanisation. These schools are held for two months in ten different centres, old and young attending. There are now 18 schools for boys and girls with a total of 431 scholars. [...] There are 26 chapels in the district [...]. There are 213 elders or local leaders, [...]. During the year 212 persons have been baptized, [...] making the full membership at the close of the year 3667, [...]. The Revolution brought with it trouble and persecution, die chapel at Lanlongchiao was destroyed, and the evangelist’s home looted, but the authorities acted quickly, and protection was given.*

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In 1911 the use of books in romanized A-Hmao was mentioned in an article by Isaac Page: ‘In the afternoons, no regular meetings were held, but the people sat about in groups learning to read the books of Galatians.* 50 According to the BSL Catalogue, altogether five books were printed in Adam’s romanized A-Hmao writing, St Mark and I—III John in 1910, St Matthew, St John and the Romans and Galatians in 1911, all published by the NBSS.

In an account of a trip in the Miao areas around Anshun in the autumn of 1912 Adam, however, also referred to an A-Hmao hymn book, of which no extant copies have been found:51

From Jospeh’s village [He-t’ao-tsai] we passed on to Pa-djia. On the way we went through Ka-la village, where all the villagers are Christians. After we had gone on our way a very bright young married woman came running after us with her Miao hymn book in hand and called out: “Please, teacher of the Book, sing 'Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah’ with us.”s

In 1912 Mr and Mrs Merian joined Adam at Anshun and during the winter schools were held for teaching romanised A-Hmao writing.53 Mr Merian held a three months’ course for 22 leaders, 416 people were baptized and by the end of the year the church membership had reached 4,021. There was also a movement towards Christianity among the red-turbaned Miao [hongtou miao and twelve voluntary preachers from Gebu went to them for three months’ work.54

Expansion of the Mission

In 1913 Anping, earlier an out-station of Anshun, was made a station of its own. After their furlough the Pages took charge of this station. In the area there were several different groups of Miao, ‘Black Miao [Hmu], Chin Miao [perhaps qmg miåo W^], Water Miao and White Miao’,55 but apparently no Flowery Miao. During a tour in 1913 Adam and Fish visited the out-stations Tinian, Lanlongch’iao, Heoerkuan, Fangmaba Hsinglongchang,Tasongshu, Ichuwan, Hsinlufang , Masehkeo, Djiekeo [^W], Kopu, and Bandi During the tour Adam baptised 194 people, most of them

® I Page, “Continuing Instant in Prayer”, (1911): 7.51 This hymnbook is also mentioned in an article by a Chinese scholar, cf. Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefàng qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [19851, P- 13.B [JR Adam], ‘A Tour Among the Aborigines in Kweichow, From the Journal ofJas. R. Adam, Anshunfu, Kweichow", (1913), p. 2.® Mr Merian’s Chinese name was Sun Chengren54 ‘Anshunfu’, 1913, pp. 71-2.® ‘Anping Kwei.’, 1914, p. 87.

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A-Hmao.56 In another article, published in April 1914, he gave a new list of the out-stations, which is considerably different from the list above: viz.: A-Dji-mih in Nayong County Lai-si-kuan [ÜBBS in Nayong County], Mi-pu in Nayong County], Li-k’eh, Kwa-dsong-ho in Nayong County], Hsiao-ho-pien [/.h^îjâ?], Hsiao-hai-tsi [/.hW^?], Pan-di, Lao-wa-ba, Tsa-ho, Ch’i-djia, A-dji-p’o, Ko-pu, Hsing-long-chang, Ta- song-shu, I-chu-wan, Hsin-lu-fang, Djie-keo (also including the names of the preachers) and added:

56 JR Adam, ‘The Tribespeople of Kweichow’, (1914), p. 7.57 JR Adam, ‘Another Tour Among the Tribespeople’, (1914), p. 8.58 Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefang qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [1985], p. 13.® JR Adam, ‘A Year’s Work at Anshunfii’, (1915), p. 7.

In Shui-chen district there are Heo-er-kuan, Fang-na[ma?]-pa, A-djia-keh, out-stations worked by native brethren. Twenty-nine out-stations among the tribes. There are also a few places nearing that stage when they too shall be recognized as proper out-stations.57

On December 31, 1913, the number of church members was 4,751. In1913 a higher elementary school (gäoxiäo ®/.h) was opened at Gebu. In1914 there was a second grade and there were also plans to set up a middle school, but after Adam’s death in 1915 the plans were not realized and even the higher elementary school was closed down.58

In 1914 the Miao serfs were set free, but had to buy the land from the Chinese authorities. As a result, many Miao had to mortgage their crops and became even worse off than before. The church then received a gift of money from some church members in England and by ‘quickly distributing this special money mortgages were paid back and all the crops saved for the use of the believers and their little ones.* 59 This must undoubtedly have had a very strong effect on the Miao Christians in the area, and most probably also increased the spread of Christianity. Adam further reported that the total number of communicants on December 31st, 1914, was 5,590, that there were 43 evangelists and 29 school teachers for 27 schools with altogether 639 students. He furthermore described the work of the colporteurs, distributing among other things Luke’s Gospel in Miao and the New Testament in Chinese. This Gospel of St Luke is not mentioned in the BSL Catalogue, and no extant copies have been found. Adam described the colporteurs’ work:

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All their time is given to visiting markets, villages, hamlets and homes of the hill people, selling Scriptures wherever they can, and giving much time to teaching others to read them, and reading the Word of God to the villagers at nights in the places where they rest. Funds for their support are most kindly supplied through the National Bible Society of Scotland.®

Wang Mingdao, writing in 1985, described a meeting between Pollard and Adam which is not mentioned in the western literature on the mission. As the differences in opinion between Pollard and Adam had become acute, they decided to divide the area into spheres of interest. The result was that the present districts 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of Weining County belonged to the Methodists, whereas the districts 10 and 11 of Weining County, as well as Hezhang, Shuicheng zfdfå, Zhijin and Langdai belonged to the CIM.61 In 1915 Tatingfu (Dadingfu now called Dafang was established as a separate station, run by the German Friedenshort sisters, three of which had arrived in China already in 1912, viz. J Rabe, F Paul and M C Welzel.62

On August 9, 1915 Adam was struck by lightning and died. After Adam’s death Isaac Page took charge of the mission station at Anshun.

® JR Adam, ‘A Year’s Work at Anshunfu', (1915), p. 8.61 Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefang qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [1985], p. 14.® Their Chinese names were Ba Kuanjing EX®, Bao Kuan’ai and Su Kuanren

and they belonged to the Friedenshort Mission.

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The Methodist Mission before 1915

In 1884 Hudson Taylor addressed the Bible Christian Conference in London, and asked them to send missionaries to China. In 1885 two missionaries were sent, Thomas Vanstone and Samuel Thome.63 They lived together with the CIM missionaries in Kunming, and after one year Thome went to Zhaotong to start missionary work in northern Yunnan.

Samuel Pollauf*

Samuel Pollard was bom in Cornwall in 1864.® After finishing school he started to work at a bank in London, but in 1886 he decided to become a missionary. He arrived in China in the year 1887 in order to work for the Bible Christian China Mission in north Yunnan. After studying Chinese at the language school in Anqing he and another young missionary, Frank Dymond,® came to the city of Zhaotong in 1888, where missionary work had been started just a few months before. Premises had been rented in Jbdan Street near the east gate.

In 1890 Pollard married Emma Hainge, who was a missionary of the CIM at Kunming. Progress was slow in the missionary work among the Chinese, and the first two Chinese were baptized in 1893. In 1895—6 Pollard and his wife went to England on their first furlough. On his return two Chinese students of good family took interest in Christianity and were baptized. Their names were Li Sitifàn ‘Stephen Lee’ and Li Yuehan

‘John Lee’.67 They were to play an important role in the work among the Miao.

0 Thome’s Chinese name was Suo Renli64 Pollard’s Chinese name was Bo Geli tâfêS.® There are several books and articles about the life and work of Samuel Pollard: W Pollard, The Life of Sam Pollard of China, An Account of the Intrepid Life of Adventure, Danger, Toil & Travel of a Missionary in The Far & Little Known Interior of the Vast Chinese Empire, 1928,188 pp.; E H Moody, Sam Pollard, [1956], 95 pp.; E H Hayes, Sam Pollard of Yunnan, 1928, 128 pp.; W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, 87 pp.; W A Grist, Samuel Pollard, Pioneer Missionary in China, s.a., 384 pp.; R E Kendall, Eyes of the Earth, The Diary of Samuel Pollard, 1954,135 pp.. Kendall’s edition of Pollard’s diary is primarily meant for a wide public, and not for research. There are numerous divergencies between Kendall’s text and the original diaries, found on microfiche nos. 1289-1342, Boxes 639-40, PoUard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.® Chinese name: Tai Mulian67 Their original names were Li Guojun and Li Guozhen Cf. Yang Mingguang, ‘Jidujiao Xundao gonghui chuanru Weining diqu shilüe’, (1987), p. 11.

102

During the Boxer Rising the missionaries were all evacuated, but when Pollard returned to Zhaotong he discovered that there was much more interest in Christianity than before. Pollard travelled extensively in northern Yunnan and then came into contact both with Miao and Yi (by Pollard referred to as Nosu) people. In 1903 he travelled, as one of the first westerners, to the Yi area of Daliangshan under the protection of a Yi landholderwho had become a Christian. According to Li Defang, Pollard studied the Yi language and writing before going to Daliangshan and when he understood that the use of the old Yi syllabic writing was restricted to a small group of priests, he planned to devise a simple writing for the Yi language. Li claimed that because of the opposition of the Qing government Pollard’s preaching tour was unsuccessful, but that the planned Yi writing nevertheless served as a foundation for the Miao writing later to be devised.® No such writing or any connection between the Yi writing and the Miao writing later to be developed has, however, been found, although it is true that Pollard took interest in the Yi writing and even was taught some Yi.®

The A-Hmao Movement Starts

On July 12, 1904 four A-Hmao from Xinglongchang in Weining County in northwest Guizhou came to Pollard in Zhaotong with a letter of recommendation from the Scottish CIM missionary James R Adam at Anshun.70 As related above, Adam had been visited by many A-Hmao, and he thought that it was too far for them to walk from the A-Hmao areas in Weining County to Anshun for attending services. He therefore considered it more convenient for them to walk to the Zhaotong mission station, which, although it was situated in another province, was much closer to the Weining A-Hmao areas. On the way from Xinglongchang to Zhaotong the A-Hmao enquirers met a Chinese student, Zhong Huanran who became interested in their story about Adam and followed them to Zhaotong71

® Li Defang, ‘Ershi shiji chuqi diandongbei miaoyu fângyanqu de miaowen’, (1981), pp. 68-70.60 Pollard mentioned studies in Yi writing for the first time already on Febr. 2, 1891. Cf. R E Kendall, Eyes of the Earth, The Diary of Samuel Pollard, 1954, p. 18.w According to Yang Mingguang their names were Luo Dayili ÜÀJUH (should be Danyili {0 Wl, but misspelt because of southern pronunciation of Mandarin (Pinyin) <yi> as [nH] instead of [i]), Luo Bide Zhang Chaoxiang and Zhang Chaoshu Cf. Yang Mingguang, ‘Jidujiao Xundao gonghui chuanru Weining diqu shilüe’, (1987), p. 10. According to Zhang Youlun, Li Matai was one of the first four Miao at Zhaotong. Cf. Zhang Youlun, personal communication, Weining, 20 Nov. 1990. By Pollard Zhang Chaoxiang is referred to by his later Christian name: Chang Mo-shee (i.e. Zhang Moxi 3W®).71 Yang Mingguang, Jidujiao Xundao gonghui chuanru Weining diqu shilüe', (1987),

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and helped them to find Pollard, as they did not know Chinese and therefore had difficulties in entering a Chinese city.72 Thus started the mission among the A-Hmao which was to become the most spectacular missionary achievement in the whole of southwest China.73

The Pollard ScriptThe mission house at Zhaotong was soon overcrowded with A-Hmao, and when Pollard taught them the basics of Christianity, a A-Hmao man called Chang Mo-shee [Zhang Moxi, i.e. Zhang Chaoxiang], who knew both Chinese and A-Hmao, acted as an interpreter for the other A-Hmao, who spoke little or no Chinese. On August 7, 1904, Pollard wrote in his diary:

In evening after service I held a MIAO SERVICE with them by speaking thro’ 2 of them as interpreters. It was so interesting to watch them. I wd say a few words & then turn to my interpreters & tell them to repeat what I said in Miao. In this way I got hold of some words as well as they.74

On October 12, 1904, Pollard wrote:

Miao here every day. Trying to get out their language. So different to preach to them owing to not knowing their language. Have tried hard to get the word for “prayer” from them but have not succeeded. Neither word for sn. Last night while Mr. T. took Lipai [fibài i.e. service] here I took them up at Dr. Savin’s. Tried to tell them how K*eh-mi [ki44 my44] came down and died for us. How he was rftao ta put to death by wicked men. Yes they said at once the “WICKED CHINESE KILLED JESUS” everything bad they think must come from the Chinese.[...] Translating “Jesus loves me” with them. The class is “PART TEACHING & PART LEARNING” When I catch a word I put it down. They do not stay long enough for me to get used to any one person. [...]. Made an experiment in getting out a written language for the Miao.75

Thus, even before he had himself learnt the language well, he made a first draft of the A-Hmao script in his diary (cf. below, pp. 166-9). He mentioned that his principal helper was the Chinese minister Stephen Lee, who also started to learn the A-Hmao language when the A-Hmao enquirers started

p. 10.72 Zhang Youlun, personal communication, Weining, 20 Nov. 1990.B The total number of A-Hmao was estimated to about 50,000 by W H Hudspeth in 1937. Cf. W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, p. 10.* Microfiche no. 1322, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche. This and subsequent materials from die Methodist Missionary Society Archives at SOAS are published by permission from the Overseas Division of the Methodist Missionary Society, London.75 Microfiche no. 1323, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.

104

to come to Zhaotong. As the A-Hmao had no writing, Pollard, in principle, had three alternatives:

• 1. To teach the A-Hmao to read Chinese.• 2. To provide a romanised version of the scriptures, either in Chinese or A-Hmao.• 3. To invent a special script for the A-Hmao language.

In the ‘Miao Report for 1904’, dated Zhaotong, Jan. 1905, Pollard wrote:

Thousands of books have been sold to the Miao. Unfortunately they are all in Chinese. Miao learning Chinese books is just as difficult as London dockers in a mass learning Greek. Who would think of beginning mission among the dockers by teaching them Greek all round? The Miao lost their written language many centuries ago. When crossing a river the books fell into the water and were swallowed by a fish. [...]. The drama was apparendy one of a single act, for as far as we know the fish never restored the books again. In default Mr Stephen Lee and I are attempting to reduce the Miao language to a simple system of writing. The attempt may succeed or it may end in not a dead but a still-bom language.76

76 S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1904’, (1905).77 RE Kendall (ed.), Eyes of the Earth, The Diary of Samuel Pollard, 1954, p. 76.

Already before Pollard devised his writing system, there were rumours about the missionaries’ magic influence on the ability to read (in this case Chinese characters). Pollard wrote in his diary on September 4, 1904: ‘One of the rumours is that when the Miao come into the city I put a drop of water into their mouths and then they can read splendidly.* 77 As the Miao kept coming in greater numbers to Zhaotong the authorities became worried and there were also rumours of a planned rebellion of the Miao, so Pollard had to go to Weining in order to arrange a proclamation about the protection of Christians.

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Map of the Stone Gateway Mission Area

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106

Stone Gateway

In 1905 Pollard moved from Zhaotong to the A-Hmao area in northwest Guizhou. In March 1905 a Yi landlord, An-yung-cher [An Rongzhi], who had become interested in Christianity, gave about ten acres of land to the mission at a place called [mau54 li21 na21] in A-Hmao, Shimenkan iX in Chinese and Stone Gateway in English, about 35 kilometers east of Zhaotong. This place was situated near the road from Zhaotong to Zherudong

and had good supplies of coal and water.

78 Chinese name: Zhang Daohui79 Wang Xingzhong, Ming Guang, ‘Weining Shimenkan Guanghua xiaoxue xiaoshi genggai’, [1987], p. 35. Wang Xingzhong and Ming Guang also give a list of the first year students (on p. 34), and there we find Yang Yage Zhang Wu Zhang Yuehan Wang Shengmo Wang Daoyuan Zhu YuehanZhu Bide Zhang Matai etc.® Yang Mingguang, ‘Jidujiao Xundao gonghui chuanru Weining diqu shilüe’, 1987, p.ll.

In 1905 Rev Harry Parsons,78 who had previously been stationed at Dongchuan MJII in Yunnan Province, and his wife came to Stone Gateway where they were to stay until their furlough in 1911. Parsons started building a church, while his wife learnt A-Hmao and started working among the women. In the autumn of 1905 an elementary school was built at Stone Gateway and the first group of students started in 1906. Many of the students who started attending school in 1906 were later appointed as preachers in Huize (then called Dongchuan ÄJU), Xundian Sapushan |JL| (in Wuding County Zhenxiong, Weixin and Yongshan in Yunnan, and in Junlian and Gong County in Sichuan.79 The teachers were Chinese Christians from Zhaotong, Zhong Huanran and others. They taught Chinese and also the newly devised A-Hmao writing.80

The First Books in A-Hmao

In 1905 publishing was started in A-Hmao. In his ‘Miao Report, 1905’, dated Nov. 1905, Pollard wrote:

Considerable progress has been made in translation work, and the simple system of writing introduced has met with much favour from the Miao. It seems likely to answer its purpose. In our need we found a friend indeed. The Rev. J. Endicott, head of the great Canadian Mission press in Chentu [sic!], capital of Szchuan [sic!], readily got men to cut the blocks needed for the new books, and took great pains in bringing out the first Miao primer. An edition of 1,000 copies went off at once, and another edition is on its way. A second primer, containing half a dozen hymns, the ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and outlines of the life of Christ, is in the

io?

press. A start has been made with Mark’s Gospel, and before long we hope that a part of this will be in the hands of the Miao. We expect that the British and Foreign Bible Society will assist in this work. The Hon’s share of this translation work has been done by Mr Stephen Lee. Bro. Lee has been a true helper this year, and has won the confidence of these tribesmen to a great extent. It is hoped to print an edition of hymns in Miao.81

81 S Pollard, ‘Miao Report, 1905’, [1906], p. 31. The report was dated ‘Chao Tong. November 1905’.82 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, unpubl. ms., p. 1. Dated ‘Chaotung, via Chungking, April 10 [1906]’. This and subsequent BSL materials are reproduced by permission of Bible Society’s Library at Cambridge University Library.® W A Grist, ‘The Gospel for the Miao’, (1938), pp. 135-7.84 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, unpubl. ms., pp. 1-4.® Ibid, p. 1. Dated Shanghai, 21 Aug. 1906.

On the cover page of the two primers three authors are mentioned: Bo Geli, Li Sitifan and Zhang Yuehan fàfëH, i.e. SamuelPollard, Stephen Lee and John Chang.

In a letter dated Zhaotong April 10, 1906 Pollard mentioned that there were two more books for which blocks were being cut, the above-mentioned hymn-book and in addition one about the OT.82

In 1905 Pollard started translating St Mark together with Stephen Lee and the Miao evangelist Yang Yage (in English texts referred to either as Yah-ko or as James Yang). Pollard’s translation method was to paraphrase the text, then with his helpers, the paraphrase was turned into colloquial Miao. When he was satisfied he wrote it down in Pollard script. It was thus no word to word translation, and this fact probably accounts for a part of the difference in success of the mission among the A-Hmao as opposed to that among the Hmu (cf. below, p. 221).

Grist, writing in 1938, stated that the specialists at the BFBS were not very happy with Pollard’s new system, and even proposed that he should use Burmese letters if he considered Latin letters to be unsuitable.83 In the mission archives, however, we can follow the gradual acceptance of the Pollard script.84 In the reports written by G H Bondfield, the BFBS representative in Shanghai, several letters by Pollard are quoted:

Mr. Pollard writes:-“It is quite possible later on to turn our system into Romanised, when there is a successful Romanised system in use which will solve the tone difficulty.”®

It appears that the script itself was no matter of principle for Pollard, at least not in the discussions with the BFBS. In the same report Bondfield continued:

You will observe (a) that Mr. Pollard is using his special script without any difficulty, and that it is meeting an immediate demand. (6) That there is urgent need for a Gospel

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immediately. Considerably over 1,000 Miaos have now been baptised and are under instruction. They must have books, (c) Mr. Pollard contemplates the possibility of turning his present script into Roman letters at a later period. Mr. Amundsen has recently visited Mr. Pollard and writes: [...] [Mr. Pollard’s system of writing] is an adaption of Braille, Pitman and Roman signs, [...] I [Amundsen] agreed that his system might give the people less initial work, but that after they had learned it, they would have nothing in common with the rest of the world [...]. Mr. P. allowed that in the long run they would have to leam Chinese [...]. Mr. P. would probably not want more scriptures issued in his character. A Hwa Miao Testament should be in Romanised.85 *

85 Ibid, p. 1. Dated Shanghai, 21 Aug. 1906.87 Ibid, p. 2. Dated Shanghai, 21 Aug. 1906.88 Ibid, p. 2. Dated Shanghai, 21 Aug. 1906.89 Ibid. Dated 6 March 1908.90 A more thorough discussion of this myth appears in part IV.

Bondfield ended the report by proposing:

Would it not be wise at once to sanction the printing of Mark, with a rider that before a second Gospel is printed the question of script shall be gone into?87

In July 1906 the BFBS decided to use a special donation of ^90 for covering the expenses for publishing 5,000 copies of St Mark,88 and in 1907 St Mark was published in Pollard script, printed from wooden blocks. In the China Agency Report 1907 Bondfield wrote:

Mr. Bondfield has encouraged him [Pollard] to ask the Com[mittee] for assistance in obtaining a font of script in his type. Much space will be economised by type and this is essential if the N.T. and ultimately a complete Bible are to be published. [...] It seems as though his special script had come to stay. The Hwa Miao leam it rapidly and use it with great readiness. This is its justification; and if the C.I.M. missionaries also use it, the question will be settled for a long time to come.89

In spite of the initial hesitation the opponents had to accept the popularity of the script among the A-Hmao. Hudspeth describes how the writing myth, the first part of which was mentioned already in Pollard’s ‘Miao Report 1904’, influenced the A-Hmao to accept the script:90

Before the Pollard script, books and a library were unknown. The great majority of these tribesmen had never handled even a sheet of writing paper or a pen. They had heard that once upon a time there were books; a tribal legend described how long, long ago the Miao lived on the north side of the Yangtze River, but the conquering Chinese came and drove them from their land and homes. Coming to the river and possessing no boats they debated what should be done with the books and in the end they strapped them to their shoulders and swam across, but the water ran so swiftly and the river was so wide, that the books were washed away and fishes swallowed

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them. This was the story. When the British and Foreign Bible Society sent the first Gospels and these were distributed the legend grew - the once-upon-a-time lost books had been found, found in the white man’s country, and they told the incomparable story that Jesus loved the Miao. Only the imagination can conceive what this meant to those hillmen; some of whom travelled for days to view the books. The establishment of schools brought light and understanding to the minds of both boys and girls; fathers would undertake all the work in their fields so that a son might be free to study; and mothers carrying supplies to their boys at school would trudge weary miles over hills and mountains.91 * *

91 WH Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, pp. 38-9.® Mi-ri-keo (Mi’ergou UUüSill) in Chinese and /içau54 nhi54 lu54/ in A-Hmao.98 Chang Hai-tzi (Changhaizi ^^?) in Chinese and /ipau54 a55"21 ri54"21 ti54/ in A-Hmao.94 Yaodianzi ggJST in Chinese and /rnau54 li54 zu54/ in A-Hmao.95 Ta ping-tzi (Dapingzi ) in Chinese and /ipau54 a55-21 dy21 / in A-Hmao.95 Cf. S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, unpubl. ms. Dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907.97 S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, (dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907), unpubl. ms.

Development of the Mission

In 1906 out-stations were established at Rice-Ear-Valley in Yiliang County in Yunnan,® 50 kilometers north of Stone Gateway, and at Long

Sea in Weining County.® In 1907 Pollard wrote that Sunday services were also held at Halfway House in Yiliang county,94 Great Level in Yongshan County,® and several other places.95 *

In 1906 A G Nicholls from the CIM in Yunnan came to Stone Gateway to learn A-Hmao in order to work with the A-Hmao at Sapushan in Wuding (cf. below, p 114). In 1907 the big chapel at Stone Gateway was opened. In his ‘Miao report for 1907’ Pollard wrote under the heading ‘What is needed*:

1. Sufficient Foreign (i.e. missionary) Control of the whole field [...].2. [...] the assistance of good Chinese co-workers.3. A large band of Miao trained preachers is needed. Only by them can the work be efficiently & permanently done.4. A literature including the New Testament in the vernacular.5. Schools in Chinese for children that they may have access to the great mass of Xian [Christian] literature which exists in the Chinese language wh.. [which] in turn they can give to their people in Miao.6. A training school for native teachers & Preachers under efficient foreign leadership.7. A small printing Press for the issue of Local Publications such as magazines. Gospel tracts. Plans &c &C.97

Apart from the first edition of St Mark mentioned above there were a few

no

more books published in 1907 and 1908. A third primer was printed in 1907 and in 1908 St John, a Catechism, a New Hymn Book and an almanac were published.98

98 Cf. S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, (dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907), unpubl. ms.w BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, unpubl. ms., p. 2. China Agency Report 1907.,0° Letter from R K Parsons, 14 May 1993.101 On the title page 1910 is indicated as year of publishing.102 Chinese names Wang Shude ZEWfêl and Wang Huimin ZEUS.103 Tianshengqiao in Chinese and /mau54 Id’au22/ in A-Hmao.104 Charles Stedeford (1864-1953) was the Foreign Missions Secretary of the Bible Christian Mission 1904-8 and from 1909-33 the Missions Secretary of the United Methodist Mission.

In 1907 the Bible Christians, the Methodist New Connexion and the United Methodist Free churches united and formed the United Methodist Church, and correspondingly the United Methodist Mission (xundao gonghui

During 1908-10 Pollard was on furlough, and the mission was run by Parsons. Before leaving, Pollard had told the BFBS at Shanghai that no translation work was to be done during his absence,99 but together with some A-Hmao teachers Parsons translated the Book of Jonah. It was, however, never printed, as Pollard, upon his return, said that since Parsons had neither Greek nor Hebrew he was not qualified to do translation work.100

In 1909 a second edition of St Mark was printed in Yokohama with type produced in London.101 When Pollard returned to Stone Gateway in 1910 he was joined by William H Hudspeth,102 who had heard Pollard at a meeting in Sheffield, and had become interested in the Miao mission.

The mission expanded and out-stations were established in Great Level, Halfway House and Heavenbom Bridge103. The chapels erected also served as schools. Some of these out-stations were located very near Gebu. It was probably at this time that the relations between Adam and Pollard became a bit strained, perhaps pardy due to Adam’s continued use of a romanized A-Hmao writing, which Pollard considered to be very deficient, (cf. above, pp. 97-9, and below, pp. 161-2).

In a letter written in Nov. 1910 to Mr Stedeford, the Mission Secretary of the United Methodist Mission,104 Pollard described the 9 districts of the Stone Gateway area and the preachers appointed to them:

A.Hmao-li-na (Stone Gateway)Hmao-cheh-peh, Hmao-fàh-leh (James Yang [Yang Yage Wang shen mo, Wang chi tien)

B.Hmao-kao [Heavenbom Bridge]Hmao-fah-tu, Hmao-ah-kee-kao, Hmao-chee-nchioh (Thomas Chu)

m

c.Hmao-ah-ye-tee (Long Sea)Hmao-na chee, Hmao [?] ka, Hmao kee yang, Hmao ka zao, Hmao tu mu or Hmao sa ku (Philip Chou, Silas Wang [Wang Xila ïffiëZ])

D.Hmao pu ka [IPA [mau54 pu* gfiaa], Chinese Luobujia

105 Microfiche no 1301, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.106 Microfiche no 1302, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfche.107 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, unpubl. ms., p. 4. Dated Shanghai, 28 June and 10 July 1912.

Hmao ah nie [ipau54 a55-2’ rVfie21], Hmao ko tu, Hmao ntchang qeh (Peter Chu [Zhu Bide

E.Hmao lee you (Half way house)Hmao ah vao tee

F.Hmao niu lu (Rice ear valley)Hmao ah nieh zo, Hmao pee chu, Hmao keh meh, Hmao ko va (John Chang [Zhang Yuehan], Wang shiao)

G. Hmao lee heh ntchang [IPA [ipau li22 yfia22 qclfiaui22], Chinese Luoweiba Hmao ntchang ko tu (Han yoh) (G. and F. to be worked together)

54

H. Hmao ah dee (great level)Hmao peh, Hmao gee (Matthew Chang [Zhang Matai and Yang shu [YangXiu fê^])

I.Hmao ah tsa cleh [ipau54 a55-22 tsa22 nd^ie21]Hmao tso lo, Hmao tee cheh (Chang kao [Zhang Gao SM®]).’05

In 1911 Parsons left Stone Gateway on forlough and when he returned in 1913 he was appointed to Dongchuan MJH (Huize ^i^), mainly because of a conflict with Pollard about the organizadon of the Miao work. In April 1912 Pollard reported 355 full members, 1,100 on trial, 418 day scholars, 1,240 Sunday scholars and 8 chapels.105 106

The translation work was continued and St Matthew was printed in Yokohama in 1912. Bondfield, the BFBS secretary in Shanghai, however, wrote that Pollard and the other missionaries at Stone Gateway did not plan to translate the whole NT, as the Miao Christians would learn Chinese.107 Nothing in the writings of the missionaries, however, reveals such a possibility.

The discussion about the use of the Pollard script went on, and in a note to the committee of the BFBS we can read:

Some time ago Dr. Bondfield sent a copy of the Edit. Supt.’s [Editorial Superintendanfs] remarks on the inadvisability and disadvantage of continuing to print the Scriptures in Mr. Pollard's system to the missionaries of the C.I.M. and the United Methodist Mission working among the aboriginal tribes of Yunnan. He now forwards copies of

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the replies received from these two Missions, signed in the one case by the Revs. G. Porteous, G. E. Metcalf and A. G. Nicholls, and in the other case by the Revs. S. Pollard and W. N. Hudspeth. On the grounds that the Pollard system answers its purpose, that the workers of the Kweichow Province (especially Mr. Adam) will not unite with the Yunnan workers, that several books which the B.F.B.S. has thus far printed (amounting to over 40,000 copies) have been sold and are now in use, that the cost of production is now reduced to that of books in roman character, that the type has been modified so as to economize space, that there already are some 25,000 or 30,000 readers, that neither missionaries nor natives have time to begin teaching all over again, that the knowledge of this system is but a stepping-stone to the learning of Chinese, and that the refusal of the B.F.B.S. to supply Scriptures will be sure to lead either to the appeals to other Bible Societies or to a direct appeal to the Christian public through the newspaper, - on these grounds - Dr. Bondfield ventures tö urge the Committee to continue to print the Gospels in the Pollard system and to proceed to supply the remaining books of the N.T. when they are required.IX. Resolved to recommend that the Committee are prepared for the present to continue the publication of editions in the Pollard system.108

108 M, p. 4. Dated Shanghai, 24 Sept. 1912.109 Ibid. Written by T D Begg. Dated Shanghai, 22 Dec. 1915.110 Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miaot 1937.111 H B Rattenbury, Advance in South-west China, 1943, p. 5. Rev Rattenbury was then the China secretary of the British Methodist Church. He had earlier been at Hankou and had visited Zhaotong in 1933-4.112 W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, p. 41.

On September 15,1915, Pollard died from typhoid fever. Rev A G Nicholls, a CIM missionary working with the A-Hmao in Yunnan reported that:

[...] about a month before his death Mr. Pollard sent him [Nicholls] the completed translation of the remaining books of the N.T. for criticism and revision. It was one of Mr. Pollard’s dearest wishes to give the Miao the whole N.T. in their own language.109

According to Hudspeth there were more than 10,000 Christians in the area at the time of Pollard’s death.110 111 112 Rattenbury, writing in 1943, estimated the number of Christians at the time of Pollard’s death as 5,000.ni However, some years earlier, the enormous interest in Christianity had somewhat declined, and this was referred to by Hudspeth. He also wrote: ‘After Pollard’s death there was a recrudescence of drunkenness, immorality and superstition [...]*. 1,2

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CIM Mission in Yunnan Province before 1915

The early CIM mission in Yunnan had been focused mainly on the Chinese, but in 1906 a movement similar to that among the A-Hmao in Guizhou started among the A-Hmao in Yunnan. Arthur G Nicholls,113 who played a role similar to that of Adam and Pollard, though for a much longer time, wrote a history of this Miao mission in 1946, a manuscript which has not been published. Nicholls had come to China in 1894 and had spent most of the time at Kunming. In his study he described how the movement started:

113 Chinese name: Guo Xiufeng114 AG Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan, without title), dated 1946, p. 10.115 Microfiche no. 1325, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives.

At the beginning of 1906 two Miao, one a leper, set out from Sapuskan, a village three days north of Kunming [...J. A village where just a few families of “uncouth Miao dogs,” so the local Chinese would inform you, lived. They had heard that hundreds of their fellow tribesmen in Kweichow were seeking the Heavenly Father and JESUS the Saviour, so [they] made their preparations and with the good wishes of their friends took 15 days walk to see what it was all about, and perhaps the leper could find healing. Arriving at Chaotung city they met and conversed with S. Pollard and Dr. Savin, nothing could be done for the leper, but these good men told them of JESUS the Mighty Saviour, and they believed. [...] The men were advised to return, but not before they extracted a promise that a missionary would be sent. [...] The LORD found a man glad and willing to GO, so in June of that year, “willing in the day of THY power” the writer was at Stone-gateway, the Miao headquarters, learning the language, getting acquainted with the people.114 115

In September 1906, Pollard wrote in his diary: ‘At midday we said goodbye to the missionaries who leave on Wed. with Mr. Nicholls. They are Chu To-ma Wang Tao-üen Wang Teh-tao & Wangsheng-mo

A lengthy report about the missionary success among the A-Hmao in Yunnan appeared in the CIM yearbook for 1907. It was written by the CIM superintendent for Yunnan, John McCarthy:

[...] work among the Hwa Miao in the Wutingchow district in the north of the province. Mr. Nicholls has been able to make a good beginning in the acquisition of the language of these interesting people. [...] these people being of the same clan and language as those among whom he had been with Mr. Pollard, their forbears some seventy years ago having emigrated from the one province to the other.

When the Hwa Miao Christians at Shihmingkan [i.e. Shimenkan=Stone Gateway] in Kweichow heard Mr. Nicholls’s intention to work among their friends in Yunnan, four of Mr. Pollard’s preachers volunteered to go with him, the Church of these

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aborigines undertaking to support them as missionaries until such time as native preachers should be raised up among the Wutingchow Hwa Miao themselves.

Mr. Nicholls has received a warm welcome in the Wutingchow district, and it would appear as though the people were turning en masse towards the light, needing only instruction in the things of God. In many cases he found that before his arrival they had abandoned some of their sinful habits and were seeking to live more upright lives.

Representatives of between fifty and sixty villages have called upon Mr. Nicholls, who is now overwhelmed by the opportunities. Their language has been reduced to writing by Mr. Pollard, who has prepared two or three books, a hymn book, and a translation of the Gospel of Mark, in this new script.

These people are indefatigable students and make remarkable progress, the general difficulty being to provide them with sufficient literature. The women also in many cases are even brighter than the men and just as anxious to leam. The people evidently feel that the whole household should serve the Lord.

In the following year the yearbook reported that no A-Hmao at Sapushan ® eflll,116 a village nine kilometers from Wutingchow which became the actual mission centre, had been baptized yet, because the missionaries thought it best to postpone the baptisms.117 In 1908 no Miao were baptized either. About Christmas time 1909, however, 473 Flowery Miao were baptized and the yearbook reported:

116 Called /ipau54 saa phu44 §a*/ in A-Hmao.117 ‘The Province of Yunnan’, 1908, pp. 68-9.118 ‘Sapushan*, 1910, p. 74.119 A G Nicholls, ‘Advance Among the Aborigines’, (1910), pp. 4-6.

The examination of the cadidates for baptism extended over a period of three months, and it is good to know that all but the oldest of those baptized can read the Gospel of Mark in the Hua Miao version.118

In 1910 Nicholls wrote:

Just now we have four districts where we go to meet the Miao - Luh K’üen [Luquan Mo-lien Hsiang, Fangchow [fSM], and over the river. All these centres are capable of extension, and 1 shouldn’t be surprised if the work spreads into SZECHWAN proper. In fact, there are indications already that this is so, for the Lesu spread the news. On the last day of the second moon, a number of Miao leaders came to Sapushan, and stayed for two days.

[...] The preachers left for Taopuchu, the Miao out-station of Tongchwan [Dongchuan MB I], where they will spend a few days, then proceed to Shïmank’an [Shimenkan = Stone Gateway].

I am spending to-day with them, [in the chapel in Pakia, a sub-out-station] and am writing in a hut surrounded by young and old studying, some Chinese Gospels, others the Gospel of John in the Miao dialect.119

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In a report from a stay at Sapuskan in the early summer of 1910, J McCarthy wrote:

There are about one hundred and ten villages in the whole district. Services are held every evening in all the villages. Where villages are too far from Chapel centres the Christians meet in some house. The Miao and Le-su tribes have Scripture portions, and morning texts for each day, in their own language. These are used by the leaders at the prayer meetings. There are six hundred Church members, and about three thousand catechumens - most of them living in Christian homes.’20

In 1911 1,000 Flowery Miao met regularly in 14 different chapels at Sapuskan and its out-stations.121 In 1912 Nicholls went to Japan to have the Gospel texts printed for A-Hmao, Lesu [Lisu] and Laka [Gan Yi] :

Last year we had three Gospels, one each for Miao, Lesu and Laka, translated and ready for Press, but as it would take such a long time - about two years to correct proofs, &c. - the B. & F. Bible Society asked me to go to Japan, where the Gospels are being printed, and correct the proofs there. I left Sap’ushan in March, and went via Haiphong and Hongkong to Shanghai, then on to Yokohama, as I had no time to loose. [...] The firm printing the Gospels in Japan is a Christian one. They print in quite a number of languages. Ours is a new type and not easy to set up; however, they put on all speed, and three weeks was sufficient. [...] Our Gospels will be along in July, I hope.’22

In 1913 ten A-Hmao were baptized at Sapuskan.123 In 1914 an edition of 10,000 hymn books in A-Hmao were sent from Shanghai to Yunnan.124 For 1915 the CIM yearbook stated:

One thousand and thirty-nine Miao have been baptized, and last year a training school for teachers and preachers was opened, in which there are representatives from six tribes. They are rejoicing in a new portion of Scripture, the Acts of the Apostles.’25

120 J McCarthy, ‘Encouraging Progress among the Aborigines of Yunnan’, (1911), p. 2.,2‘ ‘Sapushan’, 1912, p. 78.122 ‘Extracts from Recent Letters: Mr. A. G. Nicholls’, (1912), p. 52.123 ‘Sapushan’, 1914, p. 90.124 ‘The Province of Yunnan’, 1915, facing p. 29.125 ‘Yunnan, 1916, p. 37.*

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CIM Mission among the Hmu before 1912

Early mission among the Hmu

Samuel R Clarke commenced work among the Miao in 1895, while in charge of the mission station at Guiyang, the capital of the Guizhou Province. Clarke was asked to start work among the aboriginal tribes and as he knew a Hmu Christian in Guiyang, Pan Xiushan he asked him for teachingin the Hmu dialect. He reported on this in China’s Millions:

I have written out a Miao vocabulary of about sixteen hundred words, and I am also making an English-Miao vocabulary. I have written down, revised and toned seventeen Miao stories, as told me by the teacher. These stories take about eighty pages of an ordinary exercise book. As there is no written language they are in the common language of the people, and will be a great help to any future students of the language.126 127

126 In Chinese sources sometimes referred to as Pan Shoushan He was fromBaiji Village in Huangpiao Township (Huangping County) ÔIEfà.127 SR Clarke, ‘Miao Studies’, (1895), p. 148.128 It has not been possible to find extant copies of any of diese. Cf. S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p. 142.129 Their Chinese family name was Wei $1.130 Before 1949 this county belonged to Duyun Fu During the Republic thename of the county was changed to Lushan County and after 1949 it became a district K in Kaili County (now changed to Raili City) There is someconfusion about the name of the mission station in the Western literature, so an explanation may be useful. D MacGillivray {A Century of Missions in China, 1807-1907, 1907) indicated: ‘also called Pangxie fê®’. M H Hutton wrote in ‘A Prodigal’s Return’, (1936, p. 75): ‘Pangsieh (or, as formerly designated, Panghai)’. In all CIM materials available to us the Chinese characters used are the same, they mean ‘crab’ and are to be pronounced [paq^cie51] (Pinyin: pângxiè) in Mandarin. In the Guizhou dialect, however,

In July 1896 a primer was compiled for students of the Hmu dialect, and Clarke and Pan also translated a catechism, some tracts, and several hymns.128

Panghai

During the same time Mr and Mrs Webb of the CIM in Guiyang started to study Hmu and went to the Hmu district, i.e. the southeastern part of the province.129 They established the mission at Houchang middle village, by the Qingshui River, just across the Chinese township centre, Panghai, in Qingping County ?W¥^-130 Webb preached to them in Chinese, and Pan

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preached in Hmu. S R Clarke also joined them for some time. In the following year, 1897, the Webbs left Panghai due to illness, and were replaced by a Mr Bolton. He reported on the anti-foreign sentiments in the area in an article published in 1899:

In an anti-foreign Chinese town, 45 1i distant, K’ai-li, the district from which these [Hmu] friends come, there has been a movement on foot to come to Panghai, and kill me and loot the house.131

Pan was still at Panghai, and acted both as preacher and interpreter. A school was opened and this is described by Clarke:

When we opened a school at Panghai some years ago, and offered to teach the scholars to write their own language in the Roman script, the parents would not consent, but wished their children to learn to read and write Chinese. Their way of looking at the matter is not hard to understand. What writing they have to do must be done for them in Chinese. Any Miao who can read and write passably may easily make his living among his neighbours by doing their reading and writing for them. All proclamations and official notifications, all pleas and counter-pleas in law cases have to be written in Chinese.132

In an article in Chinat Millions from 1903 he reported that ‘A Primer and dictionaries have been made of their dialect; a catechism, tract, and the Gospel of Matthew have been translated into it.’133 This is the only reference found to a translation of St Matthew before 1928, and no extant copies have been found. Probably it existed only in manuscript form, and perhaps in the same kind of spelling as used for the ‘chungchia’ [zhongjia], a Kam-Dai people living in Guizhou, now called Buyi. In Clarke’s article from 1895 he noted that he had ‘written down, revised and toned seventeen Miao stories’, and the tone marking system could perhaps have been the same as used for the 1904 Gospel of Matthew in ‘Chung Chia vernacular’.134 In the Buyi writing, all the diacritics which appear in various constellations are not necessarily tone markers, but eight or nine tones appear to be indicated in this way. The Buyi language has eight tones, six basic tones and two additional tones, but in an article from 1904 Clarke wrote that it had six

the latter syllable is pronounced [hai13]. The Miao name for the village is Bangx Hat [paq® ha44]. In the missionary writings Panghai (or Pangsieh) refers both to the whole district and to the village (now called Houchang zhongcun The modemPanghai, on the Kaili side of the Qingshuijiang River, is administratively a township and thus called Panghai Zhen with different characters being used.131 ‘The Provinces’, (1899), p. 10.132 S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911.133 S R Clarke, ‘The Aborigines of Kwei=chau, (1903), p. 47.*134 FÙ in Ma-tai, 1904.

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tones.135 This is, however, merely a speculation as no Hmu text with this kind of tone marking has hitherto been found.

135 S R Clarke, ‘The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province’, (1904), p. 206.136 Chinese name: Ming Jianguang ^3^.137 Chong’anjiang was then a township (zhen Ä) of Huangping Zhou in Zhenyuan Prefecture g&tâftWI.138 Shao Yusheng, ‘Xu Wujin sha yangren’, 1986, pp. 109-11.139 Du Guangyan, ‘Chong’an jiaoan’, [1985], pp. 1-6.140 SR Clarke, ‘The Aborigines of Kwei=chau’, (1903), p. 47.

The Murder of William S Fleming

In October 1898 W S Fleming136 137 took over after Bolton, who went to Guiyang to rest. This was at the time of dowager empress Ci Xi’s coup d’etat, and anti-foreign forces were strengthened. As a result, after the village was looted and burnt, Fleming left for Guiyang on November 4th, accompanied by the Hmu evangelist Pan Xiushan. On the way they were murdered in a nearby village, Chong’anjiang by Chinese opposed to the mission.Although the hired murderer and his employer were subsequently caught and executed by the Chinese authorities, the missionaries had been frightened away, and for some years there was no resident missionary at Panghai.138 There is an interesting account of this event from the Chinese point of view with a detailed, but far-fetched, justification for the murder.139 140

Reestablishing the Panghai Mission

In 1899 J R Adam bought land for a Mission house at Panghai, and made a tour in the Hmu area. However, in the year 1900 the Boxer Rising broke out and Kaili was looted by the rebels. For some reason the local Christians were blamed for this, and 34 of them were executed and a hundred were fined. In spite of this, there were quite a few people interested in Christianity when S R Clarke visited the area in 1903. He wrote:

Altogether, about two hundred families from different villages gave in their names for Christian baptism. It is quite possible that many of these do not clearly understand what Christianity is, but it is very encouraging to find these people so ready to receive the missionary and so willing to be taught.

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Map of the Panghai Mission Area

ZH&jyuAjJ o

lOkw 20 km —I________ I________ i________ I

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In June 1904 C Chenery from England settled in Panghai, but in April 1905, he fell into the river by accident and was drowned. Later on in the same year R Williams, who had earlier worked in Yunnan, took charge of Panghai and built a new mission-house.

The 1907 CIM yearbook reported that there were five church members and about 60 persons interested in Christianity. The average attendance at the services in Panghai was about twenty, and regular services were also held in Nanhwa [Langhua IßTE ?]!41 In 1907 Williams for health reasons could not stay on, but the station was nevertheless visited by other missionaries from time to time, both by Clarke and by the American Crofts at Zhenyuan.141 142

141 ‘Panghai’, 1907, p. 80.142 ‘The Province of Kweichow’, 1908, pp. 64-5.143 ‘Panghai’, 1911, p. 72.

Robert Powell

In January 1909, Robert Powell from Australia was assigned to go to Panghai. In 1909 he and his wife arrived and started to study the Hmu language, but apparently they did not spend the whole time in Panghai. About the year 1910 the CIM yearbook stated:

The work of the last year shows a little encouragement. [...] Seven or eight have asked for baptism,,(...] Farther down the river, the workers have come into touch with another tribe, - the Tongkia [Dong 4B], - as large, if not larger, than the Heh Miao.143

During the first half of 1912 the Powells had to leave due to the revolution.

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CIM in Guizhou after 1915

Changes after Adam’s Death

Isaac Page, who took over after Adam’s death, soon made some significant changes in the work. In 1917 Gebu was made a mission station, having eariier been an out-station of Anshun, and Page moved there, making Gebu the centre for the CIM Miao mission in northwest Guizhou. He also abolished Adam’s romanized A-Hmao writing and in 1918 the National Bible Society of Scotland took a decision about the future of Adam’s script:

In deference to the opinion of the majority of missionaries in Yunnan and Kweichow, the N.B.S.S. has decided not to proceed with the publication of Hwa Miao Scriptures in roman character, but to apply the money held for that purpose to the purchase and circulation of copies in the Pollard script as printed by the B.F.B.S.144

144 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, unpubl. ms., p. 4. Written by J Murray, dated Glasgow, Nov. 18, 1918.145 Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefàng qian Gebu jiaohui shi’ [1985], p. 14. He called the teacher Yang Rongxian i.e. probably Yang Rongxin (cf. below, p. 130).146 The Pollard script was also used by the Seventh Day Adventists (ânxifihui B^) in this area after 1931. Cf. Li Defing, ‘Ershi shiji chuqi diandongbei miaoyu fângyanqu de miaowen’, (1981), pp. 68-70.147 J Yorkston’s Chinese name was Yue Keguo The surname is indicated as Yue Ä by Wang Mingdao. Cf. Wang Mingdao, ‘Jiefàng qian Gebu jiaohui shi’, [1985], p. 15.148 N Baker’s Chinese name was Bei Erke149 Chinese name: Wen Daocheng150 The hymn book, referred to as Songzhu shengge by Zhang Chengyao,contained more than 80 hymns and a supplement with prayers and was published in Kunming. Cf. Zhang Chengyao, ‘Jidujiao neidihui chuanru Bijie diqu de lishi qingkuang’,

According to Wang Mingdao, writing in 1985, Page invited a teacher from Stone Gateway to Gebu to teach Pollard script.145 No references indicate that Adam’s writing was used afterwards in any A-Hmao area.146

During the famine of 1919 Page managed to get support from abroad, which improved the conditions of the Christians to some extent. In 1920 Page and his wife left China.

In 1920 J Yorkston and his wife took charge of Gebu.147 They were helped by Norman Baker and his wife.148 Soon Yorkston and Baker started working with the Yi from Jiegou established as a proper station in 1922. In 1921 W G Windsor arrived in Jiegou and he,149 together with three Yi Christians, used National Phonetic Script letters to translate a Yi hymn book.150 In 1922 (or early 1923) Gebu was visited by a person who

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later wrote an article about the mission station there, where he was welcomed by the Yorkstons. He wrote:

Near to the house [the missionaries' Canadian bungalow] is a church, built for the Miao, in which some five hundred people can be seated. [...] There are also preachers’ homes, rooms for guests and teachers, and a lower primary school where some good work is being done. This was evidenced by the smartness of the school children. But my interest was centred in a Bible school which was being held. Mr. Yorkston had called together some two hundred elders and deacons who were being drilled in the study of the first epistle of Peter.151

In 1923 the CIM launched the principle of self-support for the local churches, a principle similar to that adopted by the Methodists in 1932 (cf. below, p. 130) and by the Communist Regime of the PRC in September 1950.152

In 1924 Mrs Yorkston described a service at Dasongshu ÀfôW (Great Pine Tree) and mentioned that 700 people had been present and that she had held a talk in Miao.153 The missionary work was apparently carried out both in Miao and Chinese and in Gebu both Miao and Chinese were reported to be used at the services.154 Not much is mentioned in the articles in China’s Millions about the work among the Miao in the ’20s and ’30s. In 1926 Bijie was established as a separate station, where work was carried out by the Friedenshort Sisters, M C Welzel, W Jenner and D Heierle.155

In 1927 a civil war started and the British consul ordered all the missionaries to leave China. They travelled through Yunnan and French Indochina, and returned in the following year. In 1929 intense fighting in many parts of the province, involving both soldiers and robbers, stopped much of the missionary work.

In 1930 G P LaRue and his wife came to Gebu from Zunyi 1£Ü.156 When the missionary work was taken up again in the beginning of the 1930s, conflicts between various Protestant groups became apparent and in 1931, H L Taylor at the Guiyang mission station of the CIM wrote:

The Roman Catholics are numerically strong, but do not conflict with us. The Seventh Day Adventists are few in numbers. In all places where there are members they are using money and influence to get believers to go to them, and for the last two or three years have been a disturbing influence in our district. They accept all excommunicated members and enquirers after the briefest instruction about keeping

[1985], p. 9.151 Visitor, ‘A Visit to Kopu, Kweichow’, (1923), p. 41.152 Du Guangyan, ‘Jiefang yilai Guiyang jidujiao yanbian gaikuang’, (1981), p. 3.153 Mrs [J] Yorkston, ‘“Do You Really Like Going to Church?”’, (1924), p. 156.154 J Yorkston, ‘A Miao “Big Gathering’”, (1932), p. 185.155 ‘Kweichow’, 1929, p. 24.156 G P LaRue’s Chinese name was Liu Gusen

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Saturday and not eating pork, and give them a status as church members. They then use these through their knowledge of the Christians to seek out all to entice them away. Their members smoke and deal in the soul-destroying opium, and are not rebuked for it.157

157 H L Taylor, ‘The Work in Our District’, (1931), p. 126.158 Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, 1976, pp. 272-4.159 J H Robinson, ‘The Need of Kweichow’, (1933), p. 142.160 J H Robinson, ‘Mingled Sorrows and Joys in Kweichow’, (1936), p. 21.

Already in 1914 the Seventh Day adventists had started missionary work in southwest China. The Seventh-Day Adventist Encyclopedia relates the beginning of the mission:

For a number of years afterward [after 1914] [M C] Warren dircted the work there from his station and Chungking (Ch’ung-ch’ing), making journeys through Szechwan, Kweichow, Yünnan, and the Tibetan borderland.

On their tour to the western regions of China, [M C] Warren and Q N] Andrews came upon several people who had become interested in SDA doctrines through colporteurs. From among these people a Miao tribesman came to Chungking (Ch’ung- ch’ing) in 1919 and was there baptized, the first from that tribe.

In 1928 C.B. Miller and Dallas White opened the first station in the western province of Yünnan, in the city of K’unming. At the same time a station was opened at Kueiyang, in the neighboring Kweichow Province; [...].158

In 1933 the CIM superintendent for Guizhou, J H Robinson reported on the hard conditions in the province:

This province depends for finance on opium, and last year the opium trade was a failure, and this year the crop is poor. Thus the military have to call on the merchants and others for money for civil wars, and for purchasing equipment. We have had two civil wars recently, with a complete change of government each time, and each regime wanting huge sums of money. At present the defeated soldiers have turned to robbing, [...]. Among the Tribes of Kopu and Kiehkow districts there is famine, and the people are eating roots to eke out an existence.159

In 1935 the LaRues took over at Gebu after the Yorkstons, who left China.

After the Long March

During the Long March the CIM people at Gebu retired to Yunnan, where they stayed with the Methodists at Zhaotong. In 1936 J H Robinson wrote that there had been a change in the Guizhou government.160 He further wrote that the mission compounds were often used by government soldiers as barracks, so the things not stolen by the Communists were taken away by

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the government soldiers. Another description of the political and social developments in Guizhou appeared in 1938:

Three years ago the Central Government at Nanking appointed governors, who assumed control of provincial affairs; this brought civil war to an end and opened up the way for progress. Petty quarrels have been forgotten in the united allegiance to a central administration, and the province has become united for the first time. Geographically it is changing. Kweichow has been described as “a sea of mountains.” A few years ago there were no motor roads across these high mountains; travelling by sedan chair was slow and laborious, and goods carried on men’s shoulders became expensive through this method of transit. [...] Since the outbreak of hostilities thousands of refugees have taken up residence in Kweichow, which thus far had not suffered from the war. In addition, many high government officials have settled there. Two or more universities have moved their personnel from Shanghai to Kweiyang, the capital, and there are over 10,000 students already. Military training schools and a medical college are also established. This great influx of all strata of society cannot but affect the social life of the whole province.161

161 J A Austin, ‘Kweichow - A Changing Situation’, (1938), p. 169.162 R J R Butler, ‘The Lord’s Work is Cosdy’, (1948), p. 8.163 W J Michell, ‘Striking Developments in Kweichow’, (1940), p. 12.

In 1939 the Bible School at Gebu was founded. It was to function until 1949 with a two year break because of the Japanese invasion. In 1948 R J R Butler’s wife described this in an article in China’s Millions:

During the years that followed the advance of the Communist forces (1934-1936), the Tribal Christians were left to their own leadership for long periods. Being an emotional people, and possessing only the New Testament and a small hymn-book in their own language, few of them being able to read, and fewer to understand what they read, erroneous teaching crept in, which threatened the undoing of the whole Church. The local missionaries decided the only remedy lay in a Bible school for all the evangehsts and teachers of the district.162

The Bible school had 30-40 students every year, and altogether they studied for three years, 3-5 months each year.

Due to the advances of the Japanese forces many important colleges and universities were moved to the inland, and a lot of new people appeared in these areas. In 1940 W J Michell at Guiyang wrote:

With the establishment of the Central Government at Chungking, and the constant influx to the west of refugees from the war areas, the “back door” of China has now really been opened for the first time in the annals of Chinese history.163

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In 1940 Rowland Buder wrote:

Although the China Inland Mission has had the indigenous principle from the beginning, it was not until the missionary evacuation of 1926-27 that the Mission realised how few churches were able to stand alone. At that time, after long periods of conference and much prayer, the Mission restated in details its policy of establishing self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating churches. The task of encouraging churches which had been dependent on the foreign missionaries for years to change to the new order was very difficult.164

164 R Butler, ‘Teaching the Chinese Church to Shoulder Responsibility’, (1940), p. 187.165 Chinese name: Ai Wensi166 J H Kitchen, ‘Twelve Hundred Tribespeople at Summer Convention*, (1942), p. 7.167 Chinese name: Luo Weide jüfëfê.168 RJ Butler, ‘Evacuated!’, (1945), pp. 60-1.169 ‘Western Region’, (1946), p. 10.170 E W Norgate, ‘Bible School Work in Tribesland’, (1947), pp. 207-10.171 ‘Western Region’, (1947), p. 123.

In 1941 the LaRues were joined by the Australian missionary C G Edwards,165 who stayed until 1944. The indigenous principle seems to have been implemented to a great extent and in 1942 J H Kitchen wrote:

[At Gebu] All details of examination, baptism and Church government are in the hands of the local Church board, on which the missionary acts as an adviser rather than chairman.166

In 1943 the LaRues left Gebu and Norgate167 came to Gebu to work with Edwards. In the end of 1944 the Japanese advanced and the missionaries were evacuated from Guizhou.168

After the end of the war they returned. In the end of 1946 the Norgates went back to Gebu,169 and in 1947 they reported about the Bible School at Gebu with about twenty students. The school managers and teachers were all Miao.170 In August 1947 a meeting was held in Bijie to coordinate the work at Dading (now: Dafàng Gebu Jiegou Shuicheng zkfå and Bijie >15. The Austins moved to Gebu.171 The Guizhou report in the Field Bulletin for February 1948 contained news in the field of education:

The Kweichow Western District Church Association which was formed last August is due to meet again on January 21st, to accept the constitution and to plan for future work. The first project of the Lien Ho Hwei [lianhehui û#], the Hudson Taylor High School at Pichieh, has successfully completed its first term, and the Lord honoured their faith by providing for all financial needs. [...] The Committee of the Kweichow Tribes Bible Institute at Kopu has decided to revise the course of study in two years and to increase the duration of each term, so that students can graduate in

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two years instead of spreading the work over three years. The standard for entrance is also being raised. Prayer is required. Over twenty promising students are expected for the new term.172

172 ‘Western Region: Kweichow’, (1948), p. 30.173 I Neville, ‘A Nurse in Tribesland’, (1948), p. 15.174 R J R Butler, ‘The Lord’s Work is Costly’, (1948), p. 9.175 Zhang Zhihong, personal communication, Sapushan, 6 Aug. 1993.176 I Neville, ‘Working With The Kopu Church’, (1949), p. 15.177 CG Edwards, ‘Kweichow Tribal Report’, (1948), p. 195.

In 1948 Irene Neville at Gebu wrote:

Sitting at this table there are two Miao brethren working on a new hymn-book; they are copying out the Miao script for printing. It is a big job in these days, and we would ask prayer that it may be carried through soon. It is a great need, as the old book is falling to pieces. They don’t use them as we do at home, but carry them for miles to service, and use them every day in their homes. Some additions have been made, so that it contains 300 hymns; some of the new ones which we know will be very popular, are Wesley’s “And can it be,” and “In the Glory,” the opening hymn in Mr. Caink’s book. So far these people have only the New Testament in their own language, and it seems there is no one to work on the Old Testament; this is something else to pray about.173

Later, Yang [Yang Guoguang WIO], a former student of the Bible school who had later been invited to join the staff of the school went to Kunming to oversee the printing of the new A-Hmao hymn-book.174 In this book the Pollard script had been somewhat changed, as markers for voiced initials, in the form of semicircles, had been added, <j> for [b], <T> for [d] etc. This change was probably carried out by G P LaRue, who worked at Gebu 1935-43, beacuse he considered the script to be too inexact.175

In the following year Irene Neville reported that a ‘short school* had been started among the Small Flowery Miao, i.e. a Hmong group.176 In 1949 Norgate left Gebu and China.

That there were serious problems for the mission among the minority peoples in Guizhou is very clear from C G Edwards* ‘Kweichow Tribal Survey*, where we can read:

It is very sad to have to report these things, and I have not by any means exhausted the list; but I have written enough to indicate a very serious process of retrogression and decay, which if not soon arrested will, in many a Tribal district which in the past has been the focus of prayers and the scene of victories in the Lord’s Name, bring us back to our starting point again.177

He also described the problems connected with education in the Miao areas:

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A few years ago a movement was made to introduce schools all through the country districts of the province, and had this been followed up with vigour a more general use of the Chinese language would undoubtedly have followed, but enthusiasm for the project was very short-lived, and the position now is that the carrying on of schools for the Tribes people is left to their own initiative. In places where their minds have been opened by the Gospel, or where they feel there is some hope of entering into competition with the Chinese or of entering Chinese society as equals, initiative in this matter is shown, and clan or village or church schools, varying widely in the standards of education offered, are carried on. But Chinese officialdom frowns on such efforts as a rule, and their number , compared with the size of the Tribal population, is woefully small. Most of the Tribes [...] say that if their young people go to schools they are unfitted for the heavy and essential work in the fields, they later leave home for larger centres, and so are lost to the Tribal community. Hence they themselves will not open schools nor will they cooperate with others who desire to do so.178

178 C G Edwards, ‘Kweichow Tribal Report*, (1948), p. 176.179 According to Mrs Jean Norgate, who worked with her husband at Gebu 1946-1949, there were primary schools in the larger villages and middle schools in the towns. All education was given in Chinese with Chinese textbooks. Mrs Jean Norgate, letter of 2 July 1992.180 ‘Western Region’, (Febr. 1950), p. 25.181 ‘KWEICHOW ‘Late News”, (1950), p. 56.

At the missionary schools, however, the medium of instruction appears to have been Chinese, at least for all subjects except for Christianity.179 Miao writing was used only for reading Christian texts, Eke the NT and hymns.

In February 1950 the Field Bulletin reported:

The disturbed conditions have been the cause of sad news. On December 19 we received a telegram from Mr. Butler “Salachi [a leprosarium near Gebu] attacked by thirty brigands 18th, Fishes knife wounds, others well.” We heard later that the Fishes were progressing satisfactorily, but have no details. Mr. Neil, a missionary of the Australian Apostolic Mission in Chenyiian [Zhenyuan] (formerly C.I.M.) has also sustained serious wounds from brigands. There is also good news, in that the Heimbachs were actually able to complete their transfer to Pangsieh after the change-over, and reached on December 11 without any incident en route.180

The last report in China’s Millions about the western area in Guizhou, in May 1950, stated:

[...] our workers there have been much encouraged by the friendliness of officials and have obtained more than one reduction in taxes. There are good reports of special meetings held in Kopu-Kiehkow areas, led by the travelling pastor of the provincial association of churches, Mr. Wang Teh-seng. There were many baptisms. Pastor Wu of the Kweiyang church is launching a Short Term Bible School for KWEICHOW to be held in Kweiyang soon.181

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In December 1950, however, the Field Bulletin reported from Panhsien in west Guizhou:

A notice was received from the government telling us and the Roman Catholics to refrain from opening our day schools for another term. Upon further inquiry it was learned that we teach superstition and also the way the school was run was most unsatisfactory — so the authorities say! We cannot say we were not disappointed, for we had not expected this turn of events to be sprung upon us so soon.’82

182 ‘Western Region’, (Dec. 1950), p. 206.183 A university jointly run by American mission, the CIM and the Anglicans.

Mission at Stone Gateway after Pollard’s Death

After Pollard’s death in 1915, Hudspeth took charge of the mission work centered at Stone Gateway. In 1917, however, Harry Parsons was transferred from Dongchuan to Stone Gateway, and Hudspeth returned to Europe for service in France and studies at Cambridge. In 1918 the worst famine ever struck the Stone Gateway area, and this contributed to a disenchantment with Christianity among some of the A-Hmao. When Hudspeth returned in 1920 Parsons went on furlough and in 1920-1921 there was no missionary resident at Stone Gateway, as Hudspeth lived in Zhaotong. After his return in 1922 Parsons resided at Stone Gateway until 1926.

Already in 1914 Pollard had sent three A-Hmao students to the middle school in Chengdu and afterwards many students were sent to various middle schools in Zhaotong and Chengdu. According to Hudspeth, writing in 1937, there had been 500-900 students in the junior elementary schools in the area every year since 1915. Presumably most of them were A-Hmao. In 1921 two students were sent to West China Union University (Huaxi daxue to study medicine.182 183

In 1917, Hudspeth and Yang Yage (James Yang) took Pollard’s translation of the New Testament to Japan and the first edition was printed in Yokohama in 5,000 copies. A second edition was printed in 1919 and a third in 1929, making a total of 10,000 copies for the three editions.

In 1917, Stephen Lee, Pollard’s main helper in devising the script, disappeared on the road from Zhaotong to Kunming, supposedly killed by bandits.

Parsons left Stone Gateway in 1926, and afterwards Hudspeth, residing at Zhaotong, gave occasional oversight. In 1927 all the missionaries had to leave their sutions because of the civil war, but they returned in 1928, to find the area much more unsafe than it had been before. Between 1928 and 1931 the missionaries Hudspeth, Rev Heber Goldsworthy and Rev Fred W

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J Cottrell oversaw the mission,184 but in 1932 Goldsworthy moved to Zhaotong, and in 1933 possibly to Stone Gateway.

184 Goldsworthy’s Chinese name was Gu Dewei SfêjM and Cottrell’s name was Gao Zhihua’® RK Parsons, letter of 21 Sept. 1992.186 A Loloish people in Yunnan. The Pollard script was used to write this language as well, and St Mark’s Gospel was published in 1913.187 The only exception is the addition of special voice markers by G P LaRue at Gebu, probably around 1940, cf. above, p. 127.188 Chinese name: Mu Boli ^WSl.

Organizational Changes

In 1932 there was a further unification of Methodist churches, when the United Methodist Church, the Wesleyan Methodists and the Primitive Methodists together formed the Methodist Church. The name for the Miao mission organization was changed from the Yunnan District of the United Methodist Church to the SW China District of the Methodist Church.185 The emphasis should no longer be on the mission, but on the church. Rev Harold Rattenbury, the China secretary of the British Methodist Church, led this reform movement, which included the use of Chinese in all spheres of the work in China, even between the British missionaries.

In 1930, or somewhat later, Hudspeth, the A-Hmao preacher Yang Rongxin and a few other A-Hmao: Yang Yage and Yang Zhi made a new translation of the NT, basing it on the new translation of the NT into Chinese. Yang Zhi was a A-Hmao Christian who had worked as a missionary among the Kopu,186 and who was recognized as a master singer, who knew a lot of A-Hmao legends and folk-lore. In 1934 Yang Rongxin went to Shanghai to publish the NT at the BFBS. It was published in 1936. After 1936 no changes were carried out in the Pollard script until the reform movement of 1949-50,187 and the 1936 orthography is still the most widely recognized orthography for A-Hmao.

In 1934 Hudspeth resided at Zhaotong and he had two A-Hmao probationary ministers, Zhang Hongyou 31 and Li Zhengbang In 1935 Rev Edward Moody went to Stone Gateway.188 In 1936 Zhang Hongyou and Li Zhengbang went to College in Wuchang and there was a new probationary minister with Moody at Stone Gateway, Li Zhenwen. In July 1936 Hudspeth left the A-Hmao area, and went to Shanghai to take up the secretaryship of the BFBS. Yang Zhi wrote down thirteen traditional A-Hmao songs and Hudspeth took those with him. Already in 1932 Hudspeth had pointed out to some A-Hmao that it would be a pity if the A-Hmao traditional songs were lost in a fervour to sweep away all vestiges of the

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earlier non-Christian stage of the A-Hmao culture. After Pearl Harbor Hudspeth was arrested by the Japanese and the records of A-Hmao songs together with his anthropological notes and the records of the CIM at Shanghai were lost. Yang Zhi’s thirteen songs contained some 1,135 Unes, written continuously, like prose. Originally there were two copies, and as Hudspeth’s copy was lost in Shanghai, only one remained at Stone Gateway. Rev R K Parsons described what later happened:

He [Yang Zhi] made two copies. One was given to Mr. Hudspeth, and the other remained in Stonegateway, but it did not circulate. Not until I began to make enquiries was it brought out. I was allowed to have it for a couple of days only, but Wang Pei-cheng [Wang Mingji] kindly made a copy for me, and added half a dozen additional songs he had collected. It was my interest and persistent requests for more that seemed to have triggered local enthusiasm to preserve in writing what remained of the old traditions which were fast disappearing. The subsequent books of songs are all based on Yang Zhi’s work and none of the additional material surpasses his as poetry.189

189 R K Parsons, letter of 18 May 1993.Li Defang, ‘Ershi shiji chuqi diandongbei miaoyu fângyanqu de miaowen’, (1981):,

pp. 68—70.191 W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, pp. 79-80.

For the publication of these A-Hmao songs in the late ’40s and early ’50s, cf. below, p. 134. Afterwards Yang Rongxin also translated a A-Hmao hymn book and he together with other A-Hmao intellectuals also recorded folk songs and stories and circulated copies among the A-Hmao.190

When Hudspeth left in 1936 he stated that among the Miao in the United Methodist Mission area there were nearly forty organized churches and 18,300 members and enquirers and more than 30 schools with 1,400 scholars.191

In 1937 Moody and Li Zhenwen lived at Stone Gateway, as well as Goldsworthy, who was in charge of the work among the Chuan Miao, i.e. the Sichuan Hmong. In March 1938, Muslim bandits attacked Stone Gateway and Goldsworthy was killed. Shortly afterwards, Moody left on furlough, and Stone Gateway remained in charge of Zhang Hongyou and Li Zhengbang. Cottrell resided at Zhaotong.

Indigenization of the Church

In 1936 Zhu Huanzhang graduated from the West China Union University and went back to work at the school in Stone Gateway. From that year on, two students were sent to study in Nanking at the Chinese government’s expense.

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Literacy spread quickly and in 1938 Rev Grist described the situation:

Before his [Pollard’s] coming to them, the Miao in their poverty and illiteracy thought of books as the possession only of the rich and learned Chinese; but now in a thousand tiny huts, on rough home-made shelves, may be seen little libraries - the New Testament, a hymn-book, and thin booklets on the doctrines of the Christian Faith - all in the Pollard Script [..192

192 W A Grist, ‘The Gospel for the Miao’, (1938), pp. 137.,9> Zong Wen, ‘Jidujiao Xundao gonghui zai Weining Shimenkan xingban de jiaoyu shiye’, (1987), p. 28.194 Yang Zhongde, personal communication, Weining, 19 Nov. 1990.195 H B Rattenbury, Advance in South-west China, 1943, p. 6.

A school textbook, published in 1938, was further adapted for general school use and contained fewer purely Christian texts. The editor was Edward Moody. In an article from 1985 Zong Wen discussed the educational policies of the Methodists :

As to the teaching methods, because the Kuomintang reactionaries propagated a policy of nationality assimilation, they also implemented sinicizing education. This was very difficult for the Miao masses to accept and it never yielded any notable results. The Stone Gateway church, however, used the “old Miao writing”, which had been jointly devised by the missionaries, Chinese intellectuals and Miao intellectuals, to complement the teaching. They used the old Miao writing to compile textbooks with ethnic contents and implemented an education with ethnic characteristics. This was easy to accept for the Miao, considering their feelings and habits, and it had a very marked effect. To this day we can draw lessons from it when we engage in educational activities in the minority areas.’93

In 1938 the A-Hmao teacher Yang Zhongde started a bi-monthly journal (i.e. twice a month), printed from woodblocks in Pollard script. Two other A-Hmao also participated, Zhang Ren’an and Yang Rongxin. Each edition contained two to three pages of articles on hygiene, the eradication of bad habits, the importance of study (especially for girls) and some national and international news. In 1939 pubheation was stopped as funds were lacking.194 No extant copies of this magazine have been found.

The last missionary statistics for the area appear in Rattenbury’s Advance in South-west China from 1943. He stated that at the time of Moody’s furlough in 1939 there were more than 20,000 Christians in the church, but he did not specify the number of A-Hmao among these.195

In 1940 the district was rearranged into five circuits with a minister appointed to each: four A-Hmao circuits, Stone Gateway (Shimenkan), Rice-ear Valley (Mi’ergou), Long Sea (Changhaizi) and Great Level (Dapingzi) and one circuit for the Sichuan Hmong, Niupokan The Miao

B*

ministers were fùlly in charge of the work in their respective circuits and the foreign missionary was responsible only for the circuit to which he was appointed. The Miao work was staffed by Moody, Rev Vernon Stones,196 197 Chang Hongyou, Li Zhengbang and Wu Zhonglie

196 Chinese name: Shi Songde197 R K Parsons, letter of 1 Dec. 1992.198 Chinese name: Shao Taiqing199 Qiu Jifeng, ‘Dian-Qian bianjing miaobao zhi yanjiu’, (1945), p. 76.200 R K Parsons, letter of 1 Dec. 1992.

1941 staffing of the circuits197

Stone Gateway Miergou Niupokan Changhaizi Dapingzi

C M Steel198 Vernon Stones Li Zhengbang Zhang Hongyou Li Zhenwen

Moody resided at Zhaotong and was responsible for the whole area. In the ’40s the situation was quite unsettled and there was a lot of banditry. During the relatively peaceful times the missionaries lived at Stone Gateway, but otherwise in Zhaotong.

According to the Chinese ethnographer Qiu Jifeng the education at Stone Gateway was based on a five or six year plan from 1941, which included plans for a translation of the Old Testament and also for a A-Hmao dictionary and an English-Miao dictionary.199 200

In 1943 a middle school was opened at Stone Gateway by Zhu Huanzhang. Earlier there had been only a six-year elementary school, but with this three years were added. There were about 200 pupils in the elementary school and 100 in the middle school. Of the twenty teachers, all but one was Miao. The teaching, both at the elementary school and at the middle school, was in Chinese. Only the first steps were in A-Hmao. The textbooks used were the same as those in ordinary Chinese schools. The A-Hmao language and writing were used in church and in letter-writing.

1943 staffing of the circuit/00

Stone-Gateway Miergou Niupokan Changhaizi Dapingzi

C M SteelC M Steel, Wu ZhonglieLi Zhenbang, Yang MingqingZhang HongyouZhang Mingcai

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In 1945, during Steel’s fùrlough, A G Pratt was in charge of Stone Gateway, although he resided at Zhaotong. In 1946 Steel returned and Ewart B Wright took charge of the Niupokan Circuit. From about 1940 to 1950 (with one furlough) Eleanor Cowles,201 worked as a teacher with particular responsibility among women and girls. She lived at Stone Gateway 1946—9. She was one of the few missionaries who made serious attempts to learn A-Hmao. After Hudspeth left in 1936, the missionaries had not paid much attention to learning A-Hmao, as they considered this to be unnecessary, or even as disservice to the A-Hmao, who were considered to be ‘basically Han’.202

In the ’40s some religious literature was published; in 1946 and 1948, and from 1949 to 1952 at least three collections of old A-Hmao songs were hectographed at Stone Gateway. The editors were Yang Rongxin and Wang Peicheng (also called Wang Mingji ZE Bill). The Pollard script was here used for purposes completely unconnected with Christianity. The script had become accepted by the A-Hmao people in this area, not only as a means of conveying Christianity, but also as their own national writing.

The Last Years of the Methodist Mission

In 1947 Niupokan, the district for the Sichuan Hmong, was divided into Niupokan and Wangwuzhai 3EÄS. Rev P Kenneth Parsons,203 son of Harry Parsons, had come to Yunnan in 1946, and in 1947 he travelled via Weining, to Stone Gateway, where he built a house. As Wright did not like travelling, Parsons took over the charge of Wangwuzhai and travelled a great deal in northern Yunnan. During the earthquake of 1948 P K Parsons was at Stone Gateway, and later supervised the reconstruction work.

1949 staffing of the circuits204

201 Chinese name: Zhao Yuelin202 E.g. by Vernon Stones. P K Parsons, personal communication, Isle of Wight, 13 Oct. 1992.203 Chinese name: Zhang Jiqiao204 R K Parons, letter of 1 Dec. 1992.

Stone Gateway Miergou Niupokan Wangwuzhai Changhaizi Dapingzi

C M Steel, P K Parsons (Middle school)Zhang HongyouP K Parsons, Yang MingqingP K Parsons, Yang MingqingLi ZhenbangWu Zhonglie

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Rev R Keith Parsons,205 the twin brother of P K Parsons, was stationed at Weining since 1943, and worked mainly among the Chinese, but also among the A-Hmao. As a child at Stone Gateway he had learnt A-Hmao, and during his years in Weining he encouraged the A-Hmao to write down their traditional songs and stories. Yang [probably Yang Xuegong ^^^j],206 who worked as a nurse in Weining, wrote down several collections of traditional stories and R K Parsons studied them together with him. In 1948 R K Parsons and his wife went to Kunming and Elliott Kendall took over at Weining, after a furlough in Britain. During his furlough he had bought a battery-run army radio.

205 Chinese name: Zhang Shaoqiao SUB få, earlier also called Zhang Andelie206 The full name was supplied in a letter from Yang Zhongxing, teacher in the school at Weining, to R K Parsons, dated January 1993. Quoted from a letter from R K Parsons, dated 27 Sept. 1993.207 P K Parsons, [description of what happened in northern Yunnan in 1949 and 1950, without title], [1950], ms., p. 1.

The beginning of 1949 saw an increased Communist activity in northern Yunnan, and in a manuscript, written in the following year, P K Parsons described what happened:

High up in the mountains of Yunnan banditry and anarchy varied inversely as the power and prestige of the Kuo Ming [sic!] Tang [Kuomintang]. Early last spring the truck road which linked Chaotung [Zhaotong], the natural centre of the District with Kunming was cut and in places dug up by the People’s Army (local communists cum bandits or rather bandits cum communists). Then on Good Friday Chaotung itself was attacked by a band of well over a thousand men [...] and the siege went on for five days before they were eventually driven off.207

In May 1949 the British Consul General in Kunming advised all British citizens to leave China before the air services would be suspended, and the missionaries held a meeting at Zhaotong, where it was decided to send the women and the children home, and Kendall escorted them to Kunming, where he stayed on. Steel also left together with the women. Before leaving Weining Kendall sent the radio to the CIM people at Gebu, as they would have more use for it.

Only a few key people were left in Zhaotong, P K Parsons and Vernon Stones. No foreign missionary stayed at Stone Gateway, and the local leaders took over. Parsons wrote:

In such an environment I was absolutely amazed how quickly the Church recovered from the bewilderment which came with the Consul’s order. For instance the Miao leaders at Stone Gateway immediately started planning for the future. We were running very short of copies of the Miao hymnbook that is printed in the Pollard script, and being afraid that when the Communists arrived the printing of all Christian literature would be banned, the Miao set up and duplicated several hundred copies.

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AD the stencils were cut by hand and what is more they added quite a number of hymns to increase the usefulness of the book. The expense was to be met by a levy on the four circuits, Also they were very anxious that the Prayer room at Stone Gateway should be officiary opened and dedicated. [...], the service that had aD been arranged by them proceeded, the two themes were praise and thankfulness for the past and a full realisation that the Church was now theirs and their responsibility. [...]. Just as I was leaving Mr Chu Huan Chang [Zhu Huanzhang], the headmaster of the Stone Gateway Middle School and the natural leader of the Miao said to me, “Teacher, when you get to England please thank aU the friends for the continued powerful support. We do not know what wiU happen when the Communists do come, — it may be that we wiU not be permitted to run our schools and our churches, but do not be afraid. The tao-li (thruth of God) is hid in our hearts and can never be taken from us”.208

The administrative charge was taken over by Zhu Huanzhang, a A-Hmao who in 1946 had gone to Nanking as the KMT representative of the Miao, and Zhu Shuiguang, a Chinese. During the latter part of 1949 Parsons made profound studies of the A-Hmao language together with Wang Mingji

on the basis of a manuscript dictionary of A-Hmao, which Wang had written in 1946.209

In the beginning of 1950 a man came from Gebu to Zhaotong with the radio, as the CIM missionaries had left. Parsons put it away, and later left for Kunming and Britain. When the Communists took Zhaotong in 1950 Stones, and the other foreigners, nurses, teachers, and agriculturalists, were arrested and taken to Kunming. The Communists discovered the radio, which had a socket for a transmitter. Although there had been no transmitter included when Kendall bought it in 1947, the Communists, nevertheless, considered this as espionage, and Stones was imprisoned for some time in Kunming, as well as Kendall and the women missionaries at Kunming. In 1951 they were found guilty of espionage, and were deported from China. The Communists also arrested Zhu Shuiguang and Li Yuehan (John Lee). Zhu Shuiguang committed suicide in 1951 and Li Yuehan died in prison after just a few weeks.210 In the middle of the ’50s Zhu Huanzhang was attacked in the Campaign to Root Out Counter-Revolutionaries, and committed suicide in 1956.

” P K Parsons, [description of what happened in northern Yunnan in 1949 and 1950, without title], [1950], ms., pp. 2-3.209 Wang Mingji, /a® mauM ntœy®/, 1946, ms.2,0 P K Parsons, personal communication. Isle of Wight, 13 Oct. 1992.

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CIM in Yunnan after 1915

In 1918 A G Nicholls wrote:

[...]; now nearly 18,000 people profess to have turned from idolatry to God. [...] there are 90 chapels, erected and paid for by the people themselves. [...], there are over 1500 who have been baptised, [...]. I have been engaged in translating the New Testament into Hwa Miao, and last year was able to give this tribe the Testament in their own tongue.211

211 A G Nicholls, ‘How God is Working Among the Tribes’, (1918), p. 51.212 Gladstone Porteous, ‘Tribe after Tribe being Reached’, (1919), p. 14.213 A G Nicholls, ‘Back Amongst the Miao’, (1919), p. 75.214 A G Nicholls, ‘Among the Miao’, (1922), p. 136.

Generally speaking, the mission was by far most successful among the A-Hmao, but other Miao groups were also influenced by Christianity. In 1919 the Australian missionary Gladstone Porteous wrote:

Quite recently some representatives of the White Miao [a Hmong group) have shown interest in the Gospel. This week end five men came in from a village one and a half days* journey from here, for an evangelist to go with them, and help them to bum up their objects of demon worship and teach them the Gospel.212

In 1919 Nicholls reported that there were seven out-stations among the Miao around Sapushan and that most of them had a resident evangelist and family, who were half-supported by the people. The teachers of primary schools were also supported in the same way.213 In 1922 Nicholls pubUshed an article about the missionary work at Wutingchow (now Wuding), and wrote:

One result has been to write a Primer on health subjects which will be circulated among the people. This year we have revised a Catechism, re-written a hymn book, and translated an Old Testament History from Moses to Daniel. A Primer for children has been compiled, also the Health Primer aforementioned - all written in the Miao script. We do our best to insist upon a reading Church.214

In 1932 Nicholls mentioned that at Sapushan lessons were given from the Key to the New Testament, and that some of the Psalms of David were sting. He further wrote:

All of these men [at the Summer Bible School] are leaders in the respective villages, conducting evening services. Some lead at the churches, nearly all are local preachers, and keen indeed to learn. While at Sapushan they bought over 120 dollars’ worth of books, paper, pencils, charts, etc., [...]. All the instruction at the Bible School is

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given in the Miao language, for the people speak but a market Chinese, and a great many terms in Chinese are not understood, so the work is done in Miao.215

215 A G Nicholls, ‘Instructing Ninety Miao Farmers’, (1932), p. 183.216 According to the daughter of Gladstone Porteous, Ruth Bailey, letter of July 25, 1992.217 ‘The Province of Yunnan’, (1937), p. 49.218 A G Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan without tide), [dated 1946], unpubl. ms, p. 10219 A G Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan without tide), [dated 1946], unpubl. ms, p. 10.

The CIM schools, however, where the teaching was in Chinese, seem to have been closed down when the Government imposed the new regulations in the *30s. 216

In 1936 Nicholls reported:

The year has been one of much interruption with a certain measure of fear, and the station had to be evacuated just when they were ready for a Bible school. [...] Two special difficulties are connected with the aggressions of the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Independent Miao, who, though few, are led by a family which declare for the “no GOD” policy. These people are out to capture our scholars.217

Developments in the ’40s

In 1946 Nicholls wrote that south of Kunming H A C Allen and his son Arthur, as well as W T Herbert, worked with the Tsing Miao,218 i.e. a Hmong group. No further information about the results of this mission has, however, been found.

According to Nicholls nearly 5,000 Miao had been baptized at Sapushan by 1946.219

Not all missionaries in the Miao areas did, however, learn the Miao language, and by the end of the ’30s a good knowledge of Miao seems rather to have been an exception. In January 1947 Mr J B Kuhn presented a ‘Yunnan Tribal Survey’, in which he proposed some basic principles for the minority language question:

1. By all means employ the Chinese language where possible. 2. Where tribes are bi-lingual encourage the use of the original tongue in matters of worship, even though there is no writing in the given language. 3. Stick to the principle of bringing the Gospel message to the particular tribe in the language used in the home. You will then have a good chance of winning the entire family. 5. (sic!) Make use of the most humble home as a place for initiating Christian testimony if necessary. Much of the spade-work of existing tribal churches was done in the home. 6. Train native preachers and evangelists as well as native linguists for this task. 7. Employ the

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present available scripts: (a) Pollard Script; (b) Fraser Script; (c) ABM Romanization;(d) National Phonetic Script.220

220 J B Kuhn, ‘Yunnan Tribal Survey*, (1947), p. 65.221 Her husband, Gladstone Porteous had died in 1944.222 ‘Lists of Missionaries’, (1946), p. 10.223 ‘The Care Of The Churches’, (1947), p. 124.224 ‘Western Region’, (Jan. 1948), p. 9.225 ‘Western Region: Niuhuach’i’, (1947), p. 25.226 ‘Western Region: Tribal Printing Press’, (1948), p. 144.227 ‘The Home Director’s Personal Page’, (1949), p. 11.228 Chinese name probably Si Mingqing

In July 1946 Gladstone Porteous’ widow221 and HRL Bailey and his wife were stationed at Wuding.222 In August 1947 there were reports about extreme teachings by a A-Hmao preacher in Sapushan. The missionary W A Allen went together with Bailey and Grant to the area, and ‘the false teacher was asked to leave the district, which he did that day*. 223

In January 1948 the Field Bulletin reported: ‘The work in Wuting is encouraging, for with the arrival of Mr and Mrs Harrison and the new women workers many local people have come to hear the Gospel, [...].* 224

An A-Hmao hymn book was briefly referred to in February 1947: ‘In America Mr. Graham is overseeing the photolithography of the Miao hymnbook.’225

In October 1948 the Field Bulletin contained a report about the work at Kunming:

Tribal Printing Press: Lack of proper accomodation has somewhat handicapped the work of Mr. and Mrs. Grant, so we are very glad to report that they have at last managed to rent suitable premises for a residence and a print shop. An edition of fifteen thousand copies of the Big Flowery Miao Hymnal for Kweichow and Yunnan is being seen through a commercial print shop, which means a lot of work in addition to that being done on our own printing press.226

In August 1948 A G Nicholls died in Adelaide.In 1949 the Multilith Press, a special publishing house for printing literature

for the tribal people, published 2,000 Catechisms in A-Hmao and a hymn book in a Hmong subdialect (Small Flowery Miao, Siao Hwa Miao), spoken in northwest Guizhou, the first book ever pubfished in that dialect.227

In 1950, after the Communist take-over, W T Simpkin228 reported from Sapushan:

Our district is peaceful and no restrictions of any kind have been imposed on us. Quite a few soldiers come to the service at Wuting, including some who profess to beHeve in the Lord Jesus. So we have much cause for praise.

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The Miao O.T. stories have arrived and many have been sold. The Miao are all really eager to buy books. When a Miao’s house bums down and he loses everything, about the first thing he wants to buy is a hymn book and a N.T. We have already sold nearly 3000 of the books printed last June. I have not been able to get any more Miao N.T.s from the Methodists at Chaotung. We have been out of stock for nine months.229

229 ‘Prayer Paragraphs’, (1950), pp. 29-30.230 ‘A Tribesman of the Great Flowery Miao’, (1951), p. 27.231 For a detailed account of the Protestant mission among the Sichuan Hmong, cf. Joakim Enwall, ‘In Search of the Entering Tone: The Importance of Sichuanese Tones for Undersunding the Tone Marking System of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script’, 1994, pp. 70-84.232 In Chinese the name Sichuan means ‘four rivers’.233 Lang Wei, ‘Tianzhujiao, jidujiao zai Chuannan miaozu diqu chuanbo shuliie’, (1989), pp. 24-7.

Plans were made for further missionary work and in March 1951 there was a notice about this in Chinas Millions:

Many thousands of this tribe [the Flowery Miao] have received the gospel and large Christian communities are found in all south-western provinces. A large heathen group of Miao has recently been located in southern Yunnan, and it is proposed to send from Sapushan an exploratory mission of Christian Miao to investigate possibilities of work among them.230

Mission among the Sichuan Hmong231

It has proven much more difficult to find reliable facts about the mission among the Sichuan Hmong than about the mission in Guizhou and Yunnan. In some counties of southern Sichuan south of Luzhou there are speakers of the Hmong dialect, mainly in Xuyong County Gong County Gao County Junlian County and Gulin County Their dialect is rather similar to the Hmong spoken in Yunnan. By the missionaries this dialect was called River Miao or Ch’uan Miao, i.e. Sichuan Miao.232 According to a Chinese source there were altogether approximately 60-70,000 Hmong in southern Sichuan around 1949.233

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Methodist Mission

In December 1914 Pollard wrote a letter to the Mission secretary about the commencement of work among the Sichuan Hmong:

A few days ago I returned from a long journey round the borders of our district & saw much to thank God for. We have been trying for 2 years to get hold of another tribe of Miao with whom we came in contact at some places. It has been very difficult to get a door of entrance. Some of our men have learnt their language which differs a good bit from our “Flowery” Miao altho’ the same in structure. We stayed several days in a family of these “River” Miao & were very kindly treated. Coming back, with the great help of one of our preachers I have got out a small Hymn Book & Catechism for these new people & this new work. Sent off the manuscript in frith that there will be a demand before long for the two thousand copies we hope to get early in the year.234

234 Microfiche no 1302, Box 639, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.235 Microfiche no 1303, Box 639, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.236 There is also a notebook by H Parsons with a wordlist of St Mark, possibly used during the translation work. Cf. H Parsons, /a nt§i ntœy/, s.a.. Notebook with a wordlist of St Mark, chapters 1-4, Chuan Miao - A-Hmao - English.237 Letters from Rev H Parsons to Rev P N Bryant, dated 27 June 1920 and 18 Aug. 1920. Quoted from a letter from R K Parsons, 27 Sept. 1993.238 Lang Wei, ‘Tianzhujiao, jidujiao zai Chuannan miaozu diqu chuanbo shuliie’, (1989), pp. 24-7.

On March 29, 1915 Pollard reported further: ‘News has come today that down among the “River Miao” the new tribe there are 40 boys coming to the first school we have opened there.’235

In the beginning of the 1920s Harry Parsons worked on the Sichuan Hmong dialect, and according to the BSL catalogue, he was the translator of the 1922 St Mark.236 In 1920 Parsons wrote two letters to his brother-in-law, in which he mentioned the translation work into Sichuan Hmong, although he did not elaborate on who participated in the actual translation work. On June 27, 1920, he wrote: ‘Mark’s Gospel in Ch’uan Miao goes to the printers next week.’ On Aug. 18, 1920, he further wrote:

We have been busy during these past weeks completing and sending off the manuscript of Mark’s Gospel translated into Ch’uan Miao. We are also translating a hymn book and catechism for them which we hope to send to the press [The Canadian Mission Press at Chengdu] shortly.237

Around 1920 this area was made a part of the Stone Gateway — South Sichuan mission district of the United Methodist Mission, and some 14 churches were built. The missionaries were not resident in southern Sichuan, but regularly visited the area.238

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The first book printed in Chuan Miao was St Mark’s Gospel in 1922. It was published by the BFBS. In 1935 a hymn book was published by the Stone Gateway church.239 Hudspeth was the editor and it was translated by Yang Mingqing. In 1938 a revised edition of St Mark was printed jointly by the BFBS and the American Bible Society in Shanghai. According to the BSL catalogue it was revised by a Hwa Miao teacher called Yang K’uan-I [Yang Kuanyi].240

239 Chuan Miao Gospel Hymns, 1935.240 ‘Miao: Chuan*, BSL Catalogue, s.a., typescript.

There were mission schools established in all places where there were churches, i.e. Wangwuzhai, Luobiao, Wutongyan, Youzhaping and Lubanshan. They were all called ‘Guanghua xiaoxue’ In 1936 LinMingjun published an introduction to the Chuan Miao in the journal Xin Yaxiya. He described the conditions of the schools in south Sichuan:

As the culture of the Chuan Miao themselves is not to be considered developed, and as communications are extremely inconvenient, very few have had an opportunity to study. Before, there were one or two private schools, but the children were only taught to recognize a few characters and that was all; in reality it cannot be called education at all. But since Christianity entered [this area], elementary schools have been established everywhere for teaching Miao children. However, the goal of these schools is mainly mission. The scope is narrow, the equipment is simple and crude; [sometimes] there is not even a single map in the whole school, and quite a few pupils have to share one textbook. As the government considers them to be an uncivilised people, it never takes an interest in them. According to a findings report from the Chuan Miao themselves in the spring of the 24 year of the Republic [1935], in the Miao areas of Yunnan there are 9 elementary schools (chuxiao) and one high elementary school (gaoxiao). In Sichuan there is only the elementary school in Wangwu Village ZEiOÊ in Luobiao Town (Gong County . Of the Chuan Miao there are only three pupils in middle school (chuzhong) and 236 pupils in elementary school (chuxiao); if we add those who have received a little education in the private schools, the number of people who have received education is only 3-4 per mille. I have heard that a few more elementary schools have been established recently, so in the future the percentage can, of course, gradually increase.

Last spring [1935], the headmaster of the Guanghua elementary school in Wangwu Village, Mr Xiong Chaosong together with the local Chuan Miao representative, Mr Liu Youcheng came to Chengdu and stated their difficult conditions. The provincial government of Sichuan and some private persons donated books and instruments worth 100 yuan to the school, the provincial government also ordered the local education office to allocate funds and assistance. Most probably it can gradually develop.

Furthermore, a young Flowery Miao from Guizhou, Mr Zhu Huanzhang , has graduated from the institute of pedagogy of the Huaxi University in Chengdu. Because he has felt the need for special education for the Miao, he has published a “Night school textbook for Miao people”, following the example of “Text of one thousand characters for common people” and taking into account the special Miao

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customs. It has been sent everywhere with the purpose of spreading knowledge. When the Chuan Miao got this textbook, they, one their own accord, established some night schools and I have heard that the result is very good. Thus the number of people who can read Chinese characters will increase all the time, but it is still dependent on the encouragement and the support of the government.241

241 Lin Mingjun, ‘Chuan miao gaikuang’, (1936), p. 54.242 W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, p. 80.243 P K Parsons, personal communication. Isle of Wight, 13 Oct. 1992.244 E B Wright, Summary Report of the Work Among the River Miao (Niu P’o K’an Circuit), 1946, ms, p. 1.245 E B Wright, Summary Report of the Work Among the River Miao (Niu P’o K’an Circuit), 1946, ms, pp. 1-2.

In 1937 the missionary Rev R H Goldsworthy was sent to work among the Sichuan Hmong for the United Methodist Mission.242 In the beginning of the *40s Wangwuzhai was made the centre for the south Sichuan work of the Methodist Church.

The knowledge of Chinese was rather good in the Sichuan Hmong area, and when Rev P K Parsons travelled in the area in the end of the *40s he preached in Chinese. According to him even the women understood Chinese, which is very rare in the Miao areas.243 In 1946 Ewart Wright travelled in the Sichuan Hmong area. He wrote:

There is a great lack of Bibles and hymnals, both in Chinese and River Miao. There is a felt desire to get the whole New Testament translated into River Miao, which is completely difierent from the Hua Miao, although the same Pollard script is used.244

Schools had been started in a few places and Ewart Wright described some of the problems in connection with this:

The Niu P’o K’an Central School deserves mention of its own. Here we have 45 scholars (Higher Primary) with 5 teachers!! The headmaster has had training in the District Institute, but the other 4, only one is a baptised Christian. The other three have only just returned from graduating (Lower Middle) in our Chaotung Middle School. They went there as Christian lads, but have returned almost anti-religious, and consequently the spirit of the school is far from being what it ought to be. [...] Two years ago at Wang Wu Chai they opened a Central School without obtaining permission of Synod. Consequently no grant has been forthcoming. [...] However, they have only 19 scholars this year, and unqualified teachers, and of course no money. It did not take much persuasion to close the school and the scholars are to be transferred to Niu P’o K’an.245

Wright reported that there were altogether 113 members and 130 members on trial. At the schools there were altogether 406 students. Wright proposed to divide the Niupokan circuit into two circuits, Niupokan and Wangwuzhai,

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and in 1947 this division was carried out. Wright furthermore considered that the River Miao (Sichuan Hmong) circuits should be made into a separate entity and not treated together with the Hua Miao (A-Hmao).

CIM in South Sichuan

Apparently parallel to the Methodist mission, the CIM, with their headquarters in Gebu village in Hezhang County (in the Guizhou Province), sent missionaries to south Sichuan. They established a mission station at Daping Xiang later renamed Fuyinwan (Gospel Creek), in Gulin County, and later altogether 30 churches were set up: 17 in Gulin county and 13 in Xuyong county. In 1922 the missionary W T Herbert reported in a letter, published in China’s Millions:

Ere this reaches you we will have a membership of men only of about fifty, and chapel or school to hold 200 people, with a loft for visitors, and a home being built, while I am living in the kitchen of the former. Then there are twenty-five difterent places where the Miao are interested, and about 3000 under instruction from time to

246time.

In 1923 Mr Gowman estimated that there were around five thousand Hmong in Sichuan who were interested in Christianity.246 247 Just like in the early years of Adam’s mission among the A-Hmao, the missionaries were sometimes identified with God, or at least seen as being of heavenly origin. In an article from 1923 W T Herbert at Yongning described the witness of the Miao Peter Yang on how he became a Christian:

246 W T Herbert, “As Happy as a King”, (1922), p. 42.247 W T Herbert, ‘The “Come Down from Heaven”, Missionaries among the Miao’, (1923), p. 165.248 W T Herbert, ‘The “Come Down from Heaven” Missionaries among the Miao’, (1923), p. 166.249 His Chinese name was Fei Guanghua

I with others, heard of some missionaries who had come down from heaven to teach us the way of life. [...] Still we were treated kindly, and stayed there learning the Gospel truth. Ere we left we had some tracts given us, printed on foreign paper. I looked at them, saying inwardly, that no such paper can be got in this world - another proof of the Heavenly origin of the missionaries.248

In 1924 F Bird came to the area,249 and according to Lang Wei, he used the ‘Stone Gateway Miao writing’ for teaching in the Daping church and elementary school. About the situation in Xuyong F Bird wrote in 1926:

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The evangelist with me was kept busy teaching the Miao script. They studied all night, but the evangelist was able to get away at daylight for a short rest before travelling on the next day.250

250 F Bird, ‘Happy, but Arduous Service among the Miao’, (1926), p. 54.251 EH McIntyre, ‘Among Poverty-Stricken Miao’, (1929), p. 78.252 Mr and Mrs Bird, “‘Let Us Go into the Next Towns!”’, (1931), p. 85.253 ‘West Szechwan’, 1937, p. 39.254 ‘Lists of Missionaries’, (1946), p. 10. Mr Cunningham’s Chinese name was probably Han Fuchu

In 1929 McIntyre described the Hmong writing work as not progressing very quickly:

This terrible poverty and the illiteracy of the people are the burdens that oppress one’s heart continually. We are doing our best to combat the latter evil, but it is slow, tedious work. It is this that makes our work of imparting the Gospel so difficult.25’

In 1931 the Birds published an article in which they wrote:

Some, like Mark Yang, have a knowledge of the Miao script, and able to translate hymns from the Chinese into Miao. This gives great delight, as the Miao love to sing in their own language. They preach the Gospel by song, and new hymns in Miao script are acceptable; they will sing all night after a hard day’s work, to be followed by another such day.252

In 1935 the Communists came near to the Sichuan Hmong areas. The CIM yearbook for 1936 had a passage about the work at Fuyinwan:

Six years ago the station of Fuhinuan [Fuyinwan] was opened for work among the tribes. Inspite of the proximity of the Communists, the workers were able to remain at their station throughout the year. Mr. F. Bird writes as follows:

Before leaving on furlough we left the responsibility of the work with the Miao Christians, and we rejoiced on our return on January 2nd, 1936, to see the way they had shouldered the burden. [...] The most outsunding event of the year was the annual meeting which revealed the attitude of the Miao church to the policy of self-support. The pastor presided and conducted the meetings well and there was a spirit of love and sympathy. Our hearts were filled with joy and thanksgiving.253

In 1946 D A Cunningham and his wife were stationed in Fuyinwan.254 A report published in September 1946 under the heading ‘Summer Conferences’ stated:

From Fuhinuan in South Szechwan comes a report to say they have had an attendance at their annual conference this year which surpassed anything they have known for years, numbering over two hundred. The messages given by Rev. Chang Er-ting

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were much appreciated and many testimonies were given to blessing received. The work throughout the whole of the south Szechwan Miao field has looked up considerably due to a great extent to the good work put in during this summer vacation by two Miao students from C.T.S. [Chengdu Theological Seminary].255

255 ‘Summer Conferences’, (1946), p. 6.256 ‘West Region’, (1946), p. 10.257 Black-Miao Hymnary, 1928. Preface in English by M H Hutton.258 M T Stauffer, (seer, and ed.), The Christian Occupation of China, 1922. Reprinted in

The Field Bulletin of March 1946 reported:

The work at Kulin has had the advantage of the help of the Cunninghams during these past few months and they report that Grace Yang is doing excellent work there, but the infant church needs a good deal of prayer as they lack experiences and without a missionary to help them there are sure to be some real difficulties.

Amongst the Miao there has been definite encouragement. Pastor Li-Chin-An was up there for their summer conference and several of the deacons were definitely revived. Now they are shouldering the responsibility of the work and the future is more hopeful than it has been for some time. They have also appointed an elder man as Pastor and are hoping to send the younger men to Bible School.256 257

Mission among the Hmu after 1912

After the turbulence in connection with the revolution of 1911, Robert Powell and his wife returned to Panghai in the latter part of 1912 and were joined by Maurice H Hutton. By this time, probably together with S R Clarke, they took interest in Hmu writing. One reference has been found to an early hymn book printed in 1913. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to find the actual book. In the preface of a later edition the below description is presented:

In printing this new and enlarged edition of the Black Miao hymn book, I do so under the old title of the first edition printed by Mr. Robert Powell on the hand press in Panghai in 1913. Viz: -“Ca Neo Llei Dsan Mei Vang-Vai Bie Sh’a”.That first edition was printed in Romanised letters and contained a limited number of 19 hymns and 2 Choruses, all of which are incorporated in this edition. Of those Nos. 1 to 5 are translations into Black Miao by the late Mr. S.R. Clarke, and Nos. 6* Aqwto 18 are translations by Mr. Robert Powell. [...].

The existence of books in Hmu this early is confirmed by Milton T Stauffer in 1922, who wrote that Hymn Books existed for Black Miao. He also pointed out that the simple form of romanization used could not meet the needs of all tribes.258

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Maurice H Hutton

In 1912 Maurice H Hutton was assigned to do missionary work at Panghai.259 He was born in 1888 in Sydney and he was a Congregationalist by denomination. Around 1905 he had decided to become a missionary, and in 1906 he went to ‘a Missionary lantern lecture, held in the Harris-street Baptist Church, where Mr. Robert Powell, of the China Inland Mission, was telling of his experiences during the Boxer Riots in 1900.,26° As a consequence Hutton went to the Adelaide Missionary College and joined the CIM in 1911. According to the CIM Prayer Directory Hutton studied at the Anqing Language Center in 1912. He was to remain in the Hmu area for many years, and do a a great deal of translation work in Hmu and Keh-Deo, a Hmong dialect spoken in the same area. His missionary work, however, has not been described, apart from a number of articles in China’s Millions. Thus, there is a great contrast to the information available about Pollard, which also makes this account vaguer. Many important facts are only alluded to in the articles, and in some cases our reconstructions may be wrong. Apart from the articles in China’s Millions, the sources are an interview with Hutton’s daughter, Mrs Faith Ledgard, and also, for the evaluation of the script, Hutton’s manuscript dictionary of Hmu.261

Due to various difficulties, partly the murder of William Fleming referred to above, and the ensuing anti-foreign feehngs, there were few conversions until about 1917. In November 1914, Amolis Hayman visited Panghai, and wrote a short article about his experiences. He noted that: ‘Although the Gospel has been here on and off for seventeen years, yet the people are still in the thraldom of the devil, whom they continually worship.’ In his article he did not mention the romanized writing, but wrote that ‘the people have no written language* and ‘as very few can read Chinese, we are unable to

1979, p. 182.259 Chinese name: Hu Zhizhong260 MH Hutton, ‘Testimony of Mr. Maurice Hutton’, (1911), p. 84.261 MH Hutton, [Black Miao (Hmu) - English dictionary, without title], 64 pp. + 38 pp., with a an additional ten-page comparative vocabulary of ‘English, Chinese, Black Miao, Keh lao, Keh Do, Big Flowery Miao, Neo Su and Li-su’, ms. In the dictionary the NFS orthography (with tones) is used for Hmu, but in the comparative vocabulary both the NFS and a Latin orthography are used. The comparative vocabulary contains the same words as Clarke’s wordlist of 1911 and in the same order, but there are significant differences in spelling, for most of the words in the languages which appear in both. Probably Hutton has only used the same basic wordlist of words to look for, but made the recordings himself. Cf. S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, vocabulary of‘English, Chinese, Keh-lao, Nosu or Lo-lo, Kweichow Chung-chia, Siamese, Kwangsi Chung-chia, Heh Miao, Ya-ch’io Miao and Hua Miao’, pp. 307-12 and a shorter vocabulary of ‘English, Weining No-su, Chao-tung No-su, Li-su, La-ka, Kang-i and Si-fan’, pp. 314-5.

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give them the written word.* 262 This seems to indicate that the writing used for the 1913 hymn book, and possibly for other publications earlier, was used to a very limited extent.

262 A Hayman, ‘First Experiences’, (1915), p. 23.263 Faith Ledgard, personal communication, Sydney, May 1992.264 MH Hutton, ‘A Prodigal’s Return’, (1936), p. 75.265 Mrs Hutton, ‘My First Visit to the Homes of the Miao’, (1922), p. 120.266 M H Hutton, ‘Fruit After May Years’, (1915), p. 95.267 M H Hutton, ‘Fruit After May Years’, (1915), p. 95.

Another drawback reported by Hayman was the complete lack of native helpers. This last statement seems strange in view of an article written by Hutton in 1930, in which he writes that the Miao colporteur Ah So had been his ‘right-hand man’ for eighteen years, i.e. since 1912. This is furthermore confirmed by Hutton’s daughter, Faith Ledgard, who dates Ah So’s joining the missionary work to the time of Robert Powell’s stay at Panghai (1909-12).

Ah So was the third son of a Hmu shaman and as such was to be sacrificed. At the place of the sacrifice his body was, however, substituted for by that of a pig, and he was thus rescued.263 In some articles he was referred to as Ah Sor or by his Chinese name, which was P’an Teh-sheng (i.e. probably Pan Desheng MfåBJB).264 According to an article written by Hutton’s wife, another colporteur, Ah Li, must have joined the work sometime before 1919.265

In 1915 there were signs of a change, and Hutton reported on the half-yearly meeting for the Hmu area:

When the rice and vegetables were cooked, there was a scattering, a dividing into little groups, around their basins of vegetables and heaps of rice. This feature of the meetings, apart from all others, lent a very homely and unique sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. It is amazing the quantity of rice these people can devour in one meal!266

Apart from arranging this feast, Hutton also sent out people to talk to all the Hmu living in the neighbouring villages, by going from home to home. 800-1000 homes were visited. The church at Panghai also had ten enquirers and Hutton wrote:

This little band of enquirers, whom we propose to baptise next October, will be the only Church members we have on the Church roll here at P’anghai. Some years ago there were nine members, including an Evangelist, but each of these has been suspended owing to drunkenness, or gambling, or returning to devil worship, even including the old Evangelist Pan.267

In May 1915 Mr Crofts also settled in Panghai and the missionaries gave special attention to the study of the Hmu language. Earlier, the work had

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been carried on in Chinese and through an interpreter.268

268 ‘Kweichow’, 1916, p. 36.269 M H Hutton, ‘Good News from Panghai’, (1918), p. 35.270 CIM Prayer Directory. Letter of 13 Fehr. 1991 from Leone T Taylor, Librarian, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, International HQ Library, Singapore.271 Mrs Baller, ‘The New Script*, (1919), p. 71.272 The NPS was also used by N Baker to write Yi (in Guizhou) in the beginning of the ’20s, cf. p. 122.273 M H Hutton, ‘Spiritual Blessing in the Absence of Missionary, Pastor, or Evangelist’, (1922), p. 95.274 Mrs Hutton, ‘My First Visit to the Homes of the Miao’, (1922), p. 120.

In 1916 Hutton married Stella I Stevens, who had worked at Zhenyuan since 1914. Together they went to Panghai in 1917. In May 1918

Hutton wrote that the mission in Panghai had three out-stations.269 It is difficult to know how much time Hutton actually spent in Panghai because from July 1912 until January 1920 he was listed under Zhenyuan. It was not until January 1921 that he was listed under Panghai, but in July of that same year he and his wife went on furlough to Australia.270

NPS-Writing

Sometime around 1920 Hutton introduced the Chinese National Phonetic Script (NPS) (Chinese zhùyîn àmü to replace the romanised scriptused earHer. This script was based on parts of Chinese characters and was inspired by Japanese kana. It had been accepted by the China Continuation Committee for use in the the missionary field, ‘after careful consideration by missionary experts*, and Mrs Baller wrote an article introducing this script to the readers of China's Millions in 1919.271 It was probably after the publication of this article that Hutton started using the NPS.272 He and his family left Panghai in 1921 and in connection with this he wrote:

As we left Panghai on April 5, 1921, with the head station, five outsutions, and as many sub-outstations, we could not but wonder how the simple Black Miao would manage. In the providence of God, we were able to teach them, and reduce their language to writing by means of the Phonetic Script, and what a blessing this has brought to them, and to us also, who are away on furlough. Monthly we receive a budget of letters, written in Phonetic Script, a letter from each of the outstations, and from the two colporteurs, and a general newsy one from the head centre, telling of the Lord’s doings in their midst.273

There are also earlier references to books, but they are less explicit. In an article, probably written in 1919, Mrs Hutton stated: ‘Out of our hymn-book of about forty hymns there are only two which they have not mastered.* 274

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In 1919 Robert Powell visited Panghai again, and he wrote: ‘Mr. Hutton had translated a number of hymns, and we got the press unpacked, and printed them’.275 Another indication that Hutton’s NPS writing was devised somewhat earlier is found in an interview, made by Chen Qiguang of the CIN at Panghai in 1983. Liu Wenguang who was bom in 1908, had come to Panghai when he was 8 years old, and he told Chen Qiguang that at first he leamt Chinese at the mission school, but after two years he started to leam the NPS writing.276

275 R Powell, ‘Journeying to our Former Station — Panghai*, (1922), p. 16.276 Chen Qiguang, personal communication, Peking, 18 May 1990.277 M H Hutton, ‘The Cholera Epidemic’, (1921), p. 22.278 MH Hutton, ‘Among the Black Miao*, (1932), p. 49.279 MH Hutton, ‘Panghai without a Pastor for Two and a Half Years’, (1924), p. 38.280 M H Hutton, ‘Among the Black Miao. From a Circular Letter of Mr. and Mrs.

In 1920 a chapel was built in the outstation Kaihuai BlfêE ‘Open Bosom’ and this, contrary to the earlier work in Panghai, had been an initiative of local Christians and no mission money had been used for the project.277 Between 1921 and 1930 there was no missionary in residence at Panghai.278 There had been, however, missionaries in the nearby city of Zhenyuan since 1904. The missionaries at Zhenyuan also visited the villages in the Hmu area, including Panghai.

Missionary Activities during the *20$

Back in China the Huttons were stationed at various places before returning to Zhenyuan in 1925. In 1922 robbers began attacking the Hmu villages in the Hmu area and this was reported in letters to Hutton from Ah So and others.279

Direct missionary activities had thus been discontinued at Panghai, probably due to the unsafe conditions there. This is alluded to in a letter from the Huttons, published in 1925:

They [The Hmu Christians frôm Panghai] told of how the YUNNAN soldiers came to the village panghai] and robbed and burnt the village, and how they looted our own home. They also told us that the fire, when they burnt the village, came right up to the next but one house to the Mission House and Church and other buildings. They stand intact now, but by the goodness of the LORD and in answer to prayer. [...] We promised to go over to be with them as soon as possible after getting to Chenyuan. We fully intended to do so, but here we are still and the latest news is that yesterday the brigands were killing people on the Panghai road. [...] Though we are to live in this city of Chenyuan as our central and head centre, yet we are to reach out throughout the Panghai district, also away up north of the province to Szenan. Days and days and days of journeying if we are to work the districts properly. But so fir it is impossible for us to journey. [...J.280

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Soldiers from other provinces continued to attack the area, and in 1927 there was an epidemic of typhus in which many people died. This, in turn, enticed the wolves into coming down:

Our night meetings are very poorly attended. [...] Many members being sick, others having to wait upon the sick, they cannot, of course, come. Moreover the scare nowadays of wolves rushing down from the hills into the city street and carrying off children, goats, live persons and dead bodies, keeps many people at home, for needless to say, unless people can go in companies at night they are too fearful to venture out to attend meetings. [...] Now we recognise them [the wolves] and hear them almost every night. It is not at all pleasant to hear them so close to us, just outside the walls of our Mission Compound, and they are often there: we hear them so plainly.281

In 1927, however, Hutton spent one month travelling in the Hmu area, visiting the Christians in eight different places and holding meetings.282 In May, however, he and his wife left Zhenyuan and travelled to Zhifu283 because of the Communists. In an article from 1928 he mentioned the Communist threat against the missionary work for the first time: ‘Truly the lawlessness of Communism is rampant everywhere in China.’284 Hutton spent two years at Zhifu in order to oversee the printing of books in Hmu.

Back to Panghai in 1930

In 1930 Hutton and his wife returned from Zhifu, and upon his arrival in Panghai he wrote:

During the past two or three years since we have been at Chefoo, preparing these five books in the Miao language, the devil has been hard at work, and has succeeded in leading quite a few away from the Lord. It has been a great sorrow to us to find many having gone back in their faith. Even Ah So, who has been our right-hand man for eighteen years, has married a heathen wife, and, as a consequence, has gone back in his zeal. He has even given up reading God’s Word and prayer, and now has decided to leave us and the Lord’s work.285

A further article with similar contents was published in September 1930 and

Hutton, Chenyuan, KWEICHOW’, (1925).281 M H Hutton, 'Encouraging Results Amid Discouraging Circumstances. From a Circular Letter from Chenyuan, in KWEICHOW’, (1927).282 MH Hutton, ‘Panghai After Six Years Absence, (1927), p. 168.*283 Zhifu then spelt Chefoo, now renamed Yantai was one of the main mission centres in China, located in the Shandong Province.284 MH Hutton, ‘Journeying Mercies and a Place of Refuge, (1928), p. 29.*285 M H Hutton, ‘Safely Back at Panghai’, (1930), p. 91.

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there Hutton complained about the lack of zeal, both regarding the religion and the script:

Will you ask for praise to God for the encouragement in seeing so many people these days already using these newly-printed Black Miao books in the services. There are quite a few young people here in Panghai who are eager to learn the script, and to be able to read and write their own language. The Christians are buying these books fairly well, too, but on the other hand we are disappointed to find that they are not so willing to give time to studying the script for themselves. We have been trying to interest them with the idea of opening a short term school for Bible study, and for learning to read and write, but so far all we have done and said does not seem to be able to create a desire within them for these schools. Do please ask for much prayer that yet we shall be able to get them interested in this project. We are glad to see them using the hymn book and the catechism so freely, but we are longing to see the desire to read the two Gospel books of Matthew and Mark for themselves. The devil will do all in his power to hinder them from reading God’s Word I know, but let us pray he might be defeated, and a real desire might be created within these Black Miao for reading the Word of God for themselves. Then and then alone shall we hope to see a real revival in our midst.286

286 MH Hutton, ‘Discouragement and the Need of Prayer’, (1930), p. 138.287 For Hmu the case was quite different from A-Hmao. The school activities were very limited and the few things taught were taught in Hmu. No textbooks were used. Mrs Faith Ledgard, personal communication, Sydney, 3 May 1992.288 MH Hutton, ‘ASuccessful Conference’, (1931), p. 117.289 M H Hutton, ‘Notes: Mr. and Mrs. M. H. Hutton’, (1931), p. 147.290 M H Hutton, “‘A Marked Advance’”, (1932), p. 26.

Hutton’s hopes were, however, never fulfilled, and only very limited educational activités came about in the Hmu area.287 The missionary work among the Hmu continued in spite of these problems and during this time Hutton started a large-scale translation work into Hmu. He reported in 1931:

Some two Deacons, three church members and I have been hard at work translating the whole of the New Testament into the language of the Black Miao. The rough MSS are finished, so now we are busy revising them in readiness for the British and Foreign Bible Society, who have promised to have the New Testament printed for the Black Miao tribes.288

The number of Christians grew, and in 1930 fifteen Hmu were baptised. In 1931 China's Millions reported that the Huttons had postponed their furlough as things ‘now look so promising that they feel it would be unwise to leave the station unoccupied’.289 It was not until 1932, however, that there was another Hmu evangelist (after Pan Xiushan, who was murdered in 1898). His name was Wang Hsioh Kwang [probably Wang Xueguang andhe was supported entirely by the church.290 There had all along been quite a

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few Miao colporteurs, however, and they served as a kind of itinerate preachers. In many places they were not well received, and in 1932 Hutton reported their being harassed by the students in the city of Dan Giang [i.e. Danjiang now Leishan WlJj].291

291 MH Hutton, ‘Among the Black Miao’, (1932), p. 49.292 M H Hutton, ‘“In Dangers Oft’”, (1932), p. 180.293 M H Hutton, ‘Among the Black Miao’, (1932), p. 49. Mr Allbutt’s Chinese name was probably Li Yabai ^>50 or Li Qianyi294 R A Bosshardt, The Restraining Hand, 1936, p. 15.295 M H Hutton, ‘Notes: Mr. and Mrs. M. Hutton’, (1934), p. 147.296 MH Hutton, ‘Where God is working’, (1936), p. 55.297 MH Hutton, ‘Steady Advancement’, (1937), p. 125.298 M H Hutton, ‘Back in Miao Land’, (1936), p. 90.

In 1932 the Huttons left Panghai, and on their way to Australia they stayed in Zhifii, ‘to see the two Gospels and the Acts through the press.* 292 During the Huttons* absence the American missionaries, the Allbutts took over at Panghai.293 They stayed there at least until the autumn of 1934.294

When the Huttons returned from their furlough in August 1934 they first went to Zhifu, where Hutton was to see the remainder of the New Testament through the press.295 The first consignment of the NT arrived at Panghai from the printer in the second half of 1935, and it was read by the Hmu, although not everybody was pleased, a fact alluded to, but not elaborated on, in an article by Hutton:

It was strikingly noticeable how a certain section of the Christians were delighted beyond words to have the Black Miao New Testaments in hand, but with some others there was a coldness felt. Praise the LORD, the books sold readily and practically all our first consignment was sold out within a few days and a second lot has come. Mrs. Hutton and I feel that words fail us to express how encouraged we were to see groups of men, women and children scattered all over the garden and guest rooms, eagerly reading the New Testament in their very own language.296

The dissatisfaction of some of the Hmu may indicate that they would have preferred to learn Chinese, an attitude noted by Clarke in 1911. (Cf. above, p. 118)

In another article, however, Hutton wrote: ‘The New Testaments in Black Miao are selfing well, and practically all those who can read have now copies for themselves.* 297

In the beginning of January 1936 the Huttons fled from ‘the invading Reds*, and returned later in the spring. In an article from 1936 there was a reference to ‘the ninety newly-translated hymns and choruses’, but there was no indication how and where they would have been printed or published.298 In 1936 fifteen Hmu asked for baptism; twelve were baptised and three

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were told to wait a while longer.299 In the same year there were organizational changes in the work at Panghai:

299 M H Hutton, ‘Fruit After Many Days’, (1936), p. 137.300 MH Hutton, ‘Steady Advancement’, (1937), p. 124.301 ‘The Province of Kweichow’, 1937, p. 45.302 Chinese names: Cheng Bangqing and Bo Si MB.303 Record of judgment, ms. The written sentence was also published by China's Millions (‘An Amazing Document Issued by the Communists’, May 1935, p. 73) in a slightly revised form, and for some reason the Written Sentence of Judgment was dated December 13th, 1935, which obviously was wrong as it was published already in the May issue 1935.

The Pangsieh Black Miao tribal work has this year been divided up into three separate district Churches. Each Church, with its district, has its own elder and assisting deacons. Each of these Churches is self-supporting and self-governing, as has its own band of young men who go out voluntarily preaching and visiting the various outstations connected with its district Church. The chapels were built by themselves are maintained by self-support. They draw nothing from the Mission for the upkeep of their Church and outstations. [...] Two schools have been opened up this year. School work is becoming more and more difficult, for there is much opposition from local officials, and such opposition as makes it very hard for the Christians to send their children to our schools. When I came to this Black Miao district for the first time over 24 years ago, it was a rare thing to find a day school anywhere; now organised government schools are in practically every district. Alas, their management leaves much still to be desired!300

A reference to missionary work to other Hmu groups is also found, but to my knowledge, nothing came out of this effort: ‘This year the Church has had the joy of sending a Black Miao missionary to evangelize migrants in the province of KWANGSI.’301

Parallel to Hutton’s work in the Hmu area, there were other CIM missionaries in the nearby Zhenyuan and Laohuangping. In October 1934 two CIM missionaries, Amolis Hayman and Rudolf Bosshardt,302 were captured by the sixth Red Army at Laohuangping (now Jiuzhou MM), near the Hmu area, when it was passing during The Long March. On December 24 that same year the Communists put the missionaries on trial and the court records stated among other things:

These prisoners have also acquired the language of the Miao tribes and have penetrated their lairs and made use of the illiteracy of these tribes to begin their imperiaUstic work of slicing up China by making slaves of these Miao tribes [.. -].303

The Communists’ respect for the Miao as a separate people does, however, seem to have been somewhat limited. In describing the trial Bosshardt

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wrote: ‘They [the Communists] requested Mr. Hayman to say some of the Miao words which he knew, this again affording them much amusement.* 304 305

304 R A. Bosshardt, The Restraining Hand, 1936, p. 49.305 M H Hutton, ‘Delivered’, (1938), p. 77.306 I Allbutt, ‘Black Miao Colonies’, (1940), p. 155.307 J M Johnston, ‘From the Back-blocks of Miao-land’, (1942), p. 38.308 C G Edwards, Journal B of Tribal Survey trips in Kweichow province, China, From 1* dec. 1947, ms., p. 74.

Panghai after Hutton’s Return to Australia

It has been difficult to find any reliable information about the development of the Panghai mission after May 1938, when Hutton’s last article was published in China’s Millions. There he reports about the success of the

• • 305mission.

In 1940 Ivan Allbutt, who had worked at Panghai in 1933, wrote:

The latest news we have of this tribe is that the Rev. John Yorkston has gone to minister the Word at Pangsieh. Although the Church is well established in many ways, there are still some grave problems and a desperate need for a solid teaching ministry.306

In 1942 J M Johnston reported of a visit to the Hmu area: ‘As we arrived unexpectedly at their [the Christians’] house, a rather stately looking woman sat with her [Hmu] Bible and Hymn Book on her knees.’ He also described Kaihuai as the ‘largest Christian community in Miao land’.307 In the autumn of 1948 Mr Cyril G Edwards visited the Hmu area, in order to collect information for his Kweichow Tribal Survey, and in his diary he referred to the Huttons’ planned return to Panghai:

It [a letter Mr. Edwards received at Kaihuai] was concerning an estimate for necessary repairs to the Panghai house, the Huttons being just about to return to China. It is a comfort to know there will be someone to gather the threads of the Black Miao work together again.308

The Huttons planned to get back after World War II, although they received little support for this from the CIM as they were considered too old for this kind of work. They were both approaching sixty and other missionaries were sent instead. In October 1950 Ivan Allbutt, who had worked in the area during Hutton’s furlough, wrote:

In a tribe conservatively estimated to include 500,000 people, there are about one hundred who have confessed the Lord in baptism, with perhaps that many more

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who have made some sign of interest in Christian things. One hundred in half a million. And there has been no resident missionary among this tribe at all, for any length of time, since 1934. They have the New Testament in their language, but are still waiting for some missionaries to teach them how to use it.309

309 I Allbutt, ‘The Black Miao, of Kweichow’, (1950), p. 106.3,0 The American Heimbach was referred to as a new worker in Jan. 1948. Cf. ‘Western Region’, (Jan. 1948), p. 9.311 ‘Western Region*, (Febr. 1950), p. 25.

In February 1950 the CIM Field Bulletin reported that the Americans Heimbach310 had completed their transfer to Panghai, and had arrived on December 11, 1949.311 In February, however, the Heimbachs had to leave Panghai:

The following telegram received from Mr. Butler on the 26th February saddened our hearts: “Heimbachs evicted Pangsieh en route everything robbed both well Tuyün.” A letter from them, written from Pangsieh at the end of January, told of their joy in taking up the work that had been lefr for so long. [...] I [Heimbach] was stopped [at Panghai] by several soldiers for questioning and finally called up for an interview with the Pu Chang [oH^, i.e. commander] for this area. After quite a bit of explaining back and forth, we came to the conclusion that if we were to be allowed to remain here it could only be after the obtaining of a letter of introduction from government sources in either Tuyün or Kweiyang. Apparently we erred in not bringing a document with us when we came, although we were not informed of the need of such from the other end. For about two weeks now we have begun to give a good portion of time to die regular study of the Black Miao language. The spiritual side of the picture, however, is dark indeed, [...]. Outwardly the people are friendly and seem genuinely happy to have us here. Nevertheless, in spiritual matters there is a strange aloofness. There is little real interest in the message we have come to bring, and they seem to find it a tremendous task to understand the barest essentials of the Gospel. Of course, they are animists, and live in fear of the demons, but the saddest thing is to see that they cling to them and have no desire to leave the bondage of demonology and drunkenness. [...] Many come to have a look round, but few come to meetings. However, the Lord has blessed us in enabling us to hold service each Sunday since coming, and each time there have been forty or fifty attendees, although the larger number of these have been children. The language, of course, is a real hindrance. People tire of interpreted discourses, and especially these local folk who hold tenaciously to their own speech. They all look with hopes that we shall be able to speak their language soon and we are praying the Lord’s enabling to that end.[...].

Of the Christians who at one time were attached to the church there only remain three or four who in any outward way confess His name. Even these are miserably weak and stand in need of reviving grace, we fear. A few others there are, who are back in the thralls of demonology and sin and who give no evidence of ever having had life, although they used to attend when former missionaries were here. Altogether there is no Christian here to whom we can look for companionship and help in the work, and that is one of our greatest prayer burdens. [...].

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Praise God, some of the Black Miao church leaders from other centers have been to visit us recently and they are a tremendous encouragement. We had blessed prayer fellowship with them and it was with rejoicing that we saw them standing firm on the Rock with faith and courage. Would that the Lord might raise up men of their caliber here in Panghai itself. We talked of a possible conference for Christians after the New Year, and they seemed hungry indeed for the word.312

312 ‘Western Region’, (April 1950), pp. 56-7.3,3 I Allbutt, ‘The Black Miao, of Kweichow’, (1950), p. 106.314 E Heimbach, ‘The Still Open Door in Kweichow’, (1951), p. 27.

In October 1950, a short note, entitled ‘Out of sight ... out of mind?’, in connection with an article by Ivan Allbutt, referred to the Heimbachs’ effort to return to Panghai in 1949 and ended:

Now that a veil is drawn over events in Pangsieh, and scarcely a message filters through concerning the Christians there who have lately undergone indoctrination, may they not be out of our minds, but let us pray Mr. and Mrs. Heimbach back to Pangsieh and to their God-appointed ministry among the Black Miao.313

In an article written in 1951 Heimbach did not, however, refer to any kind of indoctrination, but wrote:

We have not been able to reside in the Black Miao field for about nine months now. There has been considerable unrest in that area. The country Christians are apparently still carrying on services and there is nothing to indicate that they have suffered any more than others.314

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Ge (Keh Deo) Writing

General Observations

The Ge, a Hmong subgroup, is in China officially defined as a part of the Miao people. They originally lived further to the west in Guizhou, but later moved to the Hmu area, mainly to Chong’an township in Huangping county, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong APM (cf. Introduction, p. 24). Their language is a variety of Hmong, officially designated as the Chong’anjiang subdialect.

However, the Ge do not accept being classified as Miao, and have asked the authorities to recognize them as a separate minority. In old Chinese texts they were referred to as the Gedou Miao but this seems to be conceived as a derogatory name, and they prefer to be called Gejia or Ge [nationality] ?15 The missionaries used the spelling Keh Deo for Gedou. As this group has not become recognized, it tends ‘not to exist’, and very little is to be found about it in the fiterature on the Miao people. In 1937 the Keh Deo population of Guizhou was estimated to more than 20,000,316 and according to Liao Ruqi, the informant of Wong How-man, a man from Hong Kong who travelled in these areas in 1982, the Ge population in Guizhou was about 70,000 (in 1982), half of them living in the Chong’anjiang area.317

The Emergence of Ge Writing

Around 1933 Hutton reduced the Ge language to writing, using the same spelling principles as for Hmu.318

In an article published in 1935 Hutton wrote:

Praise the LORD news has come to hand from Pangsieh saying that more baptisms have taken place there — but the best and cheering news of all to us is, one of these new baptised believers is a Keh Deo tribesman. It reminds me of the nine years of prayer and work to get an entrance into that tribe and the one soul - now there are six men and I hear their wives and families are interested in the Gospel too. Praise GOD for this brother in Christ from the Keh Deo tribe recently baptised into CHRIST’S death. The LORD has been burdening my heart for these Keh Deo

3,5 This people is also presented in Wong How-man, ‘Peoples of China’s Far Provinces’, (1984), pp. 315-20.316 The Book of A Thousand Tongues, 1972, p. 224.317 Wong How-man, ‘Peoples of China’s Far Provinces’, (March 1984), p. 317.318 The Book of A Thousand Tongues, 1972, p. 224.

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tribespeople without any portion of GOD’S Word in their tongue, and now I feel GOD would have me, on my return to Pangsieh, to begin translating St. Mark or St. John’s Gospel into their language. Will someone please pray with me for the right Keh Deo men to help me in this work? Pray too for the translation work itself.319

319 M H Hutton, ‘The New Testament for the Black Miao’, (1935), p. 205.320 ‘The Province of Kweichow’, 1937, p. 45.321 M H Hutton, ‘Fruit After Many Days’, (1936), p. 137.322 M H Hutton, ‘Fruit After Many Days’, (1936), p. 137.323 Catechism and Hymnary, 1937. Preface in English by M H Hutton.324 Pan Wenguang, personal communication, Chong’an, 13 Nov. 1990.

The CIM yearbook for 1936 quoted Hutton’s report, which said that translation work on St Mark’s and St John’s Gospels into Ge was progressing well.320 In 1936 Hutton described a visit to the Chong’anjiang out-station and mentioned meetings for worship were held in four villages, one of which was a Ge village.321 He also wrote the colporteurs were preaching in three languages (i.e. Chinese, Hmu and Ge). He further wrote: ‘We have been trying to hire a Keh Deo teacher to come and teach some of us that language.’322

The preface of the Keh-Deo Catechism and Hytnnary, dated Zhifu, October 1937, stated:

The Hymns and Choruses of this book are in the Keh-Deo Tribal Language, and are selections from the Black Miao Hymnary of Pangsieh, Kweichow, and the numbering of the Hymns tallies with the Black Miao Hymnary numbers.

The Catechism is based originally upon Mrs. Nevius’ Catechism, and is also a reproduction of the Black Miao Catechism, only in the Keh-Deo tribal language, and for use in work among the Keh-Deo (Ko-Mpheo) tribal people around the Pangsieh mission station district.

The translation of the two gospels of St. Mark and St. John, as well as the Catechism and Hymns were accomplished by Colporteur Liao Teh Ngen and aided by Mr. Liao Ruh Yin, both of Wang Ba Village.323

Wangba village is a Ge village, located a couple of kilometres away from Chong’an township According to Rev Pan Wenguang of the Chong’an church, Liao Ruyin stayed at Panghai for approximately half a year. Pan Wenguang further explained that Liao Ruyin and his brother, presumably the above-mentioned Liao Teh Ngen (probably = Liao De’en were the only Ge Christians, but that they ceased to believe when Hutton left. ‘They beheved in the missionaries and not in Jesus.’324

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In 1937, Hutton nevertheless wrote that three Keh Deo families had become believers and that one young man had been baptised.325 In 1937 he described his translation work into Hmu and also mentioned the translations into Ge:

325 M H Hutton, ‘Steady Advancement’, (1937), p. 124.326 M H Hutton, ‘How the Message came to the Black Miao’, (1937), p. 214.

There are many other tribes of aboriginals in our district, and recently work was begun among the Keh Deo tribe. Several families have believed and we are at present here in Chefoo having St. Mark and St. John and a catechism and some hymns and choruses printed, for we have also reduced their language to writing for them.326

As pointed out by Pan, cf. above, the scope of the Ge mission was indeed very limited, and presumably, unlike the Hmu mission, it left no vestiges whatsoever in the area. The books in Ge were all printed in 1937 and were most probably never sent to the Ge area.

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The Debate about Pollard’s and Adam’s Writing Systems for A-Hmao

James R Adam who had suited his missionary work in 1888 for the CIM at Anshun in Guizhou, devised a writing system for A-Hmao, basing his orthography on the earlier Latin Miao writing devised by S R Clarke. No clear indications have been found of when the writing started to be used, but it was obviously based on the general spelling principles which Clarke had already used for Hmu and other languages in 1895,325 * * * and in 1904.329 1 suppose that it would have been natural for Adam to start writing texts in A-Hmao quite soon after the first contacts with the A-Hmao in 1903.

325 S R Clarke, ‘Miao Studies’, (1895), p. 148.329 S R Clarke, ‘The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province’, (1904), p.206. This article contains a short vocabulary of Chinese, Kehlao, Lolo, Heh Miao andChungchia. Clarke described the spelling principles in the following way: ‘the Chineseis written as pronounced in Kueichow, and the way I have written Chinese words will serve as a key for the system used in writing the other vocabularies.’330 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3. WJ Slowan, Glasgow, 10 June 1910.

Adam and Pollard had studied together at the language school in 1888, and in spite of some differences in their religious views, Adam obviously considered them to be of minor importance since he initiated Pollard’s mission among the A-Hmao by sending the letter of recommendation in 1904. Later their relations seem to have become more strained, and this has been discussed above, cf. p. 101.

As related above, in the description of the CIM mission in Guizhou before 1915, Adam elaborated a way of writing A-Hmao, and although the success of the Pollard script must have already been known to him at that time, he preferred a Latin script. In 1910 J R Adam’s translation of St Mark (without tone markings), was published by the NBSS. Therefore the debate about the advisability of introducing a completely new system, the Pollard script, started again. Several persons within the BFBS had been hesitant about the Pollard script, and now an alternative seemed in the offing. Adam had asked the NBSS to publish his translation of St Mark and the first, second and third letters of St John (1910) and St Matthew, St John, and Paul’s epistles to the Romans and the Galatians (1911).

W J Slowan at the NBSS accepted the introduction of a second version in A-Hmao, as the BFBS did not seem to raise any objections.330 On June 18, 1910 G H Bondfield at the BFBS wrote that ‘Mr. Adam’s version is practically the same as Mr. Pollard’s. Both are based on a Chinese translation and the only practical difference is that the one is in script and the other in

i6i

Roman.’331 However, he regretted that one unified version had not been possible.

331 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3. G H Bondfield, Edinburgh, 18 June [1910].332 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3. S Pollard, Chantung [sic!], 10 Mar. [1910].333 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3.334 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3. WJ Slowan, Glasgow, 2 Aug. 1910.

There is also a report about Pollard’s reaction on Adam’s translation. It is based on a letter from Pollard to the BFBS, dated Zhao tong, March 10, 1910:

He has read with interest and pleasure Mr. Adam’s version of Hwa Miao Mark. The hnguage is one and the same. Some of the verses are almost exactly the same as those in the script translation. He does not know how Mr. Adam translated the Gospel but from internal evidence he should say he had the help of a Kweichow teacher who possibly did the majority of the work with the help of some Miao men. The sounds are given as their Chinese teachers gave them at the start. Nearly all the ‘z’s’ are turned into ‘r’s.’ Many of the words which have an initial ‘n’ sound are minus this sound. At the beginning their Chinese teachers could not get this sound at all. But in compound words such as that used for ‘Disciple’ he notices that the ‘n’ at the beginning of the second word of the compound appears. Then again the ‘sh’ sounds in Miao appear as ‘s’ sounds in this Romanized version. This is also Kweichow Chinese, for in that province the word for God is always Sang-ti and not Shangti. It is apparent that they will be able to help each other in this translation work even if one always uses the Romanized and the other the script.332

It was, however, resolved to ‘recommend that the Committee consider that in the interest of the work the two Societies should not overlap in one language.* 333 On August 2, 1910, W J Slowan at the NBSS wrote:

Mr. Adam pressed the N.B.S.S. to publish his version. They recognised Mr. Adam’s exceptional experience and ability as a Translator, and the fact that the Miao people were already familiar with his translations of Primer, Hymn Book and the Catechism in Roman letters. Mr. Adam had repeatedly declined Mr. Bondfield’s solicitations to let the B.F.B.S. publish his version; his desire being that the N.B.S.S. should have that privilege. In the absence of any reply to the N.B.S.S. letter dated June 10th, in which they intimated that they understood that the B.F.B.S. would not object to their publication of this version, and in view of the frank and generous attitude of Mr. Batson and Mr. Bondfield, and their expressed, if unofficial, approval to the N.B.S.S. issuing the translation, their Finance Committee had felt it their duty to comply with Mr. Adam’s request.334

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Two years later there was another reference to Adam’s script:

The N.B.S.S. are printing editions in roman character, which appears to be more satisfactory than the curious script invented by Mr. Pollard. Mr. F.[E. S. Fish?] sends specimen copies of St. Matthew, Romans and Galatians, and 1,2 and 3 John. They intend to complete the N.T.335

335 BFBS, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 3. R H Falconer, Edinburgh, 21 June 1912 and W Slowan, Glasgow, 3 July 1912.336 Ibid. Shanghai, 24 Sept. 1912.

The editorial superintendent of the BFBS had not been very pleased with the Pollard script, but in 1913 Bondfield claimed that they had to go on printing books in it, as the script was already widely used.336

The Development of the Pollard Script 1904-1949

Questions Concerning the Phonemic System of A-Hmao

In order to analyse the Pollard script we first have to determine the phonemic system of the dialect spoken in the area where Pollard carried out his missionary activities. This task has been quite difficult and the results below are only tentative, as it has, unfortunately, been completely impossible to carry out field studies in the Stone Gateway area. No foreigner has been allowed to go there since 1949. There is a rumour that the main reason for this prohibition nowadays is that the Red Guards demolished Pollard’s tombstone during their attacks in the ’60s. There are many descriptions of varying reliability, and my tentative analysis of the phonemic system follows below. It is also included in the ‘Introduction’.

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Initials

p Ph mp mpb m n> f V wts tsh nts ntsh s zt I* nt nthd tf1 nd ntf* n ? 1 1t f* nt itf*

n.t?h n ?ip tch nto rPtçh n* V1 c zk kh gk gk1’ n u X Yq qh wq Nq** X0R1 h [fi, h’, rj

337 A four tone system is given in an article by one of those who revised the 1917 NT in the beginning of the ’30s. Cf. W H Hudspeth, ‘The Hwa Miao Language’, (1935), pp. 104-21.

Finals

i [i.wl e y ly,?,.*,] 9 a UI u 0ei œy ai aui au ie [ie.ie] (ia) (iaui)(iau) (iu) (io Æye]) (uei) (ua) (uai) (uaui) (no)(in) (en) (an) (og /[ugl) (ian) (uan) (a9

Tones

Problems connected with the tones are abundant, and although I have tried not to become influenced by the tone indications in the Pollard script, the object of this part of my study, I am afraid that objectivity has been impossible in some cases, especially as it has been rather difficult to determine the exact form of the letters and the position of the tone marker in texts printed from woodblocks. As the printer probably did not know the Pollard script, but only copied onto the woodblock from a hand written text, the forms of the graphemes are often somewhat floating and wobbly and tone markers sometimes appear in intermediate positions, which necessarily introduces a subjective element into the interpretation. Foreign accounts give a very vague picture of the tone system,337 and the tone terminology is extremely difficult to interpret, for example shangsheng can refer to the old category shang, which is now pronounced 214 in standard northern Mandarin; it can, however, also refer to the pronunciation of this tone in the south, i.e. 55, 54 or 44. Furthermore, shangsheng literally means ‘rising tone’, and this term is now sometimes used to designate tone 2 of modem Chinese, i.e. 35, but,

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as in the case above, it can sometimes also refer to its actual pronunciation in the south, i.e. 51, 31 or 21.

I have relied mainly on the description in a textbook from the beginning of the ’50s, when the etymologically based tone categories had not yet been fully introduced.338 Therefore the material is less likely to have been forced into a frame and too heavily standardized. A second source was an article on the tones of this dialect from a purely linguistic point of view, in which problems of interpretation are pointed out and not glossed over.339 340 The research materials from 1956 and the subsequent preliminary A-Hmao writing of 1956 also give valuable hints.3*

338 [Wang Fushi & Zhang Feiran], [Diandongbei fangyan miaoyu heben], [1953?]. The actual textbook has not been found, but only a manuscript, lacking tide page.339 Wang Fushi & Wang Deguang, ‘Guizhou Weining miaoyu de shengdiao*, 1986, pp. 91-134.340 Guizhousheng minzu yuwen zhidao weiyuanhui (ed.), Miaozu yuyan wenzi wenti kexue taolunhui huikan, 1957.

Roman numerals indicate original etymological tone categories, not entirely relevant for this Miao dialect, but important for comparison to later writing systems. Tone values in brackets are to be considered as allotones.

Tones

I 54 (or 55/44)n 24 (324)in 55IVa 22(23/112)IVb 44V 44Via 21VIb 53VII 22Villa 21VUIb 53

In the account of the Pollard script before 1949 I will refer to the tone categories in the following way:

Compondences in the tables below

IV = IVa and VIIV = IVb and VVia = Via and VillaVIb = VlbandVIIIb

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As pointed out in the Introduction, the value 22 for cat. IVa could be doubted, but there is no indication that it was treated differently from cat. VII in any texts in the Pollard script printed before the 1980s.341 The alternative value 44 for cat. I is my own postulation as many of the words in this category appear together with other 44 words (from IVb and V). In most varieties of A-Hmao (but not Stone Gateway) the cat. I is pronounced 54. It appears to me that some of the words in this category have merged with cat. Ill (55), and cat. IVb and V (44). I have no reliable indications about the exact origin of Pollard’s informants and the early A-Hmao translators, and as the tone values often change from village to village this question has to remain open.342 In recent descriptions of Stone Gateway A-Hmao cat. I is considered to have merged completely with cat. III. Another problem is that the missionaries sometimes refer to cat. Ill as being ‘high rising* (i.e. 45).343 No support for this has been found in the Chinese sources.

The initials indicated above are only the phonemes: phonetically the system is much more complicated as almost all initials have voiced counterparts, which appear in conjunction with certain tone categories. Fortunately no special symbols were introduced for these allophones in the varieties of Pollard script discussed here. (But cf. parts III and IV below). The allophones of some finals were introduced as separate letters and will therefore be discussed here.

The Experiment in 1904

In October 1904 Pollard wrote in his diary: ‘Made an experiment in getting out a written language for the Miao’. He gave a list of consonants and vowels and a translation of the first verse of the hymn ‘Jesus loves me’.344 (Cf. facsimile, p. 169). After analysing the translated text I arrived at phonetic values for most of the letters; they are added below in brackets:

341 The reason for introducing a difference in tone marking for cat. IVa and VII in those texts is probably the historical differences between these categories and not any difference in the actual tone value.342 In his diary Pollard wrote that he had different persons as informants in the beginning, cf. p. 104.343 RK Parsons, personal communication, Torquay, 23 May 1991.344 This is the English version of the hymn, and the Chinese version also has ‘me’, but it is for some reason changed it to ‘us’.

i66

Consonants

G

p J (Pl F r [f] M [m]B “1 V V [V] N V_x [n] and prenasalizationT(D) T M S s Is] NG k-f’CH C [t§] z L uK SH tel LL u m

> □ [k] TS [ts] CL A

Y > M and the first part of finak beginning with -i-H > [h] and aspiration

Vowels

AO (ow) n [au]E c [œy, ai, i]1(E) r» [ilAI(I) 1 lai]U(oo) V [u]AH(älms) _ [a]Ï TO [0]EO OAWÜ ?A(fate) L lei]

167

There appears to exist only one text in this first stage of Pollard’s script.345 Under the text in Pollard script are added Pollard’s definitions of the pronunciation of the letters, an IPA transcription of the actual pronunciation of the words and a basic translation:

345 Microfiche no. 1323, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche. Diaries of S Pollard 1904-5.346 Earlier pronounced /zei® su®/.347 An alternative interpretation is that a Chinese caique is used, with the numeral ‘one* in the meaning ‘as soon as’, viz. Zi®/. In Huamiao ershu there is a new translation of ‘Jesus loves me’, which is significantly different from the above. In the corresponding position, however, <c> (i.e. /ai54/) is used and not <H> (i.e. /i54/). Cf. Bo Geli, Li Sitifàn & Zhang Yuehan, Huamiao ershu, 1905, p. 12.348 United Methodist School Hymnal, 1911, p. 97.

o V L o nY+A S+U N+CH+H+I P+I P+I I P+AOzie® su® Htÿ’œy44 «s» p> p ai54 pau54

Jesusi346 love we we very347 know

IC A J, c J..N+T+ESH+E P+I E P+AO T+AH T+Y+Antœy® «s* ai54 pau54 la54 dieabook holy we very know very much

Jc J. T* iK+E M+I CH+H+AHLL+U P+I T+U N+TS+AW44 my44 tji-a* hi54 p tu54 ntsai21

God pity pity we son daughter

Lc Lr‘l c Tit

P+I H+E LL+O K+E M+I E T+AOP* W2 Jo5' ki44 my44 ai54 dfiau22we not big God very strong

Jesus loves me [us]! this I [we] know. For the Bible tells me [us] so: Little ones to Him belong; They are weak, but He is strong.348

168

Facsimile of Pollard's Diary Entry, Oct. 12, 1904

qO

r v €

<7>M

n Jo

K Th.

FV

S

? 3

B nT(h) TCfr

M K «-Z KG-

L L

Ao

E Î (_EJ

Al (I) £<n> )

Art (*£«- ) i. o Co Aw 0

A [f*6 )V.X4J tfc^^

J. J„J ■» c —)•• r- Lf* J. -R 'n-.Lfl □. a-.- « T..

I«9

Pollard himself described how this preliminary system was arrived at:

The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and never having been accustomed to study, it was felt that we must be as simple as possible, and hence we looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by these ignorant people. It was necessary that the written system be absolutely phonetic and easily understood. While working out the problem, we remembered the case of the syllables used by a Methodist missionary among the Indians of North America, and resolved to do as he had done. Mr. Stephen Lee assisted me very ably in this matter, and at last we arrived at a system which has so ûr been of great use in our work.349

349 S Pollard, The Story of the Miao, 1919, p. 174. Originally published as ‘Gathering up the fragments’ in 1909.350 Discussed by J A Bennett & J W Berry, ‘Cree literacy in the syllabic script’, 1991, pp. 90-104.351 J C Pilling, Bibliography of the Algonquian Languages, 1891, p. 186.352 In 1943 H B Rattenbury wrote that the Pollard script was a combination of Hebrew and shorthand signs. Cf. H B Rattenbury, Advance in South-west China, 1943, p. 4. According to the British anthropologist Nicholas Tapp there are even rumours among the Hmong that the Pollard script is connected to the Dead Sea scrolls, actually discovered in 1947. Nicholas Tapp, personal communication, Hong Kong, April 1990.353 Microfiche no. 1323, Box 640, Pollard, Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche.

The actual form of the letters was thus mainly based on the script that the missionary James Evans had developed for the Cree people in Canada in the 1840s.350 The form of that script was, in its turn, decided by the simple means that were available to Evans for printing books. J C Pilling wrote:

He [Evans] whittled out his first types for patterns, and then using the lead furnished him by the Hudson Bay Company’s empty tea chests, he cast others in moulds of his own devising. He made his first ink out of the soot of the chimneys. His first paper was birch-bark, and his press was also the result of his handiwork.351

Pollard’s orthographic principles were, however, entirely different from those of Evans. The Cree script is syllabic; it is normally referred to as the Cree syllabary. Pollard used some of Evans’s syllable signs as initials and added the small graphemes on the top right comer of the syllabic which Evans had used to indicate final consonants. When these signs were taken over by Pollard they were used as finals, i.e. vowels and diphthongs. He also drew on Pitman’s shorthand for the forms of some letters. For both initials and finals some Latin letters were used.352 In the first draft of October 1904 he asked himself in the end of the diary entry: ‘How shall I manage to distinguish tones?’353

Quite soon the problem was solved, perhaps with the help of Stephen Lee, the Chinese minister, who may have helped in analysing the sound

170

system of A-Hmao. The system of placing the finals in different positions to indicate tones must have been worked out before the summer of 1905, because at that time the first A-Hmao primer was printed at the Canadian Mission Press in Chengdu. The first consignment arrived at Stone Gateway on August 6, 1905.354

354 Ethel Squire, ‘Letter written from Stone-Gateway’, (1906), p. 11.355 S Pollard, The Story of the Miao, 1919, pp. 174-5. This chapter of the book was first published separately as ‘Gathering up the fragments’, (1909), pp. 531-5.356 R E Kendall, Beyond the Clouds: The Story of Samuel Pollard of South-west China, 1947, pp. 123-4.

Shorthand was the source of inspiration for the tone marking system. In 1909 Pollard wrote:

The Miao language is monosyllabic, and in nearly all cases the vowels end the words. By adapting the system used in shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side of the consonant signs, we found that we could solve our problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the former, gives the tone or musical note required.355

In Pitman’s shorthand the position alters the vowel quality, but Pollard used this system for marking tones instead. For the number of tones Pollard probably relied upon the Chinese tone system, which recognized five tone categories at that time. Apart from the shorthand system of vowel-marking Pollard may have been inspired by a system used for indicating the tones of Chinese, earlier developed by his teacher at the language school at Anqing

F W Baller. R E Kendall described this in his biography of Pollard Beyond the Clouds :

The ’tone’ of the Chinese character was often written by the foreign student in the form of a small figure, indicating the number of the tone, at the side of die character; often the small number was written at the particular comers of the rectangular character to indicate one of the four possible ’tones’, so Pollard solved his problem by altering the position of the small vowel, as it was written next to the large capital letter for the consonant.356

In principle I think that Kendall’s explanation is correct, at least in the sense that Pollard may have been inspired by this tone marking system, but at that time five tones were usually recognized in standard Chinese, which also explains why Pollard came to use exacdy five positions.

171

The First A-Hmao Primers

In 1905 two textbooks in Pollard script were published by the Canadian Mission Press in Chengdu. Huamiao yishu has 10 pages and Huamiao ershu has 16 pages.357 In the first there is a list of the letters in the Pollard script (without equivalents). Of the 31 letters in the list 28 are used in the text. In the second column we indicate IPA equivalents arrived at through analysis of the text:

Pollard IPA

J P7 tL [lc] if before A [i] or a [œy]□ kqr fV vS s3 z) [ç] if before n [i] or g [œy]+ ts

J m (vertical instead of horizontal as in 1904)C n (vertical instead of horizontal as in 1904)L 1U *ZÏ dA a— aL e, aia iI ai0 oU uU au

(not used)Q (not used)G e, œy

œy (consists of c [e] and | [ai]

357 Bo Geli, Li Sitifan & Zhang Yuehan, Huamiao yishu, 1905 and Bo Geli, Li Sitifàn, Zhang Yuehan, Huamiao ershu, 1905.

172

O ?.jO (not used)£ q (not used separately)S h (also indicates aspiration, e.g.J’ (p* 1] and voicelessness for nasals, e.g.’J

(rpl)

In the Huamiao ershu two further initials are introduced:

G Q (it only differs in size from the small letter listed above)T t (one stroke added to theT [t])

As indicated in the list above the palatal series was distinguished from the retroflex series by the intermediary vowel [i], e.g.t. [t§] and Cn [tç]. The voiceless nasals were indicated with the combination h+m and h+n. The changes for the finals were greater as quite a few combinations and ligatures were used.

[io] (i+o)[ie] (i+e)

aI [iei] (i+ei)[iu] (i+u)

n- [ia] (i+a)[in] (i+q); probably due to dialect pronunciation)

% [aui] (from a-Hj; this final is also used for Chinese loanwords in -aq)[iaui] (from i+a+ij; also used for Chinese loanwords in -iaq)

f [eq] (e+ij)Ub iL [uei] (u+ei)

As mentioned in the diary entry and in the passage from Pollard’s The Story of the Miao quoted above, he used the two categories consonants and vowels and did not mention the categories initials and finals, which are probably more relevant for a language like Miao. Those are the only parts of the syllable that any untrained Miao (or Chinese) is able to extract, a fact which will be further discussed in connection with later Latin, or Pinyin, based writing systems. In 1904 the letter > [?] had served both as initial and as part of the final, and the ’ [h] was used both as initial and as modifier for other initials.

The system later to be considered so ingenious was apparently arrived at by chance, and the primary reason is that the syllable structure is almost invariably (C)C(i)V(V). Nowadays the Pollard script is described as consisting of initials and finals, and the two categories are strictly kept apart. This clear division of initials and finals, combined with the fact that many words can be written with only two symbols: initial + final, is considered to be superior to Latin-based orthographies, in which two or more letters are used

173

just to spell the initial, and syllables may have to be spelt with five or six letters. At this stage of the Pollard script, however, this division is not apparent. This is especially clear in the rendering of the Chinese loanword fen in Huamiao ershu, viz.:

c onVC LZ [hi44 fen55 to54 gau54] ‘He does not distinguish between rich and poor’. Here the consonant C (n) is used as the nasal ending after the vowel C (e).

Pollard described his tone marking system as coming from shorthand, and Kendall gave the Chinese tone marking system as the basis. Probably both these sources Served as inspiration for Pollard. The interesting part, however, is the system which was used for defining the tone categories. My hypothesis is that both Pollard and his helper, Stephen Lee, a Chinese, were influenced by the Chinese way of marking tones, and simply transferred it to A-Hmao. Neither had any knowledge of other tonal languages and therefore this must have been their most important point of reference. The Chinese origin for the tone categories well explains the subsequent difficulties encountered by persons who have written in Pollard script or tried to reform it. There were not enough tone markers for the A-Hmao tones and this made it necessary to group certain tones together.

Tone Marking in the Pollard Script

In 1904 Pollard indicated no tones, but in 1905 the tone marking system was fully developed, although it was not entirely consistent. In his Huamiao yishu a five tone system is given as an example directly after the list of letters, viz.:

f T" T- T TStrange to say, one of the positions was not used in the text. Position 4 (from above) was used in only six words out of more than 400, and they do not differ in tone value from position 5. It is, however, used for the only one Chinese loanword in the Chinese tone category yangping. We thus have a 4 (5) tone system. First are given the A-Hmao tone categories and tone values, then the original tone category of the Chinese loanwords and their tone value in A-Hmao.

174

In the tables below the Chinese tone categories are indicated according to the classical system, which corresponds to standard Mandarin tone categories, and the tone value (TV) in Peking and in the A-Hmao area,358 in the following way:

Classical category Mandarin TV (Peking) TV (A-Hmao area)

yinping 1 55 55yangping 2 35 22shang ± 3 214 54qu 4 51 24ru Ä 1,2,3,4 / 2, (5) 55, 35, 214, 51 22, rarely 21

The ru category has lost its former characteristic trait, an ending in -p, -t or -k, and has in Peking been distributed over all the other categories. In the A-Hmao area it has merged with the yangping category, but in a few places in and near the A-Hmao area, it has been preserved as a separate category, here indicated as Mandarin category 5.

In the tables below brackets (around both tone value in Roman numerals and tone value) indicate that the tones rarely appear, either because they regularly appear in another position or because they rarely appear at all in the available texts, and thus are insufficient for definite conclusions. The 54 value for A-Hmao category I is not the ordinary value at Stone Gateway. However, as pointed out above, it is difficult to know the exact origin of Pollard’s informants, and the tone value 54 is definitely used both by the A-Hmao in Yunnan and by some in Guizhou. Furthermore 54 is the tone value in the modem orthography, which is said to be based on the speech of

358 The A-Hmao area pronunciation of Chinese loanwords in the Pollard script is based on information received from R K Parsons, letter of 17 Feb. 1992. There are, however, also other opinions about the tone values of Chinese loanwords in A-Hmao. In the writing scheme in Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui, ‘Miaoyu beibu fangyan wenzi gaige fang’an (cao’an)’, 1957, p. 200, the following correspondences are given:

Chinese category Miao value Corresponding to Miao category

yinping 55 IIIyangping (incl. ru) 21 Viashang 33 Vqu 11 VII (=IV below)

Here not only the correspondences are different, but the values for V and VII are one point lower on the scale.359 These tone values refer to the tone values given to Chinese loanwords in A-Hmao, and is not necessarily the same as used by A-Hmao or Chinese speaking Chinese in that area.

175

Stone Gateway.360 I thus suppose that there might have been a split in this tone category in the speech which Pollard used as the standard.

360 Cf. Zhongguo kexueyuan shaoshu minzu yuyan diaocha di’er gongzuodui, ‘Miaoyu beibu fàngyan wenzi gaige fang’an (cao’an)’, 1957, p. 164; and Diandongbei miaawengaige fang’an caoan, 1959, p. 6.

The *A-Hmao category* is the historical tone category and after it is indicated its actual pronunciation. To the right are the tone categories of the Chinese loanwords indicated at the same position by Pollard, and after it the A-Hmao tone value for Chinese loanwords from the four (five) Chinese tone categories. In the Huamiao yishu the tone positions represented the following tone categories and values.

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

1. Ill, I 55,54 ping 55

2 □* I, VIb 54, (53) shang 54

3. □* n 24 4« 24

4. Ek yangping, (rw) 22, (21)

5. IV, V, Via 22, 44, 21

The Chinese tones run downwards in order, but their values correspond to the values of original A-Hmao words only in tone categories I, II and III (almost). These tones will present few problems in the further analysis as they have remained stable ever since. The contradiction between the actual tone values of the Chinese tones in A-Hmao and the tone values of the A-Hmao words can in principle be solved in many ways. For the Pollard script, most possibilities seem to have been tried at one time or another.

The Gospel Texts

In 1907 the first Gospel text, St Mark, was printed in A-Hmao and there no further initials were added. However, one already existing final was put into use and a few finals were made up of already existing symbols, viz.:

a [ylX [an] (a+n)â [en] (e+n)AX [ian] (i+a+n)q, [uq] (u+q)

176

The final [aw] was written (a+q) only for A-Hmao words. Chinese loanwords in [-an] and [-aq] were all written T (a+n). In 1908 (St John) this changed again, A-Hmao words and Chinese loanwords in [-aq] being written with X (a+q), while Chinese loanwords in -an were written - (a), which is probably closer to the local pronunciation of Chinese. The A-Hmao final [am] must have been noticeably different from Chinese [-aq], and in 1908 St John there is a spelling mistake with (ff+a+u) for [tlam55]. This final was not used subsequently. The final [-eq] was, however, written with the final

[-ql- This was probably the result of a misconception about the nature of this sound. Pollard could pronounce [-m] and [-n] separately, but the [-q] was probably unconsciously pronounced with an additional vowel.

In 1907 the tones were represented in the following way:

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

!.□ Ill, I 55,54 ping 55

2 □* V,I 44, 54 shang 54

3. Q» n 24 24

4. 9 IV, Vla+b 22, 21, 53 yangping, (iw) 22, (21)

Here only four positions are used and the tone values in A-Hmao words correspond well to the values in Chinese loanwords.

In 1908 one final was added and one was changed:

b [ui] (ai+y)[in] (i+q; earlier combined: )

The distinction between [k] and [q] was also introduced:

JT [q] (k with an added stroke to the upper right)

Few things were changed in the second edition of St Mark in 1910. ZT [q] continued to be used and Chinese loanwords in [-an] and [-aq] were rendered as in 1908 St John. Chinese [-eq] was no longer written [q], but [y]. Furthermore, the final b [m] was introduced in some of the places where this sound appeared.

In 1912 some changes were carried out, especially regarding the tone system. In the BSL Catalogue another translator is mentioned, A G Nicholls. Since 1906 he had worked for the CIM among the A-Hmao at Sapushan in Yunnan. Pollard and Gladstone Porteous, a CIM missionary who had come to China in 1904, revised the translation.

177

One new initial was introduced: 1 [h] (this symbol existed already in Pollard’s first attempt in 1904, but it was not used, as the phoneme /b/, indicated by Pollard as its pronunciation, did not exist, at least not in the phonological framework used by Pollard.) It replaced * [h], which is restricted to mark aspiration. In this way it is also easier to indicate tones in syllables with initial [h]. Earlier they had only three positions, viz?”"(=position 1 and 2),(=position 3) and (=position 4, corresponding to the position below). Furthermore theT [q] and b [ui] were used for all relevant cases. The final n [z,i] split into two:

1 [z, J, 1 (allophone of [y], after dental and retroflex fricatives and affricates)p [z^l (allophone of [i], after dental and retroflex fricatives and affricates)

Both are allophones and unnecessary from a phonemic point of view. The final (explained as ‘AW’ in 1904) L was used for the first time in a text, to represent [ie] after a retroflex stop: CÏ? [rfthie]. The combination nv[iai] (i+ai) was also used. The main change was that the five tone system was ‘reintroduced’ and it was apparendy based more on the tones of the original A-Hmao words than of Chinese loanwords. As a consequence the latter appear somewhat irregularly. The basic picture is:

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

1. Ill, I 55, 54 ping 55

2. □* I, V, VIb 54, 44, 53 shang 54

3. □* n 24 24

4. CL V,IV 44,22

5. * VI, IV 21,22 yangping, (m) 22, (21)

Probably the intention was to represent the structure: high - high falling - rising - low - low falling. This system was subsequendy improved and in 1914 it was more exact:

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

1. Ill 55 ping 55

2. □* I, V, VIb 54, 44, 53 shang 54

3. □* n 24 24

4. Ck IV, V 22,44 yangping, (ru) 22, (21)

5. « VI, (VIb) 21, (53)

178

Thus only one A-Hmao tone category (V) appeared regularly in two different positions. Probably a subdialect outside the village of Stone Gateway had been used as the tone categories I and III are neatly distinguished. The main contradiction is the Chinese ru tone which was moved from position 5 to position 4 in 1914. The Chinese tones often appear in irregular positions.

In 1913 two new initials were introduced:361

361 (Hwa Miao New 1st Primer), s.a. [probably 1913].30 This letter is very common in the Sichuan Hmong orthography which probably was devised in 1913, cf. above, p. 141.

1 MR [2j (Latin letter)362

Several finals were put together, reintroduced or changed, viz.:

? [si (y+ai)OU [ouj (o+u)U“ [uaj (u+a)UL [uaui] (u+a+q)Ul [uei] (u+ei)uo [uo] (u+o)05 [oqJ (o+ui)UU [nau] (u+au)H [z^,] (in 1914) (from 0) r [W1 (in 1914) (from P )

179

Example of Text: 1907 Mark (1:1-3)

gain3* ti2* God

- 3

a44 ko44 beginning

T A § t T Ç )“ 3" / tu5* zie® su® fci® tu21 nffiy2 mau44 zau44 gœy® son Jesus Christ his news good begin

S’S’TUS J”S£2 S£2 tu54 su® pau® sau44 tçie44 K2

like class, first know write cont. say

) ( J -p 3 TUV 9" f Cim21 nfia21 ku® is?5* ku® tu" p“* ■““** n’o“you look I send I class. messenger be you

hi’nflie24-“ in front of

;rv- xa“/xia2

build

c?

dzy2*you

£

«si® road

be place

2 C )- / - 5 ,ku2 dzfia2mfiaa4gaui® a44 qui44 xu44 Ifi2 part, desert exist voice call say

xa2/xia22 tgi,æ tpi® tçis ku2 tgho® build Lord road road part, winding

? v P•'S

nio" ti" tc\ey44'22

A

za® shall

cc^xa / xia iPtçaur

build straight

Changes after Pollard’s Death

The orthography of the 1915 Acts of the Apostles is the same as the above, but later, after Pollard’s death in 1915, another major change was introduced. It appeared in the 1917 New Testament and also in a revised version of the 1914 Gospel Hymns and in an Old Testament History. As both lack an indication of the year of publication, it is impossible to give the exact time for the introduction of the vowel carrier Y (also written Y). In principle it represents a glottal stop, as all finals without an initial appear with a glottal stop. The reason for introducing it was, however, most probably the difficulty of determining the tone position of a free vowel. Both works referred to above were published before the 1917 NT, which is proven by the irregular

i8o

tone marking of Chinese loanwords. I do not know who introduced this letter, but is was most probably not Pollard, as he did not use it in his diary in the last entry containing A-Hmao text on June 13, 1915. He died on September 16.

From 1914 onwards the final c [el was no longer used separately, but only in the combinations S [œyl, AC [ie] etc. The latter could however represent [el as the combination retroflex fricative or affricate + r\C[ie] gives palatal + [e]. Chinese loanwords with original [-e] were written with an [01, which is closer to the actual pronunciation.

In the 1917 NT the initial U [w] (Latin letter) was introduced for writing Chinese loanwords. One final was put together and one changed:

uc [ue] (u+e; for Chinese loanwords in [-un])Afe [in] (i+Q ; for Chinese loanwords in [-in]. Here the second part of the ligature

was no longer associated with the initial L [q])

One final was put into regular use: , defined as ‘AW* by Pollard in 1904 and later used only once or twice, to write the final [ie] in 1912. It was now used to write [ie] after jetroflex fricatives and afiricates, which were not to become palatals, e.g.: ) [gie] and ) [çe]. The positions of the tones in Chinese loanwords were standardized and this gave the following result:

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

1. HI, I 55,54 ping 55

2 □* V, I, VIb 44, 54, 53 shang 54

3. O n 24 35

4. □, IV, (V) 22, (44) yangping, (m) 22, (21)

5. » VI, IV 21,22

The categories I and III were no longer clearly distinguished and category V rarely appeared in position 4. That position thus had the value 22 for A-Hmao words and 22 or more rarely 21 for Chinese loanwords. Position 5 hosted A-Hmao words with tones 22 and 21. This overlapping tone marking system was most probably a prerequisite for the reduction of the number of positions (the elimination of the fifth position) in the early *20s. Wang Deguang gives technical reasons for this change, and this may also have played a role. Another reason may have been that the missionaries who took over after Pollard wanted to bring the system in accordance with standard Chinese, in which often only four tones were recognized.

i8i

Example of Text: 1917 New Testament (Mark 1:1-3)

beginning like class, first know Isaiah book write

CTu Vud

Tu uA S

n r T« c o J" 3" J=ndfiu24 vfiaia tu54 lie® su® Si® tu2 n»fiy2 mau* zau* bfiy2heaven father son Jesus Christ his news good begin

0 Y ln Ju Tu su J" yn S‘ Ar (f S"a44 ko* a* li* ku2 tu® su" pau a" sai24 za34 ntœy® sau4

346 /a® içau54 a* ko* ntœy®/, [1922], 17 pp.347 According to P K Parsons, it was probably Hudspeth who removed the fifth position during Parsons’s furlough in 1920-1. P K Parsons, personal communication, Isle of Wight, 13 Oct. 1992.

F In D C J à r j f v D" C En □

teie* Ifi2 mia nfiaa ku® za55 tsz54 ku® tu54 tau* mau* nto54 <izyacont. say you look I shall send I messenger be you

r

in frontnifiy2 za® ki* tsie* dzya tci® ku2 mfiau2

he shall prepare you road part, walk

n»©54 ti54 t^œy^difia2 mfia34 tm® nui54 gam54 a* qui* xu* Ki2 be place desert exist person voice call say

:u

 T r È E 2« Tu T Çza® ki* tsie* tgi, ® tçi® ku2 mfiau2 (ai2 xa2 / xia2 n»fiy2shall prepare Lord road part, walk then build he

nc Ju abteiB ku2 ogfc22'«road part, straight

In 1922 Harry Parsons published a A-Hmao textbook,346 probably in Chengdu, partly printed from woodblocks and lacking the fifth tone position. In a few cases it seems to have been used by mistake.347 Nothing was changed in the

182

initials and finals, and in principle the tone marking system, except for the merger of positions 4 and 5, remained the same. Fewer words were, however, written in position one, most of them in cat. III. Probably the other varieties of A-Hmao, like that of Sapushan in Yunnan, had been taken into account. In Yunnan cat. I and cat. Ill are neatly distinguished. The publications in the following years all follow the same pattem.

In 1927 the missionaries left China and returned in 1928. Around 1930 Hudspeth started to revise the New Testament on the basis of the new translation into Chinese. In an article intended for a foreign public he wrote that the Hua Miao language had four tones:

shan p’ing sheng [i.e. ÿinpîngshëng upper even tone [modem Chinese tone 1]. shang sheng [shängshéng±S£], ascending tone [modem Chinese tone 3].ch’ü sheng [qùshêng 5&S], departing tone [modem Chinese tone 4].hsia p’ing sheng [i.e. yângpîngshëng lower even tone [modem Chinese tone 21.365

365 WH Hudspeth, ‘The Hwa Miao Language’, (1935), pp. 104-21.

This fairly well corresponds to the actual tone marking in the 1936 NT. The categories mentioned in English are merely translations from the Chinese, and say nothing about the actual tone value. The tone marking system in the 1936 NT was the following:

A-Hmao pos. A-Hmao cat. A-Hmao value Chinese cat. A-Hmao value

X1. III, I 55, 54 yinping 55

2 cr V, I, VIb 44, 54, 53 shang 54

3. 0 n 24 24

4. □„ IV, (V), VI 22, (44), 21 yangping, (ru) 22, (21)

The most notable change in the 1936 NT is the spelling of the Chinese loanwords with final nasal. In the earliest Gospel texts, e.g. 1907 St Mark, these words were spelt with nasal finals in A-Hmao. In 1917 all but one had been changed to fit into the actual A-Hmao pronunciation (which lacks final nasals). In 1936, however, the old system was taken up again, and loanwords were spelt according to Chinese pronunciation. The spelling of the nasals had all along been a major source of complications and the system had been changed several times. This fluctuation might also, at least partly, be due to differences between literary and colloquial pronunciation of Chinese. As seen above, in the two books published in 1905 the ligature [a+ql was used to write [am], which was a A-Hmao final and also the actual A-Hmao

183

pronunciation of the Chinese final [ag]. In the 1907 St Mark this practice was changed and A-Hmao words were spelt with the velar nasal, while Chinese loanwords, both with dental and velar nasal were uniformly written with the dental nasal. This system seems not to have been very appropriate and was changed in the following year. It is interesting to note that the Chinese loanwords in [-in] and [-iq] were never distinguished as to the quality of the nasal. Ligatures were devised for [-en], [-eq], [-an], [-aq], after the principle (e+n) etc. Only the last was used continously after 1907, but the rest were taken up again in 1936. The Chinese final [-eq] was first written £ [e+q] (1905) or C [q] (1907). In 1917 it was written b [ui], which is the A-Hmao pronunciation of this final, as in I» [a+q] for [aui]. In 1936 it was written [-eq]. Experiments were made with other ways to solve this problem. In connection with the Huamiao ershu in 1905 we described how an ordinary initial C [n] was added afterwards to indicate the nasal. If we follow the history of the word for the holy spirit, Chinese shèngling we get the following:

L (5+e+i) 1+i+i)] (1907)

In 1910 the principle of ending the syllables in vowel, and of moving the nasal ending to the following initial, like a prenasalization, had been introduced and the result was:

JcCL [§+e n+l+i]. A

In 1917 the ligature [i+q] was reintroduced, which gave:

Ä L 1+i+nl.AC

The original speUing was reintroduced in 1936, but with a change in the writing of the second ligature, viz.:

Lau [§+e+q 1+i+q],

The possibility of moving the final to the following syllable was still practiced for a few words both in 1917 and in 1936. To write Chinese loanwords ending in [-oq] the ligature [u+q] was used in 1907, but in 1914 the nasal part was probably mixed up with the final b [in], which had the same pronunciation in many cases, hence the ligature 0S(o+ui). In 1917 a simple final [-o] was used, and in 1936 a new ligature was introduced: 06 [o+q].

The final x [ie] was used not only to distinguish retroflex initials from palatals, but also after the initial A [z] in Chinese loanwords, e.g. Ä $ [zie su] ‘Jesus’, earlier spelt with G [ei]. (The presence of an initial [z] in the first

184

syllable is characteristic for southern Mandarin). According to R K Parsons the finals nc[ie] and a [ie] were originally pronounced in different ways, viz. nc [ie] and = [ye]. I have found no evidence of this distinction, but a thorough dialect study is the only way to solve the problem, and this is impracticable at the moment.

The Letters of the Pollard Script

Below we list the letters found in the Pollard script followed by pronunciation in IPA (in accordance with the smaller phonemic system of A-Hmao, cf. p. 164), the phones it actually represents in A-Hmao (if different from the phoneme), year of appearance and origin. The Pollard script variety used is the present standard which was codified in the 1936 NT and the order of the letters is that used by Wang Deguang in 1992.366 According to Wang there are 32 ‘big letters’, i.e. initials, and 37 ‘small letters’, i.e. finals. Rather many of them are combinations of two or three letters, or ligatures, but for convenience the full list is given below.

‘Big letters'

366 Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan minzu yanjiusuo, Guojia minwei wenhuasi (eds), Zhongguo shaoshu minzu wenzi, 1992, p. 182-4.367 Probably introduced by Hany Parsons.368 Introduced as /b/ in 1904.369 Horizontal in 1904.

No. Letter IPA (phones) Year Origin

1 Y ? 1917 Latin?* ’

2 L 1 1, Ifi 1904 Latin

3 J P p, b, bfi 1904 Cree

4 T t t, d, dfi 1904 Latin

5 ts ts, dz, dzfi 1904

6 r f 1904

7 n h M 1912368 Cree

8 t. t? dz„ d3.fi 1904

9 □ k k, g, gfi 1904

10 T t t, <t 4ß 1905 no. 4 with additional stroke

11 T q q, o, Gfi 1908 no. 9 with additional stroke

12 C n n, nfi 1905369 Pitman’s shorthand

185

No. Letter IPA (phones) Year Origin

13 d m m, mfi 1905370 Pitman’s shorthand

14 V w 1917 Latin

15 V V v, vfi 1904 Latin

16 A z z, zfi 1905371 Pitman’s shorthand? (>=/oi/)

17 s s 1904 Latin

18 3 z z, zfi 1904 Latin

19 A tl tl, dÇ, d^fi 1904 Cree or Greek

20 le i 1904 no. 2 with additional stroke

21 c U anfi 1905372 Pitman’s shorthand

22 Y Y. Yfi 1913

23 J $ 1904 Pitman’s shorthand

24 R 2^2Lfi 1913 Latin

25 CJ mp mp, mb, mbfi 1907 no. 12 + no. 3

26 C+ nts nts, ndz, ndzfi 1904 no. 12 + no. 5

27 CL nt? qtg, qd^ qd^fi 1904 no. 12 + no. 8

28 C3 * nk, ng. ngfi 1905 no. 12 + no. 9

29 CT nt nt, nd, ndfi 1904 no. 12 + no. 4

30 CT nt nt. nd, nd« 1905 no. 12 + no. 10

31 CT nq nq, no, ncfi 1912 no. 12 + no. 11

32 CA nd nd, ndlj, ndljfi 1905 no. 12 + no. 19

4Small letters'

No. Letter IPA (phones) Year Origin

33 — a 1904 Cree

34 I ai 1904 Cree

35 V ei ai, ei 1904 Pitman’s shorthand (v=7ai/)

36 n ?>. J» 1904373 J A Lundell

370 Horizontal in 1904.371 Horizontal in 1904.372 Horizontal in 1904.373 Until 1913 this letter was rounded and not curved.

x86

No. Letter IPA (phones) Year Origin

37 r 1912374 from no. 36

38 A i 1904

39 U u 1904 Latin

40 5 h 1904 Greek

41 ie 1917375

42 u au 1904 Cree

43 0 0 1904 Latin

44 0 y 1904376 Cree

45 b Ul 1908 no. 38 + no. 44

46 S œy 1905 C /e/ (1904-14) + no. 34

47 ? 9 1913 no. 44 + no. 34

48 i aui 1905 no. 33 + no. 21

49 A- ia 1905 no. 38 + no. 33

50 AC ie 1908377 no. 38+C/eZ (1904-14)

51 AO io 1922378 no. 38 + no. 43

52 ru iu 1907379 380no. 38 + no. 39

53 A\ iai 1912 no. 38 + no. 34

54 ah iau 1905 no. 38 + no. 42

55 Ab iui 1936 no. 38 + no. 45

56 Aq iœy 1936 no. 38 + no. 46

57 b 1936 no. 38 + no. 47

58 A^ iaui 1905 no. 38 + no. 48

59 AU in J9P380 no. 38 + no. 21

60 X an 1907 no. 33 + no. 12

61 t en 1907 c/e/ (1904-14) + no. 12

374 Until 1913 this letter was rounded and not curved.375 In 1904 defined as ‘AW’, but never used in text. Used a few times in 1912 to write /ie/.376 Introduced in Pollard’s first draft list of letters, but not used until 1907.377 Written separately 1905-7.378 Earlier written as a ligature, viz.X. In Huamiao yishu, but not in Huamiao ershu (both 1905), written separately.379 Earlier written separately. In 1912 printed upside-down, i.e. as if it were u+i.380 Earher written as a ligature.

187

No. Letter IPA (phones) Year Origin

62 Ç eq 1905 C/e/ (1904-14) + no. 21

63 Q OU 1936 Cree

64 U“ ua 1913 no. 39 + no. 33

65 uaq 1913 no. 39 + no. 48

66 uu uei uei, uai 1905 no. 39 + no. 35

67 VC un 1917 no. 39 + no. 12

68 uo UO 1913 no. 39 + no. 43

69 oc oq 1936381 no. 43 + no. 21

381 In 1913 written QS, i.e. no. 43 + no. 45.

Tone marking system

Miao position

*1.

2 □*

3. O

4. Du

Tone value

55,54

44, 54, 53

24

22, (44), 21

188

Example of Text: 1936 New Testament (Mark 1:1-3) s U n

CTu T y r A S r Tv G 3" 3" J, ndfiu* ki44 my44 tu54 aie® su® ici® tua itày2 mau44 zau44 bfiy2 heaven king son Jesus Christ his news good begin

Y' 3° Y" L" I« F Su J" Yn S' A- CT S"_44 i,_44 _4« 1-44 1^,22 fcl54 _,54 „„54 -54 «M „34 „55 „«„44a ko a ii ku tu su pau n sai za ntœy sau

beginning like class, first know Isaiah book write

r i i c. ] à tr ï r v r c ctçie44 lii2 mia nfiaa ku® za® tsz54 ku® tu54 (au44 mau44 iPo54 dzyacont. say you look I shall send I messenger be you

T2 Q À T f* G C 1 3«t^a2 nifiy2 za® ki44 tsie44 dzya tri® ku2 mfiau2

in front he shall prepare you road part, walk

noc r cn’q Ea. 3- ts cs J' r r i«nV4 ti54 uAry44-22 dzfia2mfiaa4 toi® nui54 gaui54 a44 qui44 xu44 Ifi2be place desert exist person voice call say

Ä 3" f* t E 3u 3" L U Gki* tsie* t?j,® fci® ku2 mfiauatai2! xa^/xia2 nfiy2

shall prepare Lord road patt, walk then build he

c i» a? »i® ku2 Ogfi»2'* road part, straight

For the development of the Pollard script for A-Hmao after 1949, see parts III and IV in volume 2.

189

Analysis of Adam’s A-Hmao Writing

The most important difference between Adam’s writing and the Pollard script is the absence of tone markers in the former. This part of the sound system is simply left out. The orthography is obvioulsy based on the same principles as those used by Samuel R Clarke in his wordlists included in Among the Tribes in South-west China.382 However, Clarke has wordlists only for Hua Miao (i.e. Hmong) and Heh Miao (i.e. Hmu), and not for A-Hmao.

382 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, pp. 305-12.

As stated in Clarke’s introduction to his wordlists, the aspirated stops (and affricates) are spelt with letters representing unvoiced stops in English, while the unaspirated stops, as well as those voiced, were represented by letters used for voiced stops in English. In Adam’s writing there are, however, significant exceptions, as the velars and lateral clicks are represented according to another pattern:

Grapheme Phoneme Allophones

b P p,b,bfiP Ph P"d t t,d,dßt If Ifds ts ts,dz,dzfits tsh tsh

g k g,gfik k,kh k,khgl d d^dfefiId d d

The prenasalized unaspirated initials are represented in the same way as those which are not prenasalized, but sometimes an -n- is added before, as if the translator had not been able to decide whether it belonged to the first or the second syllable, e.g. <hi-n-glei> [hi® ntiie24’55] ‘in front of. This -n- also appears in many cases where it is not phonemically justified, but seems radier to fill a euphonic function. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to carry out field research among the A-Hmao in the Anshun area in order to check in what way it differs from the A-Hmao spoken at Stone Gateway, so some inadequate spellings, like the unsystematic way of rendering the final [ui], may actually reflect a different pronunciation. A list of correspondences

190

between the A-Hmao phonemes and Adam’s writing is included as an appendix to volume 2.

The translation is evidently based on the Chinese version, and in many cases the Chinese text has been rendered word for word in Miao, which makes the text rather clumsy, especially if compared to Pollard’s translation. The particle <i> (either [i54] ‘one’ or [i55] ‘that’) is used in almost all cases where the Chinese connective particle de appears in the Chinese text, and, I suppose, that this is simply a caique on the Chinese usage.

Example of Adam's A-Hmao Writing (Mark 1:1-3)383

383 The ninth syllable in the first line <nao> is a misprint for <mao>.

beginning like first know Isaiah book [on] write

Sang- di i Du, le- SU Qi* - duh nao- rao su- bü54 saui ti24 j55/44 tu54 rie® SU® tei® tu21 mau44 zau su54 bfiy22God that son Jesus Christ good news first begin

a kô; Sü SÜ su- bao I- sai- ya daeo sa saoa44 ko44 22 sz, 22 sz su54 M pau ri54 sai24 za24 ntœy® [sa24] sau44

djie- n- hngi, Mi na, ku dsï ku trie44 Ki22 mi21 nfia21 ku55 tsz54 ku®cont. say you look I send I

du- dsï niô gi tu54 si55-44 nio54 gi21

retainer be you

hi- n- glei, ni ya Id- du gi i- n- ki. hi® ndie24-55 nifii22 za® ki44 tu44 gi21 [i55/54] Id®

in front of he will prepare you one road

djia ma den- neng sang- kheo hu hngi, dzfiaæmfia24 tm® nui54 çaui54 qui44 xu44 lü22 desert exist person voice call say

Niô di chaeo nio54 ti54 t^œy44-22 be place

Ki du Dsü i nie ki,ki44 tu44 tgj,® i55/54 nie21"53 ki®

prepare Lord one big road

Ni- i- n- nga ki.njfii22 i55/54 ija22/nJtça44 ki®he one small / class. road

h‘ia- n- djiang ghee.xa^/xia22 nitcaui54 ijgfia22-53

build straight straight

191

Analysis of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script384

384 For a detailed analysis of the tone marking system, cf. Joakim Enwall, ‘In Search of the Entering Tone: The Importance of Sichuanese Tones for Understanding the Tone Marking System of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script*, 1994, pp. 70-84.385 Wen You, ‘Lun PoUard Script’, (1938), pp. 47-51.386 D C Graham, ‘Vocabulary of the Ch’uan Miao*, (1938), pp. 55-143.

Apparently the only person who has evaluated the variety of Pollard script used for the Hmong dialect spoken in southern Sichuan is the Chinese ethnographer Wen You.385 Unfortunately his analysis is not based on any text, but on oral informartion from a Hmong man from Gong County called bu ndo dsou The most important deviation from the printed texts is the statement that six different tone positions are indicated in the writing. I do not know whether this six-tone system has any reliable foundation in the usage by the Hmong in southern Sichuan or whether it was invented ad hoc by Wen You’s informant. As an appendix to Wen You’s article, there is, however, also a letter written in 1937 in Sichuan Hmong Pollard script and Chinese (mixed), and in it a five-tone system is used.

The Hmong dialect spoken in southern Sichuan is White Miao, also called Hmong Daw. It is not very different from the norm for the Hmong orthography in China, Xianjin Xiang in Bijie County, and this will therefore be used as a point of departure for the analysis. There is, however, one further source for this dialect, although the spelling conventions in this source are more difficult to penetrate. From 1921 onwards the American David Crockett Graham of the West China Union University in Chengdu collected linguistic and anthropological information about the Sichuan Hmong, and in 1938 he published a ‘Vocabulary of the Ch’uan Miao’ in which he noted nine tones as opposed to the Sichuan Hmong Pollard script, which indicated only four tone positions.386

The representation of the Hmong phonemic system in the Chuan Miao Pollard script (1938 St Mark):

192

Initials

pj pOJ’ mpQ mph m D m *3 vV r rw U

pl J p^lj* mpl mpbl

ntsC+ ntsh Ct* • Stl f-p nt CT nth nC p’C«A tf1 * * IV V VI VII VIII 1 L 1 LtT fl’ met

tsE tsT’ ms Ct n.t?h Ü? k R. s )•st A te-H’A ntoCLn nhç-ŒV n1 Cn s' z Nk3 ^3’ nk (J gkh dG xlqj q* J> NqQ Nqh

0R1 Y

Finals

i [i,z] nre P a a * X u [u,y] u o 0 uö (ei) L eui V su q

ai 1 ou tt (ie)-^ od fou (iau) m» ua/[D]|jr s (ue) uc (uei) UV

(uai) en £ Ç ŒJX a] 06 (ien) 06 (uen) pc (uoq)

I 43 □*

n 31 □»ni 55 ö

IV 21 EUV 44 Ö

VI 13 O

VII 33 □*

VIII 24 □*

Tones

193

1938 Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script (Mark 1: 1-3)

CTo r_ T> "T° Åus

AC 7u

nto” fa45 tai31 to43 a" su44 «ci4* tu*heaven emperor son Jesus Christ

0€ OCCn R 0 s° )a Y Lnni21 murj44 so« ge« ua44 le44he good message first beginning like

J” T° S’ S' A-U

CTkuD to45 so43 pou" i« sai® za® nteui®part. class. first know Jesaja bookq ruJ E T Da c- □° A'

44 pu tça xas me nua” ko® za tsi”write say you see I will send

7° 0& 0 C'"' □n 7« CTa

ko® to® (ou44 murj44 nkni® kau31 tou” nte”I class. messenger be you in front

Ca 2° +’a t-n 3n T >ni21 kuD tsH* li21 kau” ke® ku°he will prepare you road part.

%

mo walk

194

The Latin-based Hmu Writing

If the title of the 1913 Hymn Book, quoted in the 1928 Hymn Book, Ca Neo Llei Dsan Mei Vang-Vai Bie Sh’a, really is in the writing used in 1913, no tones were indicated, which must have been a serious deficiency when recording a language which has eight tones. It is interesting to note that the missionaries were not unaware of the actual state of affairs. This is proven both by S R Clarke’s statement that he had ‘written down, revised and toned seventeen Miao stories, and also by specific references to the number of tones in various Miao dialects. Already in 1895 Clarke wrote that there were eight tones in Hmu.387 If we compare the words in the tide above to the wordfists published by Clarke in 1904 and 1911 we find that they are spelled in the same way, viz. ‘vai’ and ‘bie’.388 The initials c- [q], n- [n], 11- [I], m- [m] and sh’ [ç?1] and the finals -a [a], -eo [oui], -ei [ei] and -ang [aq] also correspond to the words in the tide and it is thus plausible that the wordlists are spelled in the same orthography as the one used for the early books printed at Panghai.

387 SR Clarke, “Miao Studies”, China's Millions (Australasian edition), 1895, 148.388 Samuel R Clarke, “The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province”, East of Asia Magazine, Vol. Ill, Shanghai, 1904, p. 206; and Samuel R. Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, London, China Inland Mission, 1911, pp. 307-312.389 Giu ki kai ming [The ten commandments], s.l., s.a., 2 pp.

The only text preserved in this writing is the ten commandments, and a list of combinations of initials and finals.389 The text is printed on a folded Chinese paper:

195

Facsimile of the Ten Commandments in Romanized Hmu Writing

giu ki kai ming.

1. chiu niati vang vai mung keo, a mai ca shi vang vai.

2. a ki bai ca shi bie yiang.

3. , a ki lue lue kau vang vài bië. . . * • ni me. • .

4. dang t’zwp li bài. ntâi. vai li bai ntai diau ship zwo bie ntai.

5. dang k'eo ma ba. ’ z :

6. a ki ma nai. . ' •

7. a ki ki li. "

8/ a ki ai nie.

g. a’ ki lli s’eL ’

10. a ki • se hi. . . *! ___ ’ : • ;•

196

Hutton’s Hmu Writing

Huttons 's NPS-writing for Hmu

In order to evaluate Hutton’s National Phonetic Script writing it is necessary to determine which local variety is the norm for the Hmu variety it represents. This has proven to be more difficult than expected. A natural place to assume as its origin is Panghai village (i.e. the present village Houchang zhongcun in Panghai Zhen). There are, however, many features in Hutton’s text, which are not found in Houchang zhongcun. Professor Zhang Yongxiang of the Central Institute of Nationalities in Peking (CIN) claims that the speech of Panghai must have been the norm, as the word [po35 fhi44 ] ‘thanks’ (normally used in Panghai) is used instead of [to33 s^i35] (normally used in Huangping; from Chinese duoxie ^W).390 To the present writer it seems more plausible to assume that the norm was some place in Huangping County. Hutton calls the Hmu people [qa ns], a self-designation used in Huangping County, in Chong’an (which I have heard myself) and also in Zhenfeng by the Hmu who emigrated from Huangping in the eighteenth century.391 This is denied by Pan Jian of the Huangping NAC, who claims that the only self-designation used in Huangping is [m11^].392 The phonology of the dialect recorded by Hutton seems much more similar to the general phonology of the Huangping subdialect as described in the textbooks published there. Pan Jian claims that the norm for Hutton’s script was the Lushan district in Kaili which has proven not to be the case, after

390 Zhang Yongxiang, personal communication, Peking, 8 March 1991.391 Joseph Esquirol, Dictionnaire ’Kajiao „—Français et Français—*Ka r nao„, 1931.392 Pan Jian, personal communication, Huangping, 12 Nov. 1990.393 Zhongyang minzu xueyuan yuwenxi di si jiaoyanzu (ed.), Qiandong tniaoyu jiaoca, s.a. [preface dated May 1955].394 Chen Qiguang, Zhongguo yuwengaiyao, 1990, pp. 215-19.

comparing Hutton’s texts to a textbook in the Lushan dialect, published at the Central Institute of Nationalities in 1955.393 Panghai itself formerly belonged to the Lushan district, but the norm for the textbook was a village in the Lushan district situated rather far from Panghai, viz. Zhouqi Xiang &

There is one published analysis of Hutton’s writing, by Professor Chen Qiguang of the CIN.394 He gives the basic equivalents of the letters and the tone markers, but fails to see the underlying system. Hutton used the NPS letters, devised as a way of transcribing Chinese in 1913. Originally, it was to be used in dictionaries etc. to indicate the standard Mandarin pronunciation. Soon it was taken up by foreign missionaries and a Chinese Bible in NPS

197

transcription was published. It originally consisted of 39 phonetic symbols, derived from Chinese characters. They were written as Chinese, i.e. downwards, from right to left. To these Hutton added three symbols which were probably of his own invention: Z (called ‘Z hard’) from Latin Z, representing the initial [y], (which is spelled /z/ in Clarke’s wordlists); •— (called ‘LI’) from Latin L, representing [1]; and (called ‘yee’), representing [z], which is perhaps a development of the NPS letter — (called ‘E or ih’). In a list of phonetic symbols published in the 1928 Catechism he gave 27 initials and 16 finals.395 He also indicated the English pronunciation. In square brackets are given the IPA equivalents, corresponding to the value of the NPS letters when used for transcribing Chinese. Thus:

395 Kweichow Panghai Black Miao “Catechism”, 1928, pp. 70-1.

*7 B[p) 7C ng [ql Ts’ [tsh] eh [a]

P’ IP"] r H* or Hor (xJ k S [s] tt eh [e]

n M [m] g or J [tç] Z Z (hard) ai [ai]

c FM < ch’ [tGh] i— LI ei [ei]

V [w] r N[ni] -b yee ao [au]

D It] T sh [ç] X eo [au]

T’[fl Tsfc] —- E or ih [i] 4 an [an]

Ti N In] f Ts* [t?1*] X 00 [u] *7 en [an]

L[l] r Hs or hsih [?] u ü [y] ± ang [aq]

« K, or gore [k] s R or n [j] Ï a [a] A eng [aij]

K’ or Kore [kh] p Ts [ts] r ore [0] JL er M

The best way to evaluate Hutton’s Hmu writing seems to be to compare a text translated by Hutton with actual Hmu speech. This could indicate to what degree he managed to extract the Hmu phonology and how he solved the question of reducing it to writing. In order to do this it is, as noted above, necessary to know which was the exact subdialect he wanted to write. As also noted, Zhang Yongxiang of the CIN assumed that it was the Panghai speech, which basically belongs to the same subdialect area as the modem norm for the Hmu writing of this area, Yanghao Village in Guading (near Kaili City). After a superficial analysis Zhang Yongxiang found that Hutton’s script was very inaccurate. Below I will show that this is far from true.

198

Analysis of Hutton’s Orthography

The Hmu dialect of the Miao language is divided into three subdialects: Yanghao (northern), Ouli (eastern) and Zhenmin (southern). Those are mutually comprehensible in a very limited way. In Chinese publications they are not further sub-divided, not even in works on dialectology, but the existence of sub-systems is proven by the textbooks published in various varieties of the northern dialect, and also by spelling ^mistakes’ in local publications in various counties of the Qiandongnan AP. In the case of textbooks the local sub-system is called fangyin forwhich I use the term local variety. Speakers of different local varieties can understand each other with some difficulty.

The modem norm for written Hmu after 1956 is Yanghao Village in the Guading Township, which belongs to Kaili City. This has been the point of reference for Chinese scholars when evaluating Hutton’s writing, with Chen Qiguang as the only exception. Although Hutton did not use Yanghao as the norm for his writing we will nevertheless start the analysis by comparing his writing to the phonemic system of Yanghao, especially as the speech recorded by Hutton obviously belongs to the same subdialect. The phonemic system of Yanghao Hmu (henceforth YH) is the following:

Initials

p ph m mh f f** vts ts11 s zt t” n çh 1 F 1tj t* n» nih 1» P* Ptç tçb ç çb zk kh q xh Yq qh? h

Finals

e a oio ien u

9 ei en aq oq iue ua uei uen uaq

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Tones

I 33 n 55III 35IV 11V 44VI 13VII 53VIII 31

The first thing one notices is that there are 40 initials in Yanghao (YH), but only 27 initials in Hutton’s script (henceforth H). Furthermore three of Hutton’s initials have never been used in the actual Hmu texts, viz. h (n), t (tgh) and r* (ç).396 Two other initials denote the same phoneme, Hi [ts]

and P [ts]. The first one is restricted to denote the [ts] in loanwords from Chinese with original [t§]. In Guizhou Chinese [ts] and [tg] have merged. This is also the case for [tsh] and [tgh], but the NFS letter f , used to represent [tgh] in Chinese, never appears in Hutton’s texts. Loanwords with original [tsh] and [t§h] are spelt in the same way, i.e. (tsh).

396 In the following discussion we will for clarity give the IPA value for Chinese after each NPS letter in parentheses.

The palatal series is written with the dental series and the final “ (i) before the real final, e.g. r—± (n i ai]): YH [riai]]. When these seven phonemes have been accounted for, the 24 initials actually used by Hutton thus have to symbolize the remaining 33 initial phonemes of Hmu. As mentioned above two of the letters represent the same phoneme in Hmu.

For the aspirated fricative [sh] Hutton uses the combination r (s h). The aspirated fricatives [f1], [P1], [ljh] and [çh] are not distinguished from their unaspirated counterparts. As opposed to the initials [s], [sh] very few minimal pairs exist for the others. Thus the remaining number of phonemes to be accounted for has been reduced to 28. The difference between the velars and the uvulars does not appear in H, but in the list Hutton has indicated that the NFS letters represent two different phonemes respectively, viz. « ‘K, or gore’ ([k],[q]), ‘K’ or Kore’ ([kh],[qh]), F ‘H’ or Hor’ ([h],[xh]).This last phoneme [xh] may sound as if it were pronounced further back in the throat than [h], and it is thus placed together with the uvulars.

The asprirated voiceless nasals, [mh] and [nh] are represented by H & (m p) and Pt (nt). [nih] is written riz— [nti]. In some varieties of the Hmu dialect a faint [p] and [t] can be heard before the voiceless nasals, and this has been the normal way to transcribe this sound (though the order is

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reversed), e.g. in Clarke’s Black Miao vocabulary.397 As to the initial [?], it is represented by the letter -+- (?) before [i] in Chinese loanwords, but by the letter — (i) in Miao words. The initial glottal stop is not represented at all, but it might be considered an allophone of zero initial. The initials in the palatal series are almost always followed by an — (i), either as final or as an extra marker of the palatal quality. This usage has probably been taken over from Chinese, where all palatals are followed either by the final -i or the semi-vowel -j-, e.g. < — [tçhiK] ‘seven’, M — X [tçjag55] ‘river’.

397 SR Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, pp. 307—12.

The remaining number of YH initials is 23, which is the same as Hutton has. The initials are, however, the most stable part of the Hmu phonemic system and there are in principle no deviations from YH in Hutton’s texts as to the initials when the above orthographic rules have been taken into account.

The finals usually differ more clearly between various local varieties (and also between the subdialects). Hutton has 16 finals, of which three LI (y), Å (au) and 3 (an) are used only to spell Chinese loanwords with original -[y], -[au] and -[an]. Two finals are not used in Miao: (a) and JL (a^). The remaining 11 finals in H have to represent the 17 final phonemes of YH.

For the finals with -[u]- as the onset of the final, which are all used for Chinese loanwords, Hutton puts X (u) before the coda of the final. In the case of loanwords with original -[uan], the special loanword final 4 (an) is used after the X (u), although the YH pronunciation is actually [ue]. I have, however, found no examples of words which should have [io] [ua] [uaq] in Hutton’s texts. They are rather uncommon even in modem texts. (The combination — T (io) exists, but does not represent the final [io] ; it is used only after dentals and the — (i) indicates that the initial belongs to the palatal series.) Two of the other YH finals are represented by combinations, viz. X Z. (u oq) [oq] (often actually pronounced [uq]) and — Z. (i oq) [ien].

The dental and velar nasal endings are not distinguished in Hmu, but Hutton represents the original difference in Chinese loanwords, in -[in] and -[iq] respectively. This is also the case for the YH final [en], which is represented by *7 (on) and Z. (oq) when used in Chinese loanwords with original -[on] and -[oq]. Miao words are represented by A (oq). In Miao the nasal endings of the finals have two allophones, which normally are distributed according to the main vowel: -[n] after front vowel, -[q] after back vowel.

There are four finals in Hutton’s script which do not correspond directly to YH. In H the two vowels X (u) and X (ou) correspond to YH [u] and [a], but not regularly. Hutton’s X (u) with few exceptions corresponds to YH [u], but X (au) corresponds to both [u] and [a]. In Yanghao [a] after the dental series appears in the allophone [aui], and [u] often appears as [ui], especially after the initial [p]. Thus the phonetic element [ui] may have been

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the most important for Hutton’s letter X (ou).The second case is, however, more compUcated, and cannot be explained

if one assumes that the Yanghao local variety was the basis for Hutton’s script. About half of the words which in YH have the final [aq] appear either with tt (e) or — tt (i e), the rest are represented by ± (aq). I have not been able to find any simple phonetic correspondences for this. In Clarke’s wordlist of 1911 we find that the same difference appeared in the Panghai speech recorded by him, and for the same words. The same phenomenon is also found in the dictionary for ’Ka nao from 1931.398 ’Ka nao is the self-designation used by many Hmu in southeast Guizhou, in YH pronounced [qa33 nsui13]. The French Catholic missionary Esquirol, who compiled this dictionary, did missionary work in the Zhenfeng area among Hmu who were originally from Huangping (cf. above, p. 91).

398 J Esquirol, Dictionnaire ’Ka T nao „ -Français et Français-’Ka Tnao~, 1931.399 Hvob Qeek Dongb Benx Dud Hseid Hmeb (Bet Dongf), s.a. (preface dated July 1985).

M Hutton, “Spiritual Blessing in the Absence of Missionary, Pastor, or Evangelist”, (1922), p. 95.

Taken together these facts indicate that Hutton’s norm was not Panghai, but a place located in the Huangping local variety area. In comparing Hutton’s NT translation to textbooks published in Huangping in 1985 and 1988, I have found that almost all the otherwise inexplicable features of Hutton’s text were clarified by the Huangping local variety. The varieties of [u] and [o] are represented approximately in the same way as in H and many of the words with YH [aq] have the pronunciation [e] or [ie]. They all correspond to H. Hutton’s letter U (y) is also found in HP, partly in Chinese loanwords, but the few instances of its use in H are insufflent for an analysis. These are all used to write Chinese loanwords with original [y], in the finals, -[y], -[yan] and -[ye], in Guizhou pronounced [y], [ye] and [yo], and spelled by Hutton accordingly.

The 1985 Huangping dialect textbook, which was based on the Hmu speech in Gaopo (in Huangping County), was jointly published by three counties, Huangping, Shibing and Zhenyuan.399 As mentioned earlier, Hutton was assigned to Panghai in 1912, but for various reasons he had to stay mainly in Zhenyuan from 1912 until 1920. He lived at Panghai permanently only from January until July 1921 before going to Australia on furlough. Hutton first mentioned the NPS writing for Hmu in 1922.400 By then it had most probably existed for about two years. When he returned to the area in 1925 he had to stay at Zhenyuan again until 1927, and it was during those years that the first books in Hmu were translated. In 1928 St. Mark, St. Matthew, Black-Miao Hymnary, Kweichow Panghai Black Miao “Catechism” and Kweichow Panghai Black Miao “God Hath Said” were published at Zhifu, which means that Hutton must have done the translation work while living in Zhenyuan.

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The BSL Catalogue states that St. Matthew was ‘translated by M.H. Hutton, C.LM. and Yang, a Miao teacher’.401 This Yang is not mentioned in any other sources, and it is thus impossible to determine which subdialect was spoken by Hutton’s co-translator.

401 BSL Catalogue, s.a., typescript.

As indicated by the joint pubHcation of textbooks in the Huangping subdialect by three counties, including Zhenyuan, the Hmu subdialect spoken in the place where Hutton lived, Zhenyuan, was closer to the subdialect of Huangping than to that of Yanghao. Otherwise Zhenyuan would not have joined the other two counties in publishing a textbook different from the standard of Yanghao. After moving to Panghai, Hutton did not change the orthography, although the local variety was slightly different. In making revisions of St Mark and St Matthew, the wording was changed in several places, and tone markers were added. Otherwise the orthography was not touched. This must have seemed quite normal to any person used to the conservative and often phonetically unfounded orthography of western languages, in Hutton’s case English. On the basis of this hypothesis almost all of the ‘exceptions’ in Hutton’s script are explained by the fact that the dialect he was writing was not Panghai (i.e. the same as Yanghao) but the local variety of Huangping.

Tone Marking

Zhang Yongxiang states that the tone marking was very deficient, and this is also claimed in Chen Qiguang’s analysis, but even in this case a comparison to the Huangping subdialect gives interesting results. The Hmu tones, Eke the Chinese tones, appear in different categories, which in their turn have different tone values. The category to which a certain syllable belongs rarely changes, while the actual pronunciation for all the words belonging to that category can vary from dialect to dialect. Hutton uses dots around the syllables (= initial+final) to indicate the tones. In 1928 the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were published without tone indications. However, in the same year, tone indications have been introduced in the Hymn Book, but only for one part of it. Of the 240 Miao hymns nos. 113-148 and 187-240 had six different tone markers and the rest had none. The same tone markers were used in the 1932 Acts and in the 1934 New Testament.

There are six different combinations of dots, of which four have been taken over from the tone marking system used for Chinese NPS texts before 1922. We will first analyse the treatment of the original tone-markers. Roman numerals represent tone category, while arabic numerals give the tone value. The initial + final are represented by a □.

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and (zero marker):

Classia1/ tone cat. Mandarin Guizhou Chinese tone402 403

□ ± shang 3 (=214) 3 (=55)

□ qu 4 (=51) 4 (=35)

□ yangping 2 (=35) 2 (=31)

□ • m 1,2,3,4 (=55,35, 214,51) 2 (=31)

402 Chinese spoken at Yanghao Village in Guading Township, Kaili City, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong AP.403 Yangping and yinping originally developed from the earlier pin^-category, which was divided into yin and yang sub-categories.

□ yinping™ I (=55) I (=33)

The old rusheng, or ‘entering tone* had the endings -p, -t, -k. As these endings subsequently disappeared in most of the Chinese dialects, including both Peking (i.e. standard Mandarin Chinese) and Guizhou, the words were distributed to other tone categories. The result was, however, different. In Peking the old ‘entering tone’ words were spread to all tone categories, but in Guizhou they all stayed together in the same category, merging with the original tone category yangping. In Guizhou Chinese the same tone value was thus marked in two different ways, and Hutton was able to use the yangping marker for the originally zero-marked yinping tone. No tone had a zero-marker in Hutton’s system. He started from the Chinese loanwords in Hmu, which all retain their original Guizhou Chinese pronunciation. The Hmu words which had the same tone value were marked in the same way. This covers the Hmu tones (Huangping dialect: Gaopo) I (=33), II (=55), V (35) and VII (53). The last one probably reflects a slightly different rendering of the Chinese tone II at Gaopo in Huangping than in Yanghao. Hutton then added two tone markers:

□

□ • »

They were used for the tones III (44) and IV (22) in HP. To indicate the (44) tone he used the markers for (55) and (33) as this tone was between them in pitch, and for (22) he used the markers (33) and (53). The latter marker was, however, as will be shown below, also used for the tone value (31), and with this in mind Hutton’s marking seems to be rather reasonable.

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However, two tones are not marked separately: VI and VIII. They are both marked with the same marker as the tone VII. If we check the actual pronunciation of these tones in Huangping (Gaopo) we find the following:

VI 31VII 53VIII 42

All are falling tones, and it is not implausible that the two latter have merged in Zhenyuan. Consequently the marker represents the falling tone in general. I assume that the tones VII and VIII were merged to (42) (cf. Zhouqi below), and that this marker thus actually represented only two difierent tone values.

Another trait which distinguishes the Huangping subdialect from Yanghao is the treatment of the Chinese loanwords, viz. (tone category+tone value):

Chinese (Guizhou) Huangping(GP) Yanghao

1(33) K33) 1(33)2(31) VII (53) VIII (31)3(55) II (55) II (55)4(35) V(35) III (35)

It is not possible to say anything about the actual result of Chinese tone 2 in Hutton’s script, as tones VII and VIII are marked in the same way, □.

The Chinese tone 4, however, is placed in different tone categories in HP and YH, although the tone value is the same. Thus, the Chinese loanwords in Huangping are merged with Hmu words in the tone category V, while the same Chinese loanwords in Yanghao appear together with Hmu words of the tone category III. This fact also serves as a proof that the subdialect written by Hutton was Huangping and not Yanghao. This feature is, however, not restricted to the HP subdialect area, but exists in Kaili City (but not in Yanghao Village) as well. Therefore it can at most support my hypothesis, although it in itself proves nothing.

In this case, however, the Zhouqi (Lushan) local variety of Hmu, spoken near Panghai, gives an interesting parallel: Chinese loanwords with tone IV come into the Hmu tone category V, as in Huangping, and not into III, as in Yanghao. The tone values in Zhouqi are III (44) and V (12). The second one differs considerably from both YH and HP. Furthermore, the tone value for the last three categories are:

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VI 23VII 42VIII 42

Thus the last two tone categories have merged and, according to Yang Wenrui, the tone system of the Hmu subdialect of Kaili, the capital of the Qiandongnan AP, is basically the same as Zhouqi. Furthermore he argues that this system in which the original tones VII and VIII have merged is by far the most common, and that the eight tone system is used only in Yanghao Village.404 To me this seems a bit exaggerated, but it is probably correct to assume the the eight-tone system is considerably rarer than the seven-tone system. This merger may well have taken place in some of the varieties of the Huangping subdialect, including Zhenyuan.

404 Yang Wenrui, ‘Guanyu dui miaoyu qiandong fangyan wenzi fang’an (cao’an) ji hanyu jieci shuxie guifân deng wenti de kania he yijian’, (1985), pp. 42--54.405 Chen Qiguang, Zhon^guo yuwengaiyao, 1990, pp. 215-19.406 J Esquirol, Dictionnaire fKa rnao Français et Français—’Ka rnao 8, 1931 and J Esquirol, ‘Les ’Ka Tnao A du Tchên long MB au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)*, (Jan. 1931), pp. 40-9 and (Feb/1931), pp. 117-35.407 Pan Ying, Yanghao hua yu Huangping hua de yuyin duiyingguilü qianxi, 1987, unpubl. ms.408 Ma Xueliang & Tai Changhou, ‘Guizhou qiandongnanbu miaoyu yuyin de chubu bijiao’, (1956), pp. 265-82.

Chen Qiguang gives the following tone values for Panghai (Houchang zhongcun):405

III 35V 13VI 23VII 53VIII 31

There are, however, three further sources for the Huangping dialect: Esquirol’s dictionary for the speech of Zhenfeng,406 Pan Ying’s comparative study of the phonemic systems of Yanghao and Huangping407 and Ma Xueliang’s and Tai Changhou’s study in 1952.408 Unfortunately, Pan Ying has not indicated from which part of Huangping County her phonemic system comes. Esquirol uses a Latin transcription, probably based on a system devised by the Catholic missionaries in Hong Kong for writing Chinese. Pan Ying uses IPA.

Esquirol does not give exact descriptions for the values of his eight tone markers. There also seem to be many inconsistencies and possible mistakes in his transcription. I have nevertheless tried to analyse his material and with a few exceptions it gives the following picture. The Chinese loanwords are

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described by Esquirol as having five original tone categories, probably because he considers yinping and yangping to be different categories, and his tone numbers are given below in brackets when relevant. For the reason, cf. the categories discussed in connection with tone marking dots for NPS. ‘A’ represents the syllable:

Cat. Esquirol Description Loan Description

I A-^ ton moyen 1 (1) [yinping]I haut et chantant 3m AT haut et chantantIV at ton moyenV Aa bas 4[^m]VI Av très basVII A3 A3 abrupt et tronqué, plus haut 2 (2,5) [yangping, ru] descendantVIII A3 Aj abrupt et tronqué, plus bas 2 (2,5) [yangping, rw] descendant

inferieur

Tone 4 [^m] in Chinese thus comes into category V, and is pronounced in a ‘low tone’. The words in Hmu category VI are pronounced in a ‘very low tone’. What does this actually mean? It seems reasonable to assume that tones II and III are the high tones (55) and (44), and that tones I and IV are the middle tones (33) and (22). In relation to that the ‘low tone’ might reflect (12), while the ‘very low’ is (21). A descending tone sounds lower than a rising. The last two probably represent (53) and (31). These two tones do not correspond to the original categories, so both symbols represent both tones. This may indicate that the distinction between these two tones is dissolving, and an unstable state may be a first step in an ongoing merger.

Pan Ying has the following system:

III 44V 12VI 31 (and 51)VII 42VIII 51

She further reports that the tone value (51) corresponds both tone Yanghao (31), i.e. cat. VIII and to (13), i.e. cat. VI.

The third example of the tone values in Huangping is, however, more valuable for the analysis. In the autumn of 1952 the Institute of Linguistics of Academia Sinica sent Ma Xueliang and Tai Changhou to the southeast part of Guizhou to record the phonetics of the Hmu dialect in the area. In

207

Huangping they recorded the pronunciation at Jiuzhou WfH, Jiaba ÄDE and Xinqiao Wfåh409 Their results are presented below as (HP AS).

409 Ma Xueliang & Tai Changhou, ‘Guizhou qiandongnanbu miaoyu yuyin de chubu bijiao’, (1956), p. 280.

In 1951 Zhang Yongxiang wrote a textbook for his Hmu speech, that of Kaitang, not far from Panghai. It has not been possible to find the actual textbook, but only the notebook of one of the students, Chen Qiguang, so many points are unclear. His system, however, contains some features which will be relevant to the discussion that follows:

III 45V 34VI 213VII 13VIII 21

If we put all the available data for the relevant tones in a table we get the following:

Laiskan Kaitang (HP)AS (HP)Gaopo (HP)Pan Ying EsquirolCat. Yanghao Panghai Kaili

III 35 35 44 44 45 44 44 44 (44)V 44 13 12 12 34 13 35 12 (12)VI 13 23 13 23 213 21 31 31 (51) (21)VII 53 53 42 42 13 53 53 42 (53) (31)VIII 31 31 42 42 21 53 42 51 (31) (53)

From this we can see that Kaitang is in an intermediary position as to tone III and that this tone otherwise has the value (44), except for Panghai and Yanghao. Tone V is a rising tone in all dialects but Yanghao. Esquirol’s dialect is spoken in the place most close to Zhenyuan and I therefore assume that (12) is the correct value for Hutton’s tone V, although this is in principle irrelevant for the evaluation of the script: its basic feature is that it is a rising tone. The tones VI, VII, VIII have not merged in any known variety, but the tones VII and VIII have merged in six places, i.e. in Gaopo, Kaili, Lushan and in the three varieties recorded by Ma Xuehang and Tai Changhou (Jiuzhou, Jiaba and Xinqiao). Furthermore they appear haphazardly in Esquirol. In addition, the two sources for HP (Gaopo and Pan Ying) give opposite values for these tones. This leads to the conclusion that this distinction is disappearing in most areas.

As to tone VI we see that there is a partial merger with tone VIII in (HP) Pan Ying, and that it is a falling tone in the six varieties of Huangping.

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Also in this case Kaitang is in the middle, having a falling-rising tone. Consequently it is obvious that the main characteristic of this tone for Hutton was the feature falling. We can thus reconstruct his model for tone marking:

high rising

middle falling

The two further level tones which he added in his system were marked as high+middle=44 and middle+falling=22.

A further proof that Hutton’s Hmu norm was Huangping is the presence of the final -[e], corresponding to Yanghao -[ag]. This feature is found in all three varieties of Huangping but not in any of the other areas. There are also some lexical isoglosses, which appear in the same way:

Yanghao Huangping Hutton English

vi" ve2ne” ni22pag31 pie (filling)Yu4* y» (rising)

ve22 Ini2 fishpie (filling) genitive markerya (rising) good

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Hutton’s List of NPS Letters and their Actual Values

In cases where the Chinese value does not conform with the Hmu value, the latter is given in the second parenthesis. (-) indicates that the letter is not used in Hutton’s Hmu texts:

*7 B[p] 7E ng fol Ts* [tsh] eh [al (-)p’ [P-] r IT or Hor[%]=[h,xhl A S[s] tt ch[e]

n M[m] g or J [to] Z Z(hard)=[Y) 55 ai[ai]=[e]c F[f]=(f.f) < di* [toh] ■_ n^i â [ei]

V[w]=(v] r N[n] yee=[z] £ ao [au]5a D[t] T sh [01 =fc,chl X eo [au]=[a,u]

Tæ] Ts[t§] — Eorfli [il an[an]=[e]"5 N[n](-) f Ts* [tgh] (-) X oo[u] *7 en [on] ^en]

L(l] r Hs orhsih [5] (-) u u[y] ang[aq]« K,orgore[k]=(k,q] Rorn[j]=[zl Y a [a] Z. eng[9q]=[en]

K,orKore[kh]=[kh,qh]P Ts[tsl Z ore [o] JL er H (-)

The Sound System of the Huangping Subdialect and its Representation by Hutton

Reconstruction of the speech represented by Hutton.

Initials

P Ph m n mh DÄ f C F c V Z

ts Ul, P tsh s A AF Z B

t 5a t?1 A n r oh TA 1 l— ÿ* 1_ 1 Ä

tj — t* A — n» r- 0* rt- P 1—— 1—— P Ä-

te ) tçh < Ç T(- ) çh T(-) Z “**»■ “

k « kh Z n 7t xh r Y Z

q « qh

? h r

210

Finals(as indicated above some have not been found)

e 55,*3 a Y 0 r a X ei

en an on XZL i “ ye LI,Utt,U4

e/ie io in u X,X ue X4

ua uei uen uaq

Tones

I 33 □

n 55 □

in 44 □

IV 22 □A

V 12 □

VI 21 q

VII 42 q

VIII 42 □

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Sample Text in Hutton's NFS-Writing for Htnu

St Mark 1:7, New Testament, 1934.

Hutton’s Hmu texts were, like Chinese texts, printed vertically, but in the sample below we keep the direction only for the individual words in order to show how the tone marking system actually worked. The transcription is not strictly phonetic, as it is basically a reconstruction. Thus the initial glottal stop and the allophones of [a] are not indicated. 1 transcribe the tone categories VII and VIII as (42), but as pointed out above the actual value could also have been (53); in any case it must have been a falling tone. When two syllables form one word they are linked by a (vertical) hyphen, appearing under the first of the two:

• y»X.

• r-i• y?

y? •ni5 qao14 li22 tçu21 me® i® le® niaq®he teU truth speak, there-is one class. be

• •£ •

yr Z X•i i

ve2 taq2 qe® k)22 He22 YU2* «S® ve22I after come, ability than I

• m s.• • • 1 • • 1

>2 X

me® Po® no12 ve22 qa® tb21 22 qoi] tki®have big much. I just be bend waist

k 7* ” •

••

1__ V • * ez. •

te® ni® Pa* tço® Pac ha® sei tb2*with he solve class. string shoe, also be

pie part.

a® not

phei0 worthy

'And he would preach, saying: "After me someone stronger than I is coming; I am not fit to stoop and untie the laces of his shoes.’”

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Concluding Remarks Regarding the Missionary Writing Systems

The Number of Christians and the Number who Learnt the Missionary Writing Systems

One of the most important questions to answer, in evaluating the results of the missionaries’ writing activities, is how many Miao became Christians, as this could give some indication of how many learnt the various Miao writing systems invented by the missionaries. It is reasonable to use the number of baptisms to show how many persons learnt to read and write as this ability was generally a prerequisite for baptism in the Miao areas.

Another source for assessing the spread of literacy could be the number of books printed in Miao, but unfortunately these numbers are recorded only sporadically and could at best serve as a complement to knowledge gained from other sources. One cannot, however, assume that all the Christians learnt the Miao writing system and the most difficult question will then be to assess the percentage of the Christians who actually learnt to use them. Evidently, the picture must remain extremely vague, as neither the total number of Christians, nor their level of knowledge of Miao writing appears in any reliable sources.

In order to get a perspective on the relative importance of the missionary writing systems, it is in my view extremely important to make a thorough study of the available empirical data. This kind of study has never been carried out before, and the lack of an empirical foundation for evaluating the various writing systems used by the missionaries has in earlier works led to conclusions far removed from the actual state of affairs.

It is difficult to give a clear picture of the spread of Christianity in the Miao areas: the sources are one-sided, either articles written by missionaries before 1952 or by Chinese scholars after 1949; the notion ‘Christian* is, moreover, difficult to define (enquirer, communicant, nominal Christian, baptized); the numbers given in various publications often refer to vague areas and do not clearly distinguish between the total number of Christians in an area and the number of Miao Christians, or at best they distinguish between Chinese and aboriginal Christians. Not even the notion ‘baptized’ is unequivocal, as the missionaries had different requirements for baptism. In the case of some mission areas, as the UMM mission at Stone Gateway and the CIM mission at Sapushan, there are explicit references to the ability of reading the Pollard script as a prerequisite for baptism for all, or everyone with the exception of the oldest. For other areas - the Hmu area and the

213

CIM mission among the A-Hmao in Guizhou, as well as the mission among the Sichuan Hmong, no such references have been found, which in itself indicates nothing about the actual state of affairs.

In 1907, the CIM yearbook China and the Gospel reported that 1,477 aborigines, all of them, with very few exceptions, belonging to the Hwa Miao group, had been baptized at Anshunfu.410

410 ‘Anshunfu’, 1907, p. 78.411 P Olesen, ‘Ingathering Among the Miao’, (1915), p. 62.412 J O Fraser, ‘The Aborigines of the Burma Border’, (1935), p. 42.4,3 In the CIM yearbook China and the Gospel.

In 1915, P Olesen wrote: ‘One writer estimates that there are now 50,000 nominal Christians among the Miao in Yunnan and Kwei-chow.’411

In 1935 J O Fraser, the CIM superintendent in Yunnan wrote: ‘It would not be far from the truth to say that between forty and fifty thousand men, women and children among the aborigines [of South-West China] have turned from heathen darkness to serve God during the past thirty years.’412 If we compare Olesen’s figures of 1915 to Fraser’s of 1935, we find that one of them, or both, must be wrong. We therefore have to consult the primary sources — the available mission statistics.

Statistics exist only for the CIM and for the years 1918 to 1937.413 Furthermore there is no distinction between Chinese, Miao and other minority groups in the material. The statistics tell the number of persons baptized during a certain year, the total number of people baptized at that mission station until the year in question, the number of communicants in church fellowship and the number of people under Christian instruction. For some years there are also indications of the number of students in the mission schools. As it is impossible to obtain the exact number of Miao Christians, I have chosen a few places where the Christians were predominantly Miao, and I have combined the numbers for these places, in the hope of getting a number that could correspond reasonably well to reality, the non-Miao in the numbers for these places being compensated for by the Miao appearing in the numbers for other places not counted here. Thus I have chosen Panghai for the Hmu, which actually was the only station in the area of this Miao group; Anshun, Gebu, Dading, Bijie and Shuicheng for the west Guizhou area A-Hmao; Sapushan and Wuding for the Yunnan A-Hmao; and finally Xuyong, Fuyinwan and Gulin for the Sichuan Hmong.

In December 1937, 134 people had been baptized at Panghai, and of these 108 were considered as communicants. There are no indications that more people were baptized later. The number who learnt Hutton’s Hmu writing was probably not much larger than 100.

In the A-Hmao areas in western Guizhou, 12,929 people had been baptized by 1937, but as Adam’s romanized A-Hmao writing was used until

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about 1917 in this area, only those who were baptized after this could have been required to leam the Pollard script to be baptized, although, undoubtedly, many of those who had earlier learnt the romanized A-Hmao writing, later learnt the Pollard script in order to read the New Testament, published in Pollard script in 1917. Although there are no explicit references to literacy as a requirement for baptism, there are, however, numerous accounts of courses in Adam’s romanized A-Hmao. Before 1918 some 5,280 people had been baptized in the area, and most of them would probably have learnt Adam’s romanized writing. Thus the number of people having learnt the Pollard script for A-Hmao in the area included both the people baptized after 1917, i.e. 7,649 persons, and at least a part of the 5,280 people who had previously learnt Adam’s writing. As the mission work continued for some twelve years after the last year of the available statistics, I estimate the number who learnt the Pollard script for A-Hmao before 1949 to around 10,000 in the CIM mission areas.

In Yunnan the CIM statistics for 1937 stated that some 3,294 people had been baptized by then. In 1946, Nicholls gives the figure ‘nearly 5,000’ for Miao, i.e. A-Hmao, baptized at Sapushan.414 Out of these at least 4,500 would have learnt the Pollard script. The same missionary was in charge of the work for most of the time, and already in 1909 there was a report that he required the A-Hmao to be able to read the Pollard script in order to be baptized, and this requirement was also mentioned in his history of the A-Hmao mission in Yunnan, written in 1946.

414 A G Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan, without title), dated 1946, ms, p. 10.415 W H Hudspeth, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, 1937, pp. 79-80.416 Zong Wen, ‘Jidujiao Xundao gonghui zai Weining Shimenkan xingban de jiaoyu shiye’, 1987, p. 31.4,7 According to Qiu Jifeng, the number could be even higher. In 1945 he wrote: ‘The Stone-Gateway church [=the five districts Shichuan HJH, Jingning Zhaotong B3H, Dongchuan MJH and Kunming [...] has more than forty churches, 40-50,000 believers, [...] most of the believers are Miao.’ Of. Qiu Jifeng, ‘Dian-Qian bianjing miaobao zhi yanjiu’, p. 76.

To this we have to add the A-Hmao who had learnt the Pollard script at the mission stations of the United Methodist Mission. In 1936 Hudspeth stated that there were nearly forty organized churches and 18,300 members and enquirers and more than 30 schools with 1,400 scholars.415 According to Zong Wen the number of Christians in the Stone Gateway-Sichuan district was 8,578 in 1951.416 As even non-Christians learnt the Pollard script, and as many A-Hmao also lived in areas belonging to other Methodist districts, I suppose that as many as 20,000 A-Hmao in this area learnt the Pollard script.417

At the CIM mission stations in the Sichuan Hmong area 569 persons

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had been baptized by 1937.418 Most of them would probably have some knowledge of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard script. To this we have to add the people who leamt the script from the Methodist missionaries. According to Ewart Wright’s report of 1946 the Methodist church had altogether 113 members in this area and 130 members on trial. At the schools there were altogether 406 students.4191 suppose that the church members and some of those on trial, as well as most of the students would have leamt the Sichuan Hmong Pollard script. According to Yang Qingbai, who went to school in Wangwuzhai in the 1940s, the students leamt the Pollard script for reading hymns.420 Consequently the total number who leamt it would be around 1,000.

418 ‘Statistics of the China Inland Mission for Year Ending December 31, 1937’, The Annual Report of the China Inland Mission, 1937, p. 88. This figure shows the total number of baptisms at the three stations Xuyong, Fuyinwan and Gulin.419 E B Wright, Summary Report of the Work Among the River Miao (Niu P'o Kan Circuit), 1946, ms, p. 1.420 Yang Qingbai, personal communication, Chengdu, April 1991.421 According to a report based on materials from the local NAC the Pollard script was used in 21 counties in Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan in 1957. Cf. Zhang Chengyao, ‘Jidujiao neidihui chuanru Bijie diqu de lishi qingkuang’, s.a. (preface dated Feb. 10, 1985), p. 9.m Huang Xing remarks that ‘the figures for those using the writing systems created by

To sum up these findings I think it is reasonable to assume the numbers below for persons who had leamt the various missionary writing systems by 1949:

• Pollard script for A-Hmao: 34,500.421• Adam’s romanized A-Hmao writing: 5,000.• Pollard script for Sichuan Hmong (Chuan Miao): 1,000.• Hutton’s Hmu writing: 100.• Hutton’s Ge (Keh Deo) writing: 5.

If we compare these figures to the usual references to these writing systems in Chinese sources, the most important deviation is the relatively great number who leamt Adam’s romanized A-Hmao, a writing system which is never included in any description except as a preliminary stage of the Pollard script, a misunderstanding which will be discussed in part IV. Later, only two of these systems have continued in use. According to my own estimates, about 50 persons knew Hutton’s Hmu writing in the autumn of 1990. It was actively used only at Kaihuai, near Kaili, where the 1928 hymn book was read and the texts were written on a black board in the church. Huang Xing, of the Institute of Nationality Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, writing in 1992, estimated the number of persons who know the Pollard script to 50-100,000.422 This high figure for the Pollard

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script is, however, not mentioned in any Chinese sources known to me. In 1983 and 1988 the NT in Pollard script was reprinted from the 1936 edition - 19,900423 or 20,000 copies424 in 1983 and 30,000 copies in 1988.425 These have all been sold out, as well as a reprint of the 1948 hymn book — 24,000 copies in 1983,426 and 50,000 copies in 1988.427 Apart from these, quite a few other books have also been published in the Pollard script after 1949. In 1951 a reformed variety was used in a anti-Christian pamphlet, and at the Conference on Miao Writing in Guiyang in 1956 it was emphasized that in the case of the A-Hmao the issue was not to devise a writing system, but to make a reform, albeit quite radical, as both the graphemes and the spelling principles were changed to those of the Chinese transcription system Hanyu Pinyin. In spite of this ‘reform*, the Pollard script, as codified in the 1936 NT, continued to be used in the Christian activities which had become more or less illegal in the late 1950s. The first edition of the 1936 NT had been 7,000 copies, and it was later reprinted in 1937, 1947 and 1950. As it was so widely spread, not all of them could be confiscated and burnt in the campaigns against Christianity. The persecution of the Christians in the 1960s and 1970s culminated with a massacre at Xinglongchang on July 28, 1974, when armed militia attacked A-Hmao Christians who had secretly gathered in a cave to have a prayer meeting.428 Nevertheless, these persecutions strengthened the Christian movement and led to a significant number of conversions to Christianity. The number has at least doubled according to the local church leaders in Guizhou and Yunnan.429 In this movement there was also a switch from the earlier UMM churches to those of the CIM. Although this original difference is still apparent among the A-Hmao Christians, the more charismatically orientated CIM churches have missionized the UMM areas, including Stone Gateway.430 As the emphasis on education has been significantly stronger in the UMM areas, this switch has led to a situation where the Pollard script is used almost exclusively for reading and

the missionaries are estimates based on calculations by the government or churches in the regions concerned.’ Cf. Huang Xing, ‘On writing systems for China’s minorities created by foreign missionaries’, (1992), p. 83.423 ‘Rang fiiyin chuanpian tiamda’, p. 8.424 Rev Zhang Xianzhou, personal communication, Kunming, 26 July 1993.425 Rev Wu Guoji, personal communication, Guiyang, 17 Nov. 1990.426 ‘Rang fuyin chuanpian tianxia’, p. 8.427 Wu Guoji, personal communication, Guiyang, 17 Nov. 1990.428 Zhang Tan, tZhaimen, qian de Shimenkan, 1992, p. 237.429 Rev Wu Guoji, personal communication, Guiyang, 17 Nov. 1990; and Rev Huang Guiying, personal communication, Zhaotong, 29 July 1993.430 For the significance of this switch for the A-Hmao interpretation of Christianity in the light of their myths about a lost Golden Homeland, an ancient writing and a Miao king, cf. Joakim Enwall, ‘Shimenkan - the Miao Jerusalem’, paper presented at the EACS Conference in Prague, 28 Aug. - 1 Sept. 1994, unpubl. ms.

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much less for writing. At present the 1936 Pollard script is not taught systematically anywhere.

Differences Between the Miao Areas

In the description of the various missionary activities, the emphasis has been almost exclusively on the ups and downs of the missionary work, the publications in the missionary writing systems and on the specific qualities of the writing systems. Undoubtedly these factors have played an important role in the process which resulted in success or failure. It is, however, of utmost importance to check whether any cultural, economical and other differences between the various Miao groups could be viewed as conditioning factors as well, or even as more important causes for the actual results than the missionary activities. We have, hitherto, looked only at the history of Miao writing in these areas in the pre-1949 period, which limits available perspectives. The post-1949 development, however, shows similar tendencies, which points to substantial differences in attitude towards writing between the Miao groups. These questions will be more elaborated on in the next volume of this study.

Miao scholars tend to give the economical differences between the various Miao areas as the main reason for the varying degrees of success of the missionary enterprises. The poorer the area, the greater the influence of the missionaries. These economical differences were also mentioned by the missionaries in their reports on the missionary work. In 1940 Ivan Allbutt, who had spent some time among the Hmu, partly during Hutton’s furlough in 1933, wrote that ‘the Black Miao tribe is considered to be wealthier than most other tribes in West China, and they were the last subjugated to the Chinese’.431

431 I Allbutt, ‘Black Miao Colonies’, (Oct., 1940), p. 154.432 ‘Panghai’, 1907, p. 80.

The Hmu area is one of the most prosperous Miao areas, second perhaps only to the Ghao-Xong area in western Hunan, and no kind of serfdom existed in the area when the missionaries arrived at the end of the nineteenth century. The 1907 CIM yearbook reported that R Williams and Pan, a Hmu evangelist, were well recieved while travelling in the Hmu area, but they ‘did not observe any special earnestness on the part of those interested in the Gospel’.432 In almost all the reports that Hutton published in China's Millions between 1911 and 1938 the problem of making the Hmu interested in Christianity was in focus or at least hinted at. There is thus a striking difference between his reports and the success stories told by Pollard and his colleagues and successors in the A-Hmao area. This does not mean that

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these kinds of problems were unknown in the mission among the A-Hmao, but only that they were quite insignificant if compared to the large interest in Christianity and the quick consolidation of the church organizations in that area. In the A-Hmao area conflicts between the Yi landowners and the A-Hmao serfs were emphasized, while no third power existed in the Hmu area. The conflict was mainly that between the Hmu and the missionaries, while the missionaries could play the role of an intermediary in the conflicts between the A-Hmao and the Yi. Among the Hmu there was also a strong group pressure not to accept the foreign religion. Basically, the Hmu preferred Chinese influence to foreign influence, while the opposite picture seems to be valid for the A-Hmao area, although the importance of the Chinese language and culture was strongly emphasized by the missionaries among the A-Hmao, especially after Pollard’s death.

In 1914 M H Hutton described the negative attitude toward Christianity in the Hmu area, while travelling around near Panghai:

We did not receive a very warm welcome, for some of the men of the village began to curse my men for leading me to their village. They said they did not want the foreigner nor his Gospel, for some years ago, they said, all those who had anything to do with the Gospel Hall were killed.

[...] For instance, one of our enquirers from another village, just recently, had fixed up an engagement with a girl of this village, and she was soon to become his bride. When it was known that she was going to the home of the Gospel Hall men, some of the men of the village told her that if she went to that home, she, together with all the rest of the Gospel Hall folk, would soon have her head cut off“.433

433 M H Hutton, ‘“In joumeyings” Amongst the Miao’, (1914), p. 48.434 D Rees, ‘A Preaching Tour Among the Great Flowery Tribes’, (1928), p. 70.

The Miao in western Guizhou, mostly Hmong and A-Hmao, were much poorer than those living in the southeast of the province, and a large part of them were serfs of the Yi people. They accepted Christianity very quickly and in connection with this they gradually were freed of their obfigations to the Yi landowners, partly thanks to the missionaries’ influence, and partly due to changes in the attitudes of the Chinese authorities to this kind of economic tie. Already in the early stages of the mission among the A-Hmao, however, there seem to have been little opposition against foreign influence, or at least it was not considered as bad as that of the Chinese. In 1928 D Rees visited the Miao areas near Anshun and wrote: *[...]; anti-foreignism is unknown among them; [...].’434

In 1935 J O Fraser, who worked in Yunnan, described the difference between work among the Chinese and among the minority peoples, and I think his description sums up many of the characteristics of the missionary work among the Miao in Yunnan and western Guizhou:

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A mission to the Chinese is an essentially individual work; it is the ones and twos that cleave to us. Divided families are perhaps the rule rather than the exception, especially in the beginning of a work. But among the aborigines a divided family is the exception. Not only whole families, but often whole villages, will “turn Christian.” Many people in our home countries object to, or at any rate question, the depth and reality of such mass-turnings. The writer’s experience of aboriginal work is that whereas there may be a very imperfect apprehension of Christian truth, especially in the early days of a movement, it would be quite unfair to label the work “shallow,” and still more unfair to question its genuineness. So far as the aboriginal Christians go they are as sincere as we are; and the most “shallow” of them has made a clean cut with his old heathen life, and a definite right-about-face. And in most cases they fashion themselves as children of obedience. Generally speaking, whilst the Chinese make the more intelligent Christians, the aborigines excel them not only in numbers but in wholeheartedness, in their spirit of unity, in hospitality, in humility, and love to their missionaries. The ideals of complete self-support, self-government, and self­propagation are far nearer realisation among the aboriginal churches than they are among the Chinese. [...] The more Chinesey they [the aborigines] become the less they appear to want our message, [my italics]435

435 J O Fraser, ‘The Aborigines of the Burma Border’, (1935), p. 43.436 AG Nicholls, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan, without title), dated 1946, ms, p. 24.437 C G Edwards, ‘China’s Tribesland’, (1947), p. 363.438 Cf. Siu-woo Cheung, Millennialism, Christian Movement, and Ethnic Chnage Among the Miao in Southwest China, [Seattle: University of Washington], 1989, unpubl. MA thesis.

A G Nicholls at Sapushan in Yunnan also mentioned similar tendencies:

It is the Salvation of the Miao not to fraternise with others, especially with unbelievers, and from the time of their acceptance of CHRIST’S Truth they have, in many cases, formed Christian villages apart from those who continue in the old ways.436

In 1947 Cyril Edwards, who did a great deal of travelling in all the Miao areas in order to collect materials for his tribal surveys, also mentioned that the Christian A-Hmao formed separate villages.437

This difference between the Hmu and the other groups is emphasized by Siu-woo Cheung in his comparative study of the mission among the Hmu and the A-Hmao.438

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The Miao Attitude Towards Chinese and Miao

If we take a look at how the first contacts between the missionaries and the Miao were conducted, we find that the missionaries spoke Chinese to an interpreter who translated into Miao. As all the missionaries had to know Chinese before they were allowed to proceed to the actual mission stations, they would probably want to use this language as much as possible in their contacts with the aboriginals, at least in the initial stage. The level of Chinese in the Miao areas was very uneven. Generally speaking it decreases the further west the Miao live. It was best in western Hunan and rather good in the Hmu area in southeast Guizhou.

In 1903 S R Clarke wrote about the translation of books into Hmu in Panghai and noted that: ‘They, however, seem more anxious to learn to read Chinese than their own language. Many of them can speak Chinese.’439 A similar attitude was noted when a school was opened in Panghai in the 1890s. (Cf p. 181). However, in a report to the British consul, describing the court proceedings against the Hmu Christians falsely accused of robbery in 1900-1901, he noted:

439 S R Clarke, The Aborigines of Kwei=chau’, (1903), p. 47.440 ‘“Destitute, Afflicted, Tormented’”, (1912), p. 71.441 Ying Ling, personal communication, Peking, May 1992.442 C G Edwards, Journal B of Tribal Survey trips in Kweichow province, China, (From 1 dec. 1947), ms, p. 67.

The Christians were wholly in the hands of their enemies [i.e. the Chinese officials], and not knowing the Chinese language, they were ignorant of what was passing in the court.440

Around the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 there would most probably have been at least one person in each family in the Hmu area who knew Chinese, the man who was responsible for the family economy and conducted business at the market.441 Nevertheless, many people were still monolingual in Hmu when Cyril G Edwards made his tribal survey of Guizhou in 1948. He described a service at the Panghai church on February 13, 1948, and stated that ‘practically no one understands Chinese’.442

It is remarkable how strong the Chinese influence is on Hutton’s translations of the NT into Hmu; this could be result of two different situations: either the translation is simply a caique of the Chinese text as Hutton lacked a suitable translation technique, or the language was already so influenced by Chinese, that this way of imitating Chinese, in vocabulary and syntax, would be the normal way of rendering a non-traditional text in Hmu. S R Clarke mentioned significant similarities between Hmu and Chinese already in 1895: ‘The syntax is very like Chinese. [...]. They have many words

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taken directly from the Chinese, [...]’443 Hutton’s co-translators most probably had a certain knowledge of Chinese, and although this level need not have been very advanced, it could still have been sufficient for strongly influencing the Hmu language in the translated texts.

443 S Clarke, ‘Miao Studies’, (1895), p. 148.444 W A Grist, ‘The Gospel for the Miao’, (1938), pp. 135-7.445 McIntyre, ‘The Contrast of Miao and Chinese Work’, (1922), p. 155.

Probably both explanations are partly right, but it cannot be denied that the Chinese influence on modem texts in Hmu is very substantial. For example, newspaper texts from the 1980s are characterized by both an enormous influx of Chinese loanwords and a great deal of typically Chinese syntax; some are almost word-to-word translations from Chinese.

In western Guizhou and in Yunnan, among the A-Hmao, the level of Chinese seems to have been extremely low, with only a few persons in every village having some Chinese. In a letter of 1907 Pollard describes the difference between preaching in Chinese and in Miao:

The hymns - some in Miao and some in Chinese - went well.... The Chinese hymns they had to leam off by rote and they sang them with a swing; but Mr. Lee rightly said it was like nienking [i.e. like reading the Chinese transcriptions of Buddhist holy scriptures in sanscrit where the characters have no proper meaning] [...], for they do not understand what they sing. S. Lee, Yah-koh, and I spoke in Miao and the people attended well, answering our questions with vigour. Then Mr. Chen spoke in Chinese, and I never noticed before such a remarkable collapse of attention. The women and girls at once resigned themselves to hearing sounds and understanding nothing.444

This state of affairs also increased the importance of an A-Hmao writing system for this area, as the A-Hmao would have to learn not only the Chinese writing system, but spoken Chinese as well in order to become literate in Chinese.

In Sichuan the Chinese level among the Hmong was better than among the Miao in western Guizhou and in Yunnan. In 1922 Mrs McIntyre in Xuyong wrote:

Although they cannot read, yet they are so willing to spend their time learning hymns, Gospel choruses, or texts. Well it is for us that most of them understand Chinese fairly well.445

It is interesting to note the importance placed on learning Chinese even by the Miao intellectuals themselves. Lin Mingjun wrote about this:

Fortunately, there are some Miao who themselves have become aware that they have to leam more Chinese writing, and know more Chinese writing; only then can they

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attain more knowledge and only then can their culture progress. But according to their experience of learning Chinese writing, the Chinese characters are really too difficult; if they do not have a few years time [to spend], it is impossible, and as for learning this kind of Miao writing, they can do it successfully in 40-50 days. From this we can see that it is necessary to make a reform of the Chinese characters.446

446 Lin Mingjun, ‘Chuan miao gaikuang’, (1936).447 Rev P K Parsons, personal communication.448 Lin Mingjun, ‘Chuan miao gaikuang’, (1936), p. 52.449 Bird, ‘“Let Us Go into the Next Towns!’”, (1931), p. 85.450 Cf. G Serdyuchenko, Youguan Suliange minzu wenzi chuangzhi shi de wenti, 1955.

This state of affairs is also confirmed by P K Parsons, who was responsible for the Methodist mission among the Sichuan Hmong in 1947. According to him even the women would understand spoken Chinese.447 Lin Mingjun, writing in 1936, estimated that only 20-30% of the women did not know Chinese.448 449

The knowledge of Chinese among the Miao does, however, seem to be restricted to the spoken language in most cases, and Uteracy in Chinese was

• 449a rare exception.

Differences Between the Writing Systems

As the missionary writing systems, i.e. mainly the Pollard script and Hutton’s NPS orthography, have often been criticized for inadequate representation of the language and especially of its tone system, and as this has been considered a major reason for the almost complete failure of the NPS orthography, I have considered it of utmost importance to see whether the picture presented in the earlier literature has some foundation in the actual writing systems or not. My conclusion is that this factor can only have played a very limited role as the degree of exactness of the Pollard script is not significantly different from the NPS orthography, and the differences which exist rather point out the advantage of the NPS orthography, which is usually considered more deficient by Chinese scholars. In the language debate of the 1950s the opinion that the missionary writing systems were ‘unscientific* was particularly strong, an opinion which will be further discussed in part III. The reason for emphasizing the quality, or rather lack of quality, in the writing systems was conditioned both by insufficient understanding of how these writing systems actually worked, and by a desire to abolish them, although this could not be justified from a purely ideological point of view, as even Stalin had stated that language and writing did not have an inherent class character.450

Pollard’s method of translating, referred to above, was to paraphrase the

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text into colloquial A-Hmao and later to write it down. He strove to use an idiomatic language in the A-Hmao texts, and also, unlike many other missionaries in China, he strove to preserve the purity of A-Hmao, using Chinese loanwords only when absolutely necessary. He considered that his task was not only to devise the actual graphemes, but also a language in which the Christian doctrine could be expressed. The level of Chinese among the A-Hmao around the turn of the century was undoubtedly very low, but as more and more A-Hmao people learnt Chinese, this purism nevertheless lived on. This situation is almost the reverse of the Hmu, where Hutton used a great number of Chinese loanwords in his translation of the NT, and where far more loanwords are used nowadays. Very few loanwords appear in the early Gospel translations in A-Hmao, the only exception being personal names, and a small number of religious terms. A few more loanwords appear in the textbook for school use, published in 1938. For a further discussion on loanwords, syntax transfer etc., cf. parts III and IV in volume 2.

In the case of the Hmu, we can observe the paradoxical effects that the introduction of writing can have on a low status indigenous language. This has been thoroughly discussed by P Mühlhäusler, cf. below. For the Hmu, the most important factor seems to have been the possibility of reaching the level of the dominant people, i.e. the Chinese. As the material culture of the Hmu is much richer than that of the A-Hmao they seem more prone to take over Chinese habits and customs, including the Chinese language. The somewhat higher status of the Hmu as compared to the A-Hmao meant that the Hmu who wanted to get a higher position in society could become Chinese — in the sense of the Confucian definition that a Chinese is a person who looks Chinese, speaks Chinese and eats with chopsticks. This might at least partly explain the enormous difference between the mission among the Hmu and the mission among the A-Hmao, for whom the possibility, and perhaps also the desire, of becoming considered Chinese was more remote.

If we compare Hutton’s text to the Chinese text from which it was, without any doubt, translated, we see that almost every word corresponds to the Chinese word in the same position. Hutton and his co-translators translated the Bible texts from Chinese word for word, and seldom made exceptions even for grammatical words. The knowledge of Chinese was, however, quite widely spread in the Hmu area, at least among men, and I suppose that the Hmu co-translators would have considered the Chinese words and the Chinese syntactical constructions to be superior to those used by the Hmu peasants.

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Myth and Reality

Although the Miao myth seems to have had a strong influence on the acceptance of the Pollard script by the A-Hmao, this kind of development is not unique, and a somewhat similar development is described for a people without such a myth, the Maori, by Peter Mühlhäusler.451 He further writes that by 1856 about 90% of the Maori population was able to read and write in their own language. Later, when the Europeans became the majority population, Maori literacy began to decline. The two main reasons were:

451 P Mühlhauser, ‘“Reducing” Pacific languages to writings’, 1990, p. 192. This process is also described by D F McKenzie, ‘The Sociology of a Text: Oral Culture, Literacy and Print in Early New Zealand’, 1987.452 P Mühlhäusler, op.dt., 1990, p. 193.40 P Mühlhäusler, op.dt., 1990, pp. 193-194.

(i) Disenchantment with literacy and the mission school system, combined with a growing suspicion of literacy. [...](ii) The growing importance of the state in Maori education reflected in a changeover to English-medium education from the 1850s onward.452

For the present situation Mühlhäulser notes that:

(i) There are no signs whatsoever of a return to a Maori-only literacy; bilingualism and biculturalism in Maori and English (with the latter being the dominant language) represents as much recognition as Maori is likely to gain.(ii) Maori is the weak language in a diglossic situation dominated by English and a growing number of Maoris speak English only and /or encourage their children to do so.(iii) The language of the media favoured by the Maori population, namely video, television and printed materials (in that order), is almost exclusively English.453

This situation is, of course, in many ways different from the Miao context, as it is so much more difficult to become literate in Chinese than in Miao. The Miao in the towns and cities generally encourage their children to speak only Chinese, because this is the most useful language for education and careers. Nonetheless, as both missionaries and educationalists in present- day China have pointed out, vernacular literacy is also a stepping stone to literacy in Chinese. In the post-1949 period, this aspect has been emphasized by those who have wanted to save the Miao writing systems from prohibition by people who consider minority writing activities as separatism. Sometimes, however, this aspect has been overemphasized, and the Miao writing systems have been considered as having no intrinsic value, but only as tools for facilitating the teaching of Chinese to children who speak no Chinese when they start school. Mühlhäusler writes:

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The principal lesson to be learnt from the Polynesian languages is that vernacular literacy typically is transitional Uteracy; a transition often promoted by the existence of writing systems that incorporate orthographic conventions of the metropolitan languages. One also sees a strong link between literacy and cultural transition: vernacular literacy is typically associated with missionization, whilst metropolitan literacy reflects attempts by colonial and post-colonial governments to bring about social and economic change.454

454 P Mühlhäusler, op.cit., 1990, p. 195.455 U Mosel, ‘The influence of the church missions on the development of Tolai’, 1982, pp. 155-172. Quoted from P Mühlhäusler, op.cit., 1990, p. 196.456 Unfortunately, these letters have not been preserved.

The Chinese case is, of course, different from the above description, especially as all the Miao writing systems used today, except for the Pollard script, were devised after the establishment of the PRC and within the framework of Marxist minority policies, hence, the difference is not that between the missionaries and the post-colonial government, but that between the official Marxist minority policies, which in principle imply total equality, on the one side, and the Han chauvinism, and the colonial attitudes of the Han towards the minority peoples, on the other side.

There are also differences in how the various writing systems were used. Mosel reports about the literacy in Papua New Guinea:

[...] To what extent writing was practiced for private purposes is unknown, but a small collection of letters written to Rev. H. Fellman suggests that at least some people were able to write and practiced it not only in their dealings with officials.[.. J Thus the only literature offered to the people was Christian literature. It is hard to believe that there were no attempts to have people commit their traditional oral literature to writing.455

This state of affairs seems to be valid for Hutton’s Hmu writing, but not at all for the Pollard script, nor for the writing systems devised in the PRC after 1949. The reading matter available in Hmu was only Christian literature and this writing was probably never used for secular purposes, except for a number of letters - reports written to Hutton by the Christians in Panghai, during his trips to other parts of China, his furloughs and also after his retirement.456

The Pollard script, however, was used for letter writing, general information, text books at school etc. It was also used for recording traditional A-Hmao materials, folk songs, myths and legends. The main reason for devising the Pollard script was of course to propagate Christianity, but it soon came to be used for other purposes as well, which, in my view, partly explains its great success. Other factors contributing to the rapid spread of

226

the Pollard script are the simplicity of the script, especially the ingenious tone marking system, and the dissimilarity from other writing systems, a trait which made the A-Hmao feel that this was their own national script and not an adaptation of a script which actually belonged to another people. The popular reinterpretation of the Pollard script as being identical with, or at least based on, the earlier lost Miao writing, still plays an important role in efforts in the 1980s to syntheticize the Pollard script with the Pinyin-based A-Hmao writing devised in 1956-8.457 When the Pollard script was devised in the autumn of 1904, the A-Hmao had long desired literacy; this is clear from the writing myths, and when a writing system actually appeared, it was readily accepted by them.

457 Four varieties of this reformed Pollard script have subsequently been devised in the Chuxiong AP in Yunnan. Cf. part IV.

Of the missionary writing systems, the Pollard script for A-Hmao is still the most widely employed, and this holds true even if it is compared to the writing systems for this and other Miao dialects devised after 1949. If we also consider that the A-Hmao group is by far the smallest, the percentage of literacy among the A-Hmao is at least five times higher than any other group. In 1949 the knowledge of the Pollard script was wide-spread, and it is not strange that there was resistance against the Hanyu Pinyin-based orthography for A-Hmao devised 1956-1958.

In the Hmu area, however, the reaction was the reverse of that of the A-Hmao, and the Pinyin-based Hmu orthography was immediately considered the only acceptable writing system for that dialect. Hutton’s NPS orthography continued to be used by some people, mostly because there was no other edition of the hymn book and the NT. The few who learnt to use it seem never to have viewed it as anything but a purely practical device for recording the language. Before 1949 the other Hmu considered it quite useless, and preferred to acquire literacy in Chinese. With the Pinyin-based orthography, however, another possiblity was presented.

In the Introduction we pointed out that there are two possible basic approaches when a writing system is devised - transfer and dissmilarity. The Hmu were relatively well off and most of the men were bilingual in Hmu and Chinese. Although there are considerable cultural differences between the Hmu and the Chinese, many of the Hmu aspired to become Chinese. Therefore, if they were to use a writing system for Hmu it ought to have a transfer value from Chinese, but this was not easy to accomplish as the Chinese writing system does not lend itself very well for representing Hmu, which we have seen above. The NPS writing could, in principle, have had a transfer value, but it was used for extremely limited purposes in connection with the Chinese language, and was most certainly not known by the Chinese in the Hmu area. It was thus not until the emergence of the Hanyu

227

Pinyin that such a possibility presented itself, as the 1958 Hmu orthography was based on exactly the same principles as the Hanyu Pinyin. At the same time there was a movement to use Pinyin as a complement to Chinese characters in education, and knowledge of the Hmu orthography was consequendy a direct advantage for learning Chinese.

Because of their extremely marginaUzed position in Chinese society, the A-Hmao preferred to lock back on their mythological past, rather than to confront the miserable present. In the kind of millennial movement which was the result of the joint efforts of Pollard, Adam and Nicholls, the Pollard script was reinterpreted as being connected with the writing lost in the river crossing. Thus, for the A-Hmao, the ancient writing system, the symbol of the Golden Homeland, and the sign of authority of the Miao king, had emerged from the realm of myth and entered everyday reality.

228

Bibliography of Works in Missionary Writing Systems

In addition to basic information, edition number (usually of the British and Foreign Bible Society), printer and persons involved in preparing the book are indicated.

As the books are all difficult to find it is also indicated where they can be found. If it has not been possible to find them, a reference to their existence is given.

BCV = CIM Archives, Bible College of Victoria, Melbourne.BSL = Bible Society Library, Cambridge.CUN = Library of the Central University of Nationalities, Peking.JE = Copy in the author’s possession.JG = Col John Graham (private).PKP — Rev P Kenneth Parsons (private).RKP = Rev R Keith Parsons (private).WDG = Mr Wang Deguang (private).

A-Hmao (Adam’s Latin-based writing)

[Hymns and catechism], [printed before 1908]. Transhted and printed by J R Adam. Cf. S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p. 248. {not found}

Mao-cô mao-rao [St Mark], Anshunfii: CIM [NBSS], 1910, 67 pp., ed. 1028. Printed in Taichow. NBSS met the cost of publishing this and other CIM editions. {BSL}

lôh-han daeo-mao [1,2 and 3 John], Anshunfu: CIM [NBSS], 1910, 16 pp., ed. 1029.Printed in Taichow. {BSL}

Ma-tai mao-rao [St Matthew], Anshunfu: CIM [NBSS], 1911, 113 pp., ed. 1030. Printed in Taichow. {BSL}

lôh-han mao-rao [St John], Anshunfu: CIM [NBSS], 1911, 89 pp., ed. 1031. Printed in Taichow. {BSL}

Lô-ma den-neng daeo-mao, Djia-la-tai den-neng daeo-mao [Romans and Galatians (separate titles)], Anshunfu: CIM [NBSS], 1911, 50+17 pp., ed. 1032. Printed in Taichow. {BSL}

229

[Miao Hymn Book], [printed before 1912]. Cf. ‘A Tour Among the Aborigines in Kweichow, From the Journal of Jas. R. Adam, Anshunfu, Kweichow', (1913), p. 2. {not found}

[St. Luke], [printed before 1914]. Cf. J R Adam, ‘A Year’s Work at Anshunfu’, (1915), p. 8. {not found}

Pollard Script A-Hmao (before 1952)

Bo Geli, Li Sitifan, Zhang Yuehan fàfêS, [Samuel Pollard, StephenLee, John Chang], Huamiao yishu [Hua Miao First Primer], Zhaotong: Zhaotong fu fiiyintang [Gospel hall of Zhaotong prefecture], 1905,10 pp. Printed inChengdu by the Hua-Ying shuju [Chinese-British Press], first edition 1,000copies + a second edition of unknown size. {BSL}

Bo Geh, Li Sitifan, Zhang Yuehan [Samuel Pollard, StephenLee, John Chang], Hua Miao Er Shu W [Hua Miao Second Primer], Zhaotong: Zhaotong fu fiiyintang [Gospel hall of Zhaotong prefecture] , 1905, 16 pp.Printed in Chengdu by the Hua-Ying shuju [Chinese-British Press], first edition1,000 copies + a second edition of unknown size. {BSL}

[Hymn Book], [1906?]. Cf. S Pollard, ‘Miao Report, 1905’, 1906, p. 31. {not found}

[Book about the OT], [1906?]. Cf. Language Papers: Hwa Miao, p. 1. Letter dated Zhaotong, April 10, [1906]. {not found}

Makefuyin [St Mark], Zhaotong: BFBS, 1907, 63 pp., 5,000 copies. Printed atYunnan-fu = Kunming. Translated by S Pollard with the assistance of Stephen Lee. {BSL}

Anau44 zau44 zoa ha24/ [St John], Shanghai: BFBS, 1908, 124 pp., 3,000 copies (which probably disappeared), and at least 1,000 copies which were distributed. Translated by S Pollard. Photolithographed from the transhtor’s ms. {BSL}

[Catechism], [1908], 21 pp. Referred to as having been prepared in S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’ (Dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907). {RKP}

Hua Miao songzhu shengshi ÏEÂiSîlSW [Hwa Miao Gospel Hymns], s.l., s.a. [1908?], 91 pp. Referred to as being in the hands of the printer in S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907, ms. {JE}

[Almanac for 1908], 1908. Referred to as being in the hands of the printer in S Pollard, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, dated Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907, ms. {not found}

230

CT-CTJ’C^à V —/ndfiu2* ntœy55 ku22 nu54 dljfia22/, Shengjing rike [Lectionary for 1910 from StJohn’s Gospel], Chengdu, [1910], 12 pp. Printed by the Hua-Ying shuju [Chinese-British Press]. {RKP}

□"•S"?":)’0/mau44 zau44 ma44 k1*© 44/ [St Mark], Shanghai: BFBS, 1910, 84 pp., second edition. Printed in Yokohama. A slightly revised reprint of St Mark, 1907. This and subsequent BFBS editions were printed from metal types specially supplied from London. {BSL}

D'T" 3" 3"/ma44 thain2 mau44 zau44/ [St Matthew], Shanghai: BFBS, 1912,142 pp., ed. 1005. Printed in Yokohama. Translated by A G Nicholls and revised by S Pollard and Gladstone Porteous. {BSL}

(Hwa Miao New 1st Primed, s.l., s.a. [1913?], 34 pp. Type printed. {WDG}

C3''D"S"/rjgfiau24 mau44 zau44/ (Hwa Miao Gospel Songs), [Shanghai], 1914, 77 pp., 10,000 copies. Cf. China and the Gospel 1915, facing p. 29. Translated by Yang Rongxin according to Yang Zhongde, personal communication, Weining, Nov. 1990. {RKP}

Au54 (au44*22 mau44 njfiy21 rgi53/ [Acts of the Apostles], Shanghai: BFBS, 1915, 106 pp. Printed in Yokohama. Translated by S Pollard, with the help of A G Nicholls and others. {BSL}

/ntœy® qu® ti54/ [Catechism], s.l., s.a. [1917?]. Printed from woodblocks. {JG}

cb-UTFrDoJZT'r-C'L''

/ntœy® a55*22 Ifiau22 kaui54 tçi55"44 mo® ci® tla44 ta24 ni54 li54/ [OT History from Moses to Daniel], s.l., [1917], 42 pp. Printed from woodblocks. {BSL}

/hi® thai2 ntœy® t§hieM/, Xinyue quanshu [The New Testament], Shanghai:BFBS, 1917, 575 pp., 5,000 copies. Printed in Yokohama. Translated by S Pollard, A G Nicholls and G Porteous. Books already published were revised for this edition. W H Hudspeth who assisted in the work saw the volume through the press in Japan with the help of Yang Yage Qames Yang). {BSL}

231

nAT’ er C’/hi® thai2 ntœy® t§hieM/, Xinyue quanshu [The New Testament], Shanghai:BFBS, 1919, second edition, 575 pp. {CUN}

CTY-UC3"/ntœy® a55-22 Ifiau22 qgfiau24/ [Psalms of David], s.l., 1919. Mentioned on the title page of Psalms of David, 1935. {not found}

/a® ipau54 a44 ko44 ntœy®/ [Miao Textbook], vol. 1, s.l. [Chengdu ?], s.a. [1922?], 17 pp. Appeared in two versions, one partly printed from wood blocks, but with the same text.<JE}

[Primer on health subjects], 1922. Cf. A G Nicholls, ‘Among the Miao’, (1922), p. 136. {not found}

/îa34 taui® tla44 ta24 ni54 li54/ [Genesis-Daniel: short stories], s.l., s.a. [1922]. {JG}

[Gospel Songs], s.l., s.a., 65 pp. Revision of Hwa Miao Gospel Songs, 1914, in an orthography similar to the 1917 NT. Not translated before 1915, cf. Acts. Probably published in 1922, cf. A G Nicholls, ‘Among the Miao’, (1922), p. 136. Printed from woodblocks. {WDG (copy lacking tide page)}

[Primer for children], 1922, cf. A G Nicholls, ‘Among the Miao’, (1922), p. 136. {not found}

/ntœy® ku22 qhuiM hi® ^ai22 tg^e54/ (Key to the New Testament), s.l. [Changsha], 1926, 40 pp, 1,500 copies. {RKP}

/ntœy® ku22 pei44 a44 jaui24 la® çau44 zfiaui24/ (Hwa Miao. Yun-Kwei.) [Lectionary of NT] si, 1927-8, 26 pp. {RKP}

TT’CTC*4ii® (’’ai22 ntœy® tg^e54/, Xinyue quanshu [The New Testament ], Shanghai:BFBS, 1929, third edition, 575 pp. Cf. Hudspeth, 1937, p. 45. The total number of NTs printed (editions 1-3) was 10,000. Cf. Hudspeth, 1937, p. 45. {not found}

/ntœy® ku22 q^u54 hi® ^ai22 tg^e54/ (Key to the New Test.), Changsha: Broad-cast Tract Presses, 1929, 40 pp., 1,000 copies. {JG}

232

CT V- l« Q"/ntœy® a55-22 Ifiau22 ijgfiau2*/ [Psalms of David], s.l., 1931. Mentioned on title page ofPsalms of David, 1935. {not found}

dv_ LuC2"/ntœy® a55"22 Ifiau22 qgfiau2*/ (Psalms of David), [Changsha]: B.T. Press, 1935, 52 p. {RKP}

/qgfiau24 mau44 zau44/ (Hwa Miao Gospel Songs), Changsha,: B.T. Press, 1935, 72 p. {PKP}

A -vncrc'

/hi® ^ai22 ntœy® t^ie54/, Hua Miao xinyue quanshu [The New Testament],Shanghai, BFBS, 1936, 854 pp. A revision of 1917 NT by W H Hudspeth and A G Nicholls. With coloured maps. First edition of 7,000, a second was put into circulation in 1937, cf. Hudspeth, 1937, p. 45. {BSL}

•>c) o"V'/ijgfiau34 mau44 zau44/ (Hwa Miao Gospel Songs), Changsha: B.T. Press, 1938, 72 p., 500 copies. Tide misspelt. {PKP}

Mu Boli [Edward Moody] (ed.), Wang Peicheng 3E3i^ (transi, and ed.), /tPi22 tghieM a44 njau54 a44 ko44 ntœy®/ [Renewed Miao Textbook], volume one, s.l. [Stone Gateway], 1938, 50 pp. Printed from woodblocks. {RKP}

11-O'/tsau® la21 ijgfiau24/ [Praise Songs], Shanghai: CIM, 1939, 198 pp. Cf. Zhang Chengyao, p. 18. {BCV}

a 1 UCT3üÛ‘ÜI’V"

/ntœy® ku22 nfiau24 tg?,® xu® va®/ Xundao gonghui shengcan jian liwen[Order of Service for Holy Communion], s.l., 1946, 6 pp., 1,000 copies. Reprint. {RKP}

[Miao Hymn book], USA, 1947. Photolithographed in the U.S. Cf. Western Region: Niuhuach’i*, (1947), p. 25. {not found}

4ii® 22 ntœy® tg^e54/, Huamiao xinyue quanshu (Hwa Miao New Testament],[Kunming]: China Bible House 1947, 854 pp., edition no. 431. Printed inChina. {WDG}

233

Cù-'cTA + L-/ndîjfiie2* ti5* tsau® la21/ [Selection of Hymns of Universal Praise] , s.l. [StoneGateway], 1948, 30 pp. Hand duplicated. {RKP, PKP}

n i

/tsau® la21 t§z, ® qgfiau2*/ Praise the Lord songs], Kunming: Multilith Press, 1948, 15,000 copies. Cf. ‘Western Region: Tribal Printing Press’, (1948), p. 144. {not found]

CUY-Au54 ndo2 dzy21 ndljfiie24 ti54 i^o21 a44 ko44 katu54 tçi55^4/ [Catechism in Big Flowery Miao], Kunming: Multilith Press, 1949, 2,000 copies. Cf. ‘Western Region: Tribal Printing Press’, (1948), p. 144. {JG}

TO" o Ja-Tn If" Jn C’a« t J° C"/a® içau54 nofiau24 pi55-21 dfiau21 la44 pi55-21 tc’key22 a® ko44 ip®/ [Miao Songs], Stone-Gateway,1949, 48 pp., cyclostyled. {RKP}

TO" C2" T L" CToT L" CuZa® içau54 ijgfiau24 a55-22 Ifiau22 ijcjp21 a55-22 Ifiau22 ip®/ [Miao Old Songs], [Stone-Gateway],1950, 44 pp., cyclostyled. {JE}

TTCTC’Ali® t*fei 2 ntœy® tçHe54/, Huamiao xinyue quanshu [Hwa Miao New Testament],[Kunming]: China Bible House, 1950, 854 pp., edition no. 593. Printed in China. {CIN}

[Old Testament stories], s.l.: [CIM], 1950?, 8 pp. Cf. ‘Prayer Paragraphs’, (1950), pp. 29-30. Consists of loose printed pages. According to R K Parsons this is probably a summary of a series of stories of the Patriarchs, used at a Bible School. {BCV}

TO" IZJa^TÜ^TJCTuC''1' L,[Yang Rongxin (ed.)], /a® njau54 la44 pi5552 tc’tey22 a54 dzaui24-54 a44 ko44 ip53ku2 tçfcaui54 Ifiœy22 /[A Bundle of Miao Traditions and their Origins in the Past], [Stone Gateway], 1952, 62 pp. {WDG}

Unpublished works in Pollard script A-Hmao

‘Jesus Loves Me’, first verse), Oct. 1904. In Diaries of S Pollard, microfiche no. 1323, Box 639. {London, SOAS}

TO"CTWang Mingji, /a içau ntœy/, vol. 1-4, (55 + 77 + 67 + 63 pp.), s.l., 1946, unpubl. ms. {PKP}

234

Pollard Script Sichuan Hmong

Hymn Book & Catechism, 1915, 2,000 copies. Referred to in a letter from Pollard to Stedeford Dec. 28; 1914. Cf. Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche, Pollard, Box 639, No 1302. {not found}

u

[St Mark], Yunnan: BFBS, 1922, 98 pp. Translated by H Parsons of the United Methodist Mission, acc. to the BSL Catalogue. {BSL}

ofc uCJflRd

W H Hudspeth [Wang Huimin HîBK] (ed.), Yang Mingqing translator, Chuan Miao Gospel Hymns Shimenkan [Stone Gateway]: United Methodist Mission,1935, 67 pp. Printed in Shanghai by the A.B.C. Press. {RKP}

06 06d“2’°R3

[St. Mark], Shanghai, BFBS and American Bible Society, 1938. Revised by a Hwa Miao teacher called Yang K’uan-I [Yang Kuanyi] acc. to the BSL Catalogue. {JE}

Unpublished Works in the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script

tcC'ctParsons, Harry, /a ntgi ntœy/ [Chuan Miao],, s.l., s.a., 15 pp. Notebook with a wordlist of St. Mark, chapter 1-4, Chuan Miao - A-Hmao - English. {RKP}

Pollard Script Small Flowery Miaorirtav

(Kweichow Hsiao Hwa Miao Hymnbook) Kunming: CIM, 1949, 172 pp.,1,000 copies. Printed by the Multilith Press.

235

Latin-based Hmu Writing (pre-1949)

Books written in Guiyang (1895 and onwards) by Samuel R Clarke and Pan Xiushan.1 The books were probably never printed and no extant ms. have been found, the same orthography was used for two wordlists in Hmu by S R Clarke.2

1 Referred to in S R Clarke, ‘Miao Studies’, (1895), p. 148; S R Clarke, ‘The Aborigines of Kwei=chau’, (1903), p. 47 and S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, p. 142.2 SR Clarke, ‘The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province’, (1904), p. 206 and S R Clarke, Among the Tribes in South-west China, 1911, pp. 307-12.

Primer in Black MiaoMiao-English dictionaryEnglish-Miao dictionaryCatechism in Black MiaoTracts in Black MiaoGospel of MatthewHymns in Black MiaoLegends of the Creation and the Deluge, 1896 (‘about eighty pages in an ordinary exercise book’) [Miao legends recorded from Pan Xiushan]

Books Hectographed at Panghai by Robert Powell

Ca Neo Uei Dsan Mei Vang-Vai Bie Sh’a [Black Miao Hymn Book], Panghai, 1913. Contained 19 hymns and 2 choruses, translated by S R Clarke and R Powell. Referred to in the preface of Black Miao Hymnary, 1928. {not found}

Giu ki kai ming [The ten commandments], s.l., s.a., 2 pp. Loose sheet found in Hutton’s personal copy of the 1934 NT. {JE}

236

NPS Writing for Hmu

[St Mark], Shanghai: BFBS, 1928.

[St Matthew], Shanghai: BFBS, 1932. Printed in Chefoo. Revision of St Matthew 1928.

[St Mark], Shanghai: BFBS, 1932. Printed in Chefoo.

[St Luke], Shanghai: BFBS, 1932.

[St John], Shanghai: BFBS, 1932.

[The New Testament], Shanghai: BFBS, 1934

[Romans], Shanghai: BFBS, 1935.

237

Kweichow Panghai Black Miao “God Hath Said”, Chefoo, 1928. ‘Miscellaneous portions and texts from God’s Word. Translated and printed for use of the Kweichow, Panghai, Black Miao Believers. By M.H. Hutton. ‘GOD Hath Spoken’ giving the plan of salvation in scripture verses from the New and Old Testament.’

[St Matthew], Shanghai: BFBS, 1928. Translated by M H Hutton and Yang, a Miao teacher.

• T H[Acts of the Apostles], Shanghai: BFBS, 1932.

Black-Miao Hymnary, Panghai: CIM, 1928. Printed by Messrs. James McMullan&Co., Ltd. Chefoo, China. Preface in English by M H Hutton.

/< i — ZxÜ -rV R k-tt * £ £ Ï

Kweichow Panghai Black Miao “Catechism”, Chefoo, 1928. ‘Translated and compiled from Mrs. Nevius’s Catechism, with additional details for the Kweichow, Panghai, Black Miao Behevers.’

« f L. Ti f> S 5

Unpublished Works in Hmu

Hutton, Maurice H, [Black Miao (Hmu) - English dictionary, without title], 64 pp. + 38 pp, with a an additional ten-page comparative vocabulary of ‘English, Chinese, Black Miao, Keh lao, Keh Do, Big Flowery Miao, Neo Su and Li-su’, ms. {JE}

NPS-writing for Ge (Keh Deo)

‘Three Keh Deo Choruses’, in Black-Miao Hymnary, Panghai: CIM, 1928, p. 194.

*n T- dr

[St Mark], Shanghai: NBSS, 1937, 119 pp.

[St John], Shanghai: NBSS, 1937,154 pp.

[Catechism and Hymnary], Shanghai: NBSS, 1937. Catechism 73 pp.; Hymnary 31 pp.

238

Unpublished Sources

Manuscripts

Bible Society’s Library Catalogue, Cambridge, s.a., typescript. {BSL}

British & Foreign Bible Society, Language Papers: Hwa Miao, 4 pp. {BSL}

CIM Prayer Directory. From letter of 13 Febr. 1991 from Leone T Taylor, Librarian, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, International HQ Library, Singapore.

Chen Qiguang fêjîÂjt, unpubl. paper at the Quanguo niishu xueshu kaocha yantaohui & [National Conference on Women’s Writing], Jiangyong (Hunan),

Nov. 1991.

Cheung, Siu-woo Millennialism, Christian Movement, and Ethnic Change Amongthe Miao in Southwest China, [Seattle: University of Washington], 1989, unpubl. MA thesis.

Edwards, Cyril G, Journal B of Tribal Survey trips in Kweichow province, China, (From 1 dec. 1947). {Ms. at the CIM archives, Bible College of Victoria, Melbourne}

Enwall, Joakim, ‘Shimenkan - the Miao Jerusalem’, paper presented at the EACS Conference in Prague, 28 Aug. - 1 Sept. 1994, unpubl. ms.

Jenks, Robert Darrah, The Miao Rebellion, 1854-1872: Insurgency and Social Disorder in Kweichow During the Taiping Era. PhD diss., Harvard University, 1985.

Manuscript no. H 3258, National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.

Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche, Pollard, Box 639-40, Nos 1289-1342.

Ni Gui & Li Yongsui Diaocha jilubiao [Research note form], ms.Informant: Liao Rufà 22-27 July 1959.

Nicholls, Arthur G, (History of the mission among the Miao and some other minorities in Yunnan, without title), dated 1946, 29 pp. Attached to a letter from Nicholls, dated Australia, June 22, 1946. {Ms. among the papers of Cyril G Edwards, CIM archives, Bible College of Victoria, Melbourne}

‘The Old Homeland That Was Lost’, ms. Translation by R K Parsons from [Yang Rongxin & Wang Peicheng (eds)] /a® ipau5* ijgfiau24 pi® tau21/ [Miao Old Songs], 1949, p. 31.

Pan Ying Yanghao hua yu Huangping hua de yuyin duiyingguilii qianxi[Shallow analysis of the rules of phonetical correspondence between

the Yanghua and the Huangping speech], unpubl. term paper at the CIN, Peking, 1987.

Parsons, Harry, letters to Rev P N Bryant, dated 27 June 1920 and 18 Aug. 1920. {RKP}

Parsons, P Kenneth, ms. about what happened in northern Yunnan in 1949 and 1950, without title, [1950], 3 pp.

Pollard, Samuel, ‘Miao Report for 1904’, Bible Christian Annual Missionary Report, 1905. Report dated ‘Chaotong Jan. 1905’.

239

—, ‘Miao Report, 1905’, Bible Chistian Annual Missionary Report, 1906, p. 31. Report dated ‘Chao Tong. November 1905’.

—, ‘Miao Report for 1907’, in Methodist Missionary Society Archives on microfiche, Pollard, Box 639, No 1301. Report dated ‘Shih-men-k’an, Dec. 1907’.

Purnell, Herbert C, Toward a Reconstruction of Proto-Miao-Yao, Cornell University PhD diss., 1970.

Record of judgment. Enclosure no. 3 in Changsha Despatch no. 22 of March 13th, 1935, to Peking. Translation, Dept, of External Affairs files, series: A 981, item: China 78, Australian Archives, ACT Office, Canberra.

‘Three Cow-herds and the Teacher’, in Hua Miao Texts, Manuscript H, Written by Yang Hu-szu, Weining, 1948. Yang hushi (probably Yang Xuegong was a A-Hmao man who worked as a nurse in Weining in the 1940s.

Tinggui &Jiusu ISÄ, Gu miaowen tanjiu [Thorough investigation of theold Miao writing], s.l., s.a., not found.

Tinggui & Jiusu JiÄ, , Yuangu shiqi miaozu huodong diyu kao iztÈWÂfll&fëfêi [Investigation of the Miao area of movement in remote antiquity], s.l., s.a., not found.

Wright, (Rev) E Burton, Summary Report of the Work Among the River Miao (Niu P’o K’an Circuit), [Chaotung], May 11, 1946, ms, 4 pp.

Xiong Yuyou II.ÜW, Kuaguo miaoyu bijiao yanjiu — Chuanqiandian miaoyu guowai yu guonei de bijiao [Comparative research onthe transnational Miao language - a comparison of the ChuanQianDian Miao language outside and inside China], unpubl. MA thesis, Peking, 1992.

Letters Received by the Author

Bailey, Ruth, daughter of Gladstone Porteous, 25 July 1992.

Bertrais, Yves, 16 March 1992.

Norgate, Jean, 2 July 1992.

Parsons, (Rev) R Keith, 17 Feb. 1992; 21 Sept. 1992; 1 Dec. 1992; 18 May 1993; 27 Sept. 1993;

Smalley, William A, 14 March 1992.

Taylor, Leone T, Librarian, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, International HQ Library, Singapore, 13 Febr. 1991.

240

Personal communication

1 indicate name, tide, institution, where I met the person in question and when.

Chen Qiguang fêfcXÂ, professor at the CIN, Peking, 1990-2.

Fang Yunzang business translator and former middle school teacher of English and Russian in Baojing, Xiang Tujia and Miao AP, Canton, 29-30 March 1991.

Gu Caizhi pastor, Kaihuai, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong AP, Oct. 1990.

Hu Zejia embroidery researcher from Chengdu, Sydney, 5 May 1992.

Huang Guiying (Rev), Zhaotong church, Zhaotong, 29 July 1993.

Ledgard, Faith, daughter of the missionary M H Hutton, Sydney, May 1992.

Lee, (Dr) Gary, anthropologist from Laos, Sydney, May 1992.

Lee, Pao, novelist from Laos, Sydney, May 1992.

Li Bingze PhD student at the CIN, Peking, 1989-90

Li Tinggui Guiyang, vice-director of the Guizhou Institute of Nationalities, Guiyang, Nov. 1990.

Liu Ziqi teacher at Jishou Telecommunication University, Jishou, 13 Oct. 1990.

Long Zhengxue teacher in Ghao-Xong at the Southwestern Institute of Nationalities, Chengdu, 4 April 1991.

Lu Mingyuan (Rev), director of the Chengdu Theological Seminary, Chengdu,2 April 1991.

Ma Yonglan Weining NAC, Weining, Nov. 1990

Pan Jian fåM, Huangping NAC, Huangping, Oct. 1990.

Pan Wenguang pastor, Chong’an, 13 Nov. 1990.

Pao Lee, Hmong novelist, Sydney, 3 May 1992.

Parsons, (Rev) P Kenneth, former missionary in Zhaotong, Isle of Wight, 13 Oct. 1992.

Parsons, Rev R Keith, former missionary in Weining, Torquay, Oct. 1992.

Shi Rujin teacher of Ghao-Xong at the CIN, Peking, 1989-1991.

Tapp, Nicholas, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,

WangDeguang Z», CASS, Peking, 1990-1992.

Wang Fushi îtôtë, CASS, Peking, 1990-1992.

Wu Guoji (Rev), Guiyang church, Guiyang, 17 Nov. 1990.

Wu Zaiqing teacher, Jiantang, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao AP, Oct. 18, 1990.

Yang Congzhen Panghai, Nov. 1990.

241

Yang Dao, (Dr), Peking, May 1990.

Yang Qingbai £3, Sichuan NAC, Chengdu, April 1991.

Yang Zhaofei tMO, Yunnan Nationalities Language Commission, Kunming, Febr. 1990.

Yang Zhongde former headmaster, Weining, 19 Nov. 1990.

Zhang Zhihong retired from the Wuding NAC, Sapushan, Wuding County, August 1993.

Zhang Xianzhou (Rev), Kunming, 26 Jul 1993.

Zhang Yongxiang fözkW, professor of Hmu at the CIN, Peking, 1989-1992.

Zhang Youlun Wfù , former headmaster of the Weining Nationalities Middle School, Weining, 18 Nov. 1990.

Zhao Liming Peking, teacher and researcher at Qinghua University, 4 June 1990.

242

Bibliography to Vol. 1

In this bibliography are included all sources which are not written entirely or partly in Miao in any of the missionary writing systems. For those works, see ‘Bibliography of Works in the Missionary Writing Systems’, pp. 229—38.

Pinyin transcriptions of Chinese titles appear before the characters. Titles are given in their original form, including unsimplified and simplified characters. In order to avoid the problems connected with the mixed varieties of the ’50s and early ’60s, all books published in the PRC before 1964 are given in unsimplified characters. English translation of Chinese titles in square brackets. English title of Chinese works (if already written on the title page) in parenthesis. The word neibu at the end of the entry indicates that the work is not an official publication, but intended for internal use only. The term neibu covers several different wordings in Chinese, cf. ‘Sources (a note on neibu materials)*, pp. 41-2. For the abbreviations used in the Bibliography, cf. ‘Abbreviations’, p. 44.

Bibliographies of Works on the Miao

Lombard-Salmon, Claudine, Un example d'acculturation chinoise: La Province du Gui Zhou au XVIir Siècle, Publications de l'École Française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 84, Paris, 1972, pp. 363-88.

Schoonmaker, Kathleen (ed.), Hmong Arts, Folk Culture Series, vol. 3, no. 2, Michigan: The Museum of Michigan State University, 1983, (pp. 73—4). Mainly Hmong folk art.

Shi Jizhong Guizhou shiliao mulu [Catalogue of historical materialson Guizhou], Minzu yanjiu cankao ziliao [Reference materials forresearch on nationalities], no. 3, Guiyang: Guizhousheng minzu yanjiusuo, 1980, neibu.

Vang, Lue & Judy Lewis, Grandmother's path, grandfather's way, (Hmong preservation project, oral lore, generation to generation), California: Rancho Cordova, 1984, pp. 184-97. Works in and on Hmong and Mong.

Wang Huiqin ‘Guanyu guowai yanjiu miaozu de qingkuang’[On the state of affairs in foreign research on the Miao people], Minzu shi yiwen ji ß

[Collection of translated materials on nationalities history], no. 8 (1980): 137-203. Published by Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan minzu yanjiusuo lishi yanjiu shi ziliaozu [The material group of the researchoffice for history of the Nationalities Research Institute, CASS], neibu.

243

General Bibliography

‘A Tribesman of the Great Flowery Miao’, CM/1, March, 1951, p. 27.

‘A Visit to Miao Villages’, Bridge - Church Life In China Today, no. 23 (May-June 1987), pp. 12-13.

Adam, J R, ‘Persecution of The Black Miao in Kwei-chau’, CMA, Jan. 1902, pp. 11-12.

—, ‘A Tour Among the Aborigines in Kweichow, From the Journal of Jas. R. Adam, Anshunfu, Kweichow*, CMA, supplement, Febr. 1913, pp. 2-5.

—, ‘The Tribespeople of Kweichow’, CMA, supplement, March 1914, pp. 7-8.

—, ‘Another Tour Among the Tribespeople’, CMA, supplement, April 1914, pp. 5-8.

—, ‘A Year’s Work at Anshunfu’, CMA, supplement, July 1915, pp. 6-8.

Allbutt, I, ‘Black Miao Colonies’, CMA, Oct. 1940, pp. 154-5.

—, ‘The Black Miao, of Kweichow’, CMA, Oct. 1950, pp. 104-6.

Amiot, Joseph, ‘Lettre du P. Amiot, Miss, de la Chine, sur la réduction des miao-tseu, en 1755’, in Mémoires concernant P histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages &c. des Chinois, par les Missionnaires de Pé-kin, vol. III, Paris: chez Nyon l’aîné, 1778, pp. 387-412.

‘Among the Black Miao’, CM, March 1932, pp. 49-50.

‘An Amazing Document Issued by the Communists’, CM, May, 1935, p. 73.

‘Anping Kwei.’, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1914, pp. 86-7.

‘Anshunfu’, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1906, p. 68.

‘Anshunfu’, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1907, p. 78.

‘Anshunfu’, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1911, pp. 70-1.

‘Anshunfu’, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1912, pp. 72-4.

‘Anshunfu*, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1913, p. 71-72.

Austin, J A, ‘Kweichow - A Changing Situation*, CMA, Nov. 1938, pp. 168-9.

‘Autre relation de la conquête du pays Miao-tsee’, in Mémoires concernant l’histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages &c. des Chinois, par les Missionnaires de Pé-kin, vol. III, Paris: chez Nyon l’aîné, 1778, pp. 412-22.

Bai Ziran (ed.), A Happy People — The Miaos, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1988.

Baller, (Mrs), ‘The New Script’, CMA, Aug. 1919, p. 71.

Baoqingfuzhi [Annals of the Baoqing prefecture], Daoguang (1821-51), notfound. Quoted from Jiang Yongxing, 1989.

244

Benedict, Paul K, ‘Early MY-TB Loan Relationships’, LTBA, vol. 10, no. 2 (Fall 1987), pp. 12-21.

—, Austro-Thai: Language and Culture with a glossary of roots. New Haven, CT: HRAF Press, 1975.

Bennett, Jo Anne and John W Berry, ‘Cree literacy in the syllabic script’, in D Olson and N Torrance (eds). Literacy and Orality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 90-104.

Bertrais, Yves, ‘Comment a été créé et s’est répandu le «R.P.A. Hmong» de 1953 à 1991’, Le Nid des Hirondelles et des Eperviers, avril 1993, pp. 13-32. Translated from a Hmong original, Bertrais: Nyiaj Pov, 1991.

Bertrais, Yves: Nyiaj Pov, Cov Ntawv Hmoob R.P.A. Sawv Los Zoo U Cas?, Javouhey, 1991.

Bird, F, ‘Happy, but Arduous Service among the Miao’, CMA, April, 1926, pp. 54—5.

Bird, Mr and Mrs, “‘Let Us Go into the Next Towns!”’, CMA, June, 1931, p. 85.

Bosshardt, Rudolf A, The Restraining Hand, London, 1936.

Bridgman, (Rev) E C (transi.), ‘Sketches of the Miau-tsze’, Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, no. 3 (Shanghai, 1859), pp. 257-86. {SO AS: Per 24}

Broomhall, Marshall, Some a Hundredfold - the Life and work of James R. Adam Among the Tribes of Southr-West China, London etc.: CIM, (1916).

Butler, R J R, ‘Teaching the Chinese Church to Shoulder Responsibility’, CMA, Dec. 1940, pp. 186-7.

—, ‘Evacuated!’, CMA, April 1945, pp. 60-61.

—, ‘The Lord’s Work is Costly’, CMA, Oct. 1948, pp. 8-9.

Cardona, Giorgio R, Antropologia della scrittura, Torino, 1981.

Chanson, Philippe, ‘Les Hmong: portrait d’un peuple méconnu’, Le Nid des Hirondelles et des Eperviers, avril 1993, pp. 8-12.

Chen Guojun 1^^^, ‘Shimenkan de miaomin jiaoyu’ [The educationof the Miao at Stone-Gateway], Guiyang shishi daobao, jiaoyu jianshe tfcWMIS [Guiyang facts journal - education and construction], no. 20 (15 Aug. 1931). Quoted from reprint in Wu Zelin, s.a.

Chen Qiguang ‘Miao-Yaoyu rusheng de fazhan’ [Thedevelopment of the entering tone in the Miao-Yao language], MY, 1979, no. 1, pp. 25-30.

—, ‘Sheyu zai Miao-Yao yuzu zhong de diwei* [The position ofthe She language in the Miao-Yao group], MY, 1984, no. 1, pp. 200-214.

—, ‘Miao-Yao yuzu yuyan de ji zhong diaobian’ ÏÏSÈiiîfëfës’ÉfôJL’H’itt [Some kinds of tone changes in the languages of the Miao-Yao group], MY 1989, no. 5, pp. 8-14.

—, Zhongguo yuwengaiyao [Outline of the languages and writing in China],Peking: Zhongyang minzu xueyuan chubanshe, 1990.

Chen Shiruo ‘Miaojia youle wenzi’ [The Miao have got writing],Xin Hunan bao [New Hunan daily], 14 Jan. 1957.

245

Clarke, Samuel R, ‘Miao Studies’, CA£4,1895, p. 148.

—, ‘The Aborigines of Kwei=chau’, CMA, April 1903, pp. 47-9.

—, ‘The Miao and Chungchia Tribes of Kueichow Province’, East of Asia Magazine, vol. 3 (Shanghai, 1904), pp. 193-207.

—, ‘The Aborigines in Kweichow*, CMA, supplement, Aug., 1910.

—, Among the Tribes in South-west China, London: China Inland Mission, 1911.

Cooper, Robert L, Language Planning and Social Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Coulmas, Florian, ‘Writing and Literacy in China’, in Werner Winter (ed.), Writing in Focus, Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 24, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam: Mouton, 1983.

Crofts, D W, ‘Six Cash and a Night’s Lodging.’ CM, August 1916, no. 3. Originally published in the American edition of CM.

D’Ollone, ‘L’Écriture des Miao tseu’, in Mission D’Ollone 1906-1909, Écritures de Peuples non Chinois de la Chine, Quatre Dictionnaires Lolo et Miao Tseu dressés par Le Commandant D’Ollone Avec Le Concours de Monsigneur de Guébriant Évêque du Kien Tch’ang, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1912.

Davies, C F, ‘A Devastated District’, CMA, Dec. 1922, p. 160.

DeFrancis, John, The Chinese Language, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984.

“‘Destitute, Afflicted, Tormented’”, CMA, Sept. 1912, pp. 70-71.

Devéria, G, ‘Les Lolos et les Miao-tze, à propos d’une brochure de M. P. Vial, Missionnaire apostolique au Yun-nan’, Journal Asiatique ou Recueil de mémoires, 8e série, tome 18 (Septembre-Octobre 1891), pp. 356-69.

Dickens, KJ, ‘Unification: the Akan Dialects of the Gold Coast’, The Use of the Vernacular Languages in Education, Paris: UNESCO, 1953, pp. 115-23.

Downing, Bruce T and Douglas P Olney (eds), The Hmong in the West, University of Minnesota, 1982.

Dreyer, June Teufel, China’s Forty Millions, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Du Guangyan ‘Jiefàng yilai Guiyang jidujiao yanbian gaikuang*[Survey of the development of Christianity in Guiyang since the liberation],

GMY, 1981, no. 2, pp. 1-5.

—, ‘Chong’an jiaoan’ [A religious law case at Chong’an], in Guizhou zongjiaoshiliao [Historical Materials on Religion in Guizhou], part 1, s.a. [prefacedated. 10 Febr. 1985], pp. 1-6, neibu.

‘Duiyu tianzhujiao jidujiao ying you de renshi’ [Necessaryunderstanding of the question of CathoUcism and Protestantism], Shishi shouce [Handbook of current affairs], no. 3 (1950?), pp. 36-40.

Edwards, C G, ‘China’s Tribesland*, CMA, Dec. 1947, pp. 363-4.

—, ‘Kweichow Tribal Report’, The Field Bulletin of the China Inland Mission, Shanghai, Nov. 1948, pp. 174-7.

246

Enwall, Joakim, ‘En myt blir verklighet - miaoskriftens utveckling i nordvästra Guizhou’, Orientaliska Studier (University of Stockholm), no. 75 (1992), pp. 2-23.

—, ‘Miao or Hmong?’, Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter (Australian National University), no. 17 (June 1992), pp. 25-26.

—, ‘In Search of the Entering Tone: The Importance of Sichuanese Tones for Understanding the Tone Marking System of the Sichuan Hmong Pollard Script’, in Joakim Enwall (ed.), Outstretched Leaves on his Bamboo Staff: Studies in Honour of Göran Malmqvist on his 70th Birthday, Stockholm: The Association of Oriental Studies, 1994, pp. 70-84.

—, ‘Catholic Hmong Writing in Sichuan and Yunnan: A Preliminary Survey’, in Jan-Olof Svantesson et al. (eds). Festschrift Kristina Lindell, forthcoming.

Esquirol, Joseph, ‘Les ’Ka T nao „ du Tchën fông MÄ au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)’, Bulletin des Missions Etrangères de Paris, no. 109 (Jan. 1931), pp. 40-49.

—, ‘Les ’Ka Tnao du Tchên fong au Koûy-Tcheôu. (Chine)’, Bulletin des Missions Etrangères de Paris, no. 110 (Febr. 1931), pp. 117-135.

—, Didionnaire 'Ka Tnao „-Français et Français-'Katnao „, Hong Kong: Imprimerie de la Société des Missions-Etrangères, 1931.

Fan Chuo Manshu 862. Annotated by Xiang Da fàlê: Manshu jiaozhu ££, Peking: Zhonghua shuju, 1962.

Ferguson, Charles A, ‘St. Stefan of Perm and Applied Linguistics’, in J A Fishman et al. (eds), Language Problems of Developing Nations, New York etc., 1968, pp. 253-65.

Fish, Edward S, ‘A Medical Tour Among the Aborigines’, CMA, supplement, Dec. 1914, pp. 4-8.

Fishman, Joshua A (ed.), Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems, The Hague: Mouton, 1977.

—, ‘Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems (Preface)’, in J A Fishman (ed.), 1977, pp. XI-XXVIII.

Fraser, J O, ‘The Aborigines of the Burma Border’, CMA, March, 1935, pp. 42-3.

Fà in Ma-tai (Gospel of Matthew, Chung chia vernacular), Shanghai: BFBS, 1904.

Fu Maoji (ed.), Zhongguo minzu yuyan lunwenji tt1 a'Tè [Collection of articles on China’s minority languages], Chengdu: Sichuan Minzu chubanshe, 1986.

Fu Tingxun MJOI (ed.), Zhongguo shaoshu minzu shuangyu yanjiu lunjiPeking: NPH, 1990.

Fuller, Judith Wheaton, Topic and Comment in Hmong, Indiana: Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1988, PhD diss., 1985.

Gamqrelije, Tamaz, Çeris anbanuri sistema dajveli kartuli damcerloba [The alphabetic writing system and the Old Georgian writing], Tbilisi: Tbilisis universitetis gamomcemloba, 1989.

Ge Zhi :Äjh, ‘Miaozu wenzi danshengle’ [The Miao writing is bom], XnQian ribao [New Guizhou Daily], Nov. 14, 1956, p. 3.

Geddes, W R, Migrants of the Mountains: The Cultural Ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1976.

247

Gesau, Alting von, ‘Dialecticts of Akhazaq: The Interiorizations of of a Perennial Minority Group’, inj McKinnon and W Bhrukrasri (eds). Highlanders of Thailand, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Gilhodes, C, ‘Mythologie et Religion des Kachins (Birmanie)’, Anthropos, no. 4, 1909.

Gjessing, Gutorm, ‘Chinese Anthropology and New China’s Policy toward her Minorities’, Acta Sociologica, vol. 2, fâsc. 1, 1956.

Goody, Jack, ‘Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana’, Literacy in Traditional Societies, Cambridge, 1968.

Graham, David Crockett, ‘Vocabulary of the Ch’uan Miao’, Journal of the West China Border Research Society, vol. 10 (1938), pp. 55-143.

—, Songs and Stories of the Ch’uan Miao, Miscellaneous Collections no. 123, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 1954.

Grist, W A, ‘The Gospel for the Miao’, The Kingdom Overseas, June 1938, pp. 135-7.

—, Samuel Pollard, Pioneer Missionary in China, London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne: Henry Hooks, s.a.

Gu Wenfeng ‘Yunnan liangge miaozu zhixi butong shehui fàzhan tezheng chuxi’ preliminary analysis of the different characteristics

of development of society of two branches of the Miao people in Yunnan], Minzuxue K [Ethnology], 1988, no. 2, pp. 66-71.

‘Guankui Yunnan jiaohui’ Qiao - Zhongguo jiaohui dongtai få—no. 23 (1987), pp. 4-7. Also published in English: ‘Where to go to church in Yunnan’.

Guizhousheng bianjizu ÂîMÜ'âÈlfëâl [Editorial group of the Guizhou province] (ed.), Miaozu shehui lishi diaocha Mfëtt’èÆjüfôlÈE [Social and historical investigation of the Miao people], vol. 1-3, Guiyang: Guizhou NPH, 1986-87.

Guizhousheng minwei minzu yuwen bangongshi [TheNationahties Language and Writing Office of Guizhou NAC] (ed.), Guizhou shuangyu jiaoxue lunweiji [Collection of articles on bilingual education inGuizhou], Guiyang: Guizhou NPH, 1989.

Guizhousheng minzu yuwen zhidao weiyuanhui [Steeringcommittee on nationality languages and writing of the Guizhou province] (ed.), Miaozu yuyan wenzi wenti kexue taolunhui huikan [Collection ofpapers from the Conference on Miao language and writing], Guiyang, 1957, neibu.

‘Guonei shaoshu minzu tianzhujiao qingkuang’ [The conditionsof Catholicism among the minorities in China]’, Zhu ai Zhonghua [The Lordloves China], no. 28 (Hong Kong, June 1990), p. 2.

Guonei shaoshu minzu yuyan wenzi degaikuang [Survey of theminority languages and writing systems in China], s.l., Zhonghua shuju 1954.

Guzhang pingtingzhi [Local history of Guzhang], 1907.

Haudricourt, André G, ‘Introduction à h phonologie historique des langues miao-yao’. Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, no. 44 (1954), pp. 555-76.

Hayes, Ernest H, Sam Pollard of Yunnan, London: The Pilgrim Press, 1928.

Hayman, A, ‘First Experiences’, CMA, March 1915, p. 23.

—, ‘Visiting Miao Outstations’, CMA, Aug. 1919, p. 69.

248

Heimbach, E, ‘The Still Open Door in Kweichow’, CMA, March 1951, p. 27.

—, White Meo-English Dictionary, Linguistic Series IV, Data paper no. 75, New York: Cornell University, 1969.

Herbert, W T, ‘“As Happy as a King’”, CMA, April, 1922, p. 42.

—, ‘The “Come Down from Heaven” Missionaries among the Miao*, CMA, Nov. 1923, p. 165-6.

Howard Taylor, (Dr and Mrs), Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1931.

Hu Qiwang & Li Tinggui (eds), Miaozu yanjiu luncong[Collection of papers on Miao research], Guiyang, 1988.

Huang Xing, ‘On writing systems for China’s minorities created by foreign missionaries’, International Journal of Sociology of Language, no. 97 (1992), pp. 75-85.

Hudspeth, William H, ‘The Hwa Miao Language’, Journal of the West China Border Research Society, vol. 7 (Chengdu, 1935), pp. 104-121.

—, Stone-Gateway and the Flowery Miao, London: The Cargate Press, 1937.

Hunan tongzhi [Geographical description of Hunan], 1885.

Hutton, M H, ‘Testimony of Mr. Maurice Hutton’, CMA, Nov. 1911, p. 84.

—, “‘In joumeyings” Amongst the Miao’, CMA, June 1914, p. 47-8.

—, ‘Fruit After May Years’, CMA, Dec. 1915, p. 95.

—, ‘Good News from Panghai’, CMA, May 1918, p. 35.

—, ‘The Cholera Epidemic’, CMA, Febr. 1921, p. 22.

—, ‘Spiritual Blessing in the Absence of Missionary, Pastor, or Evangelist’, CMA, Aug. 1922, p. 95.

—, ‘Panghai without a Pastor for Two and a Half Years’, CMA, March 1924, p. 38.

—, ‘Among the Black Miao. From a Circular Letter of Mr. and Mrs. Hutton, Chenyuan, KWEICHOW’, CM, Nov. 1925, p. 169.

—, ‘Encouraging Results Amid Discouraging Circumstances. From a Circular Letter from Chenyuan, in KWEICHOW’, CM, March 1927, pp. 36-7.

—, ‘Panghai After Six Years Absence’, CMA, Nov. 1927, pp. 168-9.

—, ‘Journeying Mercies and a Place of Refuge’, CMA, Febr. 1928, pp. 28-9.

—, ‘Safely Back at Panghai’, CMA, June 1930, pp. 90-91.

—, ‘Discouragement and the Need of Prayer’, CMA, Sept. 1930, p. 138.

—, ‘A Successful Conference*, CMA, Aug. 1931, p. 117.

—, ‘Notes: Mr. and Mrs. M.H. Hutton’, CMA, Oct. 1931, p. 147.

—, “‘A Marked Advance’”, CMA, Febr. 1932, p. 26.

—, ‘Among the Black Miao’, CM, March 1932, pp. 49-50.

—, “‘In Dangers Oft’”, CMA, Dec. 1932, pp. 180-81.

—, ‘Notes: Mr. and Mrs. M. Hutton’, CMA, Oct. 1934, p. 147.

249

—, ‘The New Testament for the Black Miao’, CM, Nov. 1935, p. 205.

—, ‘Where God is working*, CM, March 1936, p. 55.

—, ‘A Prodigal’s Return’, CM, April 1936, p. 75.

—, ‘Back in Miao Land’, CMA, June 1936, p. 90.

—, ‘Fruit After Many Days’, CMA, Sept. 1936, p. 137.

—, ‘Steady Advancement’, CMA, August 1937, p. 124-5.

—, ‘How the Message came to the Black Miao’, CM, Nov. 1937, p. 214.

—, ‘Delivered’, CM, May 1938, p. 77.

Hutton, (Mrs [Stella]), ‘My First Visit to the Homes of the Miao’, CMA, Jan. 1922, p. 120.

Hvob Qeek Dongb Benx Dud Hseid Hmeb (Bet Dongf) (ÄÖL) ( Wfihtfc , Hxib Liongpc, Qib Jux, Hxik Yoel Bib Xeet Mink Weix

[Huangping, Shibin, Zhenyuan N.A.C.], s.a. (preface dated July 1985), neibu.

Its, R G, ‘Mjao - istoriko-êtnograficeskij ocerk*, in Vostocno-Aziatiskij etnograßceskij sbomik, Moskva, Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960, pp. 3-118.

—, ‘V poiskax mjaoskogo manuskripta’, Vokrug sveta, 1955, no. 4, pp. 39-43.

Jahani, Carina, Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 1, Uppsala, 1989.

Jarkey, Nerida, ‘An investigation of two alveolar stop consonants in White Hmong’, LTBA, vol. 10, no. 2 (Fall 1987), pp. 57-70.

Jazyki Jugo-vostocnoj Azii, Moskva: Nauka, 1967.

Jensen, Hans, Die Schrift, Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1969.

Jiang Yingliang ‘Xinan bianqu tezhong wenzi’ ©[Particular kinds of writing in the southwestern border areas], Bianzheng gonglun [Frontier Affairs],vol. 4, no. 1 (Chongqing, 1945), pp. 277-87.

Jiang Yongxing , ‘Miaowen tanjiu’ få [Thorough inquiry into Miao writing]’, Xinan minzu xueyuan xuebao [Journal of the Southwestern Institute ofNationalities], 1989, no. 1, pp. 112-6.

Johnston, J M , ‘From the Back-blocks of Miao-land’, CMA, March 1942, p. 38.

Joseph, John E & Talbot J Taylor (eds), Ideologies of Language, London, 1990.

Kammerer, Cornelia Ann, ‘Customs and Christian conversion among Akha highlanders of Burma and Thailand’, American Ethnologist, vol. 17, no. 2 (May 1990), pp. 277—91.

Karlgren, Bernhard, Études sur la phonologie chinoise I, Leyde et Stockholm, 1915.

Katzner, Kenneth, The Languages of the World, London, 1977.

Kendall, R Elliott, Beyond the Clouds: The Story of Samuel Pollard of Southwest China, London: Cargate Press, 1947.

—, Eyes of the Earth, The Diary of Samuel Pollard, London: Cargate Press, 1954.

250

—, [Aili’aote Kende’er Bai Gelt riji fåISM Hid [The Diary of SamuelPollard], Guizhousheng Bijie diqu minzu shiwu weiyuanhui ft

[Bijie Area NAC, Guizhou Province], minzu yanjiu cankao ziliao [reference material for minority research], s.a. Translated by Dong Renda

Kitchen, J H, ‘Twelve Hundred Tribespeople at Summer Convention*, CMA, Jan. 1942, p. 7.

Kuhn, J B, ‘Yunnan Tribal Survey’, The Field Bulletin of the China Inland Mission, Shanghai, April 1947, pp. 61-6.

‘KWEICHOW “Late News’’’, CM, May 1950, p. 56.

‘Kweichow*, China and the Gospel, An Illustrated Report of the China Inland Mission, London etc.: CIM, 1916, pp. 35-6.

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