Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930-1949 9047421647, 9789047421641

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Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930–1949

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Sinica Leidensia Edited by

Barend J. ter Haar In co-operation with

P.K. Bol, D.R. Knechtges, E.S. Rawski, W.L. Idema, E. Zürcher, H.T. Zurndorfer

VOLUME 80

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Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930–1949 By

Ou Chaoquan Translated by

D. Norman Geary

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

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On the cover: Dazhai in Xiangye village. Photo by Dean Schauer. All photographs by Dean Schauer. All line illustrations by Zhong Shengzhi. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISSN 0169-9563 ISBN 978 90 04 16229 7 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

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CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................... Preface ......................................................................................... Maps ............................................................................................

vii ix xiii

Chapter One Location ............................................................. Chapter Two Langdong ........................................................... Chapter Three The name ‘Kam’ ............................................ Chapter Four The villagers ...................................................... Chapter Five Physical characteristics of the people ................. Chapter Six The village ........................................................... Chapter Seven Farming ........................................................... Chapter Eight Spinning and weaving ...................................... Chapter Nine Thrifty people ................................................... Chapter Ten Mornings and evenings ...................................... Chapter Eleven Food ............................................................... Chapter Twelve Mealtime etiquette ......................................... Chapter Thirteen Drinks ......................................................... Chapter Fourteen Clothing ...................................................... Chapter Fifteen Coming-of-age ............................................... Chapter Sixteen Courtship by night ........................................ Chapter Seventeen Courtship by day ...................................... Chapter Eighteen Intimidating situations for young women ... Chapter Nineteen Matchmakers .............................................. Chapter Twenty Engagement ceremony ................................. Chapter Twenty-One Marriage and divorce ........................... Chapter Twenty-Two Unorthodox marriages ......................... Chapter Twenty-Three Marriage relationships ....................... Chapter Twenty-Four The distinction in culture between men and women ...................................................................... Chapter Twenty-Five Clan-centred community ...................... Chapter Twenty-Six Pipe-smoking elders ................................ Chapter Twenty-Seven No beggars or thieves ......................... Chapter Twenty-Eight Monotonous and primitive music ....... Chapter Twenty-Nine Festivals and celebrations ..................... Chapter Thirty Children .........................................................

1 9 21 25 33 39 51 61 69 81 87 97 103 109 115 121 129 133 139 145 149 159 167 177 183 193 201 205 209 217

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Chapter Thirty-One Survival in the midst of suffering ........... Chapter Thirty-Two Author’s postscript ................................. Chapter Thirty-Three Translator’s postscript .........................

223 231 247

Glossary ....................................................................................... References ................................................................................... Index ........................................................................................... Plates ...........................................................................................

253 255 259 265

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The rst draft of this book was completed in Chinese and signed by Professor Ou Chaoquan in June 2004. Several colleagues assessed this Chinese manuscript: Professor Wang Liangfan (of Guizhou University), Professor Long Yaohong (of Guizhou Institute of Nationalities), Professor Shi Lin (retired from Nankai University in Tianjin), Mr Pan Yongrong (of the Guizhou Nationalities Research Institute), Ms Gloria Chan (then a member of SIL International) and Ms Lu Qilian (a graduate of the Guizhou Institute of Nationalities). All these friends gave useful feedback. While not all the feedback recommended publication in Chinese, all indicated that it might be worthwhile publishing in English. The translation of the manuscript was delayed until 2006. Before that, in May 2005, Alastair Dore did some useful background research on life in Guizhou province in the 1930s and 1940s. Helen Buchanan helped with library research. The work of translation was supported by Mr Hai-Tao Wang, who supplied a ready computer-translation from Chinese into English; and by Mr Wei Peilei, a Kam colleague who helped to interpret many unfamiliar turns of phrase. For the most difcult translation questions, answers were sought from the author himself, Professor Ou Chaoquan. Once a rough manuscript existed in English, it was given a thorough reading by William Geary, who made many useful suggestions. Comments from a referee, appointed by the publisher, were also helpful. A nearly-nal version was carefully examined by Ruth Geary and by Donna Snyder, and at that stage many improvements of clarity were made. The translator made a trip to Xiangye in August 2006, accompanied and assisted by Wei Peilei. On that occasion, the two visitors were kindly hosted by the village party secretary Mr Yang Xiubiao and his neighbour Mr Ou Chaoheng. During the photography visit at the end of March 2007, the same two men again served as hosts, together with the village leader Mr Ou Chaosheng. On both visits, the villagers of Xiangye displayed the warm hospitality that characterizes the Kam people generally.

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The Kam artist Mr Zhong Shengzhi drew the line drawings. He did so by reference to the Chinese manuscript and his own imagination and experience. Dean Schauer, a member of SIL International, took all the photos appearing in the book. Wei Peilei prepared the maps. The Assistant Editor for Asian Studies at Brill Academic Publishers, Ms Patricia Radder, was efcient and encouraging at every stage of the publication process. An Editor at Brill, Ms Caroline van Erp, helped incorporate many improvements to the manuscript in the later stages of its preparation. Thanks to all these friends for their help. Special thanks to Ruth Geary for her patience and help during the busy days of translating, checking and re-checking the English manuscript. Any errors in the book do, of course, remain the responsibility of the author and of the translator. Ou Chaoquan (author) Norman Geary (translator) Guiyang April 2007

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PREFACE Geary et al. (2003) wrote the second book available in English about the Kam nationality in China.1 (The Kam are known in China as the Dong (侗) nationality. The word ‘Kam’ is pronounced in the same way as ‘gum’ in ‘chewing gum’.) The book was a general anthropological description with the title The Kam People of China and the subtitle Turning Nineteen, which referred to a looking-back towards the ‘best days’ of the Kam culture. In reviewing the book, Wellens (2003, p. 556) criticized it for ‘a tendency to essentialise and exoticise ethnic minority culture . . . The picture presented of Kam society is a rather rosy one and criticism of the policies of the Communist Party is almost absent.’ The authors recognized that there was some truth in such criticism. Two co-authors of The Kam People decided in response to embark on another, measuredly frank, description of the culture—not to the exclusion of ‘rosy’ parts, of which there are still many, but with an emphasis on telling the culture-story as it really was. Was, because The Kam People itself was already close to is, and because the Kam culture is presently a moving target, spiralling off in a haze of rapid change even as these words are written. Moreover, as Wellens implies, no description of a culture can be made without reference to political environment and a deliberately open treatise on the modern-day Kam runs a higher risk of becoming entangled in an unhelpful way with political issues. Instead, the perspective of a Kam community in the 1930s and 1940s was chosen. This choice had the added bonus of bringing to light a lifestyle and an era that has barely been documented elsewhere, even in Chinese writings. This book, with the title Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930– 1949, was commissioned in the minds of the author and the translator as a companion-volume to The Kam People. Life in a Kam Village and The Kam People are like grandparent and grandchild, night and day, private showing and public exhibition, respectively. They represent local and global Kam culture, respectively.

1 The book was entitled The Kam People of China: Turning Nineteen. The rst book was a pictorial description of the Kam culture entitled The Dong People of China, A Hidden Civilization, by Rossi and Lau (1991).

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Professor Ou Chaoquan is uniquely placed to write such a book. He is a scholar who grew up in a Kam village in the 1930s and 1940s, whose formative memories were born and immersed in Kam culture. His area of academic expertise is anthropology. He set out to write an anthropological account of people’s lives in his native village, for ‘outsiders’ who would not necessarily be familiar either with the surrounding Chinese environment generally, or with the Kam people in particular. Life in a Kam Village is the result. It represents a rare insider’s view, authentic and sympathetic, and helps to explain the trajectory on which the Kam nationality nds itself today. The honesty of the author’s account marks it out as special. Formerly such frank records would have been frowned upon in the author’s homeland. Even today they are emerging only cautiously. Two aspects of Life in a Kam Village stand out as rare by comparison with other Chinese accounts: rstly the candid way in which the author treats relationships between minority Kam and majority Han Chinese; secondly the openness with which he discusses embarrassing features within the village culture itself relating, for example, to apparent estrangement between husbands and wives, or to derogatory words delivered by parents to their children. By way of qualication, it should be stated that no claims are made here to extrapolate the story of Xiangye village to cover the whole of Kam culture. Some possible trends can be deduced or hypothesized and no more than that. Life in a Kam Village nevertheless resonates with signicance in relation to the experiences of all the minority nationalities in Southwest China in the two decades before Liberation (1949). The Republican government practised a policy of assimilation,2 which generated tension in the lives of minority people throughout Guizhou and neighbouring prov-

2 Cheung Siu-Woo (2003, p. 105) quotes the chief commander of the Republican army entering western Guizhou in 1936, as issuing the following order: ‘There are said to be over 100 kinds of Miao and Yi interspersed in the Southwest, with distinct language, life, costumes and customs . . . Currently my headquarters in Anshun has established two Miao schools to implement ‘assimilation’ (tonghua) education, emphasising reformation of native costumes, languages, wedding and funeral rituals, and to promote Han-Miao intermarriage . . . According to the army’s plan of assimilation, it is stipulated that troops stationed in places close to the natives have the duty to implement ‘assimilation’ education . . . This order is to be issued to all troops in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Guangxi. If everybody holds to the principle and works of assimilating the Miao and Yi, it is not difcult to achieve national unity within a few years.’

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inces. Even without such external pressure, the lives of the people of Xiangye were difcult and many experiences of Kam villagers related in this book will have found their echo in the lives of other minority people in Southwest China, in the 1930s and 1940s. Hence the basic aims of Life in a Kam Village are twofold: primarily to tell ‘the Kam story’ as it really was in one remote village community and secondarily to play a small part in hypothesizing the social history of Southwest China as it relates to nationalities in the 1930s and 1940s. Research in English on minority life in Republican China is relatively scarce. Life in a Kam Village therefore has a signicant role to play in ‘lling the gaps’. NB 1. In telling the story of Xiangye from the 1930s and 1940s, the author has changed the names of most of the individuals described, to protect and respect their privacy. 2. The last letter of each syllable in the Kam orthography represents not a phonetic sound but rather the tone with which the syllable is uttered. There are nine tones in the Kam language, the most of any Asian language. These are represented by the letters listed below. The letters in turn are followed in parentheses by the numerical representation of the tone using a scheme adopted in the International Phonetic Alphabet. (For example, ‘55’ means ‘high level tone’, ‘35’ means ‘high rising tone’, etc.) The nine tone letters in Kam are: l (55), p (35), c (11 or 212), s (323), t (13), x (31), v (53), k (453) and h (33). Written Kam appears in the proverbs at the head of Chapters 1 to 31 and also occasionally in the text of the book. 3. Kam proverbs at the head of each chapter are taken from three sources, as follows: Zhang Sheng et al. (1996): Chapter 1 (C1), p. 19; C2, p. 32; C3, p. 188; C4, p. 318; C5, p. 54; C6, p. 224; C7, p. 168; C10, p. 157; C11, p. 366; C12, p. 277; C13, p. 134; C14, p. 96; C15, p. 179; C16, p. 238; C17, p. 133; C18, p. 29; C20, p. 267; C21, p. 248; C22, p. 234; C23, p. 43; C24, p. 183 ; C25, p. 192; C27, p. 107; C28, p. 244; C30, p. 49; C31, pp. 287–288; Ou Chaoquan and Jiang Daqian (2002): C9, p. 370; C11, p. 366; C19, p. 368; C26, p. 368; C29, p. 367;

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Guizhou Subcommittee of the China Nationality Literature Research Committee (1983): C8, p. 260. Norman Geary (Translator) Guizhou University Southwest Minority Language and Culture Research Institute, Guiyang April 2007

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MAPS

Beijing

Guiyang Liukai (Xiangye) 0

200 400km

Map 1. China.

Guiyang

Kaili

Jianhe Liukai (Xiangye)

Liping

Rongjiang Congjiang

0

60

120km

County boundary

Map 2. Guizhou province.

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xiv

o ha nz

Nanshao

riv

er

Jiuyi

g on

ng Ta iyo

Wusong

Nansh a

riv

er

Zhanghan Fanzhao

Fa

zha

Fan

r

ve o ri

o river

maps

er

riv

iy Ta

Jiulie

Yuantong

Taiyong Liuluo

Jianhe county

Langhuang

Liujin

Taiyong

ng

Wulai

do

Zhengcha

ng

Nanliang

La

river

riv

er

Lantang

Lilu

Liukai (Xiangye) Zainu

Zhenghan

Zhanmo

Rongjiang county

Wengbei Yangquan

Wangjiazhai Pingdi Qinwang

Zailian

Langdong

Zailin

0

800

1600m

County boundary

Map 3. Xiangye.

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CHAPTER ONE

LOCATION Eis angs dens lianx lis peep, eis angs geel lianx lis dav. There is no ending without a beginning; there is no middle without the ends.

Near the southernmost point of Jianhe county in Guizhou province,1 there is a village called Liukai in Chinese2 or Xiangye in Kam. The ‘Xiang’ in Xiangye, which means ‘village’ in Chinese, perhaps derived from the Kam word for village ‘xaih’, while the ‘ye’ means ‘foolish’ in Kam. Thus the name in Kam means ‘village of foolish people’. There used to be another Chinese name for the village. It is said that the earliest Han people to have had substantial dealings with the Kam people of Xiangye were residents of the nearby Liujin military establishment. According to legend, the commander in Liujin decided that the name ‘Xiangye’ was too obscure and difcult to remember. He observed to his subordinates that the villagers seemed to be weeping and wailing every day, and they should call the village ‘Liuai’, meaning ‘Willow Tree Sorrow’. Thereafter, all ofcial reports and correspondence mentioning the village used this name. It was easily remembered by Han people and quickly spread to the peripheral Han villages and towns. So sometime after the military outpost was established in

1 Guizhou is one of China’s poorest provinces (see e.g. Bhalla and Qiu, 2006, p. 147 and p. 41). Back in the 1930s and 1940s, its economic situation was much worse. Jenks (1994, p. 10) observes: ‘In the 1930s the geographer J.E. Spencer described the province as follows: “In dealing with Chinese affairs it has been customary to refer to the southwestern provinces as backward and to Kueichou as an outstandingly poor and barren province . . . In spite of . . . hopes for the future, the people of Kueichou today are distressingly poor. Nowhere in several provinces of central and southern China has the writer seen so many abandoned farms and farmhouses, nowhere is there the same pinched, dulled, barely alive look on the faces of so many people; almost nowhere are the villages, towns, cities and the whole countryside so devoid of those cultural adornments characteristic of the rest of China.” ’ 2 Throughout this book, the term ‘Chinese’ when referring to the language is taken to mean ‘standard Chinese’ or putonghua, elsewhere sometimes referred to as ‘Mandarin Chinese’.

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Xiangye village.

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Liujin—probably sometime between 1737 and 17953—Xiangye was called Liuai in Chinese. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nationalist government established ofces in nearby Taiyong. They appointed an educated local landowner to serve as the leader of the area. He felt that the character ‘ai’ meaning ‘sorrow’ in the name Liuai was inauspicious so he changed the name to Liukai, where ‘kai’ means ‘to open’. At a public meeting he announced the rationale for the change. Subsequently, starting in Taiyong and spreading to the surrounding areas, the Han Chinese in the region called Xiangye by the new name of Liukai. This Chinese name has survived until today, but Kam people still call the village Xiangye. The village of Xiangye is in the Taiyong township area of Jianhe county, in Guizhou province. The border with Rongjiang county in Guizhou is two-and-a-half kilometres to the south.4 The ‘Border Brook’ serves to delineate the two counties. In times past, this county border was like a national border: if you crossed the barely four-metre-long wooden bridge, you would be under the protection of the government at the other side of the bridge. No one from one county would cross over to arrest anyone in the other. On the southern bank of the Border Brook was a tall mountain, with a path leading to Wangjiazhai, a Han village not far away. Passing through Wangjiazhai over another mountain leads you to Langdong in Rongjiang county, 10 kilometres southeast of Xiangye. The entire journey was through densely forested mountain valleys, with a few scattered Han households or small Miao settlements tucked away in remote corners. But not a single Kam household was to be seen along the way. Langdong used to be a Kam village. During the Ming dynasty and the rst part of the Qing dynasty, from 1368 to 1735, under the government policy to take over the ‘Miao’—i.e. the minority—areas, Langdong almost certainly became an important army garrison.5

3

Twenty-one military outposts were established in Jianhe county between 1737 and 1795 (cf. Ou and Jiang, 2002, p. 41). The author believes one of these was probably Liujin. 4 Note that distances quoted in this chapter are not ‘as the crow ies’ but are distances along country paths, as remembered by Professor Ou. 5 The author is not aware of any written historical records that state this explicitly, but the weight of evidence in its favour is strong. For the background of Chinese migration into the Kam areas generally, from the 1300s to the 1800s, see e.g. Geary et al. (2003, pp. 8–18). For example (p. 10), ‘After Wu Mian’s death in A.D. 1385,

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The Kam people were forced to leave Langdong for the surrounding mountains. Strong city walls were built, streets were constructed, and the town was occupied by several hundred families of ofcers and soldiers. A government centre was established there. During the Qing dynasty (1616–1911) Langdong became a county seat, the government and cultural centre for the whole area. Those Kam people who were forced to leave Langdong during the Ming and Qing dynasties relocated to four neighbouring Kam villages: Pingdi, Zailian, Qinwang and Zailin, popularly referred to as the ‘Four Kam Villages’. They wore Han clothing, learned to speak Chinese and had good levels of Han education. Their spoken Kam was different from that of Xiangye. After all, they were under the jurisdiction of different county authorities and were cut off from Xiangye by mountains and valleys, covered by virgin forest. The Kam people in Xiangye felt that those in the Four Kam Villages were actually not much different from Han people. Indeed the people living in the Four Kam Villages were not really willing to call themselves Kam. The village of Liujin was situated about four kilometres north of Xiangye. It was called ‘Miaola’ in Kam, meaning ‘bones of the Miao people’. It used to be a Miao village, and right up to the time of Liberation (1949) there were some Miao households in the mountains nearby. In the period from 1737 to 1795, there was an ofcial policy of establishing military outposts and it was probably during that time the Liujin garrison was set up (cf. footnote 3). The original Miao inhabitants were expelled and the village became a base for soldiers and their families. It was the closest Han village to the north of Xiangye. Probably during the same period, two more Han garrisons were established in the north: Jiuyi, 14 kilometres away; and Zhanghan, about 18 kilometres away. Miao people had formerly lived in both these places.

seventy-two army posts were created throughout the Kam area from Liping [then including today’s Rongjiang] to Jinping to establish military rule and 32,000 Chinese soldiers came to settle in the area.’ Zhang Min (1985, pp. 51–52) also refers to this Han military settlement of the Kam area. The author postulates that Langdong was one of the settlements established as a result of this movement. Xian Guangwei (1995, p. 43) states that in 1737 Langdong was a government post administered from Rongjiang. Apart from this, the author is not aware of any historical records relating to Langdong. This lack of written records relating to Langdong partly reects the remoteness of the Langdong area.

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Residents of Xiangye were strongly inuenced by the Liujin garrison and informally governed by people there, right up until the 1930s when Taiyong ofcially became the centre of government for the area. Four kolometres northeast of Liujin there was another Han village named Liuluo. It was probably settled with soldiers at the same time as Liujin. Taiyong, eight kilometres northwest of Xiangye, was a Han market town. Another 10 kilometres northeast of Taiyong was the town of Nanshao, which used to be the seat of the regional government before Taiyong took over, and was also a Han village. Except for a few families engaged in small businesses like selling oil and salt, most of the inhabitants of Nanshao were descendants of people who once worked in the area government. To the east of Xiangye lay the Langdong river. The surrounding mountains were tall and the river valley was a deep ravine. Everything was covered with dense virgin forest. On the banks of the river there were two small Kam villages: Zhengcha with 10 households and Langhuang with 23 households. Some generations before, Kam people had migrated from Tianzhu county and Xiaoguang county and settled there. Since the population of these two villages was small and they were relatively remote from Xiangye, their inhabitants did not have much contact with the people of Xiangye. It seems as if the Kam culture of the people of the two small villages was transformed under the inuence of neighbouring Han people, until the villagers were neither Kam nor Han. Three kilometres to the northwest of Xiangye there was another Han village, named Wulai, with around 20 or 30 households. It was a place that you had to pass through when leaving Xiangye in that direction, as though it was guarding the gateway to the whole region west of Xiangye. Along the Taiyong river six kilometres to the west of Xiangye, were two villages named Zhanmo and Lilu. These used to be inhabited by Miao people, but in the preceding few centuries Kam people had gradually migrated there. Among the original Miao inhabitants, some felt it was becoming too crowded and left, while others decided to stay on and live alongside the incoming Kam neighbours. By the time of Liberation, the villages had become Kam villages. These two villages were therefore derived from Xiangye; Zhanmo with about 20 or 30 households and Lilu with something over 10 households. Many in the two small communities had relatives who lived in Xiangye, but the Kam language spoken among them contained obvious traces of the

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Miao language. Their everyday life and customs were similar to those of Xiangye, though enriched by the legacy of Miao culture. Ten kilometres northwest of Zhanmo was the Miao area of Baidao, still in Jianhe county but bordering the major Miao area of Taijiang county. West of Zhanmo were various Han villages such as Liangwang and Angying, adjoining Leishan county, also a major Miao area. In some ways the development of Zhanmo and Lilu separated Xiangye from strong Miao cultural inuences nearby. No matter which settlement you approached from, you had to scale one or two mountain ranges before reaching Xiangye. The mountainous terrain forms part of the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau. There were mountain paths leading out from Xiangye in all directions. One path leading from north (Taiyong) to south (Langdong) was called the ‘government road’. You could ride a horse over it, or carry a sedan chair. Every spring, villagers went to remove branches and trees that might have fallen on the road, to clear away overgrown grass, and to repair the wooden bridges and the road surface. The Xiangye valley was long and narrow, 200 or 300 metres wide, and 1.5 or 2 kilometres long. East of the village was the only gap in the mountains. From the west a stream meandered through the valley and paddy elds in front of the village, moving towards the east. About two kilometres away it crashed over a cliff dozens of metres high, forming an impressive waterfall. Then it joined up with the Langdong river. The weather in the valley was warm, rainfall was abundant, the land was fertile, and harvests were plentiful. Xiangye people made their home in this environment, employing nature to their advantage. Over the decades, communications with the outside world were few and far between. In these circumstances, with no regular supply of essential commodities from outside, they became largely self-sufcient: ploughing elds and growing rice; spinning and weaving their own clothes; and using the rich animal and plant resources of the nearby mountains and plains. Down through the years the local resources appeared inexhaustible. Generations of people lived contentedly in Xiangye, accustomed to the daily rhythms of sunrise and sunset, work and rest. They were comfortable staying at home and except for some younger people who frequented the markets in Langdong and Taiyong, generally people did not travel far aeld. In the autumn, a few young people went to the Chejiang plain in Rongjiang county to work as labourers harvesting rice there. In those days, this seemed to them the most distant place

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in the world and if they went there it would only be once every few years. Such general lack of contact with the outside world served to preserve village traditions and prevented the traditional Kam minority culture from vanishing through the competing inuence of other surrounding cultures. Qimeng in Jinping county of Guizhou province was the place that language experts in the 1950s chose to demarcate northern and southern Kam. Geographically, Xiangye was lower in latitude than Qimeng, and therefore belonged nominally to the southern Kam area. This did not mean, however, that the language spoken in Xiangye was a pure southern Kam dialect, because the language situation in Xiangye was complex and unique. Similarly, although Xiangye belonged to Jianhe county which was home to mostly northern Kam speakers, it was separated from the northern Kam areas in Jianhe, such as Nanming and Panxi, by a great distance. The village location coupled with the location of various county borders meant that the Kam people in Xiangye really had very little contact with the Kam from other regions, and thus were detached from the main body of the Kam nationality. If people from Xiangye wanted to visit their northern Kam compatriots, they needed to cross hill and valley by foot, along rugged mountain roads and through dense virgin forests. They had to tread carefully, quietly and fearfully through one army establishment after another, one village after another, full of people from other nationalities. Once face to face with Kam people from the north, they discovered signicant differences in language, food and clothing. The language differences were so great that they were not even able to use Kam comfortably for conversing. When people from Xiangye visited the southern Kam in Four Kam Villages in Langdong township of Rongjiang county, it did not feel much different to them from visiting a Han village. Upon meeting people from the Four Kam Villages, there were invariably feelings of mutual embarrassment and unease. The path southwest from Xiangye to Seventy Two Villages, which was also Kam, within the borders of Rongjiang county, and the path east and southeast to Forty Eight Villages straddling the border separating the counties of Rongjiang and Liping, were as hard and as dangerous as the path to the northern Kam. But in contrast to the north, the language, food and clothing found in those places were similar to Xiangye. It was thus relatively easy to strike up friendships with people from those areas. They were separated, however, by about a

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day’s journey, through unknown land owned by unfamiliar Han and Miao people. There were not many people courageous and motivated enough to make the journey. Thus typically, when from time to time the people of Xiangye met Kam people from other areas, they usually felt acutely aware of some difference or other. Either they spoke a different variety of Kam or they wore different clothing. Sometimes the language was so different they had no choice but to use Chinese. When this happened, people could hardly feel that they had anything in common. In such cases the main point of commonality was often a fatalistic sense of helplessness and hopelessness. When face to face, people could at least sympathise with each other on these grounds. For many generations Kam characteristics in food, clothing, accommodation and language were tucked away in Xiangye, and were preserved behind the barriers of the surrounding Han and Miao cultures. Although a government for the area had been set up some centuries before, this government only plundered the area. It was preoccupied with collecting grain taxes and conscripting men for the army. Once these jobs were done, the government paid no further attention to the village. Xiangye was relatively large and its people were relatively well off. Up to the end of the 20th century, however, the name Liukai could not be found on any Chinese atlas, although names of much smaller villages were featured on such maps.6

6 Cf. Zhongguo Ditu Chubanshe (1995) in which Liukai does not appear, and Guizhou Sheng Di San Cehuiyuan (1997) in which Liukai appears.

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CHAPTER TWO

LANGDONG Eis jangs il yanc nyenc, eis qamt il dol menc. If they are not members of the same family, they do not go through the same entrance.

Only during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1616–1911) dynasties did Han people begin to enter the Miao and Kam areas around Xiangye (cf. Chapter 1, footnote 5). The earliest were soldiers. Afterwards farmers and a small number of merchants followed in their tracks. At that time, virgin forest covered the mountains and there were not even mountain paths connecting one place to another. If soldiers wanted to enter the Miao and Kam villages, they sent people rst to fell trees and make paths through the forests. In this way they gradually followed rivers upstream. The soldiers followed the Yuan and the Qingshui rivers along various tributaries, building ‘roads’ along the way. Some roads were paved, but generally the road surface consisted of compacted earth. In places at the river banks where a boat could be navigated into a wharf, government centres were established, and with time more such centres gradually appeared upstream. In the Xiangye water system within the borders of Jianhe county, the rst such government centre was established at Nanjia, on the eastern bank of the Qingshui river. Later, a post was created on the northern bank of the Nanshao tributary of the Qingshui River, probably around 1800. Finally the government advanced to Taiyong on the southern bank of the Taiyong River, where a district ofce was established in the 1940s. The government ofces in Taiyong are the last along the Qingshui river within Jianhe county, and also the highest-altitude government ofces on the Qingshui river. Government rule extended from along the Yuan river in Hunan up to Taiyong over a period of 200 years, starting in the period 1723–1739 up to the Republican period 1912–1945. The history of army garrisons in the area was not quite as long as 200 years. Garrisons such as Zhanghan, Jiuyi and Liujin were probably only nished during the 100 years after the beginning of the Yongqian period (1723–1796).

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Forts in Langdong.

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Settlers followed the soldiers and the roads upstream and small towns and markets were established alongside the rivers. Gradually development moved away from the main rivers into the mountains, with the formation of villages of various sizes. Xiangye was high up in the mountains, away from any major river. It has always been a difcult place for outsiders to reach, and to which to extend government control. Historically there has been little inltration of the village by outsiders. In the distant past, the inhabitants were able to defend themselves, even though surrounded by people of other nationalities, and they were able to live according to Kam culture and tradition. The area around Xiangye was the army-garrison district of Jianhe county. On market days the people of Xiangye went to Nanshao or Taiyong, but these Han garrisons had small populations and did not even constitute towns, much less cities. Langdong was the northernmost town in Rongjiang county, about 10 kilometres south of Xiangye. Thus Langdong was about the same distance from Xiangye as Taiyong, but Langdong was easily the largest town in the area. Among all their Han neighbours, the people of Xiangye rst developed relations with people of Langdong, visiting their town on market days. From early times, Langdong townspeople also made the journey to Xiangye, to do business. Economically and culturally, they did not treat the residents of Xiangye fairly. The villagers were exploited more by the people of Langdong than by people from Jianhe county’s local Han administrative centres of Taiyong and Nanshao. Although the people of Langdong were not ofcially in charge of governing Xiangye, the residents of Xiangye most feared the people of Langdong. Before Liberation there were 600 or 700 households in Langdong. It was surrounded on four sides by Kam and Miao minority villages, with just a few Han hamlets dotting the nearby mountains. Xiangye people referred to the town as Lang. Perhaps this name came from the Kam word for ‘dragon’ (liongc). In addition there were many other towns more or less nearby, such as Rongjiang (in Kam referred to as Mu), Jianhe (Gemuhe), Taiyong (Derong) and Nanshao (Nanxiu). Originally these towns were perhaps Kam centres, but after the Han arrived, they were given Han names. Records show that during the Song dynasty (960–1279), administrative units were established in some minority areas: the biggest were called prefectures, then counties, then ‘dong’ (the same sound as the Chinese word for the Kam people). ‘Lang’ was taken from the Kam

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name for the village, ‘dong’ was the administrative unit appropriate to the village, and hence the name ‘Langdong’. The name thus probably originated during the Song dynasty. The Han people probably only settled in the area and took over its administration after the insurrections around Liping and Jinping counties, led by the Kam heroes Wu Mian (1378–85) and Lin Kuan (1397), had been suppressed by the Chinese Emperor’s troops.1 Han people continued to migrate there throughout the Qing dynasty (1616–1911), right up to the period of the Republic of China (1912–1949). Langdong was originally a Kam village. During the Ming dynasty (1358–1644), when feudalism was rife, soldiers and peasants were recruited to cultivate the land there. When a town wall was built in Langdong, together with ofcial buildings and streets, Kam people were told to leave and were forced out to the neighbouring mountains, to establish new settlements there. These new settlements became the villages of Qinwang, Zailian, Pingdi and Zailin, later called the Four Kam Villages (cf. Chapter 1). The construction used in Langdong town is worthy of note. The town wall was built with massive stones, which showed little sign of erosion, being extremely solid. There were two massive wooden doors which closed together at each of the north, south, east and west positions on the wall, each wrapped in an iron sheet to protect the wood. Inside the town a street led up to each gate, with crossroads in the middle. The town was distinguished by huge square buildings, shaped like Chinese seals for ‘signing’ documents and therefore called ‘seals’ by the local people, but actually built like forts. There was a grand temple located at the town centre, which was later requisitioned by the area government to serve as headquarters. On the west of the town were the dilapidated walls of the Chao family fort that had been burned down around 1900. These buildings were all great and ancient engineering accomplishments, then about 400 years old. The forts were unique buildings in this border area. When Xiangye people on their way to market in Langdong reached the hillside at Qinwang, they observed these great square buildings towering over rows upon rows of houses. The buildings were apparently spaced at regular

1 For the legend of Wu Mian, see e.g. Geary et al. (2003), pp. 8–10 and Ou and Jiang (2002), pp. 60–61. For the legend of Lin Kuan, see e.g. Geary et al. (2003), pp. 10–11 and Ou and Jiang (2002), p. 61.

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distances from one another and built to the same specication. From a distance, each seemed brilliant white. This spectacle often frightened Xiangye people, women in particular, and some even did not dare to proceed into the town. The outside walls of the square forts were made of brick and limestone, each wall approximately 20 metres in length. All four walls were without windows and there was only one iron-wrapped wooden door. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was difcult for rearms to penetrate or destroy this kind of door. The outside wall was the height of a three-storey building, high enough to be difcult to scale with a ladder. The inner timber walls were two storeys high, lower than the surrounding walls. In the middle was an open area known as the ‘courtyard’. Stone slabs formed the ground oor and a large stone vat for storing water sat in the courtyard. In some of the forts, a well was also dug in the courtyard. Not only did the forts have the same outward appearance, but the inner wooden oor layout was identical. They were probably designed for the same purpose and built during the same generation. It may be inaccurate to regard them as mainly dwellings for the rich. From the building materials used and the historical background of the time, they were probably built as army stations. The four walls were strong, and the buildings could hold several hundred people. Ofcers, leaders and other important people would live on the ground oor. The rst (second in USA) oors were entirely without dividing walls and were perhaps used as a residence for ordinary soldiers. In the event of war, people could hold the place for 10 or 15 days without needing supplies from outside. Langdong was actually shaped like an army garrison. While the forts were small army stations, the town itself was a large army garrison. As soon as the metal door of a fort was closed, people could not enter from outside. In the same way, as soon as the metal town gates were closed, people outside Langdong could not enter. This was the situation until the 1940s. At night-time the metal gates were closed and people were not allowed to enter or leave casually. The gates were opened again in the mornings. These military buildings in Langdong were probably built during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). During the years 1378–1385, the Kam hero Wu Mian from Liping led an uprising, and conquered various counties in the neighbourhood of Liping and Rongjiang. The government sent several tens of thousands of soldiers to quell the uprising, and they

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set up military and civilian garrisons at all the places where the rebel army had been. In times of peace, the garrisons were civilian; in times of war, military. It seems as though the building of the Langdong forts and town wall coincided with these historical events. At the time these constructions appeared, Langdong changed from being a large Kam village to being an army garrison town, inhabited by Han people. It gave the government authorities a powerful foothold in this minority border area. There were 13 great forts in Langdong: four associated with the Qiu family, four with the Jiang family, two with the Wang family, one with Li, one with Zhong, and the Chao fort that had been burned down. In addition there were several other brick buildings, but in a different style from the forts. They were built later as civilian dwellings. They did not have the fort-like surrounding walls. Outsiders at the time generally felt that the people living in Langdong were fundamentally different from those living on the mountains around the town. Middle-aged and older women in Langdong still bound their feet and often wore dark blue ‘four-forest clothing’ imported from Hunan province and worn only by the rich. Those from the mountains all had ‘big feet’, wore dark blue or light blue clothing, and enjoyed singing mountain songs. The language of the people in Langdong was also different from that of the neighbouring mountain Han, especially that spoken by the old men who lived in the forts, who had very strong ‘foreign’ accents. For example, those with the surname Jiang spoke the Fujian dialect. Those with the Qiu and Wang surnames also spoke dialects from another province, probably Jiangxi.2 When they spoke among themselves, even the local Han Chinese could not understand anything that was said. The soldiers who rst lived in the forts had no wives or families when they arrived in the area, and must have taken wives from among the Kam women. These wives lived inside the forts, and all year long did not leave, especially not to visit their parents. If parents came to see them, they were usually not allowed inside. So the women were isolated for decades. Those who gave birth to children were adopted into the 2 It is clear that many of the fort occupants had originally migrated into Langdong from areas far away, but the author is not aware of any formal research into their origins. Local people called them ‘Kejia people’, but they may or may not have been authentic Kejia (cf. Chapter 3, footnote 2).

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clan of the master of the fort. The children were of Han nationality. Those who did not give birth to children were maids, with the status of slaves. After these Kam women were taken into the forts, they made Han clothing and learned to speak the Han language. Because of the blocking off of the forts and the disengagement with the outside world, the women’s language and culture were forced to be like those of the master of the house. The children followed in the footsteps of their fathers and passed on these traditions until the time of Liberation, by which time the old men in the forts still retained completely different speech from those outside. The countryside people said that they spoke Fujian or Jiangxi dialects, but actually it was not pure Fujian or Jiangxi. People with the same surnames as the masters of the forts mostly lived in wooden homes clustered around the forts. It seemed as though they were extended family relatives or dependents. Their bodily height and appearance were similar to the people living inside the forts. They spoke Langdong Chinese, however, like their neighbours in the wooden homes. Sometimes they would mimic the pronunciation of the people inside the forts in order to intimidate the countryside people from outside Langdong. Men in the forts normally did not do any physical labour or farming as long as they lived. Their wives were the same. Only their concubines—their secondary wives—did any housework. When the men took concubines, they took at least two or three. Then all the work in the forts was done by the concubines, including the work of raising goats, pigs and chickens. All these women originally came from Xiangye and other minority nationality villages, but later there were also some women from mountainside Han villages. Except for when they were washing clothes and going out to fetch water, they rarely emerged through the fort doors. Around 1930 a woman from Xiangye was taken to live in one of the forts and lived there for 10 years. During this time she did not have any contact with other Kam people, and at the end of the time she was unable to speak Kam any more. In fact, at the end of 10 years in the fort she hardly spoke at all and seemed as though she had completely forgotten her former life in Xiangye. All the masters living in the forts owned homes and paddy elds in Kam villages. Historical records from the Ming dynasty show that

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wherever army garrisons were stationed, there was massive conscation of minority land, paddy elds and homes. Such policy was rationalized by falsely referring to the minority property as ‘property without heirs’. The government rst apportioned minority land to leaders living in the forts. This was called ‘paddy elds for keeping the forts’. More land was apportioned for the descendants and subordinates of leaders living in the forts, and this was called ‘paddy elds for keeping those in the shade’. Among the inhabitants of Langdong, there were these two kinds of owners. Therefore people in each fort owned paddy elds and homes in Kam villages. The conscated elds were planted by Kam tenant farmers and rent was collected from local Kam people for living in the conscated homes. Several times each month, rice had to be carried on shoulder poles to the forts. This ensured that the fort inhabitants had ample food. This arrangement carried on until Liberation. In Xiangye, all the outsiders owning land, property and homes were from Langdong. Among them, those with the surname Jiang owned the most, with approximately 20% of the paddy elds of Dazhai (cf. beginning of Chapter 4) in Xiangye. There were several barns for storing the rice from these elds, specially guarded by Kam tenant farmers who also collected the ‘rice rent’ and sometimes sold it on behalf of the landlords. After possessing this land for several decades, the leader of the Jiang family opened a shop in Langdong to do business, in the years prior to Liberation. He spoke Fujian Chinese and could not speak the local dialect. When Xiangye people wanted to buy salt, or money paper for burning in honour of the ancestors, this man would sell it to them on credit. Whatever it cost, he would charge an equivalent amount of interest after half a year. But after half a year, from where would the Kam people nd double the money? They would typically be even less able to settle accounts at that point. Then, under pressure from the person in charge of collecting the money, the borrowers would have no alternative but to use their only form of wealth—paddy elds—to repay their debts. Five hundred grams of salt, or one pack of money paper, was repaid by one paddy eld. After the title deeds were handed over to the creditor, the Kam farmer became a tenant on what used to be his own elds. The Jiangs thus became the most inuential landlords in Xiangye, with the most tenant farmers.

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Another fort resident in Langdong named Wang owned land in Xiangye and a big tile-roofed house with three rooms. He had a tenant staying in the house and Wang often went there to keep an eye on things. After the Lan family at the northern gate of Langdong had begun to serve as township leaders, they also started to acquire land in Xiangye. The rst time they were involved in acquiring such land was when they exchanged a horse for two paddy elds belonging to the Ou family. Following this, they loaned money at high interest and took over more land. In this way, the number of tenant farmers in Xiangye with landlords in Langdong continually increased. Before Liberation, the residents of Langdong did not work the elds or do any manual labour. Older residents said that in the past, all the food in Langdong was supplied from the neigbouring Kam villages. Wood and charcoal for burning were carried on shoulder poles to Langdong by neighbouring Kam and Miao people. It often happened that people from Langdong would go around the Kam village homes and take whatever eggs, chickens, ducks or sh they saw without paying for them. This was the situation until about 10 years before Liberation, when there was at last some change. From this time on, Kam people no longer had to supply their grain free of charge, but carried it to the markets and sold it there cheaply. Wood and charcoal were also sold at low prices, or exchanged for a couple of hundred grams of salt. By the 1930s, the wooden homes in Langdong were inhabited by people who worked in production, raising pigs, chickens, ducks and geese. Those living in the wooden homes at the northern gate generally planted and farmed rice, leaving home early and returning late. They worked very hard, like the Han people living on the mountains, having become independent land-owning farmers. Most of the people living in the wooden homes near the southern gate had opened small shops, selling oil, salt, money paper, straw sandals and suchlike. Only the people living near the forts spent their time idling around, neither doing productive labour nor becoming involved in business activities. They often went to the Kam villages to eat. On market days, they casually ate the fruit and vegetables brought to the town by the Miao and Kam people to be sold. They often seized several sticks of charcoal or rewood from bundles that were carried in through the

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town gates. At another crossroads, they would take possession of yet more sticks. If the rewood was set outside someone’s home, the owner sometimes came out and took away another few sticks. With good luck, some of the remaining sticks might be sold and some money obtained to buy a little salt to bring home. Often, however, produce could not be sold or exchanged and instead was given away to people on the streets. In such cases the villagers typically went home empty-handed on empty stomachs. In 1946 and 1947, when Yang Sen was the provincial governor of Guizhou, a policy of Sinicisation was implemented.3 According to the policy, minority dresses and long hair were to be eliminated, and there was to be one unied Han form of clothing and appearance. Soldiers representing the Langdong government employed those people who were otherwise idle to carry out the policy. So it happened that on market days these people loitered around at each of the four town gates wielding scissors. Whenever a Kam or Miao woman entered, they cut off her hair and cut up her dress, snatching from her any jewelry she wore. When this became known, Kam and Miao women did not dare go into the town to market and even the men stayed away. The government sent people with guns on their backs and scissors in their hands to invade the local Kam and Miao villages for 10 or 15 days at a time, going from house to house cutting off women’s hair and cutting up their dresses. This was called by the authorities the ‘redressing movement’. After the movement, Kam women living near Langdong had begun wearing trousers rather than skirts. During this time, however, Xiangye people quietly kept a low prole at home and fortunately were thus

3 Cheung Siu-Woo (2003, p. 111) describes the Guizhou provincial government’s policy of cultural assimilation in the mid-1940s as follows: ‘The policy . . . established Guizhou bianbao wenhua yanjiuhui (Society for Studying the Culture of Borderland Compatriots in Guizhou) to promote assimilation by prohibiting ethnic languages and customs, harassing the natives in ethnic clothing, even to the point of destroying their clothes by force, and so on . . .’. Again (p. 105), ‘Starting in the mid-1930s, Republican troops in western Guizhou destroyed, with violence, the clothes and hairstyles of natives, especially women, when they came to the public market’. In 1948, after three years of his rule in Guizhou province, Governor Yang Sen reviewed the situation as follows (p. 105): ‘Racial differences among the borderland compatriots (i.e., the Miao [including the Kam] and the Yi) in Guizhou is the most complex, and their differences in clothing and language are most extreme. Today we should promote the ‘Sinicisation Movement’ to unify their language and clothes gradually, and to encourage cross-racial intermarriage.’

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able to maintain their traditional culture. For many months they did not dare to go to the markets in Langdong. With time, the people of Xiangye learned to expect oppression from people in both Jianhe county and Langdong town. Langdong, however, was nearer to Xiangye than any other Han town. The forts in Langdong, moreover, lled the Xiangye villagers with a sense of awe. Before Liberation, Jianhe county controlled Xiangye administratively, but Langdong controlled it economically and each ripple of change from Langdong caused the people of Xiangye to tremble with fear.

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CHAPTER THREE

THE NAME ‘KAM’ Jil naemx xenh menv, xodt sungp semh dens. To drink, you need a well; to speak, you need a reason for what you say.

The name ‘Kam’ used by the people of Xiangye to dene their nationality was, according to them, a name handed down by their ancestors. They did not know what it meant.1 Han people of the area called their own children ‘zai’, the Chinese term for ‘sons’. In addition, as a term of affection within the family, they addressed all people in their extended family of a younger generation—including nephews and nieces, and grandsons and granddaughters—as sons. The term carries the sense of ‘dear ones’ and does not harbour any derogatory or negative meaning. Xiangye people adopted this custom and used it as a means of referring to themselves and other nationalities. When conversing with people from outside Xiangye, including those of other nationalities, most Xiangye residents referred to themselves as ‘lagx Gaeml’, meaning ‘children of Kam people’. This form of self-appellation expressed modesty and courtesy, and no one despised the Kam people for using it. On the contrary, it seemed as though using it actually helped to bridge barriers between the Kam and other nationalities. Based on this understanding, Xiangye people referred to their Han and Miao neighbours in similar ways. They referred to the Han people as ‘Gax’, borrowed from the Chinese term Kejia.2 Another form of 1

For a couple of hypotheses, see Geary et al. (2003), p. 3. Kejia people are known in English as ‘Hakkas’. They are people of the ethnic Han background who migrated from the Yellow River basin to south China during the early 4th century, the late 9th century and the early 13th century. Their descendants are found mainly in Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunan and Taiwan. Note that Clarke (1911, p. 9) refers to the ‘Keh-Chia’ (or Kejia) simply as ‘Immigrants’. The Han people who lived in Langdong or in other towns near Xiangye spoke Chinese with a typical Guizhou accent. There seem to be no written records of research into the origin of the Langdong Han people, though they almost certainly arrived after the 2

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A Han person talking to a Kam person in the street.

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address was ‘lagx Gax’, meaning ‘children of Kejia’. In the same way, they referred to the Miao people as ‘Miiul’ or ‘lagx Miiul’. Neighbouring Han people, especially those from the towns, called the Kam people ‘Dong’. They did not say what this meant, but it certainly was not perceived or intended as derogatory, and the Kam people accepted it as a friendly term.3 Han elders from the towns, in order to express kindness, sometimes referred to younger Kam people as ‘sons’. Observing that the Kam tenant farmers were poor, honest and obedient, and feeling sympathetic towards them, the landlords also sometimes referred to them as ‘sons’. In such situations, the term ‘son’ certainly did not imply familial bonds of affection, nor did it have any connotation of slavery. Some people misinterpreted the self-appellation ‘lagx Gaeml’—‘Kam child’—to mean the kind of person who is a slave. They misunderstood ‘lagx’ to mean ‘house-slave’. From this they inferred that historically Kam society was a society based on forced labour and that before Liberation, there were some family slaves among the Kam. There is no evidence to support this view, however, from the history of Kam society generally. In fact, under the inuence and promotion of neighbouring Han feudal society, Kam society began about 1,000 years ago transitioning from a system of primitive communal life directly into a feudal society. Today Kam society still develops in parallel with the neighbouring Han society. There have been no signs of any kind of slavery in Xiangye, either in traditional folk legends or in anthropological data.

original Kejia migrations. They might possibly have been Kejia people who moved to Guizhou after their rst migration, and subsequently learned the local dialect. 3 For more on the meaning of ‘Dong’, see Geary et al. (2003), pp. 3–4.

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CHAPTER FOUR

THE VILLAGERS Miac meix gungc nyinc meix emv baih, donc xaih gungc nyinc lenc biinv senp. Many years after trees are planted, they cover the hillside; after living in the same village for many years, people become relatives.

With more than 150 households, Xiangye was the biggest village in the whole area where Jianhe and Rongjiang counties shared common borders. The inhabitants lived in three separate communities: Dazhai (Big Village, with more than 100 households), Xiaozhai (Small Village, with 30-plus households) and the Dazhai satellite village Wengbei about three kilometres away (with nearly 10 households). Historically, Xiangye was one natural village. In the 1930s, the Nationalist government implemented a new system of local administration (baojia, cf. Chapter 26) and Xiangye became a village administrative unit. The people of Dazhai were predominantly those with the surnames Ou, Yang, Luo and Zhang, among which Ou and Yang were the most common. The Wengbei villagers were from the Ou clan. They had earlier migrated to Wengbei from among the Ous of Dazhai. There were three main surnames in Xiaozhai, each with not more than ten households: two of these were Wu (distinct Chinese surnames written with different characters) and the third was Tian. The people of Xiangye spoke Kam among themselves. Most of the young men were able to use Chinese to communicate. Older men could also speak a little, but the great majority of women and children could only speak a couple of sentences of Chinese. No one could really understand the Miao language. People from the nearby Miao villages generally understood Kam and could speak Kam to communicate with the Kam people. Down through the generations the people of Xiangye lived together in peace and harmony, with sufcient food and clothing. They survived any years of famine. There were few diseases and there was never any major epidemic. The population ourished. Impoverished clans that

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A visitor being invited for a meal by a Kam person.

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were on the wane made plans to increase again by migrating. This is what happened with the Ou family who moved to Wengbei. The Ous were followed by the Tians in Xiaozhai, when they migrated west to Zhanmo and Lilu. They grew strong there and after a few generations their presence turned those two Miao villages into Kam villages. Because of unbearable taxes and the gradual weakening of their own clan’s inuence, several households from the Zhang family at the foot of Dazhai migrated to the area bordering with Rongjiang county. After some time, they found it was difcult to make a living there and many of them returned to Xiangye after Liberation. The relative prosperity of Xiangye and the people’s sincerity, honesty and kindliness were attractive to some outsiders who otherwise had difculty establishing a home base for themselves. For example, Bao Luo from Langdong took a concubine and ran away from home to settle in Xiangye, so avoiding frequent disputes with his wife (cf. Chapter 31). Another man notorious in Xiangye, Qi Fu, liked to ‘sh for young women’ (cf. Chapters 18 and 22). He often groped his way to the door of someone’s house, looking for a woman to irt with. This enraged the men in the woman’s household and he often caught no one. These two people, Bao Luo and Qi Fu, were called ‘old mates’ by some friends in Dazhai, meaning ‘people who share the same adversities’. Afterwards both men’s families moved to live in empty houses among the row of Ou houses in Dazhai and the Ou clan provided food for them. The Bao and Qi family members were naturally disposed to be lazy, staying at home and not doing any work. The men waited lethargically for others to invite them to eat and drink. After living in Xiangye for a year or two, the two families moved away of their own accord. There was also once an old man from Langdong who moved in among the Ous of Xiangye. He had moved there to avoid trouble, after starting up a relationship with a young woman. As before, he tried to make a living by making and selling tofu. The Kam people, however, had no money with which to buy tofu, instead bartering soybeans for it. The man piled the soybeans in the corner of his house and was unable to sell them. After living there for three years, he and his family moved away. Everyone in these three families of Han people could speak some Kam within six months of moving to Xiangye. At rst they used Chinese while the villagers used Kam. In this way, they were normally able to communicate with the villagers. The newcomers’ town-based habits,

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however, remained unchanged. The men were unable to work the elds and the women could not make clothes. In fact none of them did any kind of manual labour and in the end they left Xiangye still wearing Han clothes and speaking mostly Chinese. Xiaozhai was also home to two or three families of Han people who migrated into the village, with the surnames Peng and Deng. They were all farmers from the mountain villages northeast of Xiangye. The villagers from Xiaozhai gave them the lower oors of the wooden grain stores in which to live. The men cut rewood or made charcoal to exchange for rice, while the women made cloth shoes or straw sandals to exchange for clothing or cloth. They worked for their livelihoods and became used to the customs of the local Kam people. Ultimately they were not much different from Kam people themselves. After Liberation they continued to live in Xiangye as, to all intents and purposes, they had become Kam. According to stories handed down by the elders, the ancestors of the Ous in Xiangye lived in Ji’an city of Jiangxi province. They originally migrated from Ji’an to Tianzhu county in Guizhou province and lived there for several generations. Between 1796 and 1820 some of them left Tianzhu and roamed from place to place before settling down in Xiaoguang (a town in Jianhe county, where today Kam people are concentrated), where they lived for one or two generations. Because soldiers arrived, burning and killing, they migrated along the Qingshui river and then branched south along the Nanshao river. They reached Zhengcha on the eastern bank of the Langdong river and lived there for a while, but they did not possess much arable land and it was difcult to make a living there. They then travelled another three kilometres over high mountains before nally settling in Xiangye, adopting it as their home. When they were leaving Xiaoguang, the ancestors feared that people of other nationalities would come and dig up their clans’ graves and randomly dump the remains of the corpses somewhere, so they carried their relatives’ remains to Xiangye. When they opened the bags, they found that they were short of one leg bone. Anyway, the bones were buried on the mountainside behind the village. One large grave was made and a gravestone was set up there, with an inscription bearing the names of the relatives and the date of the grave. That was ve or six generations ago. As the Ous were migrating from Tianzhu to Xiangye, other Ous from Taigong (in Taijiang county of Guizhou province) and some

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from Zaidao (within the border of Zhaihao in Rongjiang county) were also migrating to the village. Afterwards, people originating from these three distinct places united to form the Ou clan in Xiangye. The Ou population was the greatest in the village and the Ous became dominant in the locality. This family history was still told in the 1930s and 1940s to young people in Xiangye. The genealogies remembered from Taigong and Zaidao included some inexplicable names, because they were transmitted orally and there were no written records, but the sayings regarding the migrations from the above-mentioned places can generally be trusted. Thus the origin of the Ous from Xiangye is basically clear: some were northern Kam from Tianzhu, some were southern Kam from Zaidao, and some possibly had Miao blood from Taigong. Afterwards, some of the Ous in Xiangye took local women to be their wives, while others took Kam women from the southern Four Kam Villages, Forty Eight Villages or Seventy Two Villages. Thus the southern Kam element increased. Since the Ous were the biggest clan in the area, with power and inuence, poor families of limited means and connections from Zhengcha, Langhuang and other villages came and settled alongside them. These newcomers then became part of the extended Ou family, making the family background even more complex. The second most common surname in the village after Ou was Yang. There was no legend comparable to the Ous’ about the Yangs migrating from Tianzhu or Xiaoguang. Even if they did migrate from those general areas, then it probably was not from the same villages as the Ous. In Xiangye, the Ou families lived towards the mountain borders of the village. The Yangs on the other hand were concentrated in the half of the village beside the plain where rice was grown, and beside the stream. People of the two surnames intermarried, but among the Yangs many men chose their wives from the Han and Miao areas. Some also took Kam wives from the Four Kam Villages or Forty Eight Villages. Thus the Yangs had more relatives outside Xiangye than the Ous. There was a private school in Xiangye staffed by two teachers who were both local Yangs. One of the teachers was a tall old man who walked with a limp. He spoke in an accent that no one else in the village could understand. It was not local Chinese. Maybe it was the Hakka language, or a dialect from Jiangxi or Fujian. The children were even less able than the local adults to understand what he said. They joked that his teaching was like ‘the bright moon’, meaning that they heard the sounds of his speech but never understood a word. (Formerly the

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Kam people had seen the moon in the sky but had never understood what it was.) His young wife was also from outside the village, though she learned to speak the Kam language of Xiangye. She bore him ve or six children, who grew up just like all the other children in Xiangye, speaking Kam and adopting Kam culture. The Zhangs who lived at the foot of the village and the Luos who lived at the head were not as numerous as the Ous or the Yangs. The Zhangs were about as tall as the average Ous and Yangs, but the Luos were short in stature and their skin colour was comparatively dark. The Luos and the Ous said they were from the same clan, and so generally did not intermarry. People with the surnames Zhang and Luo did not have any migration legend. Were they indigenous to Xiangye? If so, did they crowd into the village foot and head, respectively, only after the Ous and Yangs arrived? The Wus, Wus (a different surname in Chinese) and Tians of Xiaozhai knew nothing about Xiaozhai’s history, nor did anyone else in Xiaozhai seem to know about it. Very few of them chose wives from outside Xiangye. Their skin colour was relatively fair and their physique was similar to that of people from the Miao nationality. According to legend, each autumn after harvest, Miao men came and attacked Xiangye. They said that the village was originally theirs and they wanted to reclaim it. The Kam people of Xiangye, however, defended themselves vigorously and did not allow the Miao people to live there. Often there was ghting. Once the Miao men gathered on the mountain summit and were preparing to charge down. When they looked down on Xiangye in the distance, they saw rows and rows of men standing on the ridges between the elds. The whole plain was full of people. They reckoned that they could not win a battle against so many people and retreated. It turned out that what they had seen was not people but bundles of straw from harvested rice. Until a decade before Liberation, residents of Xiangye bought land from the Miao people in the mountains nearby in order to build graves there. Judging from the origins and the physique of the people, the majority of the inhabitants of Xiangye bore the characteristics of northern Kam and Han people. Others had a relatively dark complexion and short stature that is more characteristic of the southern Kam. Then again there was a smaller minority of them who closely resembled the Miao and Yao people. If specialists examined the situation carefully,

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they would discover that Xiangye was home to these three distinct sets of people, with ever-increasing blood relations between them. The traditional culture and language of the inhabitants was a mixture of southern and northern Kam, sprinkled with a little Han culture that had inltrated society. The village was thus a place where the people, languages and cultures of the southern and northern Kam converged. Xiangye people spoke mainly the southern Kam dialect, but there was also some northern Kam and a little Chinese. Some examples of the Kam language spoken in Xiangye are given in the table below, marking with an asterisk words that were most commonly used in Xiangye. In some cases both southern and northern words were commonly heard.1

Vocabulary

Southern Kam

Northern Kam

sky rain re smoke (n) hillside river deep pool well level land eld sand soil, mud lead (the metal) salt village bridge Han nationality old person male (person) girl paternal grandmother father pig

*m…n55 *pj…n55 *pui55 kwɐn212 *i33 *a55 *mɐŋ55 *m…n53 *pjan53 *ja53 *e35 *mak31 *jon212 jim212 *ai33 *lo31 *ka31 *…n212 lau31 *lak31 pan55 *lak31 mjek323 *sa31 *pu31 ŋu453

*m…n35 mj…n35 wi35 *ʔ…n22 pja44, ta33 *a35 taŋ22 *m…n55 wjan55 *ja55 sa11 ʔ…n33 jen22 *pau22 *ai44 iu22 a31 j…n22 lau31 lo31 wan35 ku35 aŋ33 nai33 a33, kau31 *mu25

1 The IPA representations in the table are taken from Long Yaohong and Zheng Guoqiao (1998), pp. 215–244.

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Table (cont.) Vocabulary

Southern Kam

Northern Kam

bamboo cotton salted sh clothing ladder rope plough shoulder pole eat tear fat hungry thirsty foolish slowly

*pɐn55 *mjin212 *pa55 w…t55 *ʔuk323 kwe323 lam33 *khɐi35 lan212 *i55 *jak323 *pui212 jak323 jak323 nɐm31 *ʔe323 *sɐi453 sɐi453

m…i31 kw…n35 mjin22 wa11 ta35 w…t55 tuʔ31 *ʔe33 *au35 …i11 *ʔan22 e35 ne35 pi22 *peʔ33 *so44 ʔo22 au11 wan11 wan11

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CHAPTER FIVE

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE Jaenx yak wenp yak, jaenx pap wenp pap, jaenx geel bangc nyumx eis bagx hap. If you stay close to red things, you become red; if you stay close to gray things, you become gray; if you stay near the dyeing barrel, you will not be white any more.

The Kam people are a minority nationality of 2.96 million people.1 They comprise people of mixed anthropological heritage. Most of the southern Kam belong to the southern Mongoloid race, either the Tai-Liao type or the southern Chinese type. In ancient times, the northern Kam also belonged to the southern Mongoloid race, but after mixing with migrants from the north their characteristics became closer to the northern Mongoloid race, further sub-classied as northern Chinese type. Although Xiangye was one administrative village, it was like the Kam nationality at large, possessing similarly complex mixtures of people from different anthropological classications and blood-relationships. In 1958 the author accompanied an anthropologist from Moscow University, Professor N.N. Cheboksalow, to survey a Yao village in Liannan county of Guangdong province. After taking measurements of the physique of some Yao men and women, Professor Cheboksalow was sure that the Miao, Yao and Kam were all communities of the southern Mongoloid race. This was consistent with the viewpoint of earlier European and American anthropologists, who even believed that these communities contained Austronesian blood and certain Austronesian physical characteristics. They surmised that the communities were originally distributed all the way from southern China throughout southeast Asia: today’s Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand, for example. This is the traditional anthropological viewpoint.

1

This population data is according to the 2001 national census in China.

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Nurtured on glutinous rice.

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It is worth noting that in 1958 the ‘Liujiang person’ fossil was discovered in Liujiang county of Guangxi. The Chinese anthropologist Wu Rukang identied this as a direct ancestor of the original Mongoloid race.2 So the ‘Liujiang person’ was a direct ancestor of the southern Mongoloid race in southern China and therefore of many communities in southern China. This includes the Kam people, because 5,000 years ago the ancestors of the Kam people were living within the borders of today’s Guangdong and Guangxi. They were short in stature and dark-skinned and the rate of mongoloid wrinkles was low.3 Later, the northern Mongoloid race migrated to the south. Written records from 215 B.C. show that after Emperor Qinshi quelled the Baiyue minority peoples, 500,000 people were sent from the north to live in the southern minority areas. The people intermarried and races intermingled. From the 4th to the 18th centuries A.D., there were ve more major migrations to the south. Many Han people from the north migrated southwards, leading to large-scale integration with indigenous people. The Kam people who in ancient times originally belonged to the Tai-Liao type of the southern Mongoloid race mostly changed to become southern Chinese type. Because the Han population continuously grew, in political and cultural status, the Kam people were forced out and gradually migrated towards remote mountains. This accords with the migration story of the Kam ancestors who left Wuzhou to settle in Rongjiang county.4 It also explains why the southern Kam people retain the characteristics of Tai-Liao and southern Chinese anthropological types. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial government set up army garrisons in the northern Kam areas, and many ‘garrison farmers’ migrated there from Jiangxi, Hunan and other provinces. Many ordinary farmers and businessmen followed in the wake of the garrison farmers. The Kam areas thus became host to people of different nationalities, who intermarried with the Kam, learned the Kam language and culture, and themselves became Kam people. This is the reason why the northern Kam are in the sub-category of the northern Chinese type of the northern Mongoloid race: rather tall, light in skin colour, and with a relatively high rate of mongoloid wrinkles. 2

Cf. Wu Rukang (1959) and Wu Rukang (1989), p. 209. ‘Mongoloid wrinkles’ refers to the phenomenon whereby the eyelid on the inside of the eye curves downwards. 4 Cf. Geary et al. (2003), p. 4. 3

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Judging from legend and from people’s physique, most of the Ous and Yangs in Xiangye originally migrated there from the northern Kam regions. Like the majority of northern Kam people, they claimed Jiangxi province as their ancestral home.5 During the Ming and Qing dynasties, however, Jiangxi was not home to any Kam people, so how did this quirk in people’s historical understanding arise? After the military suppression of Wu Mian’s revolt (1378–1385) during the Ming dynasty, the policy of army garrisons was implemented. That is, soldiers were sent to be stationed in army garrisons in the rural areas of Guizhou. At the same time, ordinary people were mobilized to go and inhabit the villages. These people were all from Jiangxi. Those who had been involved in putting down the revolt became leaders and governed most of the other inhabitants. Farmers or soldiers who had moved from outside the area into the villages became prosperous and rich, ruling over the Kam people who were poorer. Afterwards, such farmers and soldiers became the Kam people’s governors and gentry. They ‘inhabited the ethnic minority regions for a long time and were coloured by their culture: they began to wear regional clothing, followed regional customs, learned the regional language, and eventually became ethnic minorities themselves’.6 Their surnames were passed down and became the surnames of the Kam people, who formerly did not have Han surnames. Thereafter, it was difcult to differentiate the Han from the Kam people. Leaders and gentry in the village had genealogies that traced back to Jiangxi as the source. The Kam people, who simply adopted the surnames of the Han migrants, followed suit and also traced their genealogy back to Jiangxi, assuming Jiangxi to be their ancestral home. Most Ous and Yangs in Xiangye were in this category. It was impossible to determine to what extent their original ancestors were Kam and to what extent Han.

5

Samuel R. Clarke (1911, pp. 10–11) observes the following of the ‘New Chinese’ who were living in Guizhou in the early 1900s: ‘The New Chinese are the descendants of those who settled in Kweichow when and since it was constituted a province of the Empire [about 200 years before]. There can be no doubt that the earlier of these immigrants were from the province of Kiangsi [ Jiangxi], and some of them at least were compelled to colonise Kweichow much against their will. Most of the Chinese now in the province would claim Kiangsi as the old home of their family.’ 6 This quotation is extracted from a foreword for the unpublished genealogy of the Long family in Tianzhu.

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Neither men nor women in Xiangye possessed the characteristic feature of the northern Mongoloid race whereby the outside corners of their eyes curled upwards. Among all the Kam adults in Xiangye, fewer than half had mongoloid wrinkles (see footnote 3). Men from the Ou and Yang clans were generally tall and strongly built, bigger than men with other surnames. They were about 170 cm in height, compared for example with an average in Tianzhu of about 160 cm.7 The women on the other hand were between 140 and 150 cm tall, compared to an average of 149 cm in Tianzhu.8 Their skin was slightly yellow. Most of the other residents of Xiangye were relatively small in physique and their skin colour was relatively dark. They resembled those southern Kam people who were customarily called ‘glutinous rice children’ (see below). When I was a teenager, I went with my mother to Sebian, the place where she was born, to visit relatives. At that time, Sebian was under the jurisdiction of Liping county. (Today Sebian is in Rongjiang county, situated alongside the road from Rongjiang to Langdong.) It was a typical Kam village, situated at the source of the Zhaihao river, only accessible via narrow winding trails over mountains and rivers. Communications with the world outside were few and far between, so the minority culture was well preserved. When I arrived in Sebian, what impressed me most was that the people were diminutive in stature, unlike the majority of people in Xiangye. Adult men were about 150 to 160 cm tall and women were shorter, about 140 cm. It was difcult to guess accurately the ages of the women. When I saw some women wearing front-opening jackets and pleated skirts, carrying baskets on shoulder-poles, and walking along the paddy eld ridges in twos and threes, I couldn’t help asking my mother: ‘How is it that such young girls are wearing skirts?’ She replied: ‘They are all already married and some of them already have children.’ I had thought they were all girls of about 12 or 13. During those few days in Sebian, the initial reaction of everyone who set eyes on me, male or female, was: ‘Such a tall guy!’ (At that time, around age 16, I was about 170 cm tall.) The Kam people in this area

7 8

Cf. Chen Wengliang (1987), p. 68. Ibid.

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were small in stature and as such were representative of most people in the southern Kam villages. The Han people in Liping and Congjiang counties called these southern Kam people ‘glutinous rice children’. What they meant by this was that the Kam people who ate glutinous rice were not as big and strong as the Han people who ate ordinary rice. These Kam people were native to this region, and for generations had eaten glutinous rice three times a day. They ate pickled food, boiled food and hot peppers together with the rice. Fresh sh was rare and fresh milk even more so. Glutinous rice was enough to make one feel satised and the people did not feel short of anything. They did not grow hungry quickly. Though there was no fat to be seen on their bodies, they were still able to grow up and ourish, with strong levels of fertility. On the other hand they were not very strong or vigorous and often felt apathetic.

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CHAPTER SIX

THE VILLAGE Ags senl ags bis, ags xaih ags liix. Each locality has its own customs; each village has its own etiquette.

A babbling stream owed through the middle of Xiangye. The main village comprised Dazhai on the south bank of the stream, with the smaller village Xiaozhai on the north. From dawn ’til dusk, these two parts of Xiangye enjoyed equal amounts of sunlight, wind and rain. Everyone in both parts could hear everyone else’s animal sounds: cocks crowing, dogs barking, and so on. There was a wooden bridge over the stream linking the two parts. The population of Dazhai was greater than that of Xiaozhai. Culturally, Dazhai was a typical Kam village, while Xiaozhai was more like a Miao village that had gradually become Kam over time. This book focuses on the study of the former—Dazhai—with the latter providing supplementary interest. There were mountains on three sides of the village. The source of the stream was a high mountain range about 2.5 kilometres to the west. Strangely the author never once heard anyone say which mountain was the source. Did people simply not pay much attention to the source or did they think that those tall mountains were too difcult and dangerous to talk about? When children asked about it, the elders would point to the west and declare: ‘Over there!’ By this they implied that the stream began in a very distant and remote place over there, too far away to imagine; so far away, they could not even say how far. At the stream’s edge, the water did not reach the knees. The people did not use it for irrigation, only for other purposes related to everyday life. The women used the running water for washing clothes, cloth, food and their own hair. In the summers, the children played in the water, catching sh by hand. When the weather was hot and the water dried up, small sh were kept in deep ponds. People used wooden buckets to collect the pond water and catch the sh. When it rained heavily and water ooded out of the paddy elds, the carp in the elds escaped into

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Escaping from trouble via the mountain path.

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the stream. Then people rushed to the stream with hook and line, and occasionally recaptured a few of the sh from the fast currents. Day and night, season by season, the stream quietly owed through the paddy elds near the village, winding its way towards the east. About two kilometres east of the village, it became a waterfall, and looked like a wisp of yarn cascading into the deep valley. It poured into the Langdong river, and owed out from there into the Qingshui river. The Xiangye river valley was shaped like a pocket. On the southern and northern sides, there were mountains. Dazhai was situated at the foot of the southern mountains. Xiaozhai was situated half-way up the northern mountains. At the western end of the valley there were also high mountains. Only in the east were there no high mountains blocking the way, like the opening in the pocket, allowing the water to ow out from there. The southern and northern mountain ranges were adorned with every kind of tree. Many China r trees had been felled to be used for house-building. Some hardwood trees (such as the oak) were also chopped down to be used as rewood, since they were ideal for this purpose. The forest was mostly of mixed age and species, including bush, bamboo, soft pine and occasional tall ancient trees. Everywhere was densely forested, causing the mountains to be clothed in luxuriant green all year. In many places there were no paths for people or beasts of burden, and only pheasants, hares, wild cats, small tigers and suchlike could regard the forest as their home. On plateaus or on gentle slopes, the Kam people had in earlier generations cleared the trees to make space for planting cotton and for vegetable gardens of different shapes and sizes. Some of the cleared areas were scattered in lonely places, while others were joined neatly side by side. Some were more than a kilometre away, but the vegetable gardens were usually close to the village for the convenience of the women who had to gather vegetables daily. Where the slopes were gentle, the paddy elds were terraced.1 Such terraced elds merged into the elds in the plain. Different-sized rice elds could be seen from anywhere in the valley. Whether they were on the mountainside or on the plain, they were full of water all year round, and the water was full of sh and shrimps. Thus Xiangye was located ‘at the foot of the mountains and among the paddy elds’.

1

See plate 4.

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Behind the village, there were some ancient Chinese sweet gum trees, as well as some equally ancient chestnut trees. In the minds of the villagers, these served to protect the village for many generations. Before Liberation, there were only two sweet gum trees remaining, adjacent to and leaning towards each other. Several people together would have been hard-pressed to reach round the trunks of these trees and they were so tall they seemed to reach into the clouds. The small mountain path along which the villagers ed in case of emergency began at these trees. Barren women would often go there to burn incense and money paper as an offering to plead for fertility. Old men and women in the village insisted that the sweet gum trees should not be cut down or damaged. Once some outsiders came to plunder the village and one of them red a shot in irritation at the trunk of one of the trees. Another used his knife to slash randomly at the trunk, whereupon the tree began to discharge a thick sap. Some time afterwards the members of a troublesome village family were caught red-handed in some misdemeanour. They had to leave, but as they were going they took a hatchet and slashed the sweet gum trees several times. Afterwards, the trees constantly wept sap. Often people would go and collect the sap for treating tonsillitis and to counteract inammation, and such treatment was often successful. When the sweet gum trees shed their leaves, the villagers knew that the hot season was over. When new leaves grew on the trees, this was the sign that spring had returned. Beside the huge Chinese sweet gum trees was a at and open space, referred to as the ‘arena’. The people of Xiangye often met there to discuss village business. Children also played there, chasing each other or wrestling. West of the sweet gums, there was an evergreen Chinese yew tree, shaped like an umbrella, greater and taller in size even than the sweet gums. Below the roots of the tree there gushed a stream of fresh spring water. No one knew just when the Xiangye ancestors had used great stone slabs to build the round well there.2 Legend had it that this spring water was a gracious gift of the ancient yew tree to the Kam people. Thus the yew tree was doubly cherished. No one had ever slashed it and no one ever climbed up to pick the red berries off the

2

For a photograph of the well today, see plate 5.

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tree. Instead, people waited for the berries to fall to the ground before collecting them. Further west another 30 or 40 metres on the hillside, stood yet another Chinese yew, imperiously guarding the whole village. On the opposite side of the village there were also several scattered ancient evergreen trees with huge trunks, shaped like great umbrellas and protected by the villagers in the same way as the gum trees. Although there was no standard punishment, no one dared to damage these trees. It was hard to guess how many generations it had taken for the trees to grow so tall. This created a sense of mystery and reverence towards them, so that in fact they became ‘tree gods’—not really treated as gods in themselves, but as though they had special links with the gods—as well as being ‘scenic trees’ of the village. Not a day passed when the villagers did not depend on the well by the yew tree for drinking water. The well was tightly hugged by the roots of the tree, as though it was an extension of the roots. It was round and mounted with dark blue stones. At the top was the well opening and at the bottom there was a stone slab with a chiseled hole in the middle. The spring water came up through the hole, and day and night did not cease bubbling out. A small pond formed beside the stone well from overowing water and it was used for washing vegetables. The well was always full of pure clear water, giving clear reections like a mirror. The women who went out to draw water frequently could not help rst drinking to their heart’s content, before going home with buckets of water dangling from their shoulder poles. Whenever there was rain during a ne day, a rainbow would appear in the sky, with its tail in the east, and its head apparently diving into the well. The villagers said that the ‘dragon was drinking the water’, imagining that even the dragon in the sky drank that water, it was so cool and refreshing. The Ous, Luos and Zhangs of Dazhai collected water from that well. People with these three surnames were not explicitly forbidden to intermarry, but barring some exceptional cases, there were generally no marriage relationships between them. The well used by the Yangs was situated at the north of the village, beside the stream. It was a mountain spring owing from the northern mountains, providing equally pure and clear drinking water. It was a self-replenishing trough-like pond. The women had to walk through the paddy-eld plain and cross a wooden bridge to reach the well, carrying the water back on shoulder-poles. It was somewhat farther away than the round stone well, but since the Ous and Yangs were often related

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through marriage, the Yang women were not willing to draw water from the Ous’ well. Old people often remarked that there used to be a communal shpond behind the village east of the sweet gum trees, used for raising carp. Each year, just before New Year, 10 or more water-buffaloes were driven into the pond to stamp and roll around, muddying the water, and causing the sh to oat to the surface. The sh were then caught and distributed fairly to each household. Otherwise there was a strong taboo against buffalo or pigs entering the shpond. In the few years preceding Liberation, the number of old people in the village gradually diminished and there was no one left to tend the shpond by clearing away the silt, so it became instead a deep pool of stagnant water. In spring each year, when the water was plentiful, some seless individuals used to go there and deposit some sh fry. But because of dry periods in summer and autumn the sh could not survive. The former taboo against buffalo and pigs entering the pond zzled out spontaneously. Thus Xiangye’s shpond, which used to be full of clear water and jumping sh, became instead a mud-pond in which water-buffaloes bathed. At the head of the wooden bridge joining Dazhai and Xiaozhai, on the Dazhai side, there was a grass eld of about 330 square metres in area. During the forty or so years prior to Liberation, people from both Dazhai and Xiaozhai assembled there to celebrate the Eating Bull Intestines Festival, to organize bullghting and to convene meetings. According to older members of the village community, ‘retrieving something from boiling oil’ trials (cf. Chapter 26) also used to be performed there, as did executions. The eld was called the ‘bullghting arena’, because of the frequent bullghts there.3 At the eastern end of Xiaozhai there was also a grass eld, about 670 square metres in area. It was said that formerly the number of households in Xiaozhai had been much greater and Xiaozhai had been independent of Dazhai. The people of Xiaozhai had then convened their own meetings and bullghting sessions on their own grass eld. At the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China (i.e. around 1911), Xiangye lost many people to migration and death, so the population was drastically reduced. One result was that people of Xiaozhai joined with those of Dazhai and convened meet-

3

Cf. plate 6.

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ings together on the eld in Dazhai. The original eld in Xiaozhai was abandoned at that time. About 50 metres east of Xiaozhai, there was a wooden bridge across the stream. The bridge was about 2 metres wide and 5 metres long, with benches and railings on either side. Its roof was covered with China r bark. This was the only bridge in Xiangye that afforded shade from the hot sun and shelter from the pouring rain. People and livestock could cross over. The Kam people of Xiangye borrowed a Chinese phrase for the bridge and called it the ‘ower bridge’. Formerly most Han people came to Xiangye from the east—especially from Nanshao—and had to cross this bridge to enter the village. When they arrived, they would be welcomed by the villagers at the bridge. When they departed, the villagers would go there to see them off. In the 1930s, when government ofces for the township were moved to Taiyong, more Han people came to Xiangye from the north, via the Liujin military base. Thereafter, the ower bridge became a place where farmers from the nearby rice paddies took shelter from rain, or where people with time on their hands would go and sit to shelter from the heat. For many years the bridge was not renovated, so it became damaged in many places. Before Liberation, the bark on the roof was worn out. Some railings on either side had broken and fallen into the stream, so it was no longer possible to sit there safely. In addition, some wooden planks on the bridge were almost rotten. Despite all this, people still felt sentimental towards the bridge. You just had to mention the ‘ower bridge’ and everyone knew what you were talking about; male and female, old and young would immediately start to smile. Another important landmark was the small path behind the village leading deep into the mountains. Every day there were people who ventured into the ‘big mountain range’ from there. They passed the two great sweet gum trees and made their way along the small path to a mountain pass. From there they would disperse over the mountains to work the elds, chop down trees and gather rewood. There were many paths merging at the mountain pass, leading to many different places. All were made by generations of people tramping along barefoot. None was the result of any formal construction work, but each was formed naturally and became like a narrow winding cord leading to and from the otherwise undisturbed mountains. The special signicance of this particular path behind the village was that it served as an escape route in times of crisis. For many generations, as soon as the villagers heard reports of intruders, they gathered

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bedding, clothing and food on their shoulder poles, led young and old away, amidst much weeping and wailing, and marched along this path over the mountains. On the mountains they built dwellings of cogon grass. Upon reaching the many alternative paths, intruders who pursued as far as the mountain pass would be at a loss to know which way to go. If they continued the chase, the villagers ran for safety further into the deep valleys and virgin forest. After the intruders had left, the villagers slowly returned with children and parents. This kind of emergency evacuation happened practically every winter, and some winters it happened several times. In those days, looting of Xiangye by outsiders was quite common. The people had no defense system and did not even try to resist. Each generation, like the previous one, ed from one set of intruders after another. As long as the people escaped along this mountain path and reached the rst mountain pass, they felt condent that the intruders would be shaken off, as they themselves had entered their very own safe and free environment. They no longer needed to fear being captured and killed. The houses in the village were ‘ganlan’ houses. What is meant by ganlan? The historical remains of the houses of the ancient Yue people from the Hemu port culture (in Yuyao county of Zhejiang province) of 6,000 years ago show that their wooden homes were built on stilts leaving an open space at ground-level, with people living above this level.4 This space provided separation from the damp ground. There are different explanations of the term ganlan. Some Chinese records, more than a millennium old, say that: ‘People live up above. Cows, sheep, dogs, pigs and poultry live below. This is called ganlan.’5 Some reckon that it means ‘building that hangs over water’. Others think it means ‘living in treetops’. Unfortunately no one really knows for sure. Three texts6 refer to ganlan buildings as follows: ‘Make platforms between trees and live on the platforms. This is called ganlan.’ What is meant by this is that several feet above the ground horizontal timber beams were fastened to tree trunks (shugan) to form a hanging platform. On this platform, logs were tied vertically or horizontally to make a surrounding wall. Some people called this ‘living in treetops’ and imag-

4 5 6

Cf. Geary et al. (2003), p. 266, note 2. Le Shi (975). Wei Shou (556), Li Yanshou (643) and Ou Yangxiu (1060).

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ined that the buildings were like birds’ nests. But this kind of building resembled the porches of the Kam people’s wooden ganlan buildings. Most of the people of Xiangye lived in wooden ganlan homes, characterized both by the people living above livestock, and by the ‘hanging building’ structure. They also retained the ‘living in treetops’ style of porches. Most worthy of note is that the Xiangye people referred to the porches as ‘ganlan’. The structure of these porches was similar to the historical tree platforms. Perhaps the word ‘ganlan’ was retained as the name for the homes with the porches because the porches preserved the tree platform characteristics. The houses in Xiangye were constructed using wood from China r trees. The roofs were made with bark from China r. Only two homes had tiled roofs. The residence of the ‘original female ancestor’ was at the centre of the village. This was a large mound of about 200 square metres, used by children for playing on and by women for drying clothes. (In many other Kam villages, the original female ancestor was and still is worshipped by the Kam people, but not in living memory in Xiangye.7 The only vestige of some respect towards the ancestor was this mound and its name.) Surrounding it were rows of wooden ganlan houses. To the south, east and northeast was the group of Ou homes. To the northwest were the Yang homes. To the west was the Luo housing. Two Zhang homes were at the most eastern point, tightly huddled against those of the Ou family. Often there were small one-storey buildings beside the ganlan buildings. The occupants were too poor to build a second or third storey. They were related to or supported by the people who lived in the adjacent ganlan homes, who had a common surname. Beside the homes were barns for storing rice grain. Built on pillars a metre high, to prevent dampness, usually these buildings had two storeys. Some were only used for storing rice, but in some of them, people lived on the ground oor and rice was piled up on the oor above. Those families who lived in the grain stores were certainly the poorest in the village. In the area just above Dazhai near the houses, two or three rows of racks were occasionally erected, to be used for drying glutinous rice grain in the sun. There were more such racks in Xiaozhai than in

7 For more about Sa Sui, the original female ancestor, see e.g. Geary et al. (2003), pp. 155–156.

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Dazhai. People complained there were too many house sparrows and there was too much loss of the glutinous rice when it was left on the racks to dry. So instead they often dried the rice by hanging it from the ceilings inside their own homes.8 The practice of drying on the outside racks gradually died out in the 1930s and 1940s. Houses in the village were clustered together according to clan surnames but otherwise without a set pattern. Rows of houses were huddled so closely together that the eaves of one house often touched the eaves of the house in the next row. In this way many narrow tunnels were formed between the houses and even in torrential rain you could make your way through the village without getting wet. Cows, pigs, dogs and domestic fowl roamed throughout the village at will and on rainy days the village passageways became like bogs. Then you could only go barefoot. There was animal excrement everywhere; it was very unhygienic. The toilets were generally situated on the ground oors of the homes. In most Kam ganlan wooden homes, domestic animals and fowl were kept on the ground oor. The treadmill or tilt-hammer for pounding rice was also there,9 not far from the toilet and urine bucket which collected manure. Firewood was stored on the ground oor. Hygiene was generally poor. The rst (in USA second) oor was reached via stairs. An open porch, a kitchen, bedrooms and guest room were all located there. The women frequently swept the oor and the rst oor was clean enough for people to live in. The second (in USA third) oor was used for storing rice, hanging glutinous rice, and keeping farm implements and miscellaneous belongings. Some bedrooms were also found there, to be used by men only. It was considered unlucky for women to sleep on the second oor (probably because women traditionally wore skirts and it was considered unlucky for men to look up and see under a skirt). Formerly the railing of the porch was made from vertical wooden planks, circular or rectangular in shape, up to breast-height. These were spaced along the porch at intervals depending on the thickness of the strips. During the 20 or 30 years before Liberation, the specially-shaped planks of wood forming the railing were replaced by ordinary boards

8 9

Cf. plate 9. Cf. plate 10, or Geary et al. (2003), plate 13.

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joined up together, and it became like any ordinary railing. This made the porches resemble the new-style Han balconies. Following these changes, people sometimes began to sleep and live on the porches, whereas formerly the porches were not used for living in, but only for sitting in and passing through. So gradually the special features of the ganlan wooden homes faded somewhat, but Kam cloth still hung in the porches to dry, blowing to and fro in the wind as in former days.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

FARMING Xenp liangp jens, oux sox jaens. If you work hard in the spring, the grain stores will be full in the autumn.

For centuries people in Xiangye had been engaged in cultivating rice. Formerly the main staple was glutinous (sticky) rice, and this was also used to brew alcohol. More than half of the paddy elds used to be planted with glutinous rice. In the 40 or 50 years before Liberation, the volume of ordinary rice production overtook that of glutinous rice. Nevertheless ‘the Kam people cannot do without glutinous rice’ and every household still grew some glutinous rice to maintain certain elements of the traditional lifestyle. Most of the paddy elds were in the plains, while the rest were in the mountain valleys and in terraces on the mountainsides. Around each of the elds a ridge was constructed for hemming the water in. Throughout the year the elds were brimming with water, and sh and shrimps were in endless supply. There were also loaches, paddy eels and snakesh. For each shoulder-load of rice there was half a basketful of sh. The water raised the sh and the sh guarded the elds. The captured rainwater was believed to fertilize the soil. Only in times of extreme drought would people use water from the stream to irrigate the elds. The paddy elds were different shapes and sizes and the villagers classied them according to how many loads of rice they would yield. An adult could routinely carry two wicker-baskets of rice using a shoulder-pole, together weighing about 50 kilograms. This represented one ‘load’. Fields often yielded between 20 and 50 loads of rice. Some elds yielded less than 10 loads. The smallest terraced elds yielded around one load. At the end of the 1930s, the county government dispatched ofcials to assess the area of rice-growing land. The ofcial who arrived in Xiangye was an opium-smoker. Day and night he lay in bed. He did not go to the elds to inspect them or measure their area. He simply

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Threshing rice in the paddy elds.

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stipulated that one Chinese acre (667 square metres) should yield six loads of rice. The farmers knew their elds according to the number of loads yielded. Sometimes, however, ve loads were produced from one acre, and sometimes seven loads, according to the harvest. Some allowance ought to have been made for differences in harvest—whether poor or abundant. Although the Kam people were straightforward and would not dare to make a false report, the room for confusion arising from the ofcial’s estimate of total area—based on the yield-declarations of the villagers—was enormous. The government was not interested in ne distinctions, however, and only wanted an overall estimate of the area which could be used to levy grain taxes. To add to the confusion, the Han nationality landlords from Langdong did not live in Xiangye. Most of their rice paddies were not declared, with the result that there were many unregistered paddy elds in Xiangye. Thus before Liberation no one in Xiangye could say with any condence how many acres of paddy eld belonged to the village, or belonged to any given household. People only knew that the village was generously endowed with rice elds in which sh could be raised, the best so endowed in the vicinity. The people of Xiangye lived by the lunar calendar, calling it ‘the imperial calendar’. The hard-working farmers always asked an educated fortune-teller to examine the imperial calendar before embarking on their farm-work. Once one farmer began work, everyone followed suit. No one needed a special summons and no one ever seemed to be too late or too early in beginning their farm-work. Some farmers ploughed their elds immediately after harvest. This allowed frost to seep into the overturned soil. At the beginning of spring they ploughed once more. They thus farmed intensively, ploughing twice and harrowing twice, so loosening the top layer of soil and improving the effect of fertilizer. People who were not strong enough to plough twice, or who were too lazy to do so, ploughed only once in spring, and after ploughing they harrowed. This was called extensive cultivation, resulting in lower yields than from elds that had been ploughed and harrowed twice. Over three-quarters of the village elds were farmed using the latter, easier form of farming. No matter whether intensive or extensive cultivation was used, the timing of the spring ploughing and harrowing could not be delayed. The shaft of the plough was made of wood and curved like a bow. The old farmers found wood in the mountains that was naturally curved and worked with it a little to make the shaft. The ploughshare was a

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purchased implement, made by iron casting, about 20 centimetres long, shaped like the upturned palm of a person’s hand. The plough was pulled by a water-buffalo and ploughed the land to a depth of 20 or 30 centimetres. The farmer followed behind the plough whipping the water-buffalo, moving forwards slowly. The ploughshare was expensive and was regarded by people as part of their overall wealth. After use, it was hung on the wooden beams of the house and kept there carefully to avoid losing it. The harrow was likewise respectfully maintained. Hence the saying: ‘Even in ten years ploughs and harrows would not be traded for anything’.1 After Chinese New Year and the onset of spring, farmers took the cow dung piled up beside the cowsheds and carried it on shoulder poles to be spread over the paddy elds.2 Then they ooded the elds and ploughed them. In early spring it was still bitterly cold and the water in the elds cut to the bone, so the farmers built bonres on the ridges between the paddy elds. At intervals they would stop ploughing, get out and warm their feet and hands by the res. In one day, the most that could normally be ploughed was one Chinese acre of land, and the farmer would be moaning and groaning all day long. At that time many people were unwilling to endure such suffering, and such people waited until after sowing the rice seeds before commencing this work. In that case, the work of carrying and spreading the cow dung, ploughing and harrowing the elds, was done uninterruptedly and was completed within a month. Before rice seedlings were transplanted into the paddy elds, the earth in the elds had to be levelled out. This was done using a harrow, a rectangular implement constructed from four wooden staffs and pulled by a water-buffalo. Iron nails or wooden pegs (about 10 centimetres in length) were attached to the low horizontal staff, which held 10 or more such ‘teeth’ in place. The high horizontal staff served as an arm-rest for the farmer.3 Such harrows were the same in shape and application as those used by Han Chinese farmers. A special feature of Kam harrowing was that during harrowing, young women and girls from the farmer’s clan would assemble by the eld with sh-baskets tied round their waists. As soon as the farmer

1 2 3

Cf. plate 11. Cf. plate 22 Cf. plate 13.

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took harrow in hand, a jubilant and exuberant scene unfolded. When the water was stirred up by the harrow and sh oated towards the surface, the women rushed to catch the sh and shrimp in bamboo funnels, competing playfully with one another and shouting, laughing and calling to each other. Only after the farmer pulled the harrow up onto the ridge around the eld would the women also get out and put their catch in order, before going home contentedly. This custom was observed throughout the village, a preface to transplanting rice seedlings about a month later. The people of Xiangye relied on their water-buffaloes for growing rice, especially when it came to ploughing and harrowing, as only waterbuffaloes were t for such work. Therefore except for some poor tenant farmers who used buffaloes belonging to their prosperous landlords, every household raised ‘farm buffalo’. The buffaloes were like family and they would not be slaughtered or sold, instead being held in general affection. When a buffalo died of old age, the villagers would weep and the buffalo’s horns would be hung on the beams in the household porch as a means of remembrance. The sentiment built up by the buffalo’s great contribution to farm work was understandable. Ploughing and harrowing with the water-buffalo was a man’s work. It was said that if a woman tried to wield a plough or a harrow, the buffalo would refuse to move, look towards the side of the eld and return to the bank. If the father in a family died or was seized from the community to go and work as a soldier, his brothers or his brothers’ sons would be asked to do the ploughing and harrowing. They understood it to be their duty to help in this way. Ever since ancient times, women had not tilled the land in Xiangye. There were certain poverty-stricken families who did not own farm buffaloes. To cultivate the land they did not use ploughs or harrows, but instead called the whole family into the elds to ‘plough’ them by tramping over them. Each person would lean on a walking stick and slowly kick the soil in the eld loose with his or her feet. After treading the eld in this way, they transplanted rice seedlings. When the cuckoo’s call was heard, as summer began, the season for planting rice seedlings had arrived. Each household chose a plot of land near the village as a seedling eld where seeds were sown fertilized by human excrement. After a month or so, women pulled up the seedlings and passed them on to be transplanted. Transplanting was done without tools by men wearing bamboo hats, who set the seedlings in neat rows about 20 centimetres apart, with about 20 centimetres between

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rows. Their skill in transplanting was entirely down to the experience of doing the job repeatedly from an early age—there was otherwise no special training for the job. An area yielding about three loads of rice (i.e. about 50 square metres) could be transplanted per person per day. The transplanting season lasted about two weeks. As with ploughing and harrowing, so transplanting rice seedlings was a man’s job and families without men would ask clansmen to come and help. In those days you never observed women in the elds transplanting seedlings. Such a taboo did not exist among the Han. At midsummer, it was important to weed the elds where the rice shoots were growing. Usually the elds were weeded twice, until there were practically no weeds or grass left. This was the time when red bayberries were ripening. People stood between rows of rice shoots wearing straw hats or using towels to cover their heads and, without special tools, bent over and used both hands to loosen the soil and pull out any grass or weeds. The weather was usually sultry and because such work caused back-pain, frequent breaks were necessary. Since women’s backs were generally more supple than men’s, the job of weeding the rice-paddies usually fell to the women. Instead, the men cut away grass and weeds on the ridges of the rice-elds. In one day a woman could weed an area capable of yielding two or three loads of rice. This was the period when leftover grain began to run low and life seemed difcult. Women weeding the elds prepared themselves a small helping of rice, containing some pickled vegetables or spicy dip, to have for lunch. Breakfast and dinner was eaten in their own homes. People shared the work of transplanting and weeding in each other’s elds, but the owners of the elds did not provide any food for such work. The Kam people used to say: ‘During this period there is nothing to eat.’ The practice of sharing labour was regarded as ‘overcoming a crisis together’. After the rice budded, there was no further weeding. Instead, each day there was light work to be done around the elds: weeding the surrounding ridges, keeping an eye on the water levels, and checking that the plants grew normally, as harvest approached. When the ears of rice began to emerge, this was called ‘seeing the grain’. According to the climate in Xiangye, 40 days after ‘seeing the grain’, the rice was ripe for harvest. The usual harvest time in Xiangye was late August or early September.

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The rice-threshing period was the happiest and most satisfying time of year for the farmer. The harvest represented the fruits of a year’s hard labour and the realization of a year’s hopes. The period of food shortage was over. Appetites could once again be sated with rice and carp. At harvest time, the year was transitioning from summer to early autumn and the days were ne and dry. Men walked around carrying large rectangular threshing containers on their backs, while women could be seen carrying big wicker baskets on their shoulder poles. The rst step in harvesting was to release about half the water from the paddy elds. In shallow water it was easier to cut the rice and easier to catch the sh. The women went into the elds with sickles in hand to cut the rice and leave it in bundles on top of the rice-stalk stubble. The men collected these bundles and beat them against the inside walls of the threshing containers to extract the rice grain. Then the leftover straw was tied together in a great bundle about the size of a person and was stood up on the ridge of the eld to dry in the sun. A wooden pole was set up or a tree trunk was chosen around which such strawbundles were closely packed together and built into a round pile.4 This straw was later used as fodder for farm cattle in the cold winter. The rice grain was transferred from the threshing containers into wicker baskets and carried back home on shoulder poles. One load might weigh about 50 kilograms. This rice was piled on the top oor of the three-storey homes or poured out into the grain-storage barns. Early each morning for the rst 20 days, the stored rice was turned over with a wooden shovel. Thereafter, it was turned over every ve or six days to prevent it from going mouldy. The rice could only be threshed on ne days, not when it was raining, for fear of subsequent mould. The numbers of men and women involved in harvesting rice were approximately equal. Women cut the rice and men threshed it. This division of labour was clear and usually respected, but typically there was happy banter between men and women. The owner of the eld often placed sh traps there, so that when everyone went home for lunch, a feast of boiled and fried sh often adorned the table. New rice was eaten and rice wine was drunk. The evening meals were even more sumptuous. These were the best days for eating throughout the whole working year.

4

Cf. plate 15.

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About 100 kilograms of rice could be harvested per person per day. Threshing was satisfying work, but at the same time it was very intense and needed to meet denite deadlines. The weather had to be ne for the rice to be brought back home. In Xiangye, the autumn rains began after the Mid-Autumn Festival around mid-September. After that, it tended to keep on raining, which meant that the harvest had to be completely gathered by mid-September. Malaria invariably seemed to strike the village in the ten days leading up to the autumn rains and it always aficted the adult men. For several hours each day they would shiver and shake, feeling alternately freezing and feverish. People had heard that quinine could cure the disease, but no one had enough money to buy the drug. Everyone was braced for the torture of malaria, during which no food could be kept down and only a drink made from fried rice could be drunk. Convalescence could only begin after 10 or 15 days in bed. Therefore many people were unable to thresh the rice and gather the harvest. In such circumstances, the ripe rice leaned over into the water and began to sprout. Women stood there weeping and tying the drooping rice stalks together to try and stop them leaning into the water. They waited for their male relatives to recover so that together they could reap the harvest. If the delay was prolonged, their patience was to no avail: the season of continuous rain arrived with the rice still in the elds. Even if that rice was eventually harvested, there were enormous losses because some of it would have sprouted and some of it would become mouldy. Many people suffered this misfortune every year. Therefore the autumn harvest season was both a time of celebration and a time of anxiety, with the constant dread of falling ill with malaria. Glutinous rice was mainly planted in paddy elds high in the mountains or low in the valleys. In such sheltered land the water was colder and glutinous rice was more resistant to the cold than ordinary rice. Glutinous rice straw was also more resilient than straw from ordinary rice and even after the autumn rains began, it did not immediately droop into the water. Therefore gathering of glutinous rice was always arranged for the time after the ordinary rice had been harvested, usually around October. The people made their way unhurriedly to their paddies, carrying crescent-shaped knives for cutting the glutinous rice stalk by stalk. On average one pole-load—about 50 kilograms—could be cut per day per person. The women excelled at this work, being quicker than men with their hands and on their feet, and more efcient. Therefore women took the leading role in harvesting glutinous rice.

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When doing this work people usually did not go home for lunch. Instead the men used bamboo traps to catch some sh and barbecue them on the ridges beside the paddy elds. Hot pepper and wild herbs were mixed to create the renowned Kam barbecued sh.5 Male and female family members who were working on the harvest together were joined in a large circle by other relatives, and by passers-by, for this traditional lunch. The women ate glutinous rice from their hands while the men wielded large bowls of rice wine. Everyone enjoyed the meal, laughing and joking together. After the ne food, the family returned to the job of harvesting the standing grain. At dusk they went home quickly, shouldering the grain. The rice was hung on the four walls of the kitchen where the re was burning, or high up on the top-oor beams of the house. The evening meal again consisted of glutinous rice and sh, to celebrate the harvest. During that season the only lonely and sad people to be found were those with family members who had fallen sick. In some years, the season for harvesting glutinous rice extended into the month of November. Hanging glutinous rice from the house beams marked the conclusion of the farming year. What followed were preparations for the following year’s cultivation: for example, ploughing the elds before the winter or (re-)constructing ridges between the paddy elds. This was the start of the slack farming season, lasting from November to March. In these four-plus months there was no pressing need to work hard on farming. Men sat idly by the re to chat and keep warm, planning to put some money together and buy cow-heads, bones, hooves, and suchlike to eat together. From time to time, one hoisted a bamboo sh trap on his shoulders and went to his elds to catch a few sh and supplement the family diet.6 During the slack season, the re at home was never allowed to go out. Each day men went to the mountains and chopped rewood, to avoid running out. Some who had greater energy and strength went to the mountains during the slack season and worked on the wasteland there. They carried axes and knives to the designated land and felled trees and foliage, allowing everything to dry in the sun. In spring the following year they burned what was left of the land, and planted seeds

5 6

Cf. illustration on page 88. Cf. page 16.

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in the ‘slash and burn’ area. Corn kernels or millet were sown there. Then a small hoe was used to turn over the land. Where the seeds had been scattered, a scarecrow was erected and left, to scare away sparrows. Fertilizer was not applied and usually no weeding was done. The farmers simply waited until the autumn. Typically in 100 square metres of such cultivated wasteland a harvest of about 33 kilograms of corn or millet was harvested. If, however, it was discovered and destroyed by rats or wild pigs, then only grass was carried back home. It was possible to plant corn or millet on the slash-and-burn land only for two or three years. In the fourth year the land’s fertility was exhausted and the farmers normally allowed it to go fallow. Only those plots that were relatively near the village were used for growing vegetables or cotton, and such plots might be used for a long period. The Xiangye climate was suitable for a winter planting of wheat or rape. After the wheat harvest, paddy rice could be planted again just in time for the rice season. But wheat farming was unknown in the area at that time and the Kam people had never eaten any food derived from wheat. In that generation people in Xiangye only ever planted paddy rice. They did not imagine that there could be other unusual ways to improve their lives. Instead they clung tenaciously to their paddy elds and farm cattle, ruthlessly driven by the farming seasons. Everything had its season—spring sowing, summer weeding, autumn harvesting—and the villagers did what they must to keep in step. The methods, technology and farming implements were completely traditional. No major changes occurred in the several decades before Liberation.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

SPINNING AND WEAVING Samp nguedx xup samp laos sumx xat, xat touk ngox nguedx lis ngox sinc. Enter the spinning room on the third day of the third month; then by the fth month you’ll have spun 25 grams.1

An extended family might not own any land for growing rice but it would always own land for growing cotton, otherwise the family members might not have any clothes to wear. (They could always rent paddy elds for growing rice and share the harvest with the landlord.) Rich or poor, every family owned a plot of cotton-growing land. These plots were developed from wasteland in the mountains and they were called ‘mountain land’. Often several families possessed cotton elds in the same general area. The distance from the village varied and the elds varied in size up to about one Chinese acre (667 square metres). The practice of buying and selling paddy elds arrived early in Xiangye, but cotton elds were never bought or sold. They belonged to the women and everything related to cotton was the domain of the women. The men had nothing to do with growing cotton or making clothes. Every year in April, around the time of the Sweeping the Graves Festival, when men were engrossed in their spring work of ploughing the land, women were busy planting cotton. They carried packed lunches to the cotton elds and worked there, using rakes to dig up the ground and turning it over like earth in the rice paddies. The raked soil was normally exposed to the sun for about ten days. The women brought pig-, chicken- and duck-dung, in baskets hung on shoulder-poles, and spread it evenly over the land. Simultaneously, they scattered cotton seed, using the back of the rake to break up lumps of soil, and raking the soil until it was spread evenly. Thus the seeds and dung were buried together in the earth. Finally, a straw marker was erected in the

1 It takes a long time to make just a little thread, especially if the thread is highquality.

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Transferring yarn onto bobbins.

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centre of the eld to indicate that cotton seeds had been planted and to show that people and livestock should not trample there. Meanwhile, the season of transplanting rice seedlings had arrived. During the four or ve weeks of planting cotton, young women from the same clan usually helped one another to dig the elds or scatter the seeds. Then after two or three months, when the cotton had grown to a height of 8 or 10 centimetres, the women set to work with small hand hoes to weed the elds and loosen the earth. Usually there were two rounds of weeding, during one of which dung from domestic fowl was simultaneously mixed with the earth. The women again shared the job of weeding one another’s cotton elds, doing so in high spirits. The whole process of planting and weeding cotton used only two implements. One was a ve-toothed rake with a wooden handle, the iron teeth each about 12 centimetres long. It was used to dig the earth, to break it up and to rake it. The other was the hand-hoe, with a metal head about four centimetres wide and eight centimetres long, and with a wooden handle about 30 to 60 centimetres long. The hoe was the only tool used in weeding the cotton elds. During the shared labour of planting and weeding cotton, the women brought their own lunch and tools. When evening came the owner of the cotton eld did not need to supply an evening meal. This was a custom commonly followed by rich and poor alike. The rice-threshing season fell at the same time as the cotton buds were opening. The cotton elds looked as though they were covered in snow. The women tied sh-baskets at their waists and carefully plucked the cotton, placing it into the baskets. When a basket was full, its contents were placed on the ground and the collection started up again. Alternatively, if sh-baskets were not used, the women pulled their aprons up and lled them with the cotton. When all the cotton had been gathered, it was taken home. Every day, however, new cotton owers bloomed and the women needed to collect them, or else they might fall to the ground and become dirty. If the cotton was dirty, there was no way of de-seeding, teasing, spinning and weaving it. Each household found time during the rice-threshing season for picking cotton. When the autumn rains arrived, some cotton buds were still unopened in the elds. These were then picked, taken home, and spread out in the room above the kitchen, where the re was burning. There they dried and opened up, and the cotton was taken out.

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The cotton output varied, but usually the year’s crop, when woven into cloth, was enough for clothing the whole family, young and old. Large families planted more cotton. Families without any women planted no cotton, but typically depended on the generosity of others for their clothes. The slack farming season began as the cotton harvest ended. Those winter days were the days when the women had most work to do indoors. Before spinning and weaving, cotton seeds needed to be removed. This was called ‘gripping the cotton’. After the cotton had been picked and dried in the sun, it was placed into a bamboo baking basket. A gleaming hot block of charcoal was placed in the ash underneath the baking basket and left overnight. The next day the seeds could be removed from the cotton using a gin. The gin was a square-shaped wooden frame, with two horizontal iron rods in the middle, approximately three centimetres in diameter. Between the two rods there was a small slit. When the right hand turned the handle, one iron rod rotated inwards. One foot operated a footboard that made the other rod rotate outwards. Cotton was constantly fed into the small seam by hand and the cotton seeds were squeezed out by the two iron rods. They fell into a container in front of the cotton gin, while the cotton was squeezed through the gin and fell into a cloth sack at the back, thus completing the separation of cotton from seeds. Large families had their own cotton gins, while others could borrow the gins. One or two days of work was enough for a woman to nish de-seeding the cotton for her family. All married women knew how to operate the gins. The next step was to invite an expert to come and tease the cotton. Both Dazhai and Xiaozhai were home to such an expert and both experts were local Kam people. The craft amounted to a family business and for generations there were only two men—one in each of two families—in the community who were engaged in this work. Between them they shared the work of cotton-teasing in Dazhai and Xiaozhai. They used two basic tools: one was a teasing bow which came together with a stool; the other a wooden hammer about 25 centimetres long. The hammer was used to strike an extremely tough string made of cattle tendon stretched tight on the bow. The women placed straw on the porch oor and spread cotton on top. The teasing expert sat on his short stool and with his right hand

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he continually struck the cord strung across the bow. The vibrating cord gradually ripped the cotton owers open one by one and the cotton became like uffy velvet. After repeating the teasing procedure two or three times, the cotton was ready for spinning. The experts could tease about two or three kilograms of cotton per day and so within one day a household’s cotton could be completely teased. The head of the household paid the teasing expert about eight kilograms of rice per day plus good meals. This was established practice and in over a decade no departures from this practice were observed. The woman of the house rolled this teased cotton onto a piece of bamboo about 30 centimetres long. She held the bamboo in her left hand, while with her right hand she pressed a at wooden board against the cotton on the bamboo. She did not stop pushing this down while the cotton was rolled into slivers about 20 centimetres long and of nger-thickness. These were tied with rice straw into one bundle of slivers waiting to be spun. Soon after a woman carried a bundle of cotton slivers into her bedroom, her spinning wheel rotated into action. The women of Xiangye used foot-operated (vertical) spinning wheels,2 whereas only hand-operated spinning wheels were used by Han Chinese people. If someone was seen spinning with a hand-operated wheel, it was assumed that she was a Han woman. The women of Xiangye loved their spinning wheels. When not in use, the wheels were hung from the beams of the house to protect them from damage. Young unmarried women especially cherished the wheels, painting them red or black and frequently dusting them so that they appeared bright and clean. The wheels were in use for as long as the women lived and were then bequeathed to the next generation. Some wheels were still in use after ve or six generations. Only when a house had burnt down and there had been no time to save the spinning wheel would the wheel fail to be passed on to a younger woman in the family. In autumn and winter, after household and outdoor chores had been completed, the women sat and worked at their spinning wheels, spinning the uffy cotton into yarn. The yarn was rolled onto a small

2

Cf. plate 17.

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stalk of straw about the size of a pencil, forming a spool thick in the middle and thin at either end. The usual time for spinning cotton was in the evenings after dinner, after feeding the pigs and boiling the pigs’ food for the next day. Each woman set her spinning wheel up beside the re and worked without a break from 8 or 9 pm to 11 or 12 pm. Working intensely in this way, one woman could spin two spools of cotton a night (approximately 150 grams). With poor technique or poor quality cotton, this amount might be halved. The women worked earnestly, needing to spin a year’s supply of cotton in the space of three or four months. As soon as the spinning was complete, the weaving season began. There was no time for delay. So in spring, shortly after the cotton had been planted and the rice seedlings had been transplanted, the women began to weave the yarn. A square yarn rack was assembled in the porch. The yarn was wound from the spools onto the yarn rack until a bundle weighing about 250 grams was formed. The bundles were taken off the rack and boiled in water made alkaline by adding plant ash. Then they were soaked thoroughly in rice-water, scooped up and dried in the sun. This whole process, called starching, caused the cotton yarn to be tough and smooth. The starched cotton yarn was again wound round the yarn rack, and from there it was wound onto bobbins. A bobbin was made of thin bamboo strips (see illustration). About two bundles of yarn were wound round one bobbin. Then the bobbins, which now held the cotton yarn, were positioned onto the loom. The work of transferring the yarn onto the loom was painstaking, time-consuming and urgent, as it had to be completed within one day for fear of its being spoiled. Usually this work required the women to be on their feet from morning ’til night. Older women trained their juniors—daughters or daughtersin-law. Outsiders were not invited to do this work. The women of Xiangye used a standard loom,3 made from timber beams, one yarn axle or shaft for feeding the warp yarn, two harnesses for dividing the warp, each harness consisting of two rods holding a set of buckles (or heddles), two footboards, one weaving board, one cloth

3

See plate 18.

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axle, one seat-board, and one boat-shaped shuttle that drew the weft.4 After starching, the toughened cotton yarn threaded smoothly through the various machine components. Each thread of yarn on the yarn shaft passed through one of the two harnesses. Alternate threads moved to the top while the adjacent threads were separated and moved to the bottom. Top and bottom formed a bell-shaped passage or shed for the weft shuttle. Stepping on the footboard caused the two harnesses to be shifted, and the top threads and the bottom threads were repeatedly intersected and separated. The shuttle drew the weft yarn through the transient space that separated the intercrossing warp threads. Each time it passed through, the woman pulled the weaving board pressing the intertwining threads tightly together to form cloth. The woman leaned on the wooden frame with both hands moving to the rhythm of the footboard, never ceasing to pull on the weaving board. Only when the warp broke was there a pause to tie the thread together. Sometimes the wooden comb from the woman’s hair would be used to comb the warp in the loom and prevent it from becoming tangled up. Summer was usually the main season for weaving, after weeding the rice elds and raking the cotton elds. The women sat on the porches at their looms, weaving thread by thread. The sound of the loom was monotonous. The cloth slowly lengthened before the eyes of the weaver and far from feeling bored, she would feel delighted, even proud. One person could weave about 1.5 metres of cloth per day, about 35 centimetres wide. Thus to weave 30 metres of cloth took about 20 days. An item of clothing for one adult man used about three metres of cloth. The cloth from each year’s weaving was sufcient for the whole family’s needs. Not every family owned a loom, but those without could borrow one. One loom would typically be used by several generations of women. In summer and autumn you often saw girls of about ten years of age—still wearing trousers—sitting on the oors of the wooden homes. One end of a bunch of warp yarn would be tied to their waists, while the other end would be tied onto a wooden pillar. The warp yarn would be separated by two horizontal sticks and with their right hands the girls 4 In general, weaving involves the interlacing of two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp and the weft. With the warp threads held taut and parallel on the loom, bobbins of weft thread are shuttled through a transient space, or shed, created between alternate warp threads.

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would thread a small spool of weft yarn between the warp. They used a bamboo strip to act as the weaving board, pulling it to pack the threads tightly together. This was a simple use of loom and weaving principles. The girls could weave strips with beautiful geometric patterns, used as trouser belts for young men or waistbands for themselves. The villagers liked the colour indigo, because it did not show up the dirt. The dark blue dye was obtained by fermenting leaves of plants of the genus indigofera. These thin-leaved plants were grown in the vegetable gardens, like potatoes, furrow by furrow. At the beginning of autumn the leaves were picked and placed in wooden water-lled barrels beside the stream, and left to soak. They rotted within two or three days, releasing pigment to the water. Leaves, branches and other dregs were then taken out and a small amount of lime was mixed into the barrel. Then the liquid was repeatedly scooped up and poured back in, using a wooden ladle. This caused the colour to precipitate, forming sediment at the bottom of the barrel. The next day the supernatant water was poured away and the sediment paste was taken to make the indigo dye. There was a large wooden barrel standing on the porch of each house. The paste was rst dissolved in water in a wooden ladle and then poured into this barrel. Half a litre of rice wine was mixed in. Then the white woven cloth, washed clean, was gradually dipped into the dye in the barrel. Usually the cloth was placed in the barrel in the evening and left there overnight. Early the next morning, it was taken out and washed in the stream. Then it dried in the sun during the day.5 This whole process was repeated for a month or more, with the same cloth. After the cloth had been dyed indigo it was called ‘blue cloth’ and could be used to make everyday clothing—as worn by most adults in Xiangye. Some Kam cloth underwent further processing until it was shiny. The manufacturing process and raw materials used were the same as those used in other southern Kam mountain villages. This shiny cloth was especially precious and was used for a woman’s wedding costume or for a man’s festival clothing. Spinning and weaving were entirely the work of the women. In autumn and winter, only the men experienced a ‘slack’ season. The women enjoyed no such luxury. They worked full-time 365 days a year.

5

Cf. plate 19.

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CHAPTER NINE

THRIFTY PEOPLE Ongl qaenp eis yuv jeml, ongl qat eis xup sinc. Heavy work doesn’t cost gold; small jobs don’t cost money.

The fertile soil around Xiangye sustained paddy elds and dense forests. There was an abundance of growth everywhere that helped to satisfy everyday needs. Generations of people depended on the local resources that nature provided, gaining from them a livelihood, an education and an afnity with their surroundings. In and around the mountain-ringed valley, gardens were created and land was opened up for farming. Men farmed the land for food while women grew, spun and wove cotton for clothing. People were thus self-sufcient in food and clothing. They were born into nature and survived courtesy of nature’s endowments. Houses were built with columns and beams of China r, with bark from the trees to cover the roofs. Except for wild vine that tied together the bark on the roofs, everything in the houses was made of China r. If in former ages it was true that in the mountain forests ‘Trees were used as pillars and people lived upstairs’, then in later generations the China r trees from the wild forests were moved to the villages to create wooden ganlan buildings. Traditionally, houses could not be built without China r. The people did not purposely clear the land and plant China r, but if they ever encountered China r saplings as they were clearing ground around the paddy elds, they left the young trees untouched. Thereafter, they pruned the branches every year and after a decade or more, the trees would have grown sufciently to be used for building purposes. When people collected rewood in the mountains, they also treated China r saplings with respect. Therefore whether beside paddy elds or by mountain paths, China r trees were ever-present, growing straight up; sometimes only a few, sometimes a little copse with 10 or more, and sometimes a whole hillside. They belonged to whoever took care of them.

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Weaving straw sandals in the evening.

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When a house was under construction, the owner would arrange for clansmen and neighbours to fell some of his own trees and carry them back to the village. The owner would not pay money for this service, but would instead treat the workers to a good dinner. Occasionally a family did not own any China r and in this case, the timber was donated by clansmen or other villagers and again there was no nancial outlay. Once the house frame was erected,1 one room was rst completed for moving into. The move would be made when the time and conditions were right. The work of house-building typically proceeded sporadically and often lasted one or two years. Occasionally a carpenter was employed for a few days and was paid using the household grain. Whenever a carpenter came to do such work, family members often worked alongside him, learning how to lay the oors and build the walls, so that they would not need to invite him again. Therefore no one paid money for building a house, from the time the wood was carried back from the mountains, to the time the building was completed. Unless destroyed by re, a house was occupied by several generations of people. Even if the columns and beams began to decay, people continued to live there. Unless a family had no heir, the house was not dismantled. Household beds, stools, tables and wooden barrels of different sizes were all made from China r. They were either self-made or obtained in exchange for grain. People took special care of these household items. Some barrels for pickling sh were in use for more than 10 generations and still unspoiled. Dustpan-shaped baskets,2 sh baskets, rice baskets and winnowing baskets were important implements for transportation and storage. Nearly all the men could weave such baskets. First bamboo was chopped and brought down from the mountainside. Then a re was started on the ground oor of the home and chopping knives were used to help peel the heated bamboo, resulting in thin bamboo strips. The basket frame was made from branches of mixed wood, according to the intended use. One whole basket was easily custom-made in only a few hours. People were never short of such baskets, treating them carefully and often using them for a whole generation before they decayed.

1 2

Cf. plate 21. Cf. plate 22.

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Each man also knew how to weave straw sandals using straw from glutinous rice, which was fairly tough. A man sat on a low horizontal beam of the house, stretching his two feet out to rest on a short wooden stick. The ends of four strands of straw rope were tied on the stick and the other ends were tied round the man’s waist. The man twisted glutinous rice straw in his hands and wove it through the four strands of rope. In this way, a pair of sandals could be made in an evening. They were worn for long journeys or while carrying loads with the shoulder pole. Usually men worked barefoot and the skin on their feet became calloused. During frosty winter days, their heels cracked open and you could see the raw esh. Then in the evenings, they pounded glutinous rice against the stone curb beside the re until it became a gluey paste, and blocked up the heel cracks with it, sticking it on like a plaster. This eased the pain, prevented the cracks growing bigger, and also prevented unwanted bacteria entering the cracks. Every household had a repit (or hearth). During the cold days in autumn, winter and spring, family members sat in a circle warming themselves or doing handicrafts around the re in the repit. In one day, they often burned about 50 kilograms of wood. Chopping rewood in the mountains outside the village was a man’s work. After trees were felled more trees would grow and timber resources seemed inexhaustible. Each day, after working in the elds, the men usually chopped rewood nearby and carried it home to fuel the re. Older people were adept at keeping the res alive at night by covering them with ash. There were still some sparks left after even a day or two. If by chance a re was completely extinguished, a man took an iron slab and struck it with int. Fine straw would be used to intercept the resulting sparks, until smoke became a ame. The local people called this method of starting a re ‘harvesting a re’. They never bought matches (called ‘ocean matches’, from across the ocean). Instead, the home res were generally kept burning and smoke continuously curled into the sky from the roofs (which more often than not were not endowed with smoke-holes), announcing the existence of the villagers. Rice grain was used as payment for carpenters, cotton-teasers or other artisans. It was also sold to buy salt; used to brew alcohol and satisfy the men’s daily habit of drinking; to feed the pigs and so generate meat; to feed household poultry, which provided eggs and meat; to give as a gift; or to trade for sewing needles. Rice was the most treasured currency of the village.

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The paddy elds provided an additional precious resource. Throughout the four seasons of the year, the elds were home to sh and shrimp, loaches, eels and snails. If you wanted a sh meal—for example, when guests arrived—sh were readily found in the elds. Either men or women might go to catch some. There were also many kinds of sh in the village stream and the nearby Langdong river. The water was crystal-clear and you could see into every nook and cranny of the stream. Day or night, shermen used nets to make a catch, up to four or ve kilograms at a time. Women and children could catch two or three kilograms using a bamboo sh trap or even their bare hands. During August, in the midst of the dry season and the summer heat, young men went to the mountains and cut chilli grass. The grass was piled beside the Langdong river and crushed using stones or thick wooden clubs and then pushed over into the river. Once the sh and shrimp tasted the spicy medicinal water, they oated dizzily to the surface, to be caught by the waiting villagers, young and old, male and female, who had been summoned to join in the activity. This spicy water affected a kilometre of the river and people competed with one another to catch the sh, yelling and laughing with excitement. For the lucky ones, the catch was heavy. The men who made the spicy medicine were the ones who did the heavy work and deserved the most credit, but they were last to start catching sh and most sh were caught by others right in front of their noses. Everyone was eager to see who had been most successful, but they did not worry about who had caught more or less sh, and they certainly did not argue about it. On one such occasion the author went with his mother to Langdong river to catch sh and suddenly saw a mandarin sh right in front of him. He reached out to grab it, but someone shouted out urgently that it would cut his hand! That was no joke! He withdrew his hand, only for the person who had shouted to catch the big sh in a net. The author still remembers that sh with some regret as the one that got away, but everyone caught something to bring home and to enjoy eating in the evening, so everyone was satised. Thanks to the paddy elds, the stream and the river, even the poorest villagers, without a penny in their pockets, could eat sh and shrimp all year round. After marriage, everyone set up house and no matter how poor the family, it possessed a vegetable garden, growing among other things

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green leafy vegetables, squashes, beans, garlic, onions, radishes, peppers and sweet potatoes. The housewife daily picked enough vegetables for the family’s use. Bachelors, orphans or widows were generously looked after by other villagers, who supplied them with free vegetables every day. No one bought vegetables and no one went without. Many wild herbs grew in the mountains. Wild mushrooms that covered the mountainsides in summer and autumn were delicious. In winter there were special fragrant mushrooms. According to legend you needed to experiment by eating these with silver chopsticks—if the chopsticks turned black, it showed that they were poisonous. For this reason, not many people gathered them to eat, but instead simply observed them growing, sprouting and dying. Plum and pear trees grew beside the vegetable gardens and were taken as belonging to the owners of the gardens, although they had not usually been cultivated. Peach, apricot, bayberry and chestnut trees all grew in the wild. When the fruit was ripe, farmers brought home a parcel of it at the end of every day’s work using straw as wrapping, which was later used to feed the cows. The fruit was poured into a wicker basket for people to help themselves. Leftovers were thrown out and a new harvest was brought back the following day. In occasional years of drought and famine, villagers shouldered their hoes and went to the mountains to dig for a certain herb. It was a kind of fern which was to be found all over the mountains. Fresh tender shoots of this fern could be eaten and its roots were rich in starch. Han people in the area called it ‘brake fern’ ( juecai ).3 The roots were dug out, then pounded and broken down, and nally placed in a large wooden barrel where they precipitated. The starch could be taken out and fried. One person could dig out enough roots in a day to make ve kilograms of starch. That was enough to feed a family of ve for a day. With this fern, the people of Xiangye survived the most serious of all famines in living memory, the one in 1926. Not one person died. The salt supply in Xiangye at the time was from Guangxi and Guangdong. Salt was both scarce and expensive and most people could not afford it. The few households that had some small savings were unwilling to use the money to buy salt. Instead they preferred to exchange 50 kilograms of rice for about 500 grams of table salt. People generally

3

Cf. plate 23.

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ate their food without salt and as a result many people suffered from goiter, as salt was a major source of iodine. In the distant past, a procedure for pickling vegetable, sh and meat was discovered, using alkaline water instead of salt, made by adding straw ash and wood ash to water. With this alkaline water, the food became sour and acidic, and the acid and alkali together simulated salt. There was no salt avour but food processed in this way was at least edible. Such processing was a good substitute for the salt that would otherwise have to be supplied from outside the village. Every day the women treated their hair with tea tree oil, plant oil or pig oil to keep it beautiful and shiny. The wood-ash alkaline water was also their detergent. It was used for washing both face and clothes, with better effect even than soap. Women also picked honey locust leaves from the mountains and used the juice from these to serve as a detergent. People never bought soap. The village only had one sorcerer who liaised with the gods and the spirits to deal with calamities, but this man could not heal illnesses. There was even less chance of being healed by a medical doctor, because there was none in the vicinity. Illnesses were treated using traditional remedies, based on natural plants and herbs. For example, for cuts you could pluck leaves from the mountainside chestnut trees, chew them sodden and apply them to the wounded area. Alternatively you could apply spiders’ webs. In either case, the bleeding would stop. If inammation of tonsils caused fever and a sore throat, people went to the Chinese sweet gum tree on the outskirts of the village and scraped off some of the sap. This was applied on the tonsils and before long the patient was often fully recovered. Alternatively, a kind of grease oozing from burning wood and collected on a knife blade or on a agstone, could be applied with the same effect. If a child’s belly was sore or the child had fever, people often used tobacco tar from homegrown tobacco to rub on the child’s navel (for stomach ache) or forehead (for fever). This sometimes cured the problem. If an adult caught a cold, the usual remedy was to squeeze the bridge of the nose, the neck or the back, until the skin turned purple. This sometimes relieved congestion or reduced inammation. Alternatively, a hot coal was placed on an alcohol glass, bamboo tube or buffalo horn. The container was then pressed repeatedly against the affected area, drawing out body heat, until the area turned purple. In the summer and autumn seasons, the men often became hot and thirsty at work,

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then stripped to the waist and drank cold water. Subsequently they often became ill with colds and other illnesses. Then they used this treatment to good effect. There were two afictions that could not be treated using traditional methods. One was poisonous snake-bites—dreaded by the people of Xiangye. Normally you simply had to stand by and watch the victim die. The other was malaria, which commonly affected men in summertime. Except for drinking fried rice drink and another refreshing tea made from leaves found in the wild, there was no way of treating malaria. No one sold quinine in the vicinity and even if it had been sold, the people of Xiangye could not have afforded such an expensive medicine. Instead they suffered stoically through the various stages of the disease and some simply did not survive. People did not buy calendars or watches or clocks. Instead they observed the leaves on the trees turning green or falling, and knew when spring or autumn had arrived, respectively. On hearing the sound of cuckoos in the trees, they knew it was time to sow rice seeds. On hearing the sound of cicadas, they knew it was midsummer. On seeing the frost descending, they knew it was the middle of winter. Any day of the year that had no special signicance, they simply did not need to remember. In special circumstances if someone wanted clarication about a certain date, he or she had to consult a private teacher. People generally did not even know the year of their birth. Everyone could distinguish the important times in a given day. For example, when the cock crowed once or twice, it was one or two o’clock in the early morning. When it crowed three or four times, it was just before daybreak. When it crowed ve times, it was around seven o’clock in the morning. People’s shadows were shortest and straightest at high noon. When your shadow fell to the west, it was morning; when it fell to the east, it was afternoon. If there were red clouds in the western sky, then it was almost dusk. If the weather was overcast, the children always wanted to eat earlier than usual. Since the adults were unable to distinguish early from late, they had no basis on which to persuade the children to wait. Although the area was rich in natural resources, which were more than enough to sustain people’s life and growth, local knowledge and technology were backward and decient, and people could only harness a small proportion of what was available. Therefore the physical conditions were actually quite poor and life was extremely difcult.

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People constantly needed to take good care of their food and clothing. From youth to old age they were always economizing. Metal possessions were handed down from one generation to the next: for women a sewing needle, a thimble or a pair of scissors; for men a knife for chopping rewood, a vegetable knife or a steel object for making sparks against int. Wooden jars, stools and barrels were similarly used for generations and were never discarded. Even when house beams started to decay and the house became unsafe, people still lived there cautiously and did not pull the old house down and build a new one just because it was dangerous. Xiangye people believed in living by economizing because without such frugality, they could not have survived. At that time two young men in the extended Ou family, both bachelors, rebelled against their parents’ upbringing. They liked to eat, but did not like to work. They did not economize, but casually bought goods from the market town. Before long, they both came to a premature end. One had a prosperous older brother. After the family property was divided, the younger man set up a new home and lived there alone. He did not do any physical labour, but ate well. It was said that he did not get light from burning pine wood (cut into pieces from branches of pine trees), but instead spent money on a battery torch. Once he used the torch while eating his evening meal. When this was discovered, the whole village was shocked. Old people sighed and said: ‘The family is ruined! The family is ruined!’ Before too long he inexplicably vanished from his home. No one knew where he had gone and no one talked about him or even so much as mentioned his name again. It was assumed he was dead. The second rebellious bachelor was in his twenties. After his parents died, he alone inherited the house, the paddy elds and the family property. He liked washing clothes and was often seen beside the stream repeatedly pounding his clothes against the stones. After he had washed them several times, however, the clothes became rags, full of holes. The villagers thought this was very strange and often talked about it. Everyone said the young man had copied the Han people and bought soap for washing clothes and that he was the black sheep of the family. After half a year, he also disappeared without trace. There was no smoke from his roof. No one from the village saw him leave and no one enquired as to whether he was dead or alive. Again it was assumed that he was dead.

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The people of Xiangye relied mostly on nature and the natural resources around them for survival. The only way they could earn money was by selling rice or home-made cloth. The number of households involved in such trade was very small, less than 5%. Most families were not able to sell more than a few hundred kilograms of rice. Only one or two families were able to sell a thousand kilograms or more. But rice was cheap and became ever cheaper. For one silver coin (about ve yuan in today’s currency) you could buy 50 kilograms. Then it became 100 kilograms, then 150 kilograms. In the years leading up to Liberation, no one sold rice any more. Those fortunate people who had earlier saved a little money were determined to keep it. They wrapped it in clothing and hid it among piles of rice, or buried it in the ground, checking every few days on the security of their savings, until just before death they would bequeath it to their sons. Any unsold and surplus mouldy rice was used to feed the pigs or domestic fowl, or used to brew alcohol. There were about three or four households in each of Dazhai and Xiaozhai whose skilful and hard-working women were able to weave surplus cloth. In each household there were about three to six metres left over to be sold. On market days, this cloth was taken to Langdong, but it was extremely difcult to sell and sometimes remained unsold. If sold, it earned one or two yuan to spend on jewellery for the women’s daughters. As they did not have much that could be sold and because it was difcult to sell what they had, many generations of Xiangye people stayed well away from the markets and from any business. They viewed setting up a stall and selling things as tantamount to losing one’s selfrespect. They were embarrassed to set a price for their products and to bargain over the price. If others did not like what they were selling, they became yet more embarrassed, even ashamed. Therefore no one engaged in trade full-time and those who went to market to sell a few small surplus items were few and far between, and became fewer with time. People preferred to give things away to poorer neighbours, or to barter. It was common to see travelling salesmen or peddlers entering the village in autumn and winter, carrying their wares on shoulder poles. Villagers exchanged eggs for sewing needles and thimbles. One egg was worth one needle. Three eggs were exchanged for one thimble. A hen was worth a pair of scissors. Miao people from the vicinity, who neither grew cotton nor made their own clothes, also came to the village from

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time to time to exchange cocks or earthenware jars for old clothing. One item of old clothing could be exchanged for one or two big cocks or one jar. Villagers were not ashamed or embarrassed about engaging in this kind of bartering, but were comfortable with it. A small surplus of goods was generally handled by being given away rather than sold, even if the ‘surplus’ was not really a surplus. Some people gave generously to those who were desperately in need, considering it an honour to be able to give. In that impecunious society, unnecessary spending was generally considered shameful, and big-spenders were denounced as ‘sluggards’ or ‘bastards who ruined the family’.

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CHAPTER TEN

MORNINGS AND EVENINGS Nyenc yagp yenv maenl tent, nyenc soic guaiv maenl yais. Hard-working people complain that the day is too short; sluggards give off that the day is too long.

In the early morning there were three main activities: hulling rice with the treadmill, cutting grass for the buffaloes and kindling the re in the kitchen. If these three things were not attended to in a given family, then the likelihood was that the family had no heir. If they could not be done properly or if they were postponed and then done only reluctantly, it showed that the family was starting to decline: composed of either old and inrm, or young and orphaned, without anyone to take care of them. Before dawn, it was customary not to light candles or lamps. The young wife or unmarried young woman climbed out of bed and went directly to the food steamer, from where she poured some unhusked rice into the winnowing basket. From there she hurriedly went downstairs to begin work on the treadmill, hulling the rice. If she rose late, she was not on time to pound the rice needed for breakfast and the day got off to a bad start. While the woman was hulling the rice, the young men of the household got up, clambered downstairs and went to the open country to cut some grass, carrying a sickle and wooden pole. If they were late going out to work, the buffalo went hungry. Motivated by a sense of duty, they did their work as promptly as possible, always rising before dawn and not delaying. The older woman in the household also rose at this time, carrying rewood to replenish the re. Afterwards she woke the children and helped the youngest ones to get dressed, leading them to the reside to keep warm sitting on tree-trunk stools by the re. They were not allowed to sleep in. In order to keep warm, the older man in the family sometimes set his bed beside the repit. Otherwise, he slept on the oor just above the re. Once the older woman had kindled the re, everyone gathered

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A man carrying bundles of grass for the buffalo while a woman pounds rice.

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around the re chatting and laughing. The old man, even though he might have wanted to continue sleeping, was unable to rest peacefully any more. In any event, if he was sleeping on the oor above the re he soon noticed smoke lling the room, slowly spreading around the top oor from the hole above the repit, then again slowly dispersing through the roof of the house, where there was a special hole for that purpose, which could be closed over if it was raining. If he was sleeping there, the old man was soon forced by the thick smoke to get up. So throughout the year, people rose at daybreak. Apart from orphans who had no one to wake them, the inrm and a few opium smokers, no one stayed in bed until the sun had risen. In the mornings, smoke curled its way into the sky from the kitchen res in Xiangye. The sound of treadmills pounding rice—some faster, some slower—gradually spread around the village. The bustle of life was beginning again. Housewives let chickens and ducks out of their cages. Pigs and dogs ran everywhere, scavenging food. Some housewives went to the vegetable gardens. Others went to the ancient wells to collect water; stood in the open porches taking cloth out of the dyeing barrels to wash; washed clothes or cloth by the stream; or nursed their babies. The old men unhurriedly led buffaloes to graze on the ridges between the paddy elds. After warming themselves by the re, children ran downstairs to play under the buildings or in the lanes between the buildings. At this time of day there was much hustle and bustle and there hardly seemed time to sit down. If by some misfortune burglars had stolen someone’s chickens, ducks, clothing or sh from the paddy elds—events that had seldom happened in earlier times—the stricken housewife stood at her house entrance calling curses in a loud and protracted voice. She plaintively cursed the burglars, calling trouble and ill fate on them. Villagers called this ‘chicken-cursing’, as chickens were most frequently the objects of the theft. Such abuse typically lasted 20 or 30 minutes, but it happened only rarely in those days. One moment the housewife was yelling and screaming, the next she was ridiculing and reviling, and the next weeping loudly like a child. This torrent of despair was always accompanied in the background by the crowing of domestic fowl and the pounding of pestle and mortar. With all the noise going on, the whole village seemed to be seething with excitement, uniting in a cacophony of activity. This continued from around 5.30 am to 9 am. At about 8 am, the sound of hulling rice

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gradually began to tail off and men returned home one after another carrying great loads of grass for the buffaloes. Noise subsided into silence and around 9 am people everywhere would begin breakfast. The lively morning activities thus gently faded into tranquility. After breakfast, many men went to relax on the ground oor of the home of one of the Yangs, which was spacious and centrally located, draping coats round their shoulders and patting their bellies as they went. Some sat smoking their bamboo pipes, listening respectfully to others and throwing in a few sentences from time to time. Some waxed loquacious in a ood of information about matters from yesterday or the day before. They remarked upon which sections of the rivers were full of sh or which fruits on the mountains were ripe. Tales related after trips to the markets attracted the most attention. The men mused over how some townspeople sat around idly, yet had plenty of good food to eat; how some sticks of charcoal were pulled out and stolen from the bundles carried into town to be sold by the Miao men; and how some people were ogged and beaten by township ofcials. Around 10 am, people dispersed. In the busy farming season, men and women picked up their tools one after another and went to the paddy elds or the countryside to work. Visitors to the village then only observed a few old people and children. Otherwise, the village was deserted. As the sun set, the villagers stopped work for the day and made their way home. Some of the men carried rewood on shoulder poles, others directly on their shoulders. Some bore ploughs or harrows on their shoulders, while others carried grass for the water-buffaloes to eat. Women carried dustpan-shaped baskets stacked full of duckweed or wild vegetables, dangling on shoulder-poles. Some hung grass or cloth bundles from their shoulders. Others secured sh baskets around their waists or carried baskets by the handles. Some had their hands full carrying baskets of vegetables. Everyone returned with a full load. Even the older folk, who drove home the cattle, carried at least a bundle of rewood on their shoulders. Anyone entering the village empty-handed in the evening was certainly not Kam, but of another nationality. At dusk no one remained out in the wilds. Men and women, young and old, returned home. Broods of ducks and hens clucked and quacked their way around the village, and squeezed back into their pens for the night. Housewives scattered rice grains on the ground while calling out to the birds, simultaneously counting them to see if they were all there. Men securely closed the pens for the pigs and buffaloes. Afterwards

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the men busied themselves splitting pine branches to prepare some illumination for the night. Women went to the wells to collect water, or gathered rewood from piles on the ground oor of the house, to start a re and make a meal. When the res were blazing, men sat nearby chain-smoking their pipes full of home-grown tobacco. Children also assembled together, watching the housewives working, and waiting for dinner. Some people lit pine wood chips and itted in and out, upstairs, downstairs, through this house and that. In some places there were streams of light, in others only specks here and there. The village was full of activity again. As the curtain of night drew across the desolate day, everything was full of excitement again. Matchmakers usually chose to visit at this time of day, to discuss a potential marriage alliance. Brides who had stayed for a while at their parental home usually returned to their husband’s home at this time of day. People assumed that no outsiders would enter the village so late, so they could comfortably spend the night at home relaxing. As far as the men were concerned, the day’s work nished at dinner-time. In the cold season, men huddled round the re after dinner and relaxed. In the hot season, they gathered on the porch to enjoy the cool air. As far as the women were concerned, preparing dinner was not the end of the day’s work. While men and children were resting, chatting and playing, women were busy boiling pig food for the next day, soaking cloth in dye barrels, or sitting at their spinning wheels, spinning cotton. They worked on one hand, and laughed and chatted on the other, as though they were simply relaxing. Men liked to visit one by one, smoking their pipes. (Women did not have time for such visiting.) As soon as a visitor took a seat by the re, the housewife presented him with a bunch of leaves for smoking. Visitors chatted and smoked until after 10 pm, then left. Men and women, old and young alike often sat together around the re. There was mutual respect between older and younger generations, and everything was quarrel-free, peaceful and harmonious. It was the happiest and most tranquil time of day, and helped establish warm bonds and relationships among family members. It was also at this time, while young women were at their spinning wheels, that young men came by to visit in twos and threes. The men were attracted by the penetrating sound at each rotation of the small ‘cat’s ear’—a piece of bamboo the size of a pen-tip—attached to each

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spinning wheel by its unmarried owner. The men whistled in the darkness outside to announce their presence. Some accompanied the sound of the cotton-spinning on the erhu (a two-stringed bowed instrument having a low but mellow sound, its resonator being made of wood and covered with boa skin—the bow is pulled between the two strings), the pipa (a plucked, three-stringed instrument made of wood, with a ngerboard shaped like a melon-seed, and a long bending neck) or the niubatui (the ‘cow’s leg’, also known as niutuiqin, a two-stringed instrument played with a bow like a violin).1 As far as they were concerned, the night air was lled with feelings of romance. Such evening activities continued until around 11 pm, before gradually diminishing. Six or seven hours later, the bustling morning began again and so the cycle continued. Mornings and evenings were the two most spirited times of the day for the people of Xiangye.

1 For a photograph of the niubatui, see plate 24 in Geary et al. (2003), adjacent to p. 171. For a description in Chinese, see Ou Chaoquan and Jiang Daqian (2002), p. 395, the entry for 果吉.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

FOOD Daens eis liic seel, jil eis douv semt. When dressing you need a belt; and when eating you can’t do without sour food.

Residents of Xiangye ate whatever it was possible to eat from the plant and animal life surrounding the village. Except when poisonous, there were no taboos against eating any particular thing. Three hundred and sixty-ve days a year there was food to be found from the paddy elds, the vegetable gardens, the stream and the mountains. Some of the rich variety of food is discussed below according to categories based on means of production. Boiled food. Boiling was the most popular method for making the two main daily meals and people typically referred to ‘preparing a meal’ as ‘boiling a meal’. Usually rice, sh, meat, vegetables and mushrooms were all boiled. Wok-shaped pots made of earthenware or crude iron were used. Food and water were placed in a pot, covered with a lid and boiled on a tripod over a wood re.1 Care was taken not to overcook and make the food mushy. Stewing was used to prepare mushy food, but few items were stewed and these became ever fewer over the years. In the early twentieth century, villagers began to use ordinary rice as their staple food. Every day one meal of rice was cooked in the morning and one in the evening. First water was boiled in the pot. Then unwashed rice grain, enough for the whole family, was added. Three or four minutes after the water boiled again, any surplus water was scooped away from the rice. The lid was then placed on securely and the pot was placed beside the re. It was turned occasionally and baked all around. After about half-an-hour the rice was ready to be eaten. Rice could not really be eaten without cooked vegetables, so each house had at least two pots: one for rice and one for vegetables. Once

1

Cf. plate 25.

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Barbecuing sh in the elds.

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the rice pot was taken off the tripod, it was replaced by the other pot. In this second pot there was placed lots of water and a little rice to improve the avour. When the water boiled, the housewife twisted the vegetable leaves apart with both hands and put them into the boiling water for about ve minutes, until cooked. No salt or seasoning was added. Instead, the vegetables were eaten after dipping into spicy sauce. This was the essential cooked dish without which no meal in Xiangye was complete. Vegetables were never stir-fried, probably because of shortages of salt and oil, but instead they were cooked in boiling water and eaten with spicy sauce. The main meats were pork, chicken, duck and beef. Usually people did not kill water-buffaloes for beef—except at the Eating Bull Intestines Festival (cf. Chapter 29). Only if the buffalo, old or young, had accidentally fallen in the mountains and died was its meat eaten. Some villagers hunted wild animals in the mountains, such as pheasant, porcupine, wild boar and mountain goats. All kinds of birds were also hunted and snakes were killed on the mountain paths. Meat was normally boiled in spring water, but some meat was processed or cured. Only rarely was meat barbecued or fried. The heads and hooves of large animals such as buffaloes or wild boar were usually stewed until soft before being eaten. Meat was generally in short supply. Except at New Year or other festivals, or when hosting guests, people ate meat less than once a month and even then they did not eat much. Often a whole family shared the meat from one chicken or duck, or shared 500 grams of pork. Each person had to be content with a few scraps. The main treat was eating vegetables cooked in the broth. To improve their diet, women often went to the paddy elds or to the stream to catch sh by hand. Fish and shrimps were cooked and eaten together with rice and sour soup or sour vegetables. A small proportion of such sh was dried or barbecued. In those days, when salt was scarce and expensive, there was usually no salt added when cooking meat or sh. Instead the cooked food was dipped in a spicy sauce. Only a few, relatively wealthy, families could afford table salt. Spicy sauce was provided at every table, usually including a little salt and so providing avour for the cooked vegetables and other foods. For generations people ate mainly cooked vegetables, with very little meat or sh. This nearly-vegetarian diet was healthy in some ways. For

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example, heart disease was unheard of, as was any problem related to the blood vessels of the heart or the brain. Rice, vegetables, sh and meat were all boiled by the women. The men sat around the res watching and smoking, waiting for the meal. Meat was placed in the pots in large chunks, which after boiling were cut with scissors into smaller pieces. Each household had a pair of kitchen scissors dedicated for this purpose. The smaller pieces of meat were placed into bowls and set on the table. Women never used knives to cut meat, while men on the other hand, used knives and not scissors. If asked why they did not use knives for cutting, women replied: ‘We don’t know how.’ Fried food. The mostly impecunious residents of Xiangye were usually short of salt and cooking oil, and usually did not possess a metal frying pan. Therefore they did not generally fry their food. Only the more prosperous residents could afford the utensils for frying: usually a poorquality frying pan and a kitchen knife. Beef and pork were stir-fried, but chicken and duck were boiled not fried. Sometimes sh and shrimp were fried, as were chicken eggs, duck eggs and soybeans. Glutinous rice cakes made at New Year and brake fern roots ( jueba) eaten in years of drought were also sometimes fried. Sweet glutinous rice cakes eaten in spring (cf. Chapter 29) and bianmi (fried rice kernels) eaten in autumn were also traditionally fried. Despite this wide variety of fried food, it was only on special occasions that food was fried, such as when guests were present, or when celebrating New Year, other festivals or weddings. Fried food probably represented less than 2% of the year’s food intake. Frying was the job of the men, especially the heads of households. Women prepared the frying pans, but it was a time-honoured tradition that men did the actual frying. It was said that frying was not originally practised in Xiangye but that some village men had observed Han men frying in the towns and they had come home and experimented, adding hot pepper and salt. The women regarded frying as a Han custom. Being rmly committed to traditional cooking, they were unwilling to try it out, so that frying became the special domain of the men. It was only practiced in relatively prosperous households or in households where the education levels were close to those of the Han nationality. Steamed food. Until around the end of the nineteenth century, the staple food of the people of Xiangye was glutinous rice. For centuries rice

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steamers had been used for steaming glutinous rice. In the decades before Liberation, each household still owned a rice steamer. The steamers were made of China r. They were barrel-shaped, over a foot tall, covered by a lid, and bottomless but with a ledge in the bottom third, supporting a tray made of woven bamboo or palm tree strips. On the evening of the day before it was to be eaten, glutinous rice was soaked in clear water. Early the next morning the rice was placed in the rice-steamer, which had its lid on and was placed in a large metal pot of boiling water above a large re. The rice was cooked in about half-an-hour and then transferred into a wicker basket to cool down, so preventing it from sticking together too much. After cooling it was returned to the rice-steamer, to be stored there until meal-times. One steamer-full was enough to provide a family with rice for two days. After two days the rice started to turn sour in any case. In the 1930s and 1940s, glutinous rice was only steamed when entertaining guests or celebrating Chinese New Year, other festivals or weddings. Steamed glutinous rice was also used as food for long journeys. It was no longer the staple food, representing only about 5% of the total rice consumed during the year. Sweet potatoes were also steamed, although only about two or three times a year, for children to use as snacks between meals. Ordinary potatoes did not grow well in the village. During the New Year celebrations, cakes made by the men from steamed glutinous rice—baba—were eaten. A few families used the steamers to make bamboo-leaf cakes—rice, corn or millet wrapped in bamboo leaves. Traditionally the woman’s domain, the practice of steaming diminished as glutinous rice became less popular. Barbecued food. Barbecuing sh was popular during the autumn season, when harvesting glutinous rice. The family head would use a bamboo trap to catch several carp, often weighing as much as 500g each, from the paddy elds. He would light a re beside the paddy elds and pierce the sh through the mouth to the belly with a sharp stick. The sh were turned over the re on the stick, until oil seeped out and they were ready to eat. Spicy sauce was prepared in a big bowl, adding wild onion, garlic and herbs. The barbecued sh were cut into pieces and mixed together with this sauce. At other times, men would occasionally catch one or two sh from the river and set up a barbecue right there.

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For small sh a different barbecuing method was used. The sh were wrapped in large leaves or reeds which were then tied together, and the package was placed on the smouldering re and cooked for about half an hour. Then the leaves were removed and the small sh were dipped in a spicy sauce and eaten. They were delicious, although they smelled as though they had not been cooked, as the oil had not yet seeped out of them. Catching small sh was the work of the women and women usually barbecued such sh, assisted by the men. Spicy dips were a favourite in Xiangye, accompanying every meal. The woman of the household prepared such dips. First, she placed dry red peppers on the hot ashes in the repit, rolling the peppers back and forth two or three times. They were then placed in a small mortar and pounded. If the peppers were fresh, they were rst roasted in the red ame for a moment, then cut into pieces with scissors and pounded in the pestle. Preserved sh and meat, and dried sh, were all sometimes roasted over an open re. Fresh pork or beef could also be cooked in this way. Glutinous rice cakes were often barbecued. Sweet potatoes and tubers from the kudzu vine were buried in hot ashes for two or three hours and then eaten. Barbecuing was perhaps the earliest method of cooking used. Boiling and frying only became possible with the introduction of clay cooking pots and other utensils. Barbecuing was generally replaced by other cooking methods because it was relatively troublesome and time-consuming. Preserved food. There were two categories of preserved food in Xiangye: sh or meat, and vegetables. Generally the food was steeped in salt, then placed in a vat to ferment and turn sour. It was therefore also called sour sh or meat, and sour vegetables. By harvest time in autumn, carp in the paddy elds had grown to about 500g in weight. Some farmers were able to harvest a hundred kilograms of sh or more. The sh were cut open and internal organs taken out. They were then salted and left overnight for the salt to soak in. A little glutinous rice, ground spicy pepper, raw ginger and Chinese prickly ash were mixed thoroughly and 50 to 100 grams of this mixture was placed inside each sh. The sh were closed up again and placed inside a clay jar or wooden barrel, one layer upon another. A clay jar would have a trough around its neck and this was lled with water. A lid was then

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tted neatly into the trough, thus preventing air from seeping through.2 If the sh were placed in a wooden barrel, then palm leaves or rice straw were laid over the top before adding a wooden lid, with a heavy stone on top. Then a layer of water was poured over to prevent air from getting in. Within a month, the sour sh with its distinctive avour was ready to eat. In those days, every household made sour sh, as much as several jars or a large barrel, and this supply lasted until spring or summer the next year.3 Wealthy households used the same method for preserving pork, beef and duck meat. Only about two or three households, however, were prosperous enough to preserve meat in this way. Some of the sour meat was eaten uncooked, but some was roasted over the re or fried and then eaten. In any case, preserved meat was considered a delicacy. At the beginning of summer, every household preserved vegetables, enough to satisfy the family’s needs for the following year. Women picked vegetables from their gardens, washed them in the stream, and dried them on the dwarf-trees near the stream or took them home and spread them out to dry in the sun for one or two days on the roofs of their homes. The dried vegetables were placed on winnowing baskets. A little salt and glutinous rice were scattered over. Households without salt took glutinous rice seeped in plant ash water and rubbed it evenly over the vegetables. The vegetables were then placed inside a clay vat or wooden barrel and cut off from air by a layer of water in the same way as for preserved sh. After a month or so they were ready for eating: raw, boiled or fried. Rice water was scooped into vats beside the repit where it fermented and turned sour. It was used to make sour soup with sh or shrimp, and this was very popular. Freshly picked hot pepper was also sliced into pieces and preserved in the same way as vegetables to become sour pepper, a very good seasoning for boiled sh and shrimp. It helped to neutralize any strong sh taste. Vegetables were eaten at every meal, either preserved or fresh. In those days when salt was scarce, preserved food was often preferred.

2

Cf. plate 26. Note that ‘Sour sh is perhaps the most distinctive of all Kam foods’ (Geary et al., 2003, p. 127). 3

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Spicy sauce was used in many households as a cheap alternative to salt. Cured food. To Han people the 12th month of the lunar year was the last month of the year, a special time for sacricing to ancestors. The Kam people of Xiangye also treated the 12th month as special: they slaughtered their New Year’s pigs on the rst day of the month to celebrate Kam New Year and cured any leftover pork. Nearly every household raised pigs to a weight of 40 or 50 kg—usually one and sometimes several. No matter how big or small, all were slaughtered at Kam New Year. The internal organs, head, feet and a small portion of the fresh meat were eaten to celebrate New Year. The rest of the meat was cut into slices of a kilogram or more, soaked in salt and sprinkled with alcohol. Two or three days later, the meat was placed on top of some wet rewood resting on the tripod, with a small re burning underneath. In this way, moisture was dried out of the meat. When oil appeared the meat was removed and hung from a rack above the re or attached to the wall, where it was slowly smoked all day every day.4 After about a month, the meat turned brown, dripping a little oil, and had then become cured. Later it was taken out of the kitchen to be hung in another room to prevent the continual dripping of oil. It was used whenever needed and might be kept as long as until summer, to satisfy meat requirements then. Every few days or whenever there were visitors, some cured meat was taken down, the skin was singed by re and it was washed with warm water and cut into slices. After rice-water had been scooped up and removed, the meat was placed on the boiling rice and the lid was placed over the pot on the tripod. This produced a fragrant crispy meat that everyone enjoyed. In some households, the same curing process was used for beef or sh (at any time of year), but the products did not taste as good as cured pork. Fermented soybeans could also be classied as ‘cured’. In autumn or winter, women soaked soybeans overnight in water. The next day they steamed the beans until cooked, used grass similar to that used for making skirts to roll the beans together into a ball, and placed the grass-enveloped ball in a corner of the kitchen to ferment. When the

4

Cf. plate 28.

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smell became pungent, they pounded the beans into paste using the tilt-hammer. Then they kneaded the paste into bean-cakes about the size of copper coins. After drying, these cakes were steamed for about half an hour and placed in the winnowing basket. This basket was hung up high and the cakes were smoked for about 10 days until they became dry. They were then stored away and eaten at any time during the next 6 or 12 months. Before eating, a fermented soybean cake was buried in hot ashes to roast: if you knocked it against anything it would break into pieces. Mixing with salt, spice and a little soup created a distinctive spicy sauce, which went well with cooked vegetable or sh and tasted absolutely delicious to the villagers. Uncooked foods and snacks. Preserved sour food, whether preserved sh, meat or vegetables, was usually taken out of jars or barrels, cut up with scissors and eaten directly raw. This tradition survived until the years just preceding Liberation. The villagers ate niubie (raw beef with fresh boiled stomach juice)5 and xuehong, prepared in the same way as in other Kam villages. Xuehong was made from barbecued pork and beef that were half raw.6 When the barbecued meat was cut into slices with scissors or knives, the cutting edges were almost dripping with blood. Only after such meat was mixed well with the other seasonings, such as vinegar, salt, hot pepper and fresh seasonings, did it turn gray. Old people used to say that when people went to catch sh in Langdong river in summer, some ‘cooked’ the small sh on stone slabs lying in the sun, turning the sh over until after a while they were ready to eat. This was said to be quite common and usually no illness followed. No one made any kind of sweets. People regarded sweets or desserts as special delicacies. If a sick person craved red or white sugar from sugarcane, or honey, the relatives did their utmost to buy some such ‘medicine’. Those who were dying sometimes felt regret because they had never tasted anything sweet. Everyone hoped to taste sweet food but only rarely—not more than once or twice a year—did the more prosperous residents buy deep-fried sweets for their children.

5 For a description of niubie in Chinese, see Ou and Jiang (2002), p. 269, the entry for 牛瘪肉. 6 For a description of xuehong in Chinese, see Ou and Jiang (2002), p. 269, the entry for 血红.

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The only foods that could be called snacks were soybeans and sunower seeds. In summer and autumn, young women or girls could sometimes be seen walking around chewing something and proudly displaying fried soybeans or sunower seeds in their hands. (Young men smoked instead.) Occasionally they threw a few snacks to the watching children and then everyone was happy.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

MEALTIME ETIQUETTE Naengc mal map jil oux, naengc mieec map weex xenp. How much you eat depends on the quality of the food; how well the clothes turn out depends on the quality of the thread.

Rich or poor, villagers used the same kind of eating utensils: porcelain bowls, soup spoons and bamboo chopsticks. When they ate ordinary rice, they used bowls and chopsticks in the same way as the Han Chinese. Only children who were too young to use chopsticks used their ngers to feed themselves. At New Year or weddings, glutinous rice was served on bamboo plates and everyone used their hands to eat. A large lump of rice was taken in the left hand while the right hand pulled off and kneaded a small lump into an egg-shape and placed it into the mouth. Other cooked food was picked up between the thumb and index nger of the right hand and eaten with the rice. As the years went by, people began to use chopsticks rather than their ngers to pick up this other food. The whole family ate two main meals together each day, consisting of boiled rice, other dishes and spicy pepper. Breakfast was eaten at about 9 am. This was the most important meal of the day and if guests were invited they usually came for breakfast. The evening meal was eaten after darkness fell, by the light of burning r sticks. Only if there were guests, or in those wealthy homes which had been inuenced by Han culture, was the evening meal eaten before dusk. Those who ate their evening meals early were referred to by others in the village as ‘rich people’. In addition to these main meals, lunch was eaten at around 2 pm. Those who went to the countryside to work often wrapped up some cooked rice in a cloth, with preserved food or pepper inside. Children ate food left over from breakfast. Older people and those who did not go to the countryside to work, did not eat lunch. At the two main meals, members of the household sat together round a small table or crowded around the re. According to custom, male family heads and older men sat in the high positions on the platform

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Meal with glutinous rice.

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with their backs to the wall. Younger wives and young women sat in the low positions on the oor beside the platform opposite the older men. Children and older women sat on either side.1 An old man rst took three small piles of rice and other food and placed them on the table. This food was intended for the family ancestors. Then he sprinkled three drops of rice-wine on the ground while inviting the ancestors to participate in the meal. He was then the rst to pick up something to eat, after which everyone else began their meal. During the meal, parents kept a close eye on their children, intent on preventing them from taking too much. If there was chicken, duck or sh, the housewife rst served the head, tail or liver to the oldest man, then served the chicken or duck leg, or sh tail, to the children, before allocating whatever remained to everyone else. In this way the whole family shared carefully the best of the food. Usually there was not enough sh or other meat for everyone to take as much as they wanted. If a child was greedy and took too much, the father scolded and stopped him or her. Everyone xed their eyes on the young offender by way of rebuke. But all could eat freely from the vegetables without any concerns about politeness. Nearly all families observed such customs and consequently mealtimes were often occasions for crying and whining. Women served extra helpings of rice to the men and always piled the rice high, up to a point in the middle, willing the men to eat even more. Those who ate big quantities of rice were praised by the women. The thought was that eating large quantities of rice made them stronger for their work in the elds. Those, however, who ate small quantities of rice and big quantities of meat and vegetables were despised as being ‘no good’. Children or foster-children who shared the meal normally nished eating rst and were not permitted to continue sitting with the older men.2 It was customary that while a family was eating, no one was allowed to sit or stand by watching. It was embarrassing to eat while others watched: either you stopped eating until a visitor had left or you invited him or her to share the meal with you. 1

Cf. plate 29. Foster children were orphans who depended on the family for their existence, and who were probably related to the family in some way, but who themselves were not directly members of the family. 2

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There were a few selsh and inhospitable families, the members of which did not encourage outsiders to share with them. The door was closed and the family ate quietly, almost furtively, as though fearing discovery. After everyone had eaten and drunk their ll the door was opened with much commotion and laughter. If someone entered just as they were eating and it turned out to be an acquaintance, he or she was pulled in, sat down and invited to partake of the meal. If a stranger entered, the women left the table and made him sit down to eat. If, however, the head of the house did not wish to invite him to eat, the housewife hurriedly collected the meat, sh and other dishes from the table, and took the table itself away. The head of the house then invited the guest to sit down and rest, and offered him cigarettes to smoke. If someone from outside the village was going from door to door begging, a housewife typically gave him a bowl of rice, a bamboo cup of rice grain or some glutinous rice cakes. When going to market or going on a journey, people brought some ‘lunch’ to eat along the way. When eating alone, one would usually do so privately. If someone else saw you eating, you had to offer some food to him or her, otherwise you felt embarrassed. Children who were playing together were the same: you had to share some food with the other children. There were, however, some selsh children who deliberately and provocatively ate with exaggerated munching sounds in front of others, aunting the fact that their families were rich. Whether adult or child, if you ate in public without sharing, others would swear at you and call you selsh. The villagers of Xiangye were generally hospitable. Even povertystricken families typically killed a chicken when guests arrived. For ordinary guests, a meal was prepared with fried eggs, soybeans, small sh and shrimps. Wealthier families entertained guests with richer fare, including cured meat, and preserved sh and meat. Fresh carp were caught from the paddy elds and chicken and ducks were killed. Whether rich or poor, people were hard-working and frugal, careful with their precious stocks of food. Face was important, however, and people endured hardship to enable the whole family to entertain guests with a good meal, striving to have the guests drink their ll. Male visitors were joined by the head of the house and other men in the household. Women neither sat down to eat with them, nor watched them eat. Instead the women merely served more food and wine as required. If female guests were invited, the women of the household

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ate with them. Men did not join them, but quietly absented themselves. At long-table feasts, weddings or funerals, men and women also sat at separate tables. When hosts and guests ate together, there was often great exuberance and laughter, and boisterous conversation. The main host urged others to drink, toasted them, and played drinking games with them. It was typically very lively. When a clan invited many Kam guests, long-table feasts were convened on the open porches, using as tables two or three particularly wide and long benches (wide and long enough to sleep on), or several small tables joined together. Those families involved in hosting the feast each brought their own meat and wine and placed it on the table, then sat down. Guests then took their places, together making two long rows. Male hosts often said some words of welcome and proposed toasts, urging the others to drink, while female hosts also tried to persuade the guests to drink, occasionally by singing drinking songs. At the long-table feasts convened at the Sweeping the Graves Festival (cf. Chapters 25 and 29) or at the Eating Bull Intestines Festival (cf. Chapter 29) for honouring the ancestors, people brought their own boiled meat, steamed rice and rice wine. Members of the same clan ate together but did not toast one another. When old people died it was called a ‘white joyous occasion’ and the long-tables were laid full of large slices of pork, preserved sh and other special food. Hosts and guests proposed toasts to each other and did not leave the table until the guests keeled over drunk. Long-table feasts were most popular in the 1920s and 30s. After 1935, when the Nationalist government began to implement the baojia system of administration (cf. Chapter 26) in Guizhou, grain and money taxes were frequently levied and more and more Han people appeared in the village. There was a corresponding decrease in the tradition of long-table feasts. In the few years before Liberation, the tradition died out except among a few families celebrating the Sweeping the Graves Festival. The custom of whole clans inviting many guests to a long-table meal was replaced by smaller-scale invitations to more modest family meals. At such meals, other members of the clan were invited to help host the guests and they usually invited the guests to their homes to stay. In this way the members of the clan took turns hosting meals, until the guests left the village. The earlier tradition of singing drinking songs and toasting at the long-table feasts was replaced by playing

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a drinking game in pairs, borrowed from the Han people (cf. Chapter 13, footnote 2). The loser would drink. Only the women did not play this game. With the passage of time, the tradition whereby men sang drinking songs had faded away, but efforts were still made using ordinary speech to persuade the guests to drink more. People regarded this kind of ‘forcing others to drink’ as expressing cordiality. Rejection of this hospitality was regarded as rejection of the friendship.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DRINKS Sot uc wox naemx liagp, dogl nanh wox longc banx. When you are thirsty you realize how refreshing water is; when calamity comes you discover what the hearts of your friends are like.

There were two main drinks for the people of Xiangye: spring water and rice wine. No one drank stream water or water from the irrigation canals that owed from the mountains. People understood the stream and mountain water to be good only for washing themselves, their clothes and their vegetables. If drunk, it soon resulted in aching stomachs. The stagnant water in the paddy elds was obviously also undrinkable. Only water from the springs, that seeped out through the earth or trickled through cracks in the stones, was used as drinking water. It was pure, cool and ever so slightly sweet. Villagers who went to market in the Han towns were sometimes offered cups of cool tea, but they assumed this was river water that had been boiled, so they did not dare to drink it. Instead they preferred to remain thirsty until they returned home. There were wells in both Dazhai and Xiaozhai, with pure spring water seeping into them day and night, and constantly overowing. Even in years of drought, the wells never dried up. They provided unpolluted drinking water for generations. It was forbidden to wash vegetables or clothes near the wells, for fear of contamination. At 7 or 8 am, a woman from each household carried two wooden buckets to the local well to be lled. Large families had to collect water once again in the evening to ensure enough drinking water for the day. Two buckets of drinking water were placed day and night in the open porch, with a gourd ladle placed in each. Typically the rst thing people did upon returning home—whether it was from working in the open countryside, going to market, going to school, or checking water levels in the paddy elds—was go to the buckets and quench their thirst. The happy refrain—‘Hey! The water is so cool and refreshing!’—was

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Drinking fresh spring water.

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often heard on the porches. After meals also, some people would go and drink water, especially women. When visitors arrived in the home, they were offered a place to sit and cigarettes to smoke, but no tea to drink, as there was no teadrinking culture at that time. If guests were thirsty they were offered water or alternatively they could serve themselves. In the countryside, especially along the paths leading to other villages, there were many springs of pure crystal-clear water, free from any trace of human or animal excrement. A stone mound or wooden bench for travellers was often placed nearby, and beside the springs there were straw markers indicating that the water was safe to drink. Travellers used their hands to cup the water and drink it, or plucked some large tree leaves, scooped the water and drank. Travellers in that area never bothered to carry their own water. In 1942, when government troops were sent to the area to sort out the ‘East Guizhou Incident’,1 the soldiers used this spring water to ll their water-asks. Those who entered the villages also drank the well water and generally no one felt any negative side-effects. Around 1943, at the height of the Sino-Japanese War, it was rumoured that Chinese traitors working on the Japanese side had poisoned the springs along the pathways. The villagers were naturally very alarmed. Although the mountain springs did not stop owing, for 10 days the people did not walk along those paths. Then the government sent messengers to refute the rumours and to say that the fabricators had been arrested. Only then did the villagers breathe easily and once again begin to use the mountain springs. Xiangye residents who left home were hard-pressed to survive without their local spring water. When people returned to the village from travels outside, others—especially women—always asked them out of curiosity what kind of water people outside the village drank. Upon hearing that they drank tea made from river water that had been boiled, they sighed and said: “How could they possibly drink that?” Some villagers had wanted to go to Chejiang in Rongjiang county, to work on the rice harvest and make some money, but when they heard about

1 This was a response by indigenous people in Guizhou to the state policy of ‘integrating Guizhou to the Central Government’s rule’. It came to a head in 1942. ‘The incident, which had begun in the mid-1930s, was a massive uprising by native communities spanning a dozen counties, and in response to the state’s abuse of power in the region.’ (Cheung Siu-Woo, 2003, pp. 110–111).

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drinking the river water there, they felt compelled to stay at home. A few of the bolder young men went, but they did not go a second time, saying that the drinking water there was foul. Relatives of an old person who died forced a silver ingot the size of a bean inside his or her mouth. This was meant to help the person buy spring water as he or she travelled through the netherworld. According to tradition, people without the silver ingot had to drink water from the rivers or streams there. Xiangye people, however, could not stomach drinking such water, so no matter how poor the family was, they made sure they provided the silver ingot, otherwise the dead person might fail to reach his or her destination in the netherworld because of thirst. In summer and autumn when it was warm, the need for drinking water was greater than usual, and after drinking, people still felt as though their thirst had not been quenched. To mitigate this problem, women brewed sweet glutinous rice wine, scooped three spoons of this wine into a bowl, lled the bowl with refreshing spring water and then drank. This drink seemed better for quenching thirst and was regarded as optimal for the sweltering summer season. When people fell ill, they usually drank spring water. In the few years before Liberation, however, some people began to use spring water to make fried rice drink or cold tea. This boiled spring water, with the taste of tea, was considered to be medicinal, and under persuasion from their relatives, patients reluctantly drank some. Those who were well still did not drink tea, nor was it offered to guests. Those who were ill also drank sour soup and vegetable soup. Villagers said that drinking sour soup quenched the thirst and whetted the appetite. During the sweltering heat of the summer it was popular not only with the sick but also with women. Second only to spring water as a daily drink was rice wine. In those days everyone used glutinous rice, not ordinary rice, for brewing wine, and every family distilled their own alcohol. A constant supply of rice wine was stored in the family wine jars. Twenty kilograms of glutinous rice was enough to brew almost 40 litres of rice wine. After fermenting the rice, about ve litres of sweet rice wine was taken out, before the remainder was allowed to ferment further until bitter. Two buckets of water were then added and left for several days. The concoction was then transferred to a large iron pan and heated to create liquor. Earthenware jars were used to collect the distilled drops of alcohol, and the process was halted when the alcohol taste became insipid. The jars were covered to prevent the wine avour

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from wafting away. After it had cooled to the temperature of cold water, the resulting alcohol was mixed with the sweet rice wine that had been extracted earlier, and this was the nal product, about 35% proof. Men in Xiangye were addicted to rice wine. At each evening meal they drank one or two bowls (about half a litre). This was thought to alleviate the tiredness they felt after a day’s hard work and eliminate any worries. Some men drank with each of their two main meals, a quantity amounting to a litre or more daily. Usually only adult men drank, while women and children abstained. When adults went to visit friends, however, they often brought their children along. The host usually encouraged the boys to drink along with the men. Women only drank at festival times when men and women sat at separate tables. Those who drank much liquor did not eat as much rice. Vegetables or meat, sh or shrimps, eggs or beans were dipped in hot pepper sauce and washed down with rice wine. After drinking, the men were in a jovial mood and when the meal was over, they went and sat by the re with the women and children, carrying on with the conversation, banter and laughter. For Kam or Chinese New Year, each household brewed at least one jar of rice wine. People drank heartily for days on end, either with other family members or with invited relatives and guests. Breakfast was eaten slowly, between 10 am and midday, and dinner between 5 and 10 pm. None of the men was sober by the end of the day. Some vomited and then drank again; then vomited again and so on. Visitors who persisted to the end were considered worthy of honour, though it was also considered an honour for the hosts if at the end of the day their guests keeled over drunk. Otherwise it was regretted that the ties of friendship had not been expressed to the limit. At New Year, drunk men often plied the village paths, talking nonsense as they staggered rst in one direction and then another. It was customary for those who were sober never to annoy those who were drunk. As long as they knew they were dealing with a drunk, no one made any fuss about anything he said or did. Everyone humoured him by generally agreeing with what he was saying, perhaps adding some kind words or advice. It was certainly inappropriate to resist the drunk with argument. If anyone ever tried, he or she was sharply scolded by other bystanders for being unreasonable and simultaneously shunted out of the room. Rice wine loosened the tongue and people drinking around the same table typically gossiped a lot. Disputes often arose because of a word out of turn and some quarrels threatened to

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become nasty. Fights were usually averted by the advice and intervention of bystanders or by the dispersal of the disputing parties. Rice wine was an indispensable feature of any meal to which guests were invited. Certainly it also needed to be supplemented by good food. Wealthy families provided rich and varied dishes, including sh, meat, sour food and spicy food. The host toasted the guests and urged them to drink, practically forcing them: the stronger the compulsion to drink, the greater the expression of hospitality. The guests had to put up with this, unable to refuse. Typically, they did not eat much food, though the host did not stop placing food on the table in front of them and toasting them. All the while the guests protested that there was too much food and they would not be able to nish it, politely declining. More food then appeared and the guests kept on talking and drinking. After everyone was seriously drunk, they started to play a drinking game common in Han areas; a nger-guessing game, whereby the loser of each round would have to down his cup of rice wine.2 Then at last the host put down his chopsticks and the guests could rest from declining the food. By this time, there were heaps of sh and meat at all the guests’ places, showing that there was more than enough food and that it could not be nished. This gave face to the host. Most guests drank more wine than they ate rice. It might have been more accurate to describe the invitation as an invitation to drink, not to eat.

2 The game is usually played by two drinkers, who each extend a number of ngers and announce a number at the same time. The man whose announced number tallies with the sum of ngers extended by both sides is declared the winner, and the loser takes a drink.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CLOTHING Meik samp nyinc, aov samp nyinc, naengl yuv jibs amv dah samp nyinc. New for the rst three years, old for the next three years, then you need to mend it over and over again so it can last another three years.

The clothing worn by Xiangye people was made from cloth the women wove themselves, sewn with linen thread made from locally grown ax. Only scissors for cutting cloth and needles for sewing were purchased. Women not only produced the cloth, they also worked as tailors, transforming it into clothing to meet the needs of everyone in the household. Each person needed a set of unpadded garments for summer, a padded cotton jacket for winter and at least one pair of cloth shoes per year. In addition, new socks were made each year for elderly people. The women provided such clothes for as long as they and their family members lived. Men were never involved in this work. The traditional colour of Kam clothing was dark blue. It was popular partly because it was naturally resistant to showing the dirt. All the clothes were dark, a bluish black colour. A shiny black Kam cloth was also produced. Shiny black was regarded as beautiful, like a woman’s hair. Many things were made to be black and shiny: men’s jackets, trousers, headwraps, shoes and socks; women’s jackets, skirts and belts; shiny black buckets and shoulder poles, black bed quilts, cofns and so on. Things with added colour were generally black, generating a ‘black culture’. Most men, women and children wore black all year round. Only when an old person died did relatives wear white mourning clothes. Men wore Chinese-style clothing, no different from their Han neighbours. The jackets opened from the middle in the front and reached down to the top of the hips. There were ve cloth buttons, and two or three pockets. Two pockets were in the lower part of the garment; the third, if provided, was an upper pocket on the left side. When working or when it was cold, a cloth belt was tied round the waist.

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Clothes worn at different ages.

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Trousers also employed a cloth belt. Young men used coloured belts woven by their girlfriends. For festival dress, village elders or teachers wore mandarin jackets (garments originally worn by horseback-riding Manchus) over long robes. Men had their heads shaved bare once every month or two. When the weather was hot, they wrapped a towel around their heads; when the weather was cold, they used Kam cloth to make a headwrap. If people were travelling any distance they wore straw sandals. In the evenings they washed their feet and put on at cloth shoes. Men often stripped to the waist when carrying heavy weights on shoulder-poles. They usually slept bare-chested at night, with their trousers on. In the years leading up to Liberation, some young Kam men, inuenced by Han Chinese culture, wore uniforms—Chinese tunics—like the Han Chinese. In summer, Han men wore white jackets opening at the front, and some young men from the village began to do the same. The women’s tunics were long enough to cover the buttocks. They were collarless, buttoned on the right, and had close-tting sleeves. Unmarried women were distinguished by wearing embroidered silk braids, less than an inch wide, mounted along the neckline and down the right where the tunic buttons up, and also adorning the ends of their sleeves. Each married woman owned two warm lined jackets, each sewn with two layers of cotton. The sleeves of these were different from those of the unpadded summer garments or padded winter jackets in two ways: they were wider and shorter, stopping just below the elbows. The unmarried women’s neckline embroidery was usually one colour, but that on the sleeves was usually composed of decorative patterns in two or three different colours. Young women made these clothes themselves to be worn at their weddings. Married women took them out again only for wedding celebrations or special festivals.1 Women tied aprons over their tunics, about 35 centimetres wide and the same length as their skirts. There were embroidered patterns along the top of the aprons. After marrying, a woman wore clothing made of dark blue Kam cloth, plain and neat. Older women used a length of Kam cloth as a belt, tying it in a knot at the back. A bride usually did not wear an

1

Cf. plate 30.

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apron for the wedding ceremony, replacing it for the occasion by a green silk ribbon round her waist. The women wore knee-length pleated skirts,2 with underskirts but no trousers. The material for the skirts was a special kind of Kam cloth: gauze, as thin as a surgical mask, made into thin pleats while damp after soaking in glue made from cow hide. Only the older women were skilled at the painstaking job of making pleats.3 A new skirt was usually made only once every few years. Young unmarried women wore only one skirt, which also served as a rag for wiping themselves during menstruation, drying while worn. Usually the skirts were not washed, so that they were not spoiled so quickly and could be used longer. After marriage, and especially after giving birth to a child, a woman wore two skirts. The outside one was a ‘new’ one, while the inside one was tattered and torn, like a grass skirt. The inner skirt was used when necessary to wipe the blood from menstruation. Every few months it was taken off and soaked in a shallow part of the stream, pressed down by stones in the water for several days. Then it was thumped hard and repeatedly with a wooden club, and left on top of a bush to dry in the sun, after which it was used again as an inner skirt. The outer skirt was not washed. The women’s calves were wrapped in leg cloth.4 In the cold season, older women wore padded tube-shaped cotton stockings on their shins to keep out the cold and they used their waist belts to wrap around their heads. In the evenings, after washing their legs and feet, they wore pointed backless cloth slippers. The women had long hair and rst thing in the morning they combed it. Young women commonly rubbed a little tea tree oil or lard into their hair to make it glossy (cf. Chapter 9). They either wore it on the crown of the head in a plate-shape, or wound it up in a bun at the front. The plate or bun was held in place by a silver rod and a wooden comb. Older women did not insert the silver rod. Long, black shiny hair was considered beautiful. To maintain the shiny appearance, women often did not wash their hair for several months. It became infested with lice, so when they had a spare moment, they helped each other to catch the lice. When they washed their

2 3 4

Cf. plate 31. Cf. plate 33. Cf. plate 31.

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hair, they did so in water mixed with plant ash, which helped prevent greasiness. Women wore silver jewellery: earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and headdresses with ower shapes. The women’s clothing described above was universally worn. Even women in the poorest households did not lack this traditional dress. Only a small minority of Han or Miao women who had married into the village, or Kam women who had somehow assimilated with the Han, cut their hair and wore Han clothing. At night-time, a woman usually took off her pleated outer skirt and used it as a pillow, to avoid damage to the pleats. Instead she wore an unpleated garment when sleeping. A minority of women still wore their inner skirts while sleeping. In those days, the story was told of how a man brought a second wife to the village from outside after his rst wife died. This new wife forced the rst wife’s daughter to wash clothes. When the spring oods were highest, the girl did not take enough care and some of the clothes were washed away with the current. She rushed after them trying desperately to grab them, but in doing so lost her footing, fell into the river and was washed away to her death. The villagers fancied that she returned as a cuckoo announcing the arrival of spring to the village, calling ‘dogl ugs, dogl ugs’, which in Kam means ‘dropped the clothing’. This story goes some way towards explaining why villagers did not enjoy washing their clothes. The main reason, however, why women in Xiangye rarely washed clothes was that they were reluctant to spoil them. Padded tunics were almost never washed. Women’s unpadded garments were usually washed just once a year. Skirts were also washed only rarely, as described above. Men’s unpadded jackets were washed once every two or three months. Plant ash water, or a soap substitute consisting of water mixed with the pounded fruit of the Chinese honey locust tree found in the mountains, was used for washing. Clothes were then placed on rocks beside the river, thrashed with wooden clubs, rinsed and dried in the sun. Clothes-washing was a woman’s job. If women did not tell their men-folk to leave out their clothes for washing, the men just kept on wearing them regardless.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

COMING-OF-AGE Samp liinh leix yav mas, ams qamt lenx dees mas. After ploughing the eld three times it becomes soft, and you dare to walk to the very ends of the earth.1

Boys wore jackets with buttons down the front and one pocket. While still small, they wore split-seat trousers (or pants).2 On their foreheads a rectangular piece of hair was left unshaved. They played with other boys and girls in the drum tower or on open grassy areas around the village. Around the time when he was 10 or 12 years old, on the rst day of Chinese or Kam New Year, a boy was summoned by his mother to change into his coming-of-age clothing. The mother prepared a warm re for the occasion. The whole family sat around the re while the mother produced the new set of clothing for the son: a jacket with two pockets, or sometimes three, and a pair of closed trousers. The son stood up while his mother helped him put on the new jacket. When she presented him with his new trousers, he took off the old split-seat ones and quickly put on the new ones. Then the boy typically patted himself contentedly, to express satisfaction at his new clothes. During the previous month, the parents chose a bright sunny morning to invite an old man skilled as a barber to cut their son’s hair in the open air outside their house. Relatives and neighbours sat around watching as the boy’s hair was cut. Using a knife, the old man shaved the rectangular piece of hair on the boy’s forehead, the hair that had signied his childhood, and shaved him bald just like older men at the time. In those days, all the men shaved their heads bald. In the

1 The three times ploughing the eld represent three distinct periods in a boy’s life: from 0 to 5 years old, from 5 to 10 and from 10 to 15. 2 These are trousers that are deliberately left unsewn between the legs so that small children can squat whenever necessary and relieve themselves without dirtying their trousers or having to pull them down.

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A boy’s coming-of-age clothing.

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generation before, the men sometimes wore a bun, at a time when this was uncommon among the Han men. After these two changes, in hairstyle and clothing, the boy started to dissociate himself from the younger children. Since he already wore clothing signifying he was an adult, he felt he should nish with childhood, although his parents did not force such change upon him. After donning coming-of-age clothing, a boy learned how to lead a water-buffalo to pasture: leading it or following it as it ate grass on the ridges between the paddy elds, preventing it from bolting at random into the elds and gardens, and driving it into the stream to take a wash. Parents bought their son a knife for cutting rewood, teaching him to sharpen it. He accompanied older people when they went to chop rewood in the mountains, bundled the wood and brought it back home on a shoulder-pole. The boy followed his older friends to the river to bathe, learning how to dive under water to catch sh by hand and how to catch sh between the rocks in the swift current. He put on his new clothes to participate in clan weddings, accompanying other male relatives whenever appropriate to fetch the bride. When his family invited guests for a meal, he shared a table with his father and elder brothers hosting the guests, and when his family was invited for a meal, he accompanied them and drank rice wine with everyone else. He accompanied villagers to the Han Chinese markets, to become familiar with the hustle and bustle, and learn how to speak Chinese. He also learned how to make straw sandals and bamboo winnowing baskets. While still small, a boy usually slept in the same bed or in the same room as his mother. After wearing the coming-of-age clothing, he slept with his father, brothers or other slightly older fellows from the same clan. In the evenings he tagged along through the village with these older companions, chatting with girls, helping companions to carry ladders, observing and listening to their through-the-window speeches (cf. Chapter 16). In short, the growing boy learned everything to do with being an adult. By the time he was 18 and married, he still had to master the work of ploughing and harrowing, and start to cultivate the elds. By the time he did all this, he had ‘ofcially’ become an adult.

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Girls wore split-seat trousers up to the age of 6 or 7, and possibly as late as the age of 10. Mothers decided when their daughters should start wearing closed trousers. The change did not necessarily occur on the rst day of New Year. Instead, to accompany the change of clothing, a mother cut her daughter’s hair during warm weather, leaving the long hair on the top of the head to be made into a bun. After starting to wear closed trousers a girl was still considered a child and did not abruptly stop playing with other children from her own clan, for she did not start wearing skirts for another few years. Only then, when she wore a skirt, was she considered to have come of age and was called (in Kam) a young woman. That was typically at the age of 14 or 15. Around this time her mother presented her with a skirt and went to her bedroom one morning to show her how to wear it. From this time onwards the young woman did not have any more haircuts and wore her hair in a plate or a bun like other adult women. In addition, some colourful embroidered braids were mounted on the neckline and the sleeves of her jacket. After starting to wear a skirt a young woman could no longer sit on blocks of wood on the re platform, but needed to sit on single stools beside the platform. She had to help her mother with all kinds of housework. In addition, she helped to dig the cotton elds and plant cotton; to weed and pick cotton; to pull up rice seedlings for transplanting and weed the rice elds; and to cut and harvest glutinous rice. She worked alongside other young women from her clan, going with them to Langdong river and to the elds, and catching sh and shrimp with them when the elds were being harrowed. She owned her own spinning wheel, spun cotton, wove her own colourful belts, and made embroidery, sandals and clothing. She helped the older women pleat skirts, and learned to dye cloth and wash clothes. Upon rst seeing her father, uncles and brothers, after being initiated into wearing a skirt, a young woman often felt embarrassed. If there were other young women of the same age in the clan, she usually lived together with them in women’s quarters. They kept each other company spinning cotton and the newly initiated observed the night conversations through the windows involving the slightly older young women and young men, so learning how to relate to the opposite sex. Occasionally some young women of 16 years of age or older did not yet wear a skirt. Such women typically did not keep company with others of the same age and did not participate in the work outlined above, expected from an adult woman. Other villagers despised them,

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regarding them as lazy, not good with their hands and unsociable. No local man wished to talk to them at night through the windows or sought to marry them, so they could only be given in marriage to Han men. Although for girls there was no special ceremony associated with wearing the coming-of-age clothes, it was obvious when the change occurred from observing the clothes and hair of the young woman. Childhood was thereby declared to be over and the time for marriage was approaching.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

COURTSHIP BY NIGHT Dangc wungh sungp langc nyangc, dangc qos heengk juh xangp. At the place of courting, men and women speak lovingly to one another; there, sweethearts admire one another’s appearance.

Night conversations through the windows were conducted between young women in their own homes and young men who came to woo them. During the early part of the Republican period (1911–1949) this practice was very popular, but in the few years before Liberation its popularity waned. Young women from adjoining households of the same clan—typically two to four houses in a row—commonly spun cotton together and lived in the same house. Most were of the same generation, though some might be aunts, and there might also be a ‘stay-at-home’ (cf. Chapter 21) among them. Several young women lived together in one room. This ‘women’s room’ had a ‘wooden window’ with a sliding plank that pushed or pulled to close or open. The women conversed with their courtiers, who stood on a ladder leaning against the house outside the window. These young men were not permitted to climb into the room. The women could go downstairs, or to the open porch, to talk. It was taboo even for men of their own household to enter the women’s room. At about 9 pm, as women sat down at their spinning wheels, romantic feelings surged. Fast-moving footboards struck up a loud noise. Some young women inserted a small bamboo ‘cat’s ear’ on the cotton spool to increase the noise from the spinning wheel. Young men roaming the village heard the noise and were attracted to it. Once they arrived, they whistled to summon the women. When the women heard the whistling, they knew that someone had arrived to woo them. One of the more condent women generally left her spinning wheel and went to the open porch or downstairs to investigate. Depending on what had gone on before, she might recognize who the suitors were. If they were people she liked, she went back and

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Courtship by night.

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‘took cover’ in her room, standing in front of the window and listening. These were the preliminary steps leading to the night conversations through the windows. Romantic love was normally an individual and private matter, but group courtship often took place before one-on-one love relationships were established. Such group courtship generally occurred between groups from Dazhai and Xiaozhai with different surnames. Romance was strongly prohibited between individuals or groups with the same surname. Parents encouraged their sons to roam the villages looking for female companions. Young men who remained sitting round the re at night were ridiculed by their parents as ‘useless’. By contrast, men felt like it was a loss of face when they saw women from their own family being chatted up by men from another clan. Whenever they saw any such suitors they would unleash a torrent of abuse in their direction and might even physically chase them away. For this reason, a young woman often went to great lengths to avoid the attention of male members of her clan at night. Only when male relatives were not at home or when they had gone to bed did young women dare to entertain male visitors through the windows. A young man’s feelings of pride and passion were strong and he lived in the hope of talking love with a young woman of another surname and eventually marrying her. This felt like a gain for his family. When, however, a woman from one’s own family fell in love with someone from another family it felt like a loss of face and when she married it felt like a loss in other practical ways as well. Dazhai and Xiaozhai were separated by a stream. The Xiaozhai residents were extremely conservative, closed to the outside world and nancially impoverished when compared to the more liberal, open and prosperous people of Dazhai. In those years, it was common for Dazhai men to marry Xiaozhai women. It was rare on the other hand for men from Xiaozhai to be able to marry Dazhai women, though courtship between the two was common enough. Young women from Dazhai only needed to walk through Xiaozhai on their way to plant cotton or to catch sh, for the young men to observe and follow, courting them at their workplace. In the evenings, the men from Xiaozhai gathered in small groups and wandered over to Dazhai to continue courting. The young men of Dazhai felt superior to

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those of Xiaozhai and they felt annoyed and jealous about this state of affairs. One moonlit summer night a meeting of the young men from Dazhai was convened at the bullghting arena, with each man brandishing a short wooden club. Voices were raised and the atmosphere grew increasingly intense, until unanimous agreement was reached to the effect that the Xiaozhai men should not be allowed to come any more and court the girls of Dazhai. As it happened, the young men from Xiaozhai were just then about to cross the wooden bridge. Swearing and cursing, the Dazhai contingent rushed from the bullghting arena to block the passage of their Xiaozhai peers. The Dazhai men halted at the head of the bridge, prepared to ght. The Xiaozhai men did not dare to try and break through, but simply kept their own counsel at their side of the bridge, squatting or sitting as the case may be. That night, in retaliation, they in turn did not allow the Dazhai men to cross the bridge to Xiaozhai to court the women there. This stand-off continued late into the night, only dispersing after two slightly older married men reasoned with the protagonists. Thereafter, the young men from Xiaozhai did not dare to wander in groups to Dazhai and court the young women there. They only stole over individually from time to time at dead of night, carefully avoiding the Dazhai men, but only rarely were they successful in conversing through the windows at night. Courtship in the open countryside continued, however, and the young men from Dazhai did not dare to go through Xiaozhai to interfere with this. The young men from Dazhai still formed small groups and carried ladders into Xiaozhai at night to court the women there. Young men from Xiaozhai avoided these parties and never pursued them. Despite the spirit of confrontation between the two parts of Xiangye, many young women from Xiaozhai still ended up marrying men from Dazhai and the two communities maintained close family relationships throughout that time. A group of young courting men was composed of men of slightly different ages. The younger men carried the ladder and stationed it outside the window where the young women lived. The most senior young man climbed the ladder rst and begged the women to open the window and talk. Then while he was talking privately and singing with a girl, his companions squatted at the foot of the ladder. After the rst man came down, his companions went up one at a time to talk.

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A man sometimes overstayed his time at the top of the ladder, unwilling to come down. His companions on the ground then shook the ladder urging him to come down quickly. By taking turns like this they ensured that everyone had a chance to become acquainted with the women and to build up some relationship. This often continued until just before dawn, when the men grabbed the ladder and hurriedly made their way home. If the women were willing to converse with the men, one of the older ones opened the window to speak, representing the others, who crowded around behind the window listening carefully. If the rst man belonged to a younger generation, the older woman gave way to a younger girl, stepping to one side to listen, occasionally adding a few words to mediate between the two or to teach the girl the ‘correct’ language to use in a given situation. If there were several young women in the room, they took turns to converse at the window. Sometimes sparks of love were kindled. At least it was a way of gaining the courage to relate to the opposite sex, to make friends and establish mutual affection. With time, the number of participants in such night conversations diminished to two and the lovers carried on a conversation into the early hours of the morning. The speech used in the night conversations conformed to a well-worn pattern. To request the opening of the window the young man slowly and continuously called ‘you (plural), you (plural)’. He never referred to ‘you (singular)’. When a woman opened the window to talk, she also used the term ‘you (plural)’ to speak to the person who had climbed the ladder. Neither party referred to the other by name. Doing so was thought to be rude, as it carried a sense of ordering someone about. The words exchanged immediately after opening the window typically expressed two main threads of content: praise and humility. The woman rst praised the family of the man for being wealthy; his parents for being highly talented and having great prestige; his clan for having great inuence; his siblings for being intelligent and competent; him for being morally outstanding; his house for being large; his domestic poultry for being numerous; and his family’s meals for being replete with sh, meat and rice wine for entertaining guests. The young man in turn praised the young woman for being diligent and dexterous; for raising fat pigs; raising chickens that lay eggs; raising ducks and geese without having to feed them with valuable grain; growing cotton that was white and big; spinning ne yarn; weaving white cloth; dyeing glossy cloth; making beautiful embroidery; producing

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sour food and preserved sh; cooking delicious food; and impressing others with her beauty. At the same time, the young man spared no effort in denigrating himself, by saying, for example, that his own family circumstances were poor; he himself was foolish; he was no good at either speaking or singing; and he was clumsy. The more he censured himself the better, using his faults to accentuate the virtues of his girlfriend and to win the girl’s sympathy. If in addition he was able to sing love songs gently to her, the result was double sympathy and admiration from his girlfriend. The young woman also said self-deprecating things. Neither party boasted in any way. If she sensed even a whiff of arrogance in the young man, the girl swiftly left, taking this as the cue that the man looked down on her. She did not dare to have any subsequent dealings with him. If the young woman seemed proud, the man might well say: “You (plural) look down on us”, before taking his leave. Later, he did not dare to return and court the same woman again. If affection ourished in the course of such meetings and if the man continued to plead with her, the woman might fall in love with him. If one day later the young man became indifferent towards her, the woman’s response was to become taciturn and behave as though nothing had ever happened between them. She then began night conversations with other men, not making any demands from the earlier friendship. After a couple of meetings alone, the man typically reached out as the woman was talking and took her hand, then felt her arm and nally touched her breasts. At this point the woman usually pushed him away and a passionate struggle ensued, though the woman did not leave. There was no kissing. The young woman typically gave her boyfriend a coloured belt or facecloth that she had woven. The boyfriend in turn presented her with soap or a mirror, or some other token of love, moving one step closer to marriage or elopement. At that time in Xiangye, however, people rarely proceeded from night conversations to marriage—though there was the following notable exception. Lao Shuo lived in Xiaozhai. His father died young, leaving him and two younger sisters. Lao Shuo went to school in the village for four years in total, after which he worked hard at rice farming. He was of an amiable disposition and everyone spoke highly of him. When he

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met anyone, he was always inclined to stop and chat. He especially enjoyed going through the village at night to court young women, singing love songs to them. He was extraordinary because the young women all liked him. When Lao Shuo appeared in Dazhai in the evenings, he attracted an entourage of young men, even up to a dozen, who quietly followed him, talking to him accusingly, as though they were guarding him in case he did something wrong. In fact they were more interested in nding out how he had such a good way with women. They stuck with him until late at night, when at last with difculty he shook them off. Afterwards, he climbed up to a window alone and called the young women. Upon hearing his calls and love songs, the women immediately opened the window and conversed with him. They were often infatuated by his conversational prowess and by his love songs. He became renowned for his courting ability and was known as ‘courting Lao Shuo’. None of the women looked down on him because his family was poor. Most other young men admired and envied him. The young woman with whom Lao Shuo most often conversed at night was called Lao Xiao. Her father also died young, leaving her mother to look after her and three younger siblings: two brothers and a sister. Lao Xiao had already worn a skirt for two or three years, but no one suitable had asked for her hand in marriage. After conversing with Lao Shuo, she fell in love. They frequently spent time together on the cotton elds during the daytime and were together again on either side of the window at night. There was rarely a night when they did not converse together. Within a year their love for one another was strong and sincere, and they had become inseparable. Their fathers were both deceased and each was the eldest child in the family. Their mothers were worn out and had little energy for organizing family matters, so no one blocked their romance and no one took responsibility for arranging their wedding. After the romance blossomed they became engaged and were married soon afterwards. After the wedding there was no ‘staying-athome’ (cf. Chapter 21) and they lived happily ever after.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

COURTSHIP BY DAY Naemx eis neip bal eis liangs, miegs eis waik miac banl eis touk. If the water does not move, the sh will not swim there; if the woman does not wave, the man will not come.

Courtship activities also occurred by day, in secluded places. Young women worked in distant cotton elds, collected duckweed from distant rice paddies, or gathered wild vegetables or mushrooms in the mountains. If a woman went to such secluded places, a young man might pluck up courage and follow her. As he tracked the woman, the man was alternately visible and hidden. The woman usually behaved as though she did not notice him, or she might try to avoid him and even run back home. This ‘courtship’ was patently not a classic love affair. From the young man’s perspective the goal was just to catch a glimpse of the woman, or at best to have a brief conversation, to nd out more about her. If this were accomplished, he felt satised. Sometimes during a night conversation through the window, a couple arranged to meet somewhere the following day. Each person made his or her own way to the appointed meeting place. In doing so they usually did not draw undue attention, as it was common to go alone to the countryside. The young woman did not avoid or reject her suitor on such an arranged occasion. On the rst few daytime meetings both felt awkward and shy, anxious not to be discovered; especially the young woman, who went to great lengths to remain concealed. The couple might exchange a few brief sentences before nishing their conversation abruptly and making their separate ways back home. The cotton elds were mostly situated on the mountainsides surrounding the village. When the season for planting cotton arrived, young women helped each other to plant their elds. They worked together turning over the soil, planting cotton seeds and weeding the elds, enjoying each other’s company. Picking cotton in the autumn was even more enjoyable and satisfying. While the women worked in the cotton elds, young men often chopped rewood on the nearby

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Courtship in the cotton elds.

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mountainsides, sometimes hiding among the trees to spy or eavesdrop. They hardly dared to make a noise or show themselves and often went home without having communicated with the women. Some men with more experience or courage whistled on leaves to draw the women’s attention. If the women waved their white headtowels, this was a summons for the men to come. If not well acquainted with the women, the men approached timidly and slowly and then sat at the side of the eld watching the women at work. From time to time they threw mud at the women to tease them. Occasionally, those who had met with the women to converse at night might help them, talking and singing with them, until the women stopped work for the day. The most popular place for courtship outdoors was a cotton eld beside the Langdong river, about 10 kilometres from the village. After breakfast women from Dazhai took their tools and food packages and left for the eld, returning just before dark. Young men from Xiaozhai, seeing the women pass through, accompanied or followed them. Hiding around the remote cotton eld, the men whistled on leaves and sang, eventually coming out to play and fool around. Men and women went home separately, to avoid being observed together by others. Countryside courtship mainly occurred between men from Xiaozhai and women from Dazhai, or vice-versa. Only rarely would people from the same part of the village court one another in the countryside and then usually it was one-on-one. There were three types of men involved: those who had made appointments with the women during night conversations through the window; those who were not satised with their engagements or marriages; and older men who had not yet found a suitable wife. In these encounters the men were usually too shy and timid to express feelings of love, afraid of losing face and being mocked by other men. Normally only in darkness, at dead of night when there was no one else around and he could not see the woman’s face, would a man dare to court someone, seeking her affection. By contrast, countryside courtship allowed the man to see the beautiful gure and face of the woman and was worth it for that. Some couples fell in love during night conversations through the windows and then arranged to meet outside as well. Occasionally such romances were consummated in marriage. Otherwise, courtship by day in the countryside rarely led to marriage.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

INTIMIDATING SITUATIONS FOR YOUNG WOMEN Yeel laos sedl suic hap wox yunv, nyenc laos biac sunl nanc gonh xenp. Only when the frog bumps into the tail of the snake is it terried; when a person chances into a clump of thorn bushes it is difcult to get out.

Men who had attended school in the Han areas and returned to live in the village were different from everyone else. They wore Han-style clothing, shoes and socks; parted their hair in the middle; brushed their teeth in the mornings (ordinary villagers did not do this); enjoyed singing Han pop songs; mixed more Chinese language with their mother tongue; and generally observed more Han customs. Most villagers did not welcome such young men home. Young women in particular were sensitive to such changes in the men and generally felt apprehensive about meeting them. As soon as women realized that a ‘returnee’ was among a group of men wanting to chat with them, the women suddenly went silent. Those who were spinning cotton abruptly stopped and quietly found a place out of the way to sit down and hide. They certainly did not open the window and start conversing. If a returned scholar approached women outside in the open, the women would branch off to avoid meeting. If a girl was by the river washing clothes or vegetables and a returnee approached her and talked to her, she immediately ran away. Bolder women called back as they ed: “You (plural) look down on us.” When a returnee accompanied other young men to chat with the women, the women ignored him and he simply had to sit there and keep quiet. If he threw in a word of attery, the women would not react, behaving as though they had not heard. They simply did not dare to converse with him, treating him as though he were a Han person. They deliberately built a gulf between him and them, creating deep feelings of estrangement. If his parents sent a matchmaker to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage, the woman and her parents demurred and did not dare to agree.

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Returned scholar pleading for attention.

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In the 1940s, seven young men left Xiangye to study in Han schools and later returned to the village. Only three of them were able to marry village women. They were able to do so because by the age of ve or six, their parents had already arranged their engagements. They left the village at the age of 13 or 14 to pursue their studies, against the will of their ancées, but the women could do nothing about it—they were already engaged to be married. Of the other four men who left the village to study, three married women from outside the village and the last young man had still not married by the time of Liberation. A young man by the name of Qiang had studied in the Han area. When he tried to court the young women back home in the village and made proposals of marriage, he was continually frustrated. His father had died young and thereafter his mother had remained a widow, caring for her only child. After going to primary school in Langdong for four years, he discontinued his studies and returned home. His mother yearned to have grandchildren, but he could not nd a wife. After he turned 18, Qiang wandered alone through the village every night, playing the erhu (cf. end of Chapter 10) beneath the eaves of the women’s homes, trying to initiate some contact. Since he had been to the Han area to study, however, the women were afraid of him and they were unwilling even to listen to the sound of the erhu or to see the young man. They usually avoided him, refusing to let him talk to them. Every night he went home disappointed and he became well-known as an unsuccessful suitor. Qiang’s mother was upset and alarmed by this state of affairs. Anxious about his advancing age, she arranged for him to marry a Han woman three years his senior, from a village 15 kilometres away. In later years, when drunk with rice wine, he was heard to remark with a sigh: “If only I hadn’t studied for several years in Langdong, I’d have married a wife and taken a concubine from Xiangye.” Xiangye was surrounded by Han settlements and frequently Han men arrived in the village to look for women to irt with and take away. Their approach to courtship was completely different from the traditional night conversations through the window or countryside encounters. Instead, they ‘caught a woman’, like catching a sh; meaning they selected one, seized her and took her away by force. If word spread that a Han man had come to ‘catch a woman’, everyone in the village was lled with trepidation and a sense of panic. Han men knew the Kam women to be virtuous in many ways: they stayed faithfully at home and did not run away; they were honest,

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kind-hearted, taciturn and obedient, not quarrelling with their husbands; and they were hard-working, thrifty, beautiful and soft-skinned, paying attention to good hygiene. At that time the people of Xiangye both preserved the special characteristics of Kam culture and understood a little Chinese. If necessary, men could use Chinese to communicate; though women did not generally know much Chinese. Residents of Xiangye often went to the Han markets, so they had opportunities to relate to the Han people there. Kam and Han greeted each other on the streets, politely addressing one another as ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’. Some Han people invited Kam visitors into their homes to sit down and rest, offering them bowls of cool tea. In response, the hospitable Kam warmly invited these Han people to their homes. As a result, many Han people from the market streets had friends and connections in Xiangye and often visited Xiangye for a couple of days at a time. In the early morning or evening, young village women pounded rice and then went to the wells to collect water. At such times, Han guests often stood on the open porches or on the pathways and observed what was going on. When a ‘woman-catcher’ saw an attractive young woman, he rushed over and started talking to her, joking with her in Chinese. He might even stretch out his hands to take the hands of the young woman. The woman typically did not understand Chinese and if a man took her by the hand, she felt quite intimidated. She had little choice, however, but to yield to him. If a man took a liking to one of the young women, he got someone to inform the family that he wanted her as his concubine. Even though the woman and her family were not willing to let this happen, they sometimes felt that they had no way of avoiding it, expressed as it was in the form of a demand. In this way, many people simply allowed the woman to be led away, in what basically amounted to abduction. Some Han men even went directly into the Kam homes to look for women. There was once a middle-aged Han man named Qing Ming who often visited Xiangye as a guest. He was already married with children, though not very wealthy. Once he asked his host’s wife to introduce him to a particular woman, who was 17 or 18, and only had one living relative—her mother, who was in her 40s. Mother and daughter lived on the ground oor of the grain-store belonging to the host. One morning Qing Ming went to this ground oor home and talked incessantly in Chinese to the young woman while watching her work.

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Mother and daughter did not understand a word, but smiled and nodded when it seemed appropriate. Qing Ming announced that he was going home and would send someone back to collect the young woman. After he left, mother and daughter secretly ed. The ground oor of the grain-store was suddenly empty. No one ever discovered what happened to the two women. Another Han man by the name of Qi Fu (cf. Chapters 4 and 22) often chatted up women in his home town. At night he lit a rewood torch and went to people’s homes in search of female company, demanding to be admitted. People who knew him had no time for him and chased him away. Qi Fu made friends with a man from Xiangye and subsequently moved with his wife and family to live in Dazhai. He got drunk most evenings and then went from house to house swearing profusely and laughing between oaths. People did not really understand what he was saying, but laughed along with him anyway. At any and every opportunity he made advances towards young women, who ran and hid; often to no avail, for he pursued and embraced them. Everyone in the village detested and dreaded such behaviour, but no one was courageous enough to speak out against it. Any woman who heard Qi Fu coming in the evening immediately rushed to hide, often in a locked room. Sometimes he prized open the lock or pounded against the door, causing great alarm. The old men of the house urged him to stop, shouting that the young women had already left via the back door. He then grudgingly left and went somewhere else to continue his search, still shouting at the top of his voice and madly pounding on people’s doors. Since he was unable to provide even for his own wife, he was never able to take a Kam girl to be his concubine.

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

MATCHMAKERS Wul menl ongp bias eis dogl bienl, dees dih ongp muic eis wenp huh. Without thunder, there is no rain; without a matchmaker, there is no marriage.

Han people referred to matchmakers as ‘gods of marriage’. In Xiangye, there was no special Kam name for matchmakers. It was said that in the past, marriages were primarily arranged by the respective sets of parents. The parents set a time to kill a chicken and inspect its eyes, before nally xing the betrothal and the subsequent marriage. So in the past, there was no intermediary or matchmaker. After the Republic of China was constituted in 1911, some wealthy Kam people started to follow the customs of the neighbouring Han and invite a respected middle-aged woman to act as an intermediary in the whole matter of arranging a marriage. Only then did matchmakers appear in Xiangye. Working as a matchmaker was not a full-time job. If someone seemed suitable, she was asked to take on the job as a kind of voluntary social service. The selected woman was usually at least middle-aged—in those days 40-plus was considered an advanced age—and from a prosperous family; someone who was friendly with other women in the village and who was always ready with a kind and polite word for others. In addition, the matchmaker often concerned herself with the hardships of others and was willing to help them as much as possible. With such a background, she enjoyed considerable prestige in society. No matter whether the parents who asked for help in arranging a marriage were rich or poor, the matchmaker usually did not reject their request. Occasionally she even went on her own initiative to persuade others to allow her to make a match as soon as possible for their son. They only needed to say the word and she would go and do the job that very night. If the other party consented, she returned happily and reported to the young man’s parents. If she were rebuffed, she did not become angry but returned and gently explained to the parents that their son needed to consider someone else.

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Matchmaker at work.

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Whether her mediation was successful or otherwise, the matchmaker did not receive anything in return for her services, or eat any meals in the young man’s home. Sometimes the matchmaker was invited for a meal in the young woman’s home and was presented with some eggs. This gave her face and created a cordial atmosphere, so she accepted such hospitality. Parents of a boy were always on the lookout for a suitable spouse. An eligible candidate was usually about the same age as their son, from a family with a different surname but from similar economic circumstances. After the mother and father had agreed on such a girl, they asked a matchmaker to go and make arrangements. They did not usually solicit their son’s opinion and did not even allow him to know about the plans. Only once the engagement was nalized did they inform their son as to the identity of his future wife. Similarly, the young woman’s parents did not consult their daughter about the matter or even mention it to her. In other words, the whole engagement process depended only on the feelings and judgement of both sets of parents. Only after the decision had been rmly made did the parents inform their children, simultaneously exerting pressure on them to accept the proposed arrangement. Formerly it was customary for young women to marry the sons of their maternal uncles i.e. their cousins. In those earlier times, there was no tradition of inviting matchmakers to set up a wedding. Instead everything was predetermined and compulsory—neither the parents nor the young woman herself had any choice in the matter. Around 1939 a man with the surname Wu from Xiaozhai killed his niece—his sister’s daughter—as a result of an impasse over this failing tradition. One morning the niece came down from her home on the mountain to get some water. She was carrying water back home on a shoulder pole when she saw her uncle, with an axe round his waist. She greeted him as usual. Her uncle glanced up at her but did not reply. Instead he suddenly went berserk and took the axe to strike at his niece’s neck. She fell under the blow and met a violent death as he continued hacking with the axe. Then he threw the axe away, took to his heels and ed. Wu killed his niece because she had rejected his family, by not respecting his rights as the maternal uncle. Instead she was preparing to become someone else’s daughter-in-law, so he murdered her in a jealous rage.

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The Nanshao government ofce sent 10 soldiers to investigate the murder. They stayed at the uncle’s home, eating all the pork, chicken, duck and carp the family owned and drinking all their rice wine. When they could not catch the culprit, they returned to Nanshao and let it go at that. From then on, the old system whereby maternal uncles forced their nieces to marry their sons was less popular and appointing matchmakers in turn became more common. It was up to the parents in each household to decide when they would initiate the matchmaking process. Some did so when their children were about 10 years old, some when they were 14 or 15 and some when they were only three or four. It was difcult to nd a bride for young men who were 16 or 17 years old and still had not been successful in arranging an engagement. If a young woman reached this age and no one had yet approached her to settle a marriage, it was difcult to nd a husband from the same village. Most would then marry outside the village. If a marriage was arranged for a young man aged 14 or 15 and he found out about it, he invariably opposed it to his parents’ face: “No way!” No matter who mentioned the engagement to him, he reacted similarly, with a vehement “No!” Moreover, he deantly refused even to look at his ancée, to enquire what she was like or to meet her father. If the young woman opposed the engagement, she expressed her disapproval by appearing with dishevelled hair and dirty face, and directly confronting her parents and the matchmaker. She would kick up a row with the matchmaker and drive her away. Such efforts by the young people, however, were always futile. So long as the parents agreed, the engagement was settled. The matchmaker typically rst visited the young woman’s family one evening, before dinner. This rst visit was to sound out the parents’ opinion, to nd out what they thought about the potential groom’s family and about the young man himself. If they were well disposed, they were polite to the matchmaker, inviting her to sit down and stay for dinner. Over dinner there was laughter and genial conversation, and the hosts did their utmost to please their guest. Finally they lit a pine branch and accompanied her as she left the home, pointedly adding that she should return and visit them again. This indicated that the woman’s parents agreed with the proposed marriage. If on the other hand her parents opposed the marriage, upon hearing the matchmaker raise the matter they sighed as if some disaster

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were imminent, saying that their family was poor and their daughter foolish and ugly. They might not be willing to discuss the matter and might not even invite the matchmaker into the home to sit down. If she were allowed in, this at least gave her some face. The parents conversed politely, but did not stop sighing and protesting that they were no good. In this way, they demurred as graciously as possible. As long as her proposal was not rejected the rst time, the matchmaker would return for a second visit, also in the evening, before dinner. This time she brought a chicken or some eggs from the young man’s family and presented them as gifts to the woman’s family. The woman’s family either invited the matchmaker to share a meal with them, or sent her back to the man’s family bearing some eggs (even if eggs had been given by the man’s family, because at that time people did not have much else to give) as a reciprocal gift, explaining that they were ‘for the children’. When the second visit proceeded in this way, it meant that both sets of parents were agreeable to the marriage. It only remained to be seen whether or not the young couple’s destiny ‘matched’ and this was the reason for the matchmaker’s third visit. On this occasion the matchmaker brought a chicken from the young man’s family. The woman’s mother received the chicken, taking it away to be killed later by the matchmaker and have its eyes inspected. Engagement was nalized through this ceremony of divination by looking at the dead chicken’s eyes. After the engagement ceremony was successfully concluded, the decision was considered nal and lifelong. Others could not seek the hand of the same young woman in marriage. The matchmaker returned to the man’s family to report the good news and this marked the end of her endeavours. In the Xiangye of those days, only more prosperous parents invited matchmakers to arrange weddings. Poor parents or orphans usually did not organize the three visits from a matchmaker described above. They only needed a friend to go and serve as an intermediary and if the parents of the young woman agreed in principle, that was enough. They did not go and consider everything in ne detail, but agreed in a more casual way. The arrangement of marriages without a matchmaker was actually more common than not.

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CHAPTER TWENTY

ENGAGEMENT CEREMONY Meix sot eis mungl wap, lix qat eis wenp jiv. A withered tree does not bloom; empty words do not give rise to good ideas.

It was traditional for Han people to examine the ‘eight characters’ of a man and a woman to see if they ‘matched’ before engagement was arranged.1 The characters were in four pairs, indicating the year, month, day and hour of a person’s birth, each pair consisting of one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch, used in fortune-telling. If the eight characters did not ‘match’, then the couple could not become engaged. The Kam people of Xiangye adopted a fortune-telling approach to engagement, but they were unable to calculate whether the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches matched because they did not generally keep track of birthdates. Instead, they used the tradition of killing a chicken and inspecting its eyes. In their minds, this allowed the gods to determine whether the pair were predestined to be a good match. Just as the Han examined the ‘eight characters’, the Kam inspected the chicken’s eyes. There was no rule about how old the young people should be when the chicken was killed. The main requirement was that the matchmaker should have received the agreement of the young woman’s parents, after two visits to their home. Marriage generally took place when the man and woman were aged 17 or 18. On the day set for the chicken to be killed, the matchmaker presented gifts to the woman’s family from the man’s family: chicken, duck, sh, pork or glutinous rice—not all of these, since the people were usually not that prosperous. The matchmaker then killed the chicken in the presence of the woman’s parents and clansfolk.

1

This custom is still common in many rural areas of China today.

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Inspecting the chicken’s eyes.

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The father or mother quickly took the dead chicken and soaked it in boiling water, plucking the feathers and taking out the internal organs. Then he or she immediately immersed the whole chicken into a pot of boiling water. After cooking in the water for a few minutes, the chicken was taken out and cut into pieces with a pair of scissors, placed into bowls and served on the table. The host and the guests sat down waiting for the moment when the matchmaker would take the chicken-head and look at its eyes. When the moment arrived, they all rose and took turns to pass by and look. If both eyes were closed tight or both eyes were open—not one eye closed and one eye open—then the ‘eight characters’ were matching, it was a match made in heaven and the destiny of the young people was as husband and wife. Then the matchmaker shouted over and over again, in a loud voice: “Good fortune, ah!” Everyone laughed and cheered, drinking and proposing toasts. They made sure the matchmaker was drunk before going to report the good news to the family of the young man: that the engagement was conrmed, both by destiny and by the gods. There could not be any change to this decision for as long as the couple lived. If the unusual phenomenon occurred whereby one eye of the dead chicken was closed and one eye was open, that was an indication against the marriage, showing that the man and woman had been absolutely irreconcilable in a previous life. Their destinies were then incompatible and the matchmaker rose and announced to those gathered: “The marriage cannot be arranged, but the friendship will remain!” Then the host replied: “Don’t worry about it.” People departed sadly and the idea of marriage was dropped. The ritual of killing the chicken was observed with considerable nervousness. Men smoked non-stop, while women sighed. Every movement was scrutinized as the chicken was killed, boiled and cut into pieces, in concern that rough treatment might lead to a distortion in the chicken’s eyes. To forestall anything unwarranted, the time of boiling the chicken was often reduced. If half raw, this might reduce the possibility of the unusual result of one eye open and one closed. The likelihood of the chicken’s eyes being ‘spoiled’ seemed greater if the chicken was overcooked. So long as the chicken’s eyes were ‘auspicious’, everyone ate the half-cooked blood-dripping chicken in a spirit of joyful celebration, laughing happily. Although this occasion obviously had a lifelong impact on the couple about to be engaged, it was conducted as if it had nothing to do with

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them. These two most central gures were absent from the proceedings, from beginning to end. Some parents feared that their children would cause disruption by cursing and swearing. They did not even tell the children immediately after the engagement was nalized. Instead they just casually mentioned sometime to their son or daughter that so-andso was to be his or her spouse. The Kam people borrowed the Chinese word: ‘betrothal’. Everything was completely arranged for the child, who subsequently felt under an enormous sense of obligation. After the engagement ceremony, despite any disaffection or opposition from the partners in the engagement, the two families became united as relatives through marriage. At festivals and celebrations they visited each other, exchanging gifts. Together both sets of parents set an auspicious date for the wedding. At this stage the relationship existed only between the two sets of parents, with intimate visits, friendship and goodwill. The children always avoided one another and did not even acknowledge their impending marriage. Instead they carried on independently with their night conversations through the windows, freely courting their own chosen sweethearts. Ultimately, however, they honoured this tradition of engagements by submitting to it. Although everything was arranged by parents, only very rarely did a son or daughter end up defying their parents and revoking the engagement.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE Nyux digs siik liangx ags lis xus, miegs biingx xebc beds ags lis dangc. When a sh reaches 200g in weight it has a master; when a woman reaches 18 years of age she has her own family.

Once children were engaged and had reached the age of 17, they were considered by their parents to be adults at last. The children typically married at around 17 or 18—usually not younger than 15 and not older than 20—and they were typically roughly the same age. Only in the case of a man remarrying after his rst wife died was the age disparity greater than ve years. Usually the wedding date was set for Kam New Year, which in Xiangye always fell on the rst day of the 12th month of the lunar calendar. In the years before Liberation, some marriages began to be arranged for Chinese New Year (during the 1st month of the lunar calendar). People from poorer families often did not convene a wedding ceremony and ignored the custom of marrying at New Year. Instead, they chose an otherwise auspicious day. Then they invited a middleaged woman to go on the evening of that day to the bride’s home, to escort her away to the wedding. The bride’s family did not lay on a banquet. The bride dressed in clean clothes for the occasion and combed her hair. Holding only a pleated skirt in her right hand, as if she had to leave in a hurry, she followed her escort until she arrived at her husband’s home in pitch dark. Members of the groom’s family welcomed her kindly, but without any special ceremony or feast. The bride and groom did not sleep together for three nights and thereafter the bride made the return journey to her parental home. This part of the tradition was the same as for richer people. Wedding ceremonies in the homes of more prosperous families were lively affairs. Two or three brothers and sisters-in-law of the groom dressed in their best clothes and set off before breakfast in the direction of the bride’s home. Upon seeing her home in the distance, they began

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Enacting divorce.

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setting off recrackers as they continued walking. When the entourage entered the home, the wave of recrackers reached a crescendo and many villagers, male and female, young and old alike, came running out to watch. The bride’s family warmly welcomed the visitors and briskly attended to the business of preparing food and wine for the guests. They also helped the bride to get dressed and put on make-up. After a celebratory meal, the visiting party set off for home, accompanied by the bride. The male escorts from the groom’s home led the way, followed by the female escorts. A sister and a sister-in-law of the bride were responsible for carrying the bride’s dowry in baskets, usually one basket each. The baskets contained the bride’s new clothing and some of her favourite things. These two female relatives walked ahead of the bride. Taking up the rear, the bride carried a red paper umbrella or a black cloth umbrella, advancing at the slow pace set by the rest of the party. A welcome party consisting of men from the groom’s extended family awaited their arrival at the groom’s village. When the hosts saw the visitors approaching, they immediately set off welcoming recrackers and people gathered to admire the bride’s clothing and appearance. The bride continued to follow her two female companions, who were led directly into the bridal chamber by a welcoming escort of women. For three days the bride did not change her clothes, did not go out and did not do any work. She just sat in the bridal room being served.1 Women and children from the groom’s family arrived in a steady stream to visit the new bride, but men were not admitted. During each of these three days the groom’s family invited relatives and neighbours for celebratory meals. These guests gave presents to the groom’s family, such as cured meat, pickled sh and money. On the afternoon of the third day, each household belonging to the groom’s extended family prepared a meal including rice wine, meat and other food with which to host the bride. Accompanied by her two maids of honour, the bride moved from house to house tasting the food at each place. On tasting the food, she said a few words of thanks

1 Jung Chang (1992, p. 67) writes of her Han Chinese maternal grandmother’s wedding to a Manchurian doctor in 1935: “My grandmother had to sit, motionless and alone, on the kang, facing the window on which was a huge red ‘double happiness’ paper cut, for several hours. This was called ‘sitting happiness in,’ symbolizing the absence of restlessness that was deemed to be an essential quality for a woman.” There was no similar symbolism in the Kam weddings in Xiangye.

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and then took her leave. That afternoon, she visited all the families in the clan, thus getting to know them a little. This visiting established her relationship as one of the extended family, helped her to avoid any breach of etiquette and claried to the bride who was who in the family. During these three days the groom withdrew, not going home to eat or to sleep and not having sexual intercourse with the bride or even seeing her. He was too embarrassed to do so, and in any case, the bride’s relatives were staying with her during those days of getting to know the groom’s family. On the morning after the third night, the bride returned to her parental home. The groom’s clan appointed people to carry gifts on shoulder-poles ahead of the home-coming bridal procession. These gifts usually included pork, cured meat, glutinous rice and glutinous rice cakes, eggs, sweets, and pickled sh. The bride again took up the rear. Upon their arrival, the bride’s family prepared a meal to entertain the guests, and reciprocated with some similar gifts. After all this, the wedding ceremony was considered over and the bride was then ofcially a member of her husband’s family. After the bride had lived for 10 or 15 days back in her own parental home, the groom’s family appointed a married woman to go and collect her one evening as dusk approached. Occasionally this happened only once but usually it happened several times, before the bride remained permanently in her husband’s home. The bride carried a bamboo basket, containing clothes and skirts, and accompanied the married woman back to the groom’s home, arriving at dusk. That evening, she immediately began doing some housework. That night was the rst time the new married couple could share the same bed, yet the groom did not necessarily take advantage of this rst opportunity. The young man instead may have felt constrained by a mixture of pride and embarrassment not to sleep with his wife. Mainly he lacked courage in relation to the unfamiliar wife he had never really seen before. Occasionally a man continued to resist his arranged marriage and allowed his bride to ‘guard’ the empty bedroom alone. The next morning, the bride might rush back to her parental home, unable to face the embarrassment of this situation. Upon being escorted a second time to her husband’s home, the woman might run away again. After returning a third time, she might still be unwilling to stay. This uncomfortable initiation into the marriage relationship used to occur frequently, often over an extended period of time. Chinese anthropologists described such a woman as a

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‘stay-at-home’, referring to the practice whereby she returned to stay in her parents’ home waiting for her husband to summon her.2 It was rare, however, for a woman to continue staying at home forever. Most Kam people submitted to tradition in this regard and stigmatized those who did not. In Xiangye it never happened that a stay-at-home rmly refused ever to return to her husband’s home. The example below is more typical of what usually happened. The Jia family in Dazhai had only one son, small in stature, thin and feeble. His parents chose a bride for him who was three years older, strongly built and ne-featured, a good worker. The marriage looked like a mother/child relationship. After the wedding, the bride was called several times to her husband’s home and he avoided her each time. After about six months, she was reluctantly called back for a night, before again returning to her parental home. The next time, she was received for three nights. During the rst year, she spent just half a month in her husband’s home and during all this time her husband did not dare to sleep with her. It was said that the rst time he slept in his wife’s bed, his father slept in the same room to force him to go to bed with her. The wife had to stay at home for many years and continued to meet with other boyfriends during this time. Many men came to keep her company in the evenings, especially those from Xiaozhai who enjoyed courting her. Every night there was someone. Her relationship was closest with a man from outside the village named Mr Yi. Yi was tall, strong and healthy. He was always smiling and got on well with people, having a good word for everyone. He visited late at night and she came downstairs to meet him. They sat together on the haystack near the cattle pen or on the rewood, talking privately until daybreak. This lovers’ rendezvous happened every now and then for several years and the two were deeply in love. The other villagers knew about this. So did Mr Jia and his parents, who heard even more embarrassing gossip. Their only reaction was to stay quietly at home and accept their fate with quiet resignation, not daring to protest or enquire more deeply into the affair.

2 See e.g. Wu Zelin (1988), pp. 249–253, which refers to ‘staying at home’ (zuojia). The same phenomenon is called by a slightly different name in Chen Yongling (1987), p. 101: ‘not staying in your husband’s home’ (bu luo fujia).

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Mr Jia’s wife was terribly in love with Mr Yi, but she was already married to Jia! Since she could not become Yi’s wife, she rarely combed her hair, allowing it to grow dishevelled and unkempt, and she rarely washed her face. This behaviour was customary when you had recently given birth to a child, but she used it unconventionally to protest against her marriage. Not long after she began demonstrating this kind of behaviour, her pregnancy was evidenced by a growing tummy. Two months before the baby was due, she returned to her husband’s home to give birth there. Although she was disaffected with her husband, after the birth she felt obliged to live permanently with him, in keeping with tradition, and raise the son in his home. Later, she gave birth to two more sons, producing heirs for the Jia family, who were overjoyed. The identity of the rst child’s father was never entirely clear, but Mr Jia himself was certainly the father of the two younger sons. Conversing through the windows at night was a popular pastime of the young men and women. Life-long liaisons arising from this practice were, however, relatively rare. One exception was a love story involving Ms Xiao from Dazhai and Mr Shuo from Xiaozhai (cf. Chapter 16). Their wedding ceremony was conducted according to the usual tradition. After three nights, the bride returned to her home. Then before the usual 10 days were up, the groom’s family invited the bride back to sleep with her husband. She stayed there and did not return to her parental home until a child had been born, because she was so contented staying with her husband. When she carried the baby back home to be introduced to its maternal grandmother, the village women all asked her: “How is it that you were not embarrassed to stay there so long and so soon?” Ms Xiao answered without hesitation: “He’s good to me and we love each other.” This made everyone blush, turning their faces to one side. At that time, this kind of experience was fairly rare in Xiangye. Usually women had to stay at home and only the duration of the staying at home varied. Although arranged marriages were generally the order of the day and marriage was often entered into reluctantly, and although in addition the wife’s family was often dissatised at the phenomenon of staying at home, divorce was extremely rare. In the 40 or 50 years before Liberation, there were only very exceptional cases of divorce. In such cases, there did not need to be any long-running quarrel or nagging about obtaining a divorce, nor did there need to be any lengthy and

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tedious formalities. The most formal location for instituting a divorce was at the temple of the land god, but any other location would sufce. The husband and wife stood facing each other and one of them simply smashed a jar or a ceramic bowl. That act announced and legitimized the divorce. Only once did the author witness such an announcement. One morning at 8 o’clock, the author observed a woman who had not yet combed her hair or washed her face walking along clutching a ceramic jar, saying indignantly: “Let’s go! To the bullghting arena, to smash the jar! If you don’t come, you don’t deserve to be called a human being!” She was not crying, but was rather bursting with bitter recriminations. A man followed her silently, apprehensively, as if he had no alternative. The two of them reached the small temple of the land god next to the bullghting arena and stood facing each other. The woman announced: “From today onwards, the two of us will be like this ceramic jar”, whereupon she took the jar in her hands and with sudden violence pounded it onto the rock in front of the temple. It smashed into smithereens. The woman turned and left abruptly, without looking back. The man seemed totally dazed and dumbstruck. Everything had happened so suddenly, as though there had just been a thunderclap before he had time to cover his ears. Only after watching the woman disappear into the distance did he regain his composure and realize that he himself should also go home. It transpired that they had been married for three years and the woman had stayed at her parents’ home throughout that time. When someone came to invite her to her husband’s home, she was usually unwilling to go. At the time of the spring sowing the husband’s family invited her three times before she reluctantly returned to his home. She got out of bed that morning before dawn, grabbed her skirt and was about to leave when her husband lost his temper and blurted out one sentence: “I don’t want you!” On hearing this, the woman retorted: “Okay then, so be it!” As she said this, she grabbed the ceramic jar from the repit and insisted they go together to the bullghting arena. Only later that morning after the jar had been smashed and the divorce had been formalized, did everyone hear about the course of events that had led up to the divorce. It may seem from all this that Kam people divorced at will, with little to restrain them, as though one ill-spoken word or one incident

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could spark a separation. The means of divorce was indeed simple, but actual divorces were few and far between. It was generally believed that the institution of marriage was a life-long union, arranged by fortune and by the gods, and it could not be treated lightly. The partners in a marriage were usually longsuffering towards one another. Husband and wife typically did not talk much to one another and there was little communication of any kind between them. The husband could make do without his wife’s affection, and had to because of his own lack of love for her. The disgruntled wife, in turn, had to make do with feeling unloved and simply bearing children for her husband. As they grew older, disagreements naturally subsided. Proposing divorce, as far as Xiangye people were concerned, involved too much loss of face for the partner, or too much offence. Most commonly it did not come to divorce. Typically, the wife would go to her parents’ home and in the worst case, she would threaten to run away. Only by eloping with a Han partner, could a wife ensure that her husband would never be able to catch her and bring her back. This drastic alternative solution to the problem, however, never happened in Xiangye to the best of the author’s knowledge. Divorce was caused by pride. If one partner proposed it, the other had to agree. It was too humiliating to resist. If one person announced divorce, it was even more implausible for the other person to promote reconciliation on their own initiative, or to reveal hopes for reconciliation. The wife feared that if she did this, other people would look down on her. The husband in turn was afraid of losing face before his wife. Even if it was only one burst of hot air or one ill-spoken sentence that led to divorce, there could be no restoration. If divorcees happened to meet somewhere, they behaved as though they did not know each other, refusing to talk to one another or even to look at each other. In the Xiangye of those days, spinsters and bachelors were extremely rare. If a wife died and her husband was rich, he remarried. A poor widower on the other hand spent the rest of his life raising his sons. Those without sons were typically lonely and miserable, and died forlorn and despairing within a few years. Within three days of her husband dying, a childless widow either remarried someone not in her husband’s family, or returned to her maternal home, or married her husband’s younger brother. She usually did not remain a widow. If a widow had children, she was responsible to raise them until they were grown up. If she were well-to-do, she

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lived with her children. Otherwise, if she could not afford to raise the children herself, she had either to arrange their marriages or to hand them over to her deceased husband’s family to raise. It was common three days after an older brother died for his widow to become the wife of his younger brother, assuming the younger brother had not yet married.3 If the younger brother had already married, a cousin of the brothers’ generation was then eligible to marry the widow. There was no marriage ceremony or any other special gathering, only a notication of the clan elders. Then the new couple became entirely legitimate. Sometimes a widow was not willing to marry the younger brother of her deceased husband. In that case, older women from the clan represented the extended family and tried to persuade her to conform to tradition. After such persuasion a widow might change her mind and agree to marry her brother-in-law, although for the rest of her life she might regret having to bear the consequences of this decision. If a younger brother died, his older brother did not take the widow as his wife. There were various taboos in relation to the older brother and his younger brother’s wife. For example, the older brother had to be serious in front of his sister-in-law and should not make jokes in her hearing. He was not to enter her bedroom, nor travel together with her, and above all he was not to take her as his wife (in the event that his younger brother died). Among the widows in Xiangye who remarried, all had normal marital relations with their new husbands, and the author never observed one to divorce.

3 This custom whereby a man is obliged to marry his brother’s widow is known as the levirate, originating with the ancient Hebrews.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

UNORTHODOX MARRIAGES Yac piiup eis lail jagl, yac sax eis lail yagc. It is not easy to carry two bamboo baskets around one’s waist; it is not easy to love two wives.

Arranged marriages were normal and they were the accepted tradition for Xiangye people. No one could remember how far back this tradition extended. This chapter describes the relatively few departures from this longstanding tradition. Elopement attracted disapproval and stigma from Xiangye society at large and led to embarrassment in meetings involving members of the two affected families. People from the same part of the township (either Dazhai or Xiaozhai) never eloped with one another, perhaps to save face for the two sets of parents. Indeed, no one from Dazhai ever eloped with anyone from Xiaozhai. Perhaps the main reason for this was the general timidity of the men. With just a little courage, a man could lead his sweetheart away. The woman was normally uninhibited by other concerns and willing to follow her love. Men, however, feared being abandoned by their families and losing their inheritance because of marrying against their parents’ wishes. They were also naturally hesitant to leave the security of their own clan for the uncertainty and difculty of dependency on people with a different surname outside the village. Therefore although people sometimes fell in love as a result of the night conversations through the window, they felt under obligation to follow parental arrangements for marriage and were thereby vulnerable to the sadness of a lifetime of unfullled but lingering affection. There were, however, some unmarried men and women who eloped from other villages and ultimately lived in Xiangye; one household in each of Dazhai and Xiaozhai. These people eloped to Xiangye to work as tenant farmers and to raise families. One unorthodox elopement involved a young lady from Sebian in the southern Kam county of Liping (currently in Rongjiang county).

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Abduction of a bride.

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She came to visit relatives in Xiangye and while she was there, a Kam man named Mr Bao from Zhanmo arrived and courted her. After only a few minutes of conversing through the window with Mr Bao, without even having seen his face clearly, she eloped with him. At daybreak, she appeared at his home in Zhanmo, but his parents and family reacted by giving her the cold shoulder. They did not allow her to carry water or to cook a meal. Nor did they invite her to eat or to sit down. The ‘groom’ hid himself away in the homes of other people during the day and only returned to his house in the middle of the night. Within three days the ‘bride’ had returned to her home in Sebian, about 40 kilometres away. This incident alarmed the people of Xiangye and it reinforced their disapproval of elopement. It was not quickly forgotten. The young woman never returned to visit her relatives in Xiangye. Within a few months, Mr Bao had married a Han woman. At that time there was often talk of ‘abducted brides’. If a man in his 20s or 30s could not nd a bride, other men in the village rst obtained his approval and then schemed to abduct a wife for him. The targeted woman was from a different village. The men chose a dark night and lay in ambush outside her home. When they saw her lighting a lamp and coming out to do some household chore, they blew out the light, seized her and led her away. The woman, although terried, did not dare to scream for help. It was as though she was a passenger on a ship destined for a place which could be determined only by the sailors. This approach of abducting a bride was used occasionally during daytime, in the open countryside. People said that the woman could not possibly run away, either at the time she was abducted or after she was taken into her ‘husband’s’ house, and it was believed that once she entered the man’s house she became his wife. In some cases such women had earlier been acquainted with their new husbands, but in others there was no prior acquaintance. Such a captive could only become resigned to this adversity, as there was no way out. Her own family did not investigate her disappearance, but simply treated it as an unsolved case of a missing person and let it go at that. In those days, there was no legal system that could apprehend the wrong-doers, arguing was to no avail and any other way of freeing the woman was too expensive. Sometimes the relationship of an abducted bride to her parental family was restored after she gave birth to a baby. Otherwise, it was as if the parents and the parental family had totally forgotten about her existence.

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It was probably in the 1920s that Xiangye experienced a case of a bride-abduction. People throughout the village were talking about a Kam man named Fu Bin, who came to live in Xiangye with a young lady from Langhuang, still in her teens. The rumours were that he had abducted her. After winning her as his bride, Fu Bin was delighted and often reminded everyone: “I am over 40!” He seemed satised and complacent. Fu Bin was from a poor family and served as a tenant farmer. The partition inside his house was made of tree bark, dividing the house into two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. He himself lived on the second oor above the kitchen and bedroom. The wife he was said to have abducted never returned to Langhuang. She gave birth to children for him. She was always shy and reserved when meeting and chatting with people, but she and her husband lived happily together and didn’t quarrel. Some stories circulated in Xiangye about women who served as concubines to Han men. These stories typically involved Han men coming to the village to abduct Kam women to be their concubines. In the 1930s and 1940s, before Liberation, there were four such unlucky cases in Dazhai and one in Xiaozhai. In the Dazhai cases, the women were admired by Han visitors, who callously declared that they wanted the Kam women as concubines. The parents of the young women did not dare to refuse or oppose and the women were subsequently taken away. The girl from Xiaozhai gave birth to an illegitimate child and never returned to the village. Once she had left, there was no way she could avoid becoming a concubine. As soon as these women entered Han Chinese society, they discarded their Kam clothing for Han clothes. They had no hope of escaping to return to their village and were embarrassed when they met anyone from home. One of the Dazhai women was locked away in a house, separated from the outside world, until she died. Another was abandoned after several days, in unfamiliar surroundings. Yet another ran away after her husband died, but never returned to her native village. Only one gave birth to a son who inherited his father’s property. She remained with her master serving as his concubine for the rest of her life. Some Xiangye people appeared to mimic the Han example of taking concubines1 and this kind of unorthodox marriage occurred in six 1 Jung Chang (1992, p. 39), writing of her grandmother’s rst ‘marriage’ as a concubine to General Xue in 1924, observes that: ‘Wives were not for pleasure—that

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instances. All of these involved people from rich Dazhai families, who exercised power and inuence and who, after Liberation, were considered to be of the landlord class.2 People in Xiaozhai were relatively poor and there were no concubines there. The six Kam men with concubines can be classied in the following two categories. The rst were those whose rst wives did not give birth to children, or who gave birth only to girls. They took concubines in order to have sons to inherit their property. The second were those who apparently wanted to show off, to demonstrate their special status by having a second woman. There were three men in each of these two categories. 1) Ms Zhi lost her mother at an early age and grew up with her father, her brothers and their wives. By the time she was 18, no one had yet proposed to her. Mr Zai was a teacher in a private school and had previously been a village head. His wife seemed emaciated and old, though she had given birth to a girl. Zhi and Zai were both from Dazhai. They had not met or talked together and there was no forewarning of a relationship between them, but somehow, they came together. At rst they lived in the village of Wengbei three kilometres from Xiangye. After several days there, Zai brought Ms Zhi back to his home. When Ms Zhi did not appear at her father’s home, her family realized that she had probably been abducted, but they did not search for her. Only when Zai’s rst wife came crying and yelling that he had taken a concubine did the people of Dazhai realize what had happened. The difference in age between the two was about 30 years. Ms Zhi’s family was relatively prosperous and the family members considered her behaviour to be dishonourable. They never acknowledged her relationship with Zai, treating the couple as though they did not exist. She gave birth to a baby but still did not feel at liberty

was what concubines were for. Concubines might acquire considerable power, but their social status was quite different from that of a wife. A concubine was a kind of institutionalized mistress, acquired and discarded at will.’ On p. 40, she continues: ‘In the house of a potentate like General Xue, the women were virtual prisoners, living in a state of permanent squabbling and bickering, largely induced by insecurity. The only security they had was their husband’s favour.’ (See also the end of p. 51.) 2 They were consequently denounced as guilty of exploitation and stripped of their land and property; except for one of the six, who had already committed suicide.

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to visit her father, brothers and sisters-in-law. They severed relations with Zhi’s family though they lived in the same village; declining to talk to each other right up to Liberation. At Liberation, Mr Zai, together with four of the other ve men described here, was arrested and sent to work in a labour camp. 2) Mr Men’s family belonged to a large clan. At Liberation, he committed suicide before being arrested. He lived in a long-house, with ten rooms side-by-side. In his generation, there was only one male member of the family—himself. After his sisters married and left home, he and his wife occupied three of the rooms, while the other rooms were vacant. His wife gave birth to two daughters. About three years before Liberation, Mr Men brought home a young Han woman from the neighbouring Han area, 20 or 30 years his junior. The next morning, as she hulled rice using the treadmill, people realized that he had brought in a concubine. The young woman was always reticent and never spoke with anyone. She gave birth to a son for Mr Men just before Liberation. When Liberation came, Men was terried, because he was rich and had taken a Han girl to be his concubine; so terried that he hanged himself on a tree in the mountains. His wife seemed not at all upset by this but his concubine was beside herself with grief. 3) Lao Long had been the village head for a short time. He married a Kam woman from Qinwang near Langdong. She was childless and then he took another young Kam woman from Xiaozhai to be his concubine. She was beautiful and strong, came from a prosperous family and was quite clever. By the time she was 18, her parents had not agreed on any husband for her. Many young men vied for her attention, but she had no steady partner. She exchanged pleasant conversation with her admirers and enjoyed their company, but that was all. After Lao Long had taken a fancy to her, she was brought to his home one night—whatever he said to her, she unexpectedly agreed immediately to go with him. No one from her own family came to ask after her and she herself was unwilling to return home. She lived the rest of her life with Long, even waiting for his release from subsequent captivity, and bore several children to him. Moreover, there was no animosity between her and Lao Long’s wife. The following men were in the second category of those who had concubines, who by doing so seemed as though they wanted to make a statement about their status in society.

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1) Lao Chu had also been the village head for a short time. He often went to visit Han towns where he made friends with people. At that time, he already had two children. A man by the name of De Xing in Dazhai had two daughters and the older was very attractive. Each evening, young men from Dazhai and Xiaozhai came to court her, and her house seemed full of activity, but no one could win her hand in marriage. One night, however, unknown to everyone else, Lao Chu brought her to his home. At 10 am the next morning, Lao Chu’s Han friend Qi Fu (cf. Chapters 4 and 18), already drunk after breakfast, went to force open the door of the house, which was locked, so that he could abuse the young woman. Lao Chu and others desperately pulled him back. The woman inside was terried, not daring to make a sound. As a result of the men’s public struggle and argument, people realized that the night before Lao Chu had brought De Xing’s older daughter home to be his concubine. She was afraid of Han people, however, and terried that she might be bullied and harassed. The next day she disappeared without trace. Lao Chu did not look for her and their relationship thus promptly ended. Her family did not visit Lao Chu’s home to ask after her, nor did they go elsewhere to investigate her whereabouts. She simply vanished from Xiangye. 2) At a young age, Ms Dou from Xiaozhai was promised in marriage to her cousin Mr Xiao, the son of her maternal uncle, according to common practice. She grew up and the young men from Dazhai went to converse with her through the window at night. Every evening her home was crowded with young men. As soon as one group left, another group arrived, and her popularity made her famous. The very mention of her name excited the young men. Especially in the evenings they looked out for her. Even catching a glimpse of her shadow made them happy. In the long run, however, no one could win her affection and become her sweetheart. Dou’s reputation began to interest an older man by the name of Mr Tai. He had served several years in the army and later served as a township representative and community leader. His wife had borne him only one daughter, though his interest in Ms Dou was born more of his desire for power and inuence than of his desire for a son. One night he went to chat with and entice Ms Dou. Surprisingly, she opened the door and admitted him, and the two of them sat together on the same bench. His rst words were that he wanted to sleep with her. Dou hesitated. Tai then became agitated,

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standing up and threatening that if she was not willing to go with him, he would spend the night there in her house and not leave. Ms Dou was frightened, picked up a skirt, as the women did when they were eloping, and ran out into the night with him. She rst lived a few nights with him in Zhanmo, then was taken back to his home to be his concubine. She gave birth to a daughter by him, just before Liberation. 3) Mr Sheng’s family belonged to a large clan. He married a Miao woman from outside the village and she bore him two sons. He was a chain smoker, smoking the cheap cigarettes manufactured in Gaoyang of Liping county. After a while, he left his wife in Xiangye and went alone to live in Gaoyang. In Gaoyang, Sheng found a young lady to be his concubine, to cook for him, wash his clothes and take care of him. Before long, she bore him children, and within a few years he brought her back to his old home in Xiangye to live there. She wore Kam clothing from Liping and spoke Kam with a Liping accent, moving about comfortably in the Xiangye community and making friends easily. Sheng’s wife was out of favour with her husband but the two women and one man nevertheless lived together under the same roof, and there were no disputes or conicts. The six men referred to above all married women 20 or 30 years their junior, whom they had hardly seen or spoken to before. Some of them met a woman for the rst time and simply said “Let’s go.” No other pleasantries were involved. The women hardly resisted or hesitated; without a word, like soldiers obeying orders, they picked up some clothing and left. It seems that in the minds of the young women concerned, there was the idea that if a man abandoned his wife in favour of her, this represented a kind of coup for her. In this way, being a concubine took on a glorious appeal and did not attract stigmatism from society at large.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIPS Lis seel ags yangh dangl, eis douh lebc dih wangp. A deer gives off a very distinctive odour; you don’t need to be told where the deer is.

After the central dynasty had successfully suppressed the rebellions in Guizhou from the 14th century onwards,1 Han troops were stationed in the land around Xiangye. The homes of local men who had been killed in battle or who had run away were listed as ‘heirless homes’ and Han soldiers were assigned such homes for their lodging. A soldier typically took the woman of the home to be his wife. Some such women already had children and the soldiers became step-fathers to these children. Their language, however, was different and this led to serious misunderstandings and mutual estrangement of feeling and thought. Add to this the trauma of broken and bereaved families and it was natural that family members were unable to communicate well with the new family-heads. In addition, the soldiers generally did not undertake any manual labour. Instead they sat by the fire observing what was going on around them and waiting for food to be served. They and their wives lived supercially as though they were married couples, yet they did not share the mutual affection normally associated with husband and wife. It was as though they were hardly acquainted with one another. This supercial relationship went on for years, or for decades—for the rest of their lives. Lack of conversation between husband and wife became a family habit and then a social custom. This custom could still be observed in certain households in Xiangye right up to the time of Liberation. In some Han marriages, it was also common for the husband and wife to live together in relative silence, behaving as though they did not know each other. The wider dissemination of Han culture in the early

1

Cf. Chapter 1, footnote 5 and Chapter 2, footnote 1.

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Estrangement between husband and wife.

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1900s may have led to similar behaviour between Kam spouses. This scenario was more common among people in the northern Kam villages, who were more inuenced by Han Chinese culture, than among the southern Kam, where husbands and wives conversed more freely and naturally with one another. When husbands and wives in Xiangye appeared as though they did not know each other, this may also have resulted partly from Xiangye culture itself. There was the estrangement born of arranged marriages (cf. Chapters 19, 21 and 22). Whether they personally rmly opposed the arranged marriage or consented to it, as far as others were concerned, the young man and woman gave the appearance of being resolutely opposed to the union. Before marriage, each party was unwilling to meet and even more unwilling to negotiate with the other party. Whoever took the initiative to see or speak to the other, ran the risk of betraying him or herself to appear to be a beggar and attracted scorn and stigma from others. This kind of unnatural pride was like a wall, keeping the future married couple apart. At the wedding ceremony, the groom avoided the bride. After having sexual intercourse, the husband sat by the re warming himself while the wife worked around the house. The husband turned his face away, unwilling to look his wife in the face. They ate at the same table but they certainly did not sit on the same bench. In the presence of others, the husband did not interrupt while his wife was speaking. Nor did he argue with her, nor address her directly. Neither husband nor wife directly expressed any kind of approval to their spouse. It appeared as though the two were adversaries in some long-running dispute, as though there was some deep-seated prejudice coming between them. After children were born, the wife usually spoke to her husband through her daughter, while the husband usually addressed his wife through his son. The children thus served as a bridge, linking the parents, who rarely spoke directly to one another and who certainly did not have heart-to-heart conversations or deep discussions about any matter. As the couple grew older, this sense of alienation tended to weaken, but they still did not call each other by name. Instead, each referred to the other as ‘so-and-so’s mother’ or ‘so-and-so’s father’, where ‘soand-so’ was the rst child, irrespective of whether it was a boy or a girl. With age, the two talked somewhat more to each other, but still not really on a deeper level, or on a heart-to-heart basis. Each went

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about his or her business, and the estrangement established when they were younger basically prevailed. The rst time a bride and groom shared a bed together, the groom only dared enter the bridal room under the cover of darkness. Only with great difculty could the husband overcome his sense of dignity and build up the courage to go to bed with his wife. Then without talking or making a sound, he hastily went about the business of having intercourse, as though he were ghting a battle. At least after that, they could really be considered husband and wife. Before dawn the next day, the bride returned to her parental home, to begin the several months or even years of staying there. During this time, when she happened to be called back to her husband’s home to live for a short time, intercourse was always conducted in the dark. If any sound or sign of sex was revealed to the outside world, the newly married wife felt too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye, so she returned as soon as possible to her maternal home. In that case, she did not visit her husband’s home again for a long time, until with the healing of time she dared to face the people there again. Young married couples did not speak in bed and often did not even share a bed. When the husband had sexual desire, he stole into his wife’s room at dead of night. The bed was usually too small for two adults to sleep comfortably. After children were born, they slept with their mother and the husband really had no choice but to sleep in another bed. Sex in marriage still continued at dead of night, the husband entering reticently and without words. The act of intercourse completed, he left. The couple continued in this vein right up to old age. This is how it happened that a woman generally slept without locking her bedroom door. Up to the age of 7 to 10, children usually wore split-seat trousers, with their sexual organs exposed. After this, boys and girls both wore closed trousers. Thereafter, men and women strictly kept their reproductive organs private. These most private of body parts were not to be looked at or spoken about. If anyone’s private parts were seen, he or she would be ashamed and humiliated. Furthermore, it was believed that the person who looked on another’s sexual organs was subject to bad luck. If a family member, even your spouse, had sexual relations with someone else and nothing amiss was detected by any outsider, then there would be no problem. If the act was observed, however, or if someone used it as a means of blackmail or abuse, this constituted

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the greatest possible personal humiliation, bringing much grief and disgrace. Sexual intercourse was the most private thing in life and it had to be kept secret. As sex life was secretive, it was rare for people to talk openly about the opposite sex, and discussion of clandestine love affairs was extremely rare. Stumbling upon such a liaison meant bad luck and there was strong pressure to turn a blind eye. The unfortunate detective would try to hide, not wanting to turn someone’s good thing into a bad thing; and would be ashamed, embarrassed, and unwilling to talk about it to others. Many people in Xiangye were aware that certain illegitimate liaisons were being pursued: at night-time on the ground oor of the ganlan homes; on the top oor where foods and other items were stored; in the women’s bedrooms while their husbands were away; during the daytime in the cattle-pens located far away from the village; in the woods; or in the cotton-elds. In all these places people could generally avoid prying eyes. Rice-straw was often piled around the cattle-pens on the ground oor of the ganlan buildings. At night, the woman of the house came down to feed the pigs, collect rewood, or use the toilet. She sometimes met men of the same generation who had not yet married, brothers-inlaw, or widowers, who pushed her onto the straw and had intercourse there. Before daybreak when women rose early to hull the rice and men went to cut grass for the cattle, it was also possible for rape to occur in the same way. Cattle-pens were often built far away from the village near the paddy elds, to be used during the busy farming season. When a farmer was ploughing elds in the spring, weeding them later in the season, or bringing in the harvest in the autumn, he often stayed in the cattlepen overnight. Women sometimes appeared nearby, catching sh and shrimps, or gathering plants for the pigs. If a woman chanced upon a man and there was no one else in sight, the man’s desires might be aroused. Then he might pull the woman into the cattle-shed. In the cotton elds and in the woods this situation might also occur, on condition that by day there must be no one to witness it. The woman usually found it impossible to escape or to resist, as the male used his superior physical strength to prevail. With rape completed, both people quickly went their separate ways, for fear that they might be discovered. Many kept such secrets into old age. As far as they were concerned not even the spirits were privy to what had happened.

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Two examples of this kind of ‘secret’ are discussed here. The rst concerns the wife of a man named Hong, an only son, whose father died early. His mother arranged for him to marry a talented woman from Xiaozhai, admired by everyone for her cleanliness and ne appearance. She seemed to be a vigorous woman who would give birth to children and Hong’s mother eagerly anticipated the arrival of grandsons to inherit her deceased husband’s property. After the wedding, however, Hong gradually became lean, haggard and introverted. His wife, on the other hand, was glowing with health and quite an extrovert, never happier than when she was visiting others in the village. She never became pregnant, however, and her motherin-law resented this, waiting anxiously for a grandchild to be born as if waiting for rice to be served from a pot. After two or three years, Hong’s health deteriorated sharply and his strength left him, so that in effect he became an invalid, totally dependent on his mother and his wife. His mother did the housework and raised the poultry, while his wife broke with the usual tradition and took over some of the heavy work of her husband. She worked alone in the open countryside by day and only returned at dusk. After about a year like this Hong’s wife became pregnant and the villagers remarked sarcastically that the wind was blowing her up. No one believed that this could be the child of the sickly Hong. When Hong and his mother noticed the pregnancy, they were very upset and it added more wordless pain to their lives. After giving birth to a baby, that bright strong woman was never seen in the village again, nor was her child. She may have taken the baby and left the village, or the baby may have died soon after birth. As was often the case in such matters, no one ever talked about their disappearance. Within a year, Mr Hong and his mother died, one after the other. The villagers never answered the riddle of how the wind had expanded that woman’s belly. The second example concerns a young widow from Xiaozhai. Before her son Mi was 10 years old, her husband died; but she herself was still beautiful and strong. The women in Xiangye wore long tunics, so that from calf to chest women took on a barrel shape and no curve was readily apparent. One day a woman went to the spring to wash her legs and she met Mi’s mother there washing her hair. The woman noticed that Mi’s mother’s belly was fat and immediately remarked: “Sister, you’re pregnant!” Mi’s mother replied: “I don’t know how this happened, sister!” She was about to have a child, but her husband had died two or three years

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earlier. The other woman did not pass any further remark and dared not publicise the matter. Before too long, Mi’s mother disappeared. Later, it was generally understood that she ran off to another village to have that illegitimate child and abandon it there. She was then discovered by a Han person and taken to be his concubine. Villagers going to the markets saw her in Han clothing, but recognized her only with difculty. She was shy of them and did not talk to them or admit that she knew them, instead hiding away inside her house. At that time she was only about 30 years old. Her 10-yearold son rejected her, as did others from her clan. No one from the village talked about her any more and everyone behaved as though they had forgotten her. Who had made her pregnant? The author overheard some old women whispering that several of Mi’s uncles used to visit her bedroom at dead of night. Some climbed a ladder to enter her room, others climbed over the ganlan porch. Mi’s mother did not close the door at night. In the darkness of her room she was not even able to distinguish clearly who entered, ‘involuntarily’ letting them do whatever they wanted. Therefore she was able to claim “I don’t know how this happened”! Protecting the privacy of sexual behaviour in Xiangye was a top priority. Whether it was the direct participants in such behaviour or other people who were involved in some secondary way, the preserving of sexual secrets was mainly a preservation of ‘face’. This secrecy served as a g leaf, preserving psychological balance and equilibrium in interpersonal relationships. If the g leaf was lost, psychological equilibrium might also be lost and abnormal behaviour might arise. If a woman found out that her illegitimate sexual activity had been discovered, she was typically lled with dread and anxiety, and this sometimes led to eccentric behaviour, nervous disorders or even mental breakdown. Two examples are described below. One day toward evening, an elder was resting in the veranda of his home when a young woman from the village, wearing a green grass headband signifying a crisis, rushed up to him. She was sobbing as she related urgently and indignantly how she had just been raped in a cotton eld far away from the village by a Mr Wu from Xiaozhai. She remarked that others had observed what had happened and she couldn’t face her husband or family any more, but needed to marry Mr Wu. The elder appeared unmoved by the story and just listened quietly. Before he had time to say anything, the woman left in a hurry. When Mr Wu found out about the woman’s meeting with the elder, he was

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so frightened that he did not dare to go home. Before long, he discreetly moved house with his wife, so that the elder would be unable to investigate. Such rapes were notorious for happening on the cotton elds every year. As long as no one else saw what happened, a woman was too embarrassed to say anything about it because doing so would cause her to lose face. In such cases, the misdemeanour was never revealed. If others observed what happened, however, and the story became known, then it became a very serious problem. The raped woman went to the elder’s house to place an accusation, demanding to marry the man who had raped her. When her husband found out, he typically rejected her and left her. She in turn requested to set off recrackers and she hung red cloth over her shoulders, to frighten any evil spirits away, at the same time using rice wine to sprinkle her body for cleansing. Yet in those 20 years the author never observed this whole process. In the example given, Mr Wu promptly ed the village. The second example concerns the family of a man called Ba Fu, a Kam man, who somehow ended up living in Dazhai. His family lived in the Ou part of the village, along with the Ous. They were tenant farmers, working the elds of a Han person from Langdong named Shi Wang and living in Shi Wang’s home. Ba Fu had a ne wife, strong and kind, who had borne him three children. Husband and wife never quarrelled, but the wife seemed unwilling to converse with her husband, as though she were sick and tired of him. Shi Wang often came to Xiangye to live in Ba Fu’s home, staying for three to seven days at a time. It was gossiped around the village that Shi Wang often made his way into the wife’s room and raped her. Then one day Ba Fu discovered Shi Wang in the act of raping his wife. Ashamed and distraught, the wife ran outside and disappeared. In an effort to appease his landlord, Ba Fu endured such humiliation and behaved as though nothing had happened. After a while, his wife nally returned, but Shi Wang did not leave. Again he invaded the bedroom at night and was again discovered by Ba Fu. This time Shi Wang went back to Langdong, but within a week he was back at Ba Fu’s home, behaving as he had done before. When she saw Shi Wang, Ba Fu’s wife was terried. Not only had her own husband discovered what was happening, but when she saw other women in the village whispering to each other, she suspected that they were talking about her. Dread and shame drove her crazy.

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One evening she did not come home from her work in the elds. Her three children wept in despair, but their mother could not be found anywhere. Three days later, people returning from work in the mountains saw her at the edge of the woods, dishevelled hair owing behind her. When she saw them, she rushed off and disappeared into the forest. Ba Fu recruited some people to search for her in the woods. When they caught a glimpse of her, she turned and ran for cover among the trees, and they were unable to catch her. After several days, however, she was caught and forcibly brought home by Ba Fu. She sat limply at home, surrounded by her children, not saying a word. She neither cried nor laughed, nor did any work. Her eyes betrayed a fear of people and she did all she could to hide from everyone, except her own children. Occasionally she ventured outside to collect water, moving with haste and avoiding any contact with others. If she saw anyone wearing white clothing—Shi Wang often wore white—she ran for her life. She used to run into the woods until she was captured and brought back home. Then after several days she would run away again. As time went on, she became more and more withdrawn, and people thought she had simply become insane. Everyone said she was a lunatic. That year (it was probably 1943), just as the weather changed from hot to cold, the house belonging to Shi Wang, occupied by Ba Fu and his family, was suddenly locked up. The next day there was no member of the family to be seen. No one knew when exactly they had moved or where they had moved to. Moreover no one dared to say that Ba Fu’s wife’s madness, running into the woods, was a result of Shi Wang’s behaviour, a consequence of the shame arising from other people discovering her humiliation. Instead, everyone said that her madness was caused by the ‘bad foundations’ of the house she lived in. In summary, the relationship between husband and wife in Xiangye families, as perceived by others, was generally rather distant and morose. It seemed as though there was some kind of estrangement between man and woman in thinking or in affections. Married life was considered by the villagers to be predestined and it had little to do with sentiment. In other words, they believed that sex was distinct from feelings of love and affection. Marriage was only for sexual intimacy and this was not based on love. On the contrary, the sexual relationship was synonymous with a lack of enthusiasm on the emotional front.

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This situation was also reected in the relationships between unmarried men and women. The relationships between younger brothers and the wives of older brothers were casual—talking, laughing and making fun together. Similar behaviour was typical for other young men and women of the same generation. Once sexual relations had been established, however, attitudes suddenly changed. In the presence of others, a husband and wife usually adopted an air of seriousness between one another. They only related to each other solemnly, in speech and in manner. If they met on the road, they passed each other as if not noticing, as though they did not even know each other. They behaved like this in order to deceive others and keep the secret of their sexual relations with each other. One of the reasons why husbands and wives behaved as though they were hardly acquainted was that they wanted to ‘keep the secret’—even though sex between husband and wife was always legitimate.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE DISTINCTION IN CULTURE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN Lagx diux aenh daeml yav, miegs lail aenh dags nyax. A wise son takes care of the paddy elds; a good daughter takes care of the spinning wheel.

In general, men were in charge of matters outside the home, while women took care of things within the home. The men did not usually sit around idly at home. Only in winter did they have less to do on the farm, with some time to rest. At that time the women were still busy spinning thread and doing the housework. The women’s work was never done and throughout the year there was no leisure time available to them. The distinction in culture between men and women was clear and generally understood. Its most common features are outlined below. Men ploughed and harrowed the paddy elds; cut grass for buffaloes and led them to pasture; collected and applied manure; selected and sowed rice seeds; transplanted rice seedlings; threshed the rice; built and repaired the eld boundary ridges; and took responsibility for nishing all farm work. Throughout the year the men worked mainly in the paddy elds, which were, after all, their main inheritance. Women could not inherit paddy elds. Men were also involved in building sheds and houses; carpentry; chopping rewood and making charcoal; felling trees and stacking lumber; shing and hunting; raising birds; slaughtering pigs, cattle, chicken and ducks; cutting meat, frying food and pounding glutinous rice into paste for baba (cf. Chapter 11); making straw sandals and wicker baskets; diving and swimming; climbing trees to collect fruit; killing snakes and driving away wild beasts; guarding against theft and catching thieves; working as soldiers and messengers; carrying knives and bearing arms; standing sentry and ghting; offering hospitality to soldiers; handing over the grain tax payment; hosting male guests; offering sacrices to ancestors and gods; carrying cofns and digging graves; performing magical

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Ploughing the rice elds and weeding the cotton elds.

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arts;1 working as silversmiths and carpenters; studying and teaching; serving as ofcials; riding horses and sitting in litters; managing village affairs; appointing labourers and collecting taxes; attending meetings; mediating in major disputes; playing stringed instruments and utes; beating gongs and drums; ring guns and setting off recrackers. All the work concerned with growing cotton was the women’s responsibility, from turning over the soil in the cotton elds to carrying excrement and applying it as fertilizer, planting seeds, weeding and picking the cotton. The land on which the cotton was grown belonged to the women, having served originally as a young woman’s dowry, later to be passed on from mother to daughter. The cotton elds had nothing to do with men, they were the ‘women’s world’. The women spun thread and wove cloth; made indigo and dyed the cloth; embroidered; sewed clothes and washed them; planted and picked vegetables; raised infants; steamed glutinous rice and cooked meals; swept oors and washed dishes; carried water and washed vegetables; hulled rice with the treadmill and fed the pigs; raised chickens and ducks; made sour vegetables and soup; made preserved sh and meat; brewed alcohol; made puffed rice and kneaded glutinous rice paste into baba; weeded and pulled up rice seedlings; harvested glutinous rice; gathered wild herbs; caught small sh and shrimp; acted as matchmakers and tried to reconcile parties in domestic arguments. The distinctive culture between men and women was passed down from generation to generation. There was no need for special education or rules, as everyone naturally followed traditional practices. There was clear demarcation between men’s and women’s matters, and the boundaries were rarely crossed. Male and female each felt unfamiliar with the responsibilities of the other and did not interfere with or even ask about the other’s responsibilities. For example, in those years men did not weed the cotton elds and women did not plough the paddy elds; men did not plant vegetables and women did not chop rewood; men did not harvest glutinous rice and women did not thresh rice; men did not hull rice and women did not cut grass; men did not feed pigs and women did not raise cattle; men did not sew clothes and women did not weave baskets; men did not use scissors and women did not use knives; women boiled or

1 For a discussion of shamanism, sorcery and magic among the Kam people generally, see e.g. Geary et al. (2003), pp. 169 –173.

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barbecued food and men fried it; men sold rice and women sold cloth; men did not keep vigil beside a cofn and women did not carry the cofn to the grave; men preferred to strike a light to guide them while women preferred to grope in the dark; men drank and smoked while women sang and gossiped; women did not host male guests and men did not host female guests; women went to the toilet before dawn but men could go at any time; women did not live above the men and men did not walk underneath a skirt (skirts were sometimes hung up in high places to dry in the sun); men liked women who were plump and women liked men who smiled. All these were distinctions that could be observed daily in Xiangye, but there were no extremely strict taboos and so there were occasionally exceptions to the norm. For example, sometimes a man carried buckets on a shoulder-pole and went to the well to collect water or sometimes a woman transplanted seedlings in a paddy eld. If such things were observed, people assumed that there was no woman in the man’s family, or no man in the woman’s family. Since Xiangye was situated between northern and southern Kam areas, the culture of the village was inuenced by both northern and southern Kam, and also by Han culture. Generally speaking the women’s culture was subject to more inuence from the southern Kam and tended to preserve more of traditional Kam culture. The men’s culture reected more inuence from northern Kam and tended to be more inuenced by Han culture. In those generations, the men of Dazhai often married women from around the borders with Rongjiang or Liping counties. Such women brought with them southern Kam culture and a strong southern Kam accent. Their husbands were men from Xiangye, with different customs and working habits. In such families, the two cultures gradually merged. The mother liked to eat glutinous rice, raw sour sh and meat, halfcooked barbecued meat and sh, and niubie (cf. end of Chapter 11). Often she used her ngers—not chopsticks—for eating. The father preferred ordinary rice and did not eat any food that was not completely cooked. He used bamboo chopsticks for eating. In such a family, with two different sets of tastes and customs, the children ate anything. They became used to both sets of tastes and did not exclude one in preference to the other. Southern Kam traits in relation to housework and clothing were gradually assimilated into the households, since the mothers did the housework and made the clothing.

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Over the generations, as the number of ‘mixed’ households increased, southern Kam culture inexorably spread throughout the village. At the time of Liberation the following dichotomy was clearly evident: the men’s culture was a Xiangye version of northern Kam culture, while the women’s culture was a manifestation of southern Kam culture.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CLAN-CENTRED COMMUNITY Daengl bangh weex maengx, daengl juml weex nyongc. Helping one another generates mutual happiness; being together generates mutual gladness.

The culture of Xiangye was relatively stable and well-preserved. The close-knit community survived only by interdependence. Old people said that the village had always been inhabited by Kam people. In the 10 years before Liberation one or two Han families moved from elsewhere to live in Xiaozhai and were able to live in harmony with the Kam. They were quickly able to speak Kam and adapt to the local customs so that by the time of Liberation they had assimilated and to all intents and purposes had become Kam themselves. In this way the village always seemed like a pure Kam community. Old people used to say that in the past, Kam people did not have surnames, only nicknames. They were called by names such as Cai, Jin, Fu, Ping, Xiang and Jian. These names had no meanings and were only the tags by which people were known. When the Han people spoke to or about them, they added the prex ‘Lao’ to these tags, calling people ‘Lao Cai’, ‘Lao Jin’ and so on. When he was small, the author heard an uncle relate the following story about names. “Some time ago, ofcials were sent by government authorities to register household members and their addresses in all the settlements. In Xiangye, there were many people with the name ‘Jia’ and the government ofcials could not distinguish between them. When it came to paying taxes each Jia was inclined to point to his neighbour. The result was that several Jias ended up paying one portion of grain tax between them. When the main ofcial in charge of collecting tax discovered a grain shortfall he was furious. He called all the Jias together and divided them into Ous, Yangs, Wus and so on, so that every person was given a Han surname in the household register. From that time on, Xiangye people used surnames.” The above legend may have predated the migration of ancestors to Xiangye. The Ou genealogical chart can be traced back to Tianzhu

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At the gravesides during the Sweeping the Graves Festival.

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county and even to the Ji’an city in Jiangxi. Legend has it that the original surname was Ou-Yang. After migration to Guizhou and settlement in a closed community, tens of families in the village all shared the same surname. In order to make the names easier to write and to remember, an ofcial ordered all the Ou-Yangs to change their names to Ou. According to legend, this happened around the beginning of the 17th century. There were four main surnames in Dazhai: Ou, Yang, Zhang and Luo. People with the same surnames were usually members of the same clan. An extended family was made up of the descendents of the same paternal grandfather. This might include several nuclear families comprised of parents and children. The extended family was the normal unit for social life in the village. For a given surname there were typically several such extended families. The Ou family constructed rows of houses for each grandfather, each house being occupied by one nuclear family. In each row there were between two and seven households. In addition there was a rectangular yard dedicated to the ‘original female ancestor’ (cf. Chapter 6), a central area around which the Ou clan was clustered and which also incidentally was the centre of Dazhai. Only one extended family among the Yangs built a row of houses together, ve households side by side. The other Yangs lived crowded together in the same area without any systematic order. There were fewer Zhangs and Luos than Ous and Yangs. The Luos lived at the head (upstream, west) of the village, while the Zhangs lived at the foot (downstream, east). Housing for the two respective clans was grouped together in no particular order. They had apparently migrated to the outskirts of the village in recent years. They had little inuence and seemed dependent on the Yangs and especially on the Ous. Zhang and Luo families were often moving to or from the village. In the two years before Liberation there were no Zhangs in the village, but after Liberation they returned. The population of Xiaozhai was less than that of Dazhai. There were three main surnames in Xiaozhai: Wu, Wu (two distinct names in Chinese) and Tian. There were no rows of extended-family houses and housing was not even grouped according to surname. Individual households were dotted on the mountaintops and on the mountainsides. There was more open area in Xiaozhai than in Dazhai, which was crammed full of houses.

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Most extended families in Xiangye lived in rows of houses associated with the same paternal grandfather, or even great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather. Poor families lived in single-storey homes. Rich and poor lived side by side according to surname. Some families migrated from neighbouring villages and linked with clans of the same surname, building small single-storey homes beside the existing clan homes. They rented land from the clan landlords. When the clan celebrated weddings, grieved at funerals, or built new homes, members of the clan assisted each other. In this way newcomers gained the protection and loyalty of other clan members. Practically everyone in the village became a clan member with one of the popular surnames and lived in the corresponding area of the village. There were almost no isolated families or individuals. (One exception to this general rule is discussed towards the end of Chapter 28.) People from the same clan were buried in the same area. The graves, one for each person, were dug close to each other. Women in the family had different surnames and for safety’s sake, they were usually not allowed to visit the graves. (In earlier times there had been arguments and ghts between different clans resulting in the destruction of graveyards by adversaries.) Half-way along the path to a grave, women in a funeral procession normally left and went back home. Few were allowed to go right up to the graveside and women were not allowed to participate at the graves during the Sweeping the Graves Festival. The land of the Ous of Dazhai was mostly concentrated to the southwest of the village. The Yangs’ land was mostly to the north. The land of the Xiaozhai inhabitants was mostly distributed east of the village. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was increasing business in commodities and land, and the former boundaries of the clans’ land disappeared. The prosperous Ous and Yangs took possession of most of the excellent paddy elds to the east. The big paddy elds to the south of the village were almost all possessed by the Jiangs of Langdong. Before Liberation there was a strong taboo in Xiangye on marriage between two people with the same surname. The surname-based communities organized marriages outside those communities, thereby establishing family relationships with other clans. Intermarriage between Ous and Yangs was the most common. Their respective populations were comparable, as was their wealth in terms of paddy elds and their inuence in society. Each clan owned its own well.

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Despite intermarriage, there was ongoing competition between the Ou and Yang clans. This was manifested through an unwillingness to submit to one another and a lack of mutual respect in some circumstances. If there was some crisis or disaster, there was mutual sympathy but a lack of assistance from the other clan, for fear of having to endure undue hardship. As the families were related through marriage, however, there were visits from one family to the other at festival and celebration times. Indeed the houses of people from the two clans physically touched each other and members of the clans were interdependent. The two clans always coexisted peacefully, never clashing in any serious way. Members of the same clan participated together every year at the Sweeping the Graves Festival. All the males from the clan, young and old, carried some rice wine, meat, incense, candles and money paper to the clan graves to pay homage to and seek the blessing of the common ancestors. Old men identied to the boys the graves of deceased relatives, one by one, explaining the position of each relative within the clan. Either at the grave site1 or back home, they shared a meal together, eating food dedicated to honouring the dead. Whether rich or poor, if a family needed to build a house, other families in the clan each volunteered one member to go to the mountains and help with felling trees. Clan members donated China r if the family building the house did not have enough. The timber was carried on shoulders to the site of the new home and the volunteers returned to help when the new house frame was being erected. Such help was always gratis, repaid only by meals in the home of the host. When an old person died all families in his (or her adopted) clan donated things for the funeral: rice, rice wine and white cloth to serve as mourning clothes or mourning headcloth. All those in the younger generation wore mourning dress. Older men helped to organize the funeral. Together the clan members shared both the sorrow and the economic cost with the grieving family. Everyone in the clan viewed the marriage of a fellow clan member—male or female—as an occasion for celebration. New clothes were worn and peoples’ faces glowed with pleasure as they served as hosts. The main host was presented with rice wine and sour sh by other clan members.

1

Cf. plate 39.

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When hosting relatives and friends, different family heads from the clan attended the meal and shared the responsibility of hosting. Thereafter, each nuclear family in the clan took turns hosting wedding guests to a meal. The guests and hosts stayed together for several enjoyable days. If a clan member became embroiled in an argument with an outsider, other clan members joined in on the side of their clansman and noisily scolded the opposite party, without stopping to question the rights or wrongs of the matter. If there was a st ght, everyone joined in . . . although such incidents were rare in the years before Liberation. It is said that after Liberation, this pattern of argument did not change much unless the issue of ‘class enemies’2 was involved. If a widow was left without any able-bodied men in her family to do heavy farming work, young men from the same clan helped her out on their own initiative, ploughing and harrowing the elds, transplanting seedlings and threshing rice. The widow’s family only repaid such work by hosting the young men to dinner. Similarly, widowers were supported by young housewives who had married into the clan, who helped them to make rice-wine and sew clothing. Orphans were fostered by close relatives within the clan. Similarly old people without children were cared for by close relatives, who provided their daily necessities such as rewood and rice, water and vegetables. In some cases younger women prepared food, made res and did housework for their aged relatives. In village social life, clans seemed to dominate all activities, demonstrating the importance of blood relations in local culture. In those days, it was very difcult to settle down or survive in Xiangye without feeling attached to a clan. Solitary individuals found it almost impossible to survive. Those who had been cut off from relatives by bereavement or divorce or those who had drifted away from traditional culture were often extremely lonely. Most men aficted in this way died before they reached middle age. In Dazhai there was a relatively prosperous family of Ous with two sons and two daughters. The father died early, leaving the mother to manage the household. The older brother married rst, followed by his two sisters. This left Lao Yao, who by the time he was 18 had still

2

Cf. Chapter 32, footnote 1.

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not married and could not nd any young woman with whom to have conversations through the window at night. Lao Yao felt depressed day and night, constantly comparing himself with his siblings who were happily married and living contentedly with their respective spouses. As time went by, he lost spirit completely and could no longer pull himself together. He refused to do any work and after only a few months this strong young man died from some unidentied illness. Lao Mu used to live on the outskirts of the village before being drafted into the army and working as a soldier for a year or two. He was among the lucky ones, able to return alive and well after army service. At rst Lao Mu helped his older brother to thresh rice and carry straw. Everyone lavished him with praise, saying how well he worked. He was a bachelor, however, and lived alone on the upper oor of his brother’s house. Every day he witnessed the general contentment within his brother’s family circle, until he himself began to feel excluded and disenchanted. Within two months of his return to the village, Lao Mu began to lie on his bed every day refusing to go downstairs, complaining that everything was a bother. When his sister-in-law delivered food to him, he just muttered ‘What a nuisance!’ She did not understand what he was saying and thought that he was cursing her in Chinese, so after a while she did not dare to bring him food any more. Instead his nephews delivered the food. In his melancholy and depression he contracted a serious illness and soon afterwards, almost before anyone had noticed, it was announced that he had died. Usually the older brothers in a family married rst. The youngest brother often continued to live with an older brother, working and eating together with the older brother and his family. In their youth the brothers had often been inseparable, playing and working together, even sharing a bed together. They had come of age together deeply attached to one another, but now the older brother had ‘abandoned’ the younger by setting up his own family. The younger brother spent his days feeling isolated and lonely. He occasionally could not endure this for more than two or three years, before dying from some mystery illness. There was a mute man living at the head of the village who suffered this fate. His older brothers married early. The mute lived with his mother, next door to his brother’s home. Although he was mute, he desperately yearned for a wife. At every opportunity, he appealed

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to his peers using gesticulation to help him nd a wife. Tears welled up in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, as he stretched out his arms to plead for help. This lasted for two or three years, until one autumn after harvest—and half a year after his mother had died—this mute also passed away, without having shown any sign of illness. He had been in his early twenties. Being without a wife was a terrible burden for a young man from Xiangye. People reckoned that if a man still could not nd a wife by the time he was 18, he was destined for life as a bachelor. This led to a sense of desolation, which became an acute form of suffering. The men did not belong to the families of their brothers or friends and became depressed, constantly feeling like outsiders, unable to enjoy traditional family comforts. They tended to draw a line between themselves and others, excavating a great chasm, leading inexorably to a sad end: death by melancholy. In those years this was not uncommon. Certainly there were also many unmarried young men who managed to escape such an early and tragic death. Some of them left behind the cultural environment and community in which they had been born and raised, in order to settle in other unfamiliar places to make a living. Many men from the village escaped in this way and were subsequently married; but even those who remained single outside the village did not usually suffer melancholy to the point of death. The purpose of the different clans in living together was to enjoy the benets of mutual support. Everyone was aware of a mutual responsibility to raise the alarm in case of thieves and robbers. Anyone who spotted two or more strangers approaching the village ran back as quickly as possible to warn others, shouting: “Han people are coming! Han people are coming!” Then women quickly strapped babies on their backs and gathered together some of their best clothes, preparing to run away. Young men put on straw sandals, fastened chopping knives around their waists and quickly ran to the groves of trees on the mountainside at the head of the village, to peer out from behind the trees. If enemies were indeed approaching, the men ran back to the village yelling and urging everyone to ee. If soldiers or ofcers were coming to collect taxes, everyone disappeared into their homes, not daring to make a sound or utter a word, hoping against hope that they would not be discovered. If the strangers were simply visitors, children ran to surround them and examine them closely. Only then did everyone gradually breathe a sigh of relief and relax after the panic. With few

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people and little strength, no swords and no guns, the villagers were ill-equipped to withstand trouble from outside the village. The threat of oppression from outside heightened the villagers’ appreciation of their own community and strengthened their resolve to remain united. Age-old codes of behaviour were respected, and the sense of internal order and security was always strong. Interpersonal relations within the community were friendly and harmonious. The villagers were involved in few quarrels or ghts over the years, but the occasional arguments that did arise were mediated and put to rest by other family members or by elders. Troublemakers were detested. Anyone who broke the traditional codes of behaviour was punished and, in extreme circumstances, cast out of the community. In the years before Liberation only a few serious public breaches of law and order occurred: an uncle killed his niece with a knife (cf. Chapter 19); a man raped another man’s wife (cf. Chapter 23); and a man stole another man’s trousers that had been hanging on the porch railing (cf. Chapter 26). All such incidents caused shock throughout the village and were viewed as an intolerable breakdown of order. The villagers would have punished the perpetrators severely, but in all the above cases, the guilty parties immediately ran away and never returned. It was customary among the Kam for people who were at enmity with each other not to live in the same village. One or other would need to leave. In this way the traditionally harmonious atmosphere was maintained in Xiangye. So it happened that people who harboured serious differences of opinion with other members of the community and who felt they had no one left in the village on whom they could depend, abandoned the place where their ancestors had lived and sought refuge with relatives who lived elsewhere. This scenario was quite rare, however. During the second half of the 20th century, a Han man who had migrated to Xiaozhai and taken a wife from Dazhai became alienated with her, tricked her and led her out to the mountains where he killed her. When he was released after serving a prison sentence, he did not dare to return to Xiangye. Instead he moved to live in a village four kilometres away. After Liberation, the families of landlords were accused and denounced, and their property was parcelled out among others. Some members of such landlords’ families were arrested and sent away to

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serve sentences of reform through labour. Most died while serving their sentences. A few survived and returned to Xiangye, but they were usually unable to adapt to the mixture of old and new customs among the people back home. Under the weight of what seemed like intolerable social and practical burdens, they soon passed away.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

PIPE-SMOKING ELDERS Meix laox guans senl, nyenc laox gonx xaih. Great trees bless and protect a village, elders manage it.

In Xiangye only the elders knew the common law from earlier times, and they managed village affairs according to this inherited law. They referred to places in Liping county such as Gaoyang, Sebian and Mengyan as ‘law villages’, namely villages where the Kam law or kuan1 was generated and maintained. Xiangye itself was not a law village. No one in the village was competent to recite the law and no one routinely publicized the law. Often when guests were invited for a meal, an elder served wine as though he were about to pronounce the law, but then he muttered something about being unable to bring it to mind, so he would have to forego the ceremony. One old person often repeated: “It came clearly and went clearly” and “One, two, three, four, ve; silver, wood, water, re, earth. When changing responsibilities you need to bang the drum.” When asked what this meant, he was unable to explain. Nor did he know whether it was something he heard in another area or whether they were words of the law that had been handed down in Xiangye. As for the young people, they generally did not know what the ‘law’ was. Thus, the village did not have any xed common law that was written down or widely known. Public order was nevertheless maintained by observing tradition and by deferring to elders in case there was need of arbitration. Although the common law was already lost to posterity and no new formal rules were established in its place, traditional customs were naturally preserved. Also, during the 1930s and 1940s, when the government did not interfere in the daily affairs of the people, the elders had no alternative but to continue to discharge their traditional responsibilities of mediating and judging.

1

For more about kuan, see Geary et al. (2003), pp. 62–67.

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Elders judging a case.

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The people afforded special respect to elders from prosperous families who had, in a sense, earned their authority. The ordinary villagers generally complied with whatever they said, as they strove to maintain harmony in the village. In the 1930s and 1940s, the oldest man in Xiangye was from one of the more prosperous Yang families. The man, respectfully addressed by the other villagers as Yang Galao, had never ventured outside the village. In contrast Ou Galao had worked as an ofcer in the administrative system in Rongjiang county, established by the Nationalist government. In the 1930s he led a small unit of soldiers from Xiangye—around 20 men—to work at the army garrison in Zhaihao of Rongjiang county. He knew the Han leaders in Zhaihao and Liujin and was the rst man from Xiangye to have such a relationship with Han ofcials. He was about as wealthy as Yang Galao. Although he was only 40 or 50 years old, he became the most inuential elder of the village, since he had succeeded in his life relating to Han people outside the village. These two elders only needed to express their opinions and the other older people in the village usually agreed. The two elders usually wore long robes and mandarin jackets (cf. third paragraph of Chapter 14) when they dealt with any issue in the public domain. Wearing these clothes served to show off their wealth and to symbolize power and inuence. They also brandished bamboo tobacco pipes,2 several feet long, to indicate that they were elders who ought to command the respect of others. Sometimes there were ownership disputes involving paddy elds or mountain forests, or inheritance disputes between brothers. If family members were unable to resolve such disputes, then four or ve elders mediated, including at least one of the two elders mentioned above. Together the elders visited the homes of those concerned, each elder wielding a long pipe. First they said some kind words to each of the parties involved in the dispute, by way of face-giving and consolation, after which they mediated between them. Often the elders needed to make two or three visits to resolve a given dispute, but as long as they turned up, no dispute was too difcult to resolve. Upon reaching a conclusion, the elders returned home. The parties in the dispute placed a wad of homegrown tobacco in the pipe of each elder and lit the pipes. There was no other payment, whether

2

Cf. plate 40.

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in the form of money, meals or gifts. It was considered the elders’ duty to serve in this way, thus helping to maintain harmony in the village. It was probably only after the beginning of the War of Resistance against Japan in 1937, that the Nationalist government established local government ofces in Taiyong and Nanshao, near Xiangye. The baojia administrative system was then implemented, organized on a household basis. Under this system, Dazhai and Xiaozhai together comprised one bao. The residents were divided into ten jia and each jia consisted of ten or more households. One of the two main elders in the village, Ou Galao, was elected by acclamation as the bao leader. He was also appointed as a district magistrate, which meant he was responsible for the administration of affairs inside and outside the village. He was then both an elder and the bao leader, clearly exercising the most power and inuence among the elders in the village. At that time the bao leader’s duties were focused on handling affairs with the world outside the village, to manage these affairs on behalf of the Nationalist government. When the district needed grain, money, soldiers or other workers, ofcials and soldiers arrived to force the villagers to contribute. Taxes were apportioned to each jia, according to the number of people in the jia and their relative wealth. This was the only connection Xiangye had with ofcial government. All other business within the village, including dealing with any criminal activity, was still resolved by the long-pipe-wielding elders. In Xiangye you never heard anyone talk about (Kam) drum towers. The name ‘drum tower’ did not exist in the local language. Nevertheless the men did have a natural and unofcial meeting place to rest and chat. For example, in Dazhai many men met in the open space under one of the Yang homes, which backed onto the mountains (cf. middle of Chapter 10). There were three big houses there, sharing one long porch. On the rst (second in USA) oor, poles were used for hanging clothes out to dry, and on these were also hung many birdcages. The men often met on the rst-oor porch to discuss the birds and watch them ght one another. Underneath the porch there were no walls; it was completely open. Some tree stumps were set there for people to sit on. There was a stove for making alcohol for people to use as needed. There was also an oil press, which again anyone could use. Chicken ghts were organized there and children assembled there to whip their spinning-tops.

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Every day after breakfast at 10 am, having eaten their ll and having drunk rice-wine, men liked to go and sit there to share news and talk about things that made them happy or angry. These were mostly older married men. Their speech was often loud and animated. Sometimes they disagreed and quarrelled, scolding one another as they dispersed. Such crossing of swords in argument, however, was forgotten by the next time and quarrels never developed into ghts. The bullghting arena was used by people from Dazhai and Xiaozhai both for bullghting and as an ofcial meeting place. Before Liberation all the residents in the bao went to the bullghting arena for meetings. The bao leader or the district leaders made speeches there, with instructions about taxes. At one end of the arena was a wooden hut—a temple—dedicated to the land god, about one square metre in area, where the villagers went regularly to present offerings and to burn incense. Couples who wanted a divorce went there to announce their divorce by smashing jars or bowls (cf. Chapter 21). There were no idols in the hut—it was completely empty. A small evergreen tree stood beside it. Old people used to reminisce about an incident some decades before, when a man had been accused of stealing sh from a paddy eld. His accuser was adamant, but the accused was equally adamant that he was innocent. The issue was not at all clear, so the elders summoned the people to assemble at the arena. In the centre of the arena the elders set up three stone columns and on top of the columns they set a large iron pot. The pot was lled with tea tree oil which was brought to boil over a re. As the people watched, the elders placed an iron axe-head into the boiling oil, to an angry burst of hissing and smoke. The elders then instructed the accused to dip his hand into the oil and retrieve the axe-head. The idea was that if he was innocent, his hand would remain unharmed. The accused, however, was very scared and refused to dip his hand in. Instead, he challenged his accuser to pick up the axe-head, but the accuser was even more terried and turned to the elders for support. He wailed loudly and begged with them, repeating his stance in the week-long dispute. At that point everyone dispersed, frightened and unwilling to talk any more about the matter. Elders related another story about a man some decades before who had been caught thieving. At the time, the village elders asked people for their opinions about how the culprit should be punished. The

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young men did not venture any opinions while the women only cried in compassion for the accused. The old men pondered the issue for a long time before speaking. Then they announced that according to custom he should be decapitated, hung or drowned. The elders, however, did not dare to carry out this punishment. Instead they went for advice to the main village leader in the neighbouring village of Liujin, a man named Lao Ye. This elder also supported the death penalty and subsequently the elders communicated to the people their decision to implement the death penalty. Everyone thought over the decision from every possible angle but in the end it was agreed that the defendant had to be executed. Late at night several young men escorted him to the arena and one of the more courageous and physically strong among them carried out the execution. The women and children of Xiangye were not informed about the details of what happened, and the author still does not know how exactly the execution was carried out. The next day people just said that the thief had ‘gone’. The villagers dreaded and hated theft. In those days it happened once in a while that paddy elds were drained under cover of darkness and sh were stolen. If that happened, it led to widespread anxiety and people could not sleep peacefully at night. Then the main village elder groped through the dark at dead of night with gun in hand, to inspect the paddies. After he red a shot, the thieves did not dare to steal sh again and people’s minds were put at ease. Once someone reported to the elders that a pair of trousers left out to dry on a railing had disappeared overnight. That morning, one of the elders went round investigating and lo and behold he discovered someone wearing two pairs of trousers, with the inner pair longer than the outer. The elder grabbed the suspect by the trouser leg and dragged him to the home of the bao leader. It turned out that the inner pair of trousers was indeed the pair that had gone missing the night before. The culprit was tied up, but not securely enough and without a guard. He loosened the ropes and escaped while no one was watching. Later he began a new life in Rongjiang county, never daring to return to the village. A man who was found guilty of rape in a cotton eld also ran away to Rongjiang and lived there for the rest of his life. The uncle who killed his niece ran off to live in Seventy Two Villages and never returned. Though people knew where the wrongdoers lived, no one went to investigate or to harass them, since their new homes were not under

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the jurisdiction of Xiangye. Instead, everyone practised a ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ policy. If acquaintances from Xiangye ever bumped into the wrongdoers on market days, each party would behave as though they did not recognize the other. No one was interested any more in bringing the culprits to justice.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

NO BEGGARS OR THIEVES Yags bix jil oux baenl, hut bix weex nyenc liagc. If you are hungry do not eat the rice seedlings; if you are poor do not become a thief.

Xiangye was located at the heart of a ‘green zone’. All kinds of edible plants and fruits grew in the wild and all kinds of vegetables grew in the gardens, all year round. The surrounding hillsides and valleys were covered with terraced rice paddies, which in turn were full of sh, like the nearby Langdong river. All over the village there were clusters of barns for storing rice. Compared with neighbouring settlements, life in Xiangye was relatively comfortable. No one worried about the basic necessities of food and clothing. Orphans and widows were cared for, the poor had their needs provided and any who had fallen on difcult times were supported by others. Although there were differences in wealth, these were not glaring. Although there was exploitation by landlords, the villagers were not compelled to work the landlords’ elds. Individual rights were honoured, irrespective of status in the village. People were slow to offend one another and instead there was a mutual respect, as people depended on one another for survival. One consequence of this caring community was that no one from Xiangye made a living by begging. Indeed, beggars were referred to as ‘Gax goul’, where ‘Gax’ is the word for ‘Han person’ and ‘goul’ is the word for ‘beg’. In those days an old Han woman frequently came to Xiangye to beg for food. At Chinese New Year, outsiders often came to beg for glutinous rice cakes. They were all called ‘Gax goul’. Only people from other nationalities begged for food. The Kam people of Xiangye used to say that no matter what happened they would not allow people from their own families to beg. This was a strong taboo inherited from previous generations. If any family chose to ignore or violate it, others looked down on them and they were stigmatized. The young men from their households were not able to marry anyone from the village and their young women were not chosen as brides.

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Cloth hanging out to dry around an unsupervised sh pond.

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People did not lock their grain barns. They hung glutinous rice stalks in the sun to dry, without anyone to guard them. The doors to the ground oors of the homes, where livestock and domestic fowl were penned, were not usually bolted. The cloth and clothes that were hung on the open porches to dry did not need to be brought in at night; cloth or clothes that were left to dry by the river did not need anyone to keep an eye on them. It was almost unheard of for sh to be stolen from the paddies, cotton from the elds, or vegetables from the gardens. No one touched bundles of rewood, timber or straw left piled up in the countryside. When straw markers were stuck in the elds, beside trees, or in river pools, this signied that those things were privately owned by someone. No one tried to take possession of them or move the markers. Xiangye was practically devoid of thieves, a place where people could safely leave their doors open at night. No one even took possession of things dropped accidentally on the paths around the village, so normally no one from the village was ever suspected of theft. Consequently, the people referred to thieves or bandits as ‘Gax liagc’ which means ‘Han thieves’. This was a way of saying that such unprincipled people were not to be found among the Kam. During those years, however, there were a couple of thefts. One of the culprits was a bachelor without family, the other was also a bachelor who had come from outside to settle in the village. Both were lazy and unwilling to work in the paddy elds. Everyone in the village knew about these two incidents, but no one ever talked about them and no one even mentioned by name the two people involved. The implicit message of the silence was that the ordinary villagers did not acknowledge the two thieves as members of the community. For generations there were no thieves residing in Xiangye.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MONOTONOUS AND PRIMITIVE MUSIC Jaengl eis dos yeep yeep buh duv, jaengl eis dos al al buh lamc. If you do not go shing for a long time, the nets break; if you do not sing for a long time, the songs are forgotten.

Although the Kam people are generally famed for their lovely singing,1 the musical culture of Xiangye was really decient: tediously repetitious and poorly developed. Only rarely did people play music or sing songs. Often the only music seemed to be the sounds in the natural world and the only singing seemed to be people’s animated talking. At that time, there were two pipas (cf. Chapter 10) in Dazhai. One hung on a wooden partition in the home of a bachelor who was unable to play it. The other belonged to Zhang Hong from the foot of the village. There were also one or two pipas in Xiaozhai. Occasionally someone would use a pipa to summon young women for conversation through the windows at night. Among the musical instruments played in the village the pipa was the gentlest, most versatile in conveying feeling and easiest to listen to. During autumn and winter, at dead of night, the sound of young men playing the pipa to woo young women could occasionally be heard. Although the tunes were simple, the sound could still seem beautiful and then the women could not help but gasp in admiration. The gentle sound of the pipa ebbed and owed, gradually approaching then fading. It had a soothing effect, serving as a balm for fatigue and cares. It was the instrument that was most able to touch women’s hearts and result in an outpouring of tender feelings. The author remembers a niubatui (cf. Chapter 10) emerging some nights on the bullghting arena. Fingers were used to pluck the instrument and make a faint sound, but no melody could be deciphered. Whether it was the pipa or the niubatui, the musician casually kept

1

Cf. e.g. Geary et al. (2003), pp. 237–252.

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Mr Zhang and his pipa.

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repeating two or three simple tunes. Even these tunes were often full of mistakes and consequently discordant. There were several erhu (cf. Chapter 10) which the men often played casually alone at home. For them it was enough if the erhu made a loud noise. Only a man named Lao Qiang took the instrument some evenings to woo young women, playing it harshly for a while beneath their windows. The sound was very loud, so that people throughout the village could hear it, but there was no melody. Instead it seemed just as though someone was sawing wood outside. Lao Qiang’s serenades died a natural death within a few months, not to be heard again. Some people played bamboo utes or whistled on tree leaves. This was mainly to attract people’s attention and was considered successful as long as some noise was created. In short, the playing of musical instruments was not so much to create music as to make noise and consequently no tunes were produced. Since no one had ever taught music in the village, everyone played in their own style, without any rhyme or reason. People did not play together. Only the suona (a woodwind instrument with seven holes on the obverse and one on the reverse of the tube) was associated with two or three folk tunes and these were usually performed as duets at funerals. There was therefore almost no melody to gladden the hearts of Xiangye people. Although the sounds of water gurgling, cocks crowing, or cicadas calling were monotonous, such sounds served as a substitute for music in a music-deprived world. There was a man named Zhang from the foot of Dazhai, married with a son and living with his family in a simple one-storey house. One room in the house was a bedroom and the other was the kitchen. His family was independent of others, not having joined any clan, and it seemed that they had cut themselves off from the community. They seemed alone and vulnerable. Everyday when he returned from work, Zhang wolfed down some simple food and then sat down by the re to play the pipa. The sound attracted many children, who squatted in a circle around him, listening attentively. He only ever played two or three melodies, repeating them over and over again. The children still thought this was beautiful and they could easily listen, entranced, for hours on end. Only when Zhang’s wife shooed them away did they leave. In every spare moment Zhang played the pipa. Otherwise, he wandered around as though hurried and ustered, never wearing straw sandals but always barefoot. Whether walking through water, mud or

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thorns, he marched on regardless. As soon as it became dark he forgot everything else and rushed home to play the pipa. That pipa became Zhang’s most intimate companion, his raison d’être. Then, one day, fearing that he would be betrayed by the sound of the music and conscripted to serve in the army, his wife took the pipa, smashed it and burned it in the re. Zhang disappeared soon afterwards, and before long his wife and son were also nowhere to be seen. Thereafter, the village children never heard the sound of the pipa again. When having conversations through the windows at night, some folk sang love songs in Kam, but their singing resembled speaking. All they did was to lengthen the sound of some words, add some sighing, and add the term of mutual affection ‘jiuh’ at the end of a sentence. It happened thus that everyone understood the meaning of this ‘conversational singing’. While working in the hills during the day or walking along the mountain paths, some young men who had been inuenced by Han culture sang ‘mountain songs’ in Chinese. These songs were exactly the same as those sung by the neighbouring Han people and had obviously been learned in the Han areas. A few old men sang toasts in Chinese at weddings or funerals, but there was not one person in the village who could toast with a song in Kam. The people of Xiangye were used to expressing their feelings in ordinary speech. They regarded music and singing as inextricably linked with courtship and love. As such they were reserved more for the private realm. No one taught songs and only rarely did people learn one or two melodies from listening to others sing. In this way, the popularity of music and singing was ever-diminishing. Just before Liberation, Xiangye had already become a music-free zone.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

FESTIVALS AND CELEBRATIONS Egs jenc eis dongc menl, egs senl eis dongc banc. People separated by mountains have different weather; people from different villages observe different customs.

Most of the annual Kam festivals and celebrations in Xiangye had long since disappeared. Those remaining in the 1930s and 1940s included Eating Sweet Glutinous Rice Cakes, Eating New Rice, Eating Bianmi, Mid-Autumn Festival and Kam New Year. The Sweeping the Graves Festival (cf. Chapter 25) was originally a Han festival borrowed by the Kam people. Except for Kam New Year, which was celebrated by everyone, these festivals were only celebrated by certain families. In the past, the Eating Bull Intestines Festival had been a grand occasion, celebrated by everyone. Eating Sweet Glutinous Rice Cakes. For several days, beginning on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, women from some families went to the mountains to collect a sweet vine. This vine was rst pounded in the foot-operated tilt-hammer and left for a few hours, before the vine juice was ltered and used for soaking glutinous rice. Together with some more vine juice the glutinous rice was then pounded with a pestle and became ground rice. Finally it was fried in a wok to make sweet glutinous rice cakes. According to tradition, these cakes were eaten on the same day as the vines were collected. Otherwise those days resembled any other days, with no other special activity. Eating New Rice. By the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, ears of rice had begun to emerge. Children went to the paddy elds, broke off ears of rice and ate the tender grains inside. This was called ‘tasting the new’. On that day, prosperous families killed a duck and ate duck-meat. Poorer families did not have any such special way of marking the day, so its special signicance as a festival day diminished.

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Killing a bull with an axe-head, at the Eating Bull Intestines Festival.

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Eating Bianmi. There was a lull of a couple of weeks between the threshing of ordinary rice and the cutting of glutinous rice. During this time, the young women belonging to populous clans arranged to go together and cut some stalks of glutinous rice. On the evening of the same day, they used a bowl—often a broken bowl because it was more effective—to scrape off the glutinous rice kernels. Then they added water and fried the kernels until cooked. The women lightly pounded the fried rice kernels with a pestle to shell them, and the result was called bianmi. Then they placed the bianmi in a winnowing basket and carried it onto the open porch, offering it to members of the clan and to their guests, old and young, male and female. People took it directly in their hands and ate, meanwhile chatting happily. This custom was observed only by a minority of extended families. Mid-Autumn. Most villagers observed the Mid-Autumn Festival on the fteenth day of the eighth lunar month. On that day, the moon was at its biggest and brightest, dark clouds never seemed to block it out, and it never seemed to rain. People only had to look up at the night sky and they knew when the day was about to arrive. There was no need for a fortune-teller to consult any almanac. By the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, rice, cotton, beans and gourds had all been harvested and stored in barns. Young men and children took advantage of the bright moonshine to form into groups and conspire to ‘steal’ what remained of the beans and gourds in the elds, whatever had not yet been harvested. (Vegetable gardens were out of bounds for this activity.) They brought back their booty, cooked it and ate it together. According to local custom, the evening activities did not really represent stealing, but were the accepted way of celebrating mid-autumn. There was only one such celebration every year. At other times raiding of elds was strictly forbidden. Kam and Chinese New Year. Only one festival was celebrated by absolutely everyone in the village and that was Kam New Year. The last day of the 11th lunar month was the last day of the Kam year, so that the rst day of the 12th month was New Year’s Day. The festival was observed for three days, the best days of the year for feasting. Sour sh, smoked meat, glutinous rice and glutinous rice cakes were among the foods prepared for the occasion. Without these four varieties of

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food, it was not really ‘New Year’. In addition there were all sorts of delicacies made from fresh sh and meat and of course there was also plenty of rice wine. Prosperous people exchanged invitations to eat and drink with relatives and friends, and even poor people ate sumptuously. For those few days, homes were lled with laughter and merriment. New cotton clothes made by the women for their families were worn on the morning of New Year’s Day. Adults sat around the re, in front of the main pillar of the house, waiting for the housewife to serve the New Year’s meal. When the food was ready, the old man of the house lit three incense sticks, poured out three small cups of rice wine and made three small piles of sh and meat beside the cups. Then he summoned the family ancestors to come and celebrate New Year together with the family. This custom—offering three of each thing to the ancestors—was borrowed from the surrounding Han culture, and the villagers of Xiangye did not understand why in particular there should be three of each. After food and wine had been offered to the ancestors, the New Year’s meal could begin. Especially at this time, just before the meal began, people feared intrusion from outsiders, and some people shut the door before commencing. Only on the second day of New Year were invitations issued to relatives and friends. On the second day people sometimes went to the mountains to work or went outside to walk around. Formal Kam weddings were celebrated on the rst day of New Year. If a wedding was convened at another time, it was not considered to be a ‘proper’ wedding. It is not clear exactly when Chinese New Year was rst celebrated in Xiangye, but it was then celebrated by prosperous families. Since it was a festival arranged according to the calendar followed by the Han Emperor (which was the same as the lunar calendar), it was called the ‘Emperor’s New Year’, not ‘Spring Festival’. After being introduced, it gradually became more popular, until in the years before Liberation, the people of Xiangye routinely celebrated two New Year festivals: rst, the Kam New Year, and a month later, in similar fashion, the Emperor’s New Year. When Kam New Year was celebrated, many ‘friends and relatives’ from the neighbouring Han areas ocked to Xiangye to join in, eating sour sh and cured meat for several days, then taking gifts such as cured meat and glutinous rice cakes back home. At the Emperor’s New Year, the people of Xiangye took to the streets in the Han areas, but then

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the doors were closed. If they bumped into their Han friends then, it would seem as though they were mutual strangers. With this background and in order to avoid the extra burden of entertaining Han guests at Kam New Year, the people of Xiangye no longer celebrated Kam New Year after the 1960s and 1970s. Instead, they only celebrated the Emperor’s New Year, at the same time as the Han people. Eating Bull Intestines. Once, in the 1930s, the people of Xiangye celebrated the Eating Bull Intestines Festival. Before that the Festival was convened once every 13 years in homage to the ancestors. It was feared that failure to observe the Festival would provoke natural disaster.1 People from the bigger clans—Ou, Yang and Wu—purchased bulls; sometimes more than one bull, according to the size of the clan. That year, for example, two bulls were bought by the Ous. Some of the smaller clans—such as Luo and Zhang—joined forces with the bigger clans to help buy a bull and be able to participate in the Festival. Afterwards they were regarded as coming from the same clan and did not intermarry with members of that clan, even though they retained their own surnames. Some from the smaller clans, however, were content to observe and not participate directly in the Festival. In autumn or winter of the year before the Festival, large clans in the village each chose a Bull Caretaker. This person was normally a clan leader. He took money that had been collected from the clan members and went to a neighbouring Miao area to buy a strong and aggressive water-buffalo bull. Four or ve bulls were bought in this way. Each clan arranged a pen for its bull in a dark place beneath one of the clan member’s homes. Young men from the clan took turns to cut grass as fresh food for the bull and to lead it in the evening to the stream to be washed. The bull was tied by the nose in the pen in such a way that it could not even turn around, because doing so would have been too painful. The Bull Caretaker spent most days tending the bull, stufng its mouth with bundles of grass to fatten it up. Throughout the year following the purchase of the bull, clan members busied themselves in preparation for the Festival. Bullghts were often convened by way of rehearsal and everything culminated in Eating

1

Cf. Geary et al. (2003), p. 198.

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Bull Intestines. At that time the author was four years old. He still remembers a few of the circumstances relating to the Festival. It was organized after rice harvest in autumn of the second year. Clan representatives rst met together to agree on dates for the bullght rehearsals. At the appointed times, men and women from the village congregated at the bullghting arena which was transformed into a sea of spectators, totally absorbed in the ghts. Each of two clans sent several strong young men to lead the bulls out of their pens. For each clan, one young man led the way banging a copper gong. A second young man followed, leading the bull on a rope strung through a bamboo pole. Others followed the bull in clusters. This was a very impressive spectacle. The bulls were led to opposite ends of the arena, then simultaneously released. In theory, and sometimes in practice, the bulls charged to the centre of the arena to engage in a ght. After a little while, young men from each clan looped a thick rope round the bulls’ legs, one leg of each bull, and pulled the ghting bulls apart for a rest. Within a month or so, all the bulls fought each other once like this. After these rehearsal ghts had nished, the Eating Bull Intestines Festival was celebrated over three days. On the rst two days, some of the bulls fought each other and people feasted together. On the nal day everyone from the village turned out, dressed in their best clothes, ready to watch the show. All the clan bulls participated in that day’s ghting. The rst two bulls were not separated. Instead they fought until there was a winner. The losing bull ran away while the winner remained to defend his title against the next clan’s bull. The ghts continued until all the bulls had competed. A defeated bull was pursued and captured by men from the clan which owned it. Then it was led to the stream to be slaughtered, as described below. At the end of the day, the victorious bull was dressed with red garlands by its owners and led in a lap of honour round the arena, while someone leading up the rear banged a gong. The champion was not led back into the village, however, but was also taken to the stream to be slaughtered. An unorthodox technique was used for slaughtering the bulls. One person rmly grasped the rope through the bull’s nose, while others used thick rope to tie the bull’s front legs together and then to tie its back legs together. Some pulled on the rope, while others just held on to it. The executioner thrust an axe-head into its neck. Another person then used a heavy wooden club to pound on the back of the axe-head until

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it had cut through the spine at the neck. The bull fell to the ground bleeding to death, with its windpipe severed. The elders maintained that the bulls at the Eating Bull Intestines Festival were meant to be slaughtered in this way, according to tradition laid down by the ancestors. Actually they were probably killed like this because in the past and at the time there was no suitable long knife available for slaughtering them. People usually did not kill cattle for meat and they did not know the ‘right’ way of slaughtering them. After the bulls were slaughtered, a slab of meat was delivered to each household in the clan. The internal organs were cooked thoroughly in a great pot and placed on a long table, to be shared by the clan members. Afterwards, the bull horns were hung up at the home of the Bull Caretaker and this marked the end of the Eating Bull Intestines Festival. The last Eating Bull Intestines Festival in Xiangye took place in 1934. After that, the custom disappeared completely.

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CHAPTER THIRTY

CHILDREN Bix qik nangc souc senp, touk xic ags wenp baenl. Don’t worry about the bamboo shoots not sprouting; when the time comes, they will naturally grow into bamboo.

Up to 10 years of age, boys and girls with the same surname played together. As soon as a child was able to walk, the child’s mother entrusted him or her to an older child. The older child looked after the younger and helped initiate him or her into playing with other children. They played in the mud around the village or sat crowded together on piles of rewood underneath the homes. Some children brought cold rice from home, offering tiny portions to bystanders or to younger children to sample. Often they chased each other through the passageways in the village, laughing and making a racket. Sometimes the children argued and then they abused each other by insulting their respective mothers. Only rarely would they actually ght, whereupon ngernails were typically the weapon of choice, used to scratch the opponent’s face. Fists, wooden clubs or stones were generally not used. The parents of a child who was scratched on the face took their child to the family head of the offending child. That parent then expressed alarm at the injury and uttered profuse and sincere apologies, at the same time giving his or her own child a severe scolding. After the child realized the seriousness of his (or her) actions, he became cowed and remorseful, and usually did not offend in the same way again. Children wore split-seat trousers. Toddlers and younger children sometimes wore only shirts, no trousers. When they were together the children usually kept an eye on each other. Sometimes they pushed each other around and tried to snatch things from one another, but actually they rarely took anything permanently by force. There seemed to be almost no sense of division or estrangement between girls and boys. During the day adults worked in the open country, often far away from home, while children happily passed their childhood in one another’s company. If there was no adult left at home, parents sometimes took their children to the elds. If parents were working the paddy

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Children bullghting.

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elds or cotton elds, children were told to sit and wait beside the elds. If parents were chopping rewood, the child or children would have to sit and wait by the roadside. A single child was naturally lonely in such situations. After the adults returned home in the evening, the children also returned one by one to their respective homes to eat with their families. Most children under ve used their right hand—not chopsticks or a spoon—to feed themselves. After the age of ve, children started to practise using chopsticks. By about 10 years of age, all children had mastered the art. At mealtimes, children usually did not serve themselves, but were served by their parents. When eating sh, children ate the tails; when eating chicken, duck or goose, children ate the legs. If there were many children, some had to make do with one small piece of meat. When a child nished the given portion of sh or meat, he or she was not allowed to take any more and parents did not give any more. The children just had to ll themselves up on vegetables, or on rice soaked in ‘soup’ from the boiled vegetables. Parents always urged their children to eat quickly. Those children who obliged, who ate quickly and left the table early, were commended and praised. Those who ate slowly, at the same rate as the adults, were scolded and regarded as naughty. After dinner, children sat around the re with everyone else, listening to the adult conversation. Some adults told them ghost stories. They often ended up leaning drowsily against an adult, having to be carried to bed by their parents. No children slept in their own beds. Rather boys usually slept with their fathers while girls slept with their mothers. In families without a father, or with only boys, the children slept with their mother. As parents rose in the morning, they usually woke the children and helped them to get dressed. Very rarely did they allow children to sleep in. Most children aged 14 or 15, who had already started wearing comingof-age clothing, no longer slept with their parents. There was a pool of water near the village, where the stream turned a bend, between knee-height and one metre deep. Boys aged between ve and 12 often played in the water there. They stripped off their clothes and dived in, kicking continuously with their feet and moving their arms, thus managing to stay aoat. From time to time they held their breath and dived, measuring roughly how long they could stay underwater. They splashed each other until one surrendered.

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On a ne day the boys rushed to the pool, cheering as they ran. If it was a school day, they ran for a swim as soon as school was nished, before going home. If the weather was really hot, some children skipped school and went swimming instead. They were willing to suffer a caning on the palm of the hand from the teacher and ear-pulling from parents, in return for a good cool bathe. This love of water was inherited from their fathers. After the boys grew up, they were comfortable in water, no matter how deep. They could even dive and catch sh under water. Girls on the other hand never washed or swam in the stream. After they grew up, they went to Langdong river to catch small sh and shrimp. If there were no boys around, the girls took off their pleated skirts—not their tunics—and sat in the river washing their hair. They did not play or swim, being reluctant to let anyone—especially anyone male—catch a glimpse of their bodies. None of them could swim and they were just like stones: if you placed them in deep water, they would immediately sink. Children usually did not leave the village, except when their parents took them to visit relatives outside. Most of these relatives also lived in Kam villages. Only rarely did children go to Han towns or Miao villages. They did not understand Chinese or Miao and were not comfortable with the customs of the other nationalities. Upon catching sight of Han or Miao people, they were normally frightened, took to their heels and ed. If forced to go and meet such outsiders, they cried themselves hoarse, afraid of being carried off and sold. This was because when toddlers cried and created trouble, their parents or other adults threatened them by saying “Han people are coming!” or “Miao people are coming!” Then they did not dare to make any more noise, rushing to snuggle up to an adult to seek protection. The children were generally timid and frightened of strangers. If outsiders arrived in the village, the slightly older children huddled together and watched from a safe distance, ready to run away if necessary. If it transpired that the strangers were not, after all, sworn and erce enemies of Xiangye, curiosity gradually got the better of the children. The newcomers began to seem interesting and amusing, and after watching them for a while, the children gradually approached, their faces breaking into smiles. If however the strangers spoke to them, they dashed away in fear and embarrassment. Parents encouraged their children to relate to such visitors, hoping that they could pick up a little Chinese from them and learn some Han etiquette—such as standing up to offer a seat; politely advising guests

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to ‘eat slowly’; kowtowing to elders; burning paper money, lighting incense, and offering sacrices to ancestors and to the gods. Children who could speak Chinese and who understood Han customs were regarded as well bred. Their parents thought highly of them and they received praise from others. Family discipline was very strict. Parents made demands of their children according to the parents’ own personal character and ambitions. They taught their children to do things this way and not that way, correcting each movement made and each sentence spoken. Children were hemmed in by many prohibitions. If they disobeyed, they were given a severe reprimand and punished accordingly. For example, dropping rice on the ground led to a scolding; smashing a bowl led to a beating. Children were not allowed to poke the ash or the re in the repit; to get their clothes dirty; to talk back to adults in an argument; to quarrel and ght with other children; to drain the water in the paddy elds; to throw stones into the paddy elds; to hit the water-buffalo for no good reason; to pick gourds or eggplants belonging to others; and so on. Whatever was forbidden to adults was also forbidden to children. If the children disobeyed, wilfully or otherwise, not only were they scolded, but their father might give them a sharp clip across the head with his knuckles or pull them by the ears. When relatives or friends came to visit, children were taught to use the correct terms of address for the guests. When adults could think of nothing more to talk about, the theme of conversation inevitably seemed to drift towards the children. Parents complained, in front of both visitors and children themselves, that their children were stupid. “How could they be so inept at speaking Chinese? How could they be so inadequate in welcoming visitors? How come they have not yet learned the correct terms with which to address visitors?” Parents thus spoke in a consistently derogatory way about their children. Torrents of complaint poured forth to the visitors until at last the parents seemed satised. The children’s merits were never mentioned; nothing positive was said. Children sat there without moving, neither daring to look up, nor daring to make a sound. In the same way, parents whole-heartedly reproached their own sons in front of other villagers. “You boys are stupid, not even able to chop rewood, tie it together in bundles and carry it back home. When you carry loads on poles, your necks shrink and your backs bend. You’re not even able to dive into the water, nor climb up a tree.” Such speeches

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made everyone laugh heartily, except the children themselves, who were ushed with anger and embarrassment, but had to remain silent. Ironically, in the children’s absence, the parents always praised them, saying how good they were at this or that; how competent they were at such-and-such a job. The children never heard such praise, however. It gave face to the parents more than to the children and did practically nothing to contribute to a sense of wellbeing in the children. Such domestic severity played an inuential role in forming a child’s disposition. In the presence of a crowd, the child was scolded, censured and suppressed. The whole of childhood was like this. By the time they had become adults, Kam people felt timid and inferior, lacking self-condence and independence, always depending on the family, the clan and the village community for everything. As soon as they entered another community, however, they expressed open contempt for the Kam community they had left behind. They ridiculed the people they knew best while maintaining a constant fear of strangers.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

SURVIVAL IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING Dogl dih nees samp soh, nyix ov wox sup sinp. A child cries three times when it is born; worry begins then and lasts a lifetime.

The people of Xiangye yearned for a safe environment, always vulnerable as they were to invasion from outsiders. The village was situated in a mountain valley. Visitors from the counties of Jianhe, Jinping, Sansui, Tianzhu and Taijiang could only enter via one road, the government road from the east. After government ofces were established in Taiyong in the 1930s, visitors from Leishan, Danzhai, Rongjiang and Liping also travelled along that way and the road was altered so that it led into the west of the village. The village had no man-made defences. Some winters, villagers built fences made of logs at either end of the village. These functioned as village gates, but anyone could easily climb over them or even knock them down. They were only good for restricting the movements of the water-buffalo. Normally even such basic fences were non-existent and strangers could enter the village completely unimpeded and unchallenged. There were many strong young men in the village, fast runners who could carry heavy timber (weighing over 50 kg), but there was not a single weapon for resisting bandits or robbers. There were no air guns using gunpowder and no sabres or swords. Older people said that Xiangye villagers used to have such weapons, but then they were conscated by the emperor, including kitchen knives. Only scissors were allowed. Some years later, the elders begged for the Kam people to be allowed to make a livelihood with knives and hatchets, and they were again granted permission to own such implements. Before Liberation, Xiangye people had no means whatsoever to resist aggression from outside. Their only way of dealing with such invasion was to run away. Old people said that men from a former military outpost about 15 kilometres away came to loot the village sometime around 1933. In

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Inviting a debt-collector for a meal.

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the small hours of the morning they red their guns from the ridges of the surrounding paddy elds. Alarmed and bewildered, the villagers ed to the mountains, leaving the village empty and at the mercy of the raiders. An old man from the Ou clan was hit by a bullet and hid in a grove of trees beside the mountain path. He was observed, however, by one of the bandits, who noticed that he was wearing a silver necklace, cut off his head and stole the necklace. The thieves stripped the village bare until midday and then departed. When the villagers returned there was nothing left. The cruel and bloody murder by decapitation scared people nearly to death and they expressed their grief in loud and prolonged weeping and wailing. Many such tragedies occurred down through the years. After the introduction of the baojia system of government in the 1930s (cf. Chapter 26), some men who were employed by the local government to serve as ‘soldiers’ often came from the district ofces to collect grain or money taxes. They carried loaded ries, ready for any emergency, and lived in the house of the bao leader. They would enter the home of whoever failed to pay their taxes, in order to coerce payment. The head of the house was compelled to kill poultry and to host them with food and rice-wine. The local-government soldiers would announce that they were only going to leave after the taxes had been paid in full. After several days of this, if the taxes had still not been handed over, the soldiers would tie up the head of the household and take him into custody in the government ofces for the area. The prospect of being tied up and led away was one of the most frightening things to the people of Xiangye. Family members would weep and plead, but to no avail. In the end they would have to borrow money from other members of the clan in order to redeem their relative. Some private individuals from Taiyong, together with some men from Liujin, the former military outpost near Xiangye, used to mimic the local-government soldiers. They employed someone to demand payments and to sit in guard at ordinary Kam households. These guards did not bother to explain their purpose, and in any case the household occupants often did not fully understand Chinese. The head of the household observed someone sitting there all day with a scowl on his face and a negative disposition, waiting by the kitchen re for food to be served; he knew that the person had come to extort money. Other villagers rationalized that it was a debt-collector, but usually no one

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owed any money and it was just pure extortion.1 If the ‘host’ could not provide food and drink for the gangster, he had to spend all day pleading with him. Only after money had been handed over, did the stranger deign to leave. Soon after the establishment of the area government, a Han man from Angying with the surname Yang, who had served a short period as the area leader, led a few men with guns slung over their backs into the village to extort money. They tied people up. Some were hung from the roof beams of the houses. In one case two holes were bored through a wooden wall and a rope passed through. Soldiers in the next room pulled tightly on both ends of the rope, squeezing the victim, demanding money. Kam people had an inherent fear of outsiders and they had never witnessed such extraordinary torture. They only heard the victim’s groans, as no one dared to look. Men ed to the mountains. Women and children lit pine twigs and ran through the village in a panic, sighing and wailing, and asking woefully “What shall we do?” Some threw themselves onto their knees and begged for the man to be released. He could not endure this cruel suffering. The whole night pine twigs were lit. The following morning, when the outsiders could see that there was no wealth left in the village, they released the person and left; after killing chickens and eating and drinking to their hearts’ content. The most terrifying event of the year for the people of Xiangye was the annual conscription.2 Men feared being forced away from the warm and familiar community of their clansmen, to enter strange and dangerous environments. The need to shoulder a rie and the likelihood of going to war only doubled the sense of dread, and most men were thus unwilling to become soldiers. Some hid or went to work in

1 Writing with particular reference to Miao communities in Southwest China in the Republican Period (1911–49), having examined the writings of three Miao intellectuals, Cheung Siu-Woo (2003, p. 114) observes that: ‘The three indigenous intellectuals’ ethnic consciousness was situated in a context when the struggles among local overlords, provincial warlords, the central state and foreign powers, and the state’s national integration and cultural assimilation programmes, conjoined to engender excruciating extortion, stark atrocity and ethnic discrimination in the Southwest.’ 2 Cheung Siu-Woo (2003, p. 111) writes in connection with the East Guizhou Incident of the mid-1930s to the early 1940s that ‘Local confrontations with the state were largely the result of Republican garrison troops’ brutal elimination of native power-holders by assassination and violence, local government’s abusive practices and corruption, as well as voracious military draft and levies’.

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the remote countryside to avoid the draft; some returned home only after nightfall, putting a wooden plank up against the front door as a kind of lock and spending the night with the back door open, ready to make a quick getaway. After several days, outsiders concluded that there were no further conscripts available from those homes and went elsewhere instead, looking to capture men to ll up the required conscription quota. No one caught by the soldiers could ever extricate himself. When other villagers saw what was happening, they wept. The men fell on their knees to beg even as they were being tied up with strong hemp rope. Mothers and wives, children and other relatives surrounded the conscript. When he was led away by the soldiers, it seemed just as tragic as if he were being led to the execution ground. Those villagers who could speak Chinese pleaded with the soldiers, begging them to have pity, but always to no avail. Another kind of suffering came from the neighbouring cities and towns in the form of people referred to as ‘guests’ or ‘Han people’. These people did not collect taxes or conscript, but entered the village as fraudulent guests. After autumn, one or two strangers might huddle round the res of the Kam people. These strangers seated themselves down as ‘guests’. The hosts only knew what town they were from, not their names or the precise location of their homes. There were no conversations with the visitors, but at meal times the strangers were treated as guests and invited to take the seats of honour. As the host poured rice wine and served them with some of the best food, he engaged them in a few conversational pleasantries. The next day the guests left, before the host knew anything more about them. Some people in the Han towns, when they were short of meat and wine, simply slung a cloth bag round their shoulders and set out, saying: “Off to the countryside to collect our debts!” On arriving in the village they entered the rst house with an open door and sat down. They did not say a word, but just waited for food and wine to be served. The next day, they went on to another home to be ‘guests’ there. This scenario was most prevalent in the days after the Kam New Year. Many people came empty-handed to Xiangye at New Year. The wealthier households took turns to invite strangers for meals: lunch at one home, dinner at another, and the next day lunch and dinner at two other homes. The ‘guests’ warmed themselves by the re all day, waiting for food to be

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served. Some hosts even presented gifts to such guests as they were leaving—such as sour sh, cured meat and glutinous rice cakes—so that they went home loaded to capacity. Each year at harvest time, Han people came and sat on the ridges of the paddy elds watching Kam men and women working in the elds. When the head of the household noticed this, he immediately caught some sh, lit a re and made some barbecued sh with which to feed the visitors. As a rule these visitors were gatecrashers who did not even converse with their hosts. After eating and drinking their ll, they left, without so much as a thank-you. Kam people who frequented the market towns became friends with Han people there. Some Han people were polite, referring to younger Kam people as ‘children’. Hearing such intimate terms of address made the Kam people feel as though they were part of the family. They brought cured meat, pickled sh, dried sh and glutinous rice to present to their Han friends as gifts. The Han people responded with many courteous words, but they did not provide food or a place to stay in return. They allowed their Kam friends to come in, sit down and rest for a while, then poured them a cup of cold tea and ignored them. Han people who had been ‘guests’ in the Kam homes sometimes passed by in the market streets. When they saw their ‘hosts’ in town, some simply turned their heads away. The more polite ones might remark: “Oh, you’re coming to market!” If a Kam person entered a shop to buy a bowl of noodles to eat with the rice he had brought with him and his Han ‘friend’ happened to pass by, it would be incumbent upon the Kam person to invite the Han person for a bowl of noodles. It was mostly the wealthier villagers who went to market. Some sent their sons to the Han towns for schooling, instructing them to address their Han friends as ‘godfather’ and ‘godmother’. Others had made special friends with Han people of their own age. Every time they went to market they felt obliged to carry local products such as cured meat, chicken, duck, pork, eggs, glutinous rice, glutinous rice cakes or hot peppers to present as gifts to their Han friends. If Han people came as guests to their homes, they would certainly be treated with rice wine and meat. As they were leaving, their Kam hosts would ask someone to carry gifts for them on a shoulder-pole. The only goal in doing all this was to have some good friends who lived in the Han areas. At least there would be one less enemy and a little less bullying. Such over-hospitality was all born of a yearning for safety.

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Around 1940, Lao Chu from Xiangye made friends with a Han man, Bao Luo, from Langdong. Before long, Bao Luo had moved from Langdong to live in Dazhai, where he often ate and drank as a guest in the homes of the Ou clan. At New Year, Ou Laobao invited Bao Luo for a meal. A huge pile of meat, sh and poultry built up in front of Bao Luo, reecting the host’s penchant for hospitality. At the meal, there was much toasting and afterwards the men played the drinking game (cf. Chapter 13, footnote 2). By that time, Bao Luo was thoroughly drunk. In keeping with the deference and self-deprecation that characterized Kam hosts, Ou Laobao remarked: “We Kam people are nowhere near as good as you Han. We can’t cook at all, but just boil food a little and then eat it. We even eat this raw pickled sh. Can you Han people become accustomed to such food?” In response, Bao Luo staggered to his feet, swearing loudly: “—your mother! You give raw food to me to eat!” He stretched out his arm to grab Ou Laobao, but only managed to grasp the towel wrapping his head. Realising with horror that his guest was intent on violence, Ou Laobao dashed out through the main door of the house. Bao Luo ran into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and pursued Ou Laobao. Meanwhile Ou had run to an elder’s home for refuge, but the elder had gone out. Instead, Ou ed to another neighbour’s house and bolted the door. He went into a bedroom, improvised a plank ‘bridge’ to the next (lower) row of houses and ran off over the roofs. Bao Luo used a thick wooden club to pound the bolted door, bashing large holes in it. Many Kam people surrounded him but they did not dare to seize the club or to man-handle him. Eventually Bao Luo’s strength faded and he collapsed on the ground, cursing noisily. Two strong Kam men picked him up to carry him home, but as soon as he was picked up, he started struggling and kicking. His screaming and swearing continued: “It’s not enough just to eat the Miao food; you also have to beat the Miao people!”3 Bao Luo lived in Xiangye for almost a year. When he left, he said: “I’m sick of living in a Kam village. It’s boring! I’m going back to Langdong!” After he left, he had no more dealings with Lao Chu.

3 This was a way of swearing at the Kam people, referring to them as Miao. Before Liberation, the term ‘Miao’ was used to describe many minorities in the southwest all lumped together. As used here, it was loaded with derogatory meaning.

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The disasters and misfortunes of those years caused a cloud of misery and melancholy to envelop the hearts of the people of Xiangye. They developed sad and pitiful dispositions, especially the women. Big misfortunes such as death, illness, extortion and humiliation, or smaller misfortunes such as injuries to water-buffalo, wild cats eating poultry and contagious diseases aficting chickens, were felt by all and everyone expressed their sympathy. Women came in an endless stream to express sympathy and solicitude, by relating stories that were even more heart-breaking than the one at hand. When old women conversed among themselves it was only a matter of minutes before tears would ow. Old men constantly sighed. Even when people celebrated long-table feasts or some other festival, someone would burst into tears complaining about past sufferings. At weddings and celebrations for the birth of a son, when responding to the congratulations of the guests, some hosts burst into tears, because they realized that they survived only through suffering and servitude. Their lives brimmed over with suffering.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT1 Angl xeenp weex xus nyenc weex egt, egt aov yuv bail egt meik map. The rivers and mountains play host to people; old guests will leave and new guests arrive.

Upon retirement in 1995 at the age of 65, I moved to Huaxi, a suburb of Guiyang in Guizhou province, to settle down. Only then did I begin to research my own nationality in earnest, co-authoring two books:

1 This postscript comprises Professor Ou’s personal memoirs, highlighting the last 20 years of his mother’s life in the village of Xiangye. It was published by Ou and Geary in the journal Asian Ethnicity, in 2007. By reference to his mother’s experiences, Professor Ou elucidates the dramatic and climactic cultural changes that occurred in his home village after Liberation. Dramatic and climactic cultural changes gripped people throughout the country of China, both before and after Liberation. Toppling of the Qing dynasty in 1911 had ended ve millennia of imperial rule. After a period of political fragmentation, the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) formed a more or less stable national government in 1928. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had meanwhile convened its 1st Congress in July 1921. By 1928, the CCP was still relatively small, but with support from Stalin in Russia it was beginning to have serious designs on political power. These were inadvertently supported by Japan’s increasing territorial aggression, which eventually resulted in a state of war between China and Japan from 1937 to 1945. While the Nationalists were preoccupied with the struggle against Japan, the Communists seized their opportunity and mobilized a ghting force consisting mainly of peasants, which in 1949 achieved Liberation by defeating the better-equipped Nationalist army. Beginning in 1950, peasants were divided under the new Communist regime into ve different classes and land belonging to ‘landlords’ and ‘rich peasants’ was often redistributed to ‘poor peasants’ and ‘hired hands’. In 1957 the Communist government began to plan for the transformation of China into a mighty industrial power within a short space of time, a transformation envisioned in the slogan ‘Great Leap Forward’ and driven through a policy of establishing vast communes. The policy was implemented alongside a campaign of anti-imperialist rhetoric. This caused unease in the Soviet Union, whose leaders feared being dragged into armed conict with the USA. By 1960 there were clear signs that the Soviet Union’s long-term friendship with the CCP was on the wane. More than 1,000 Soviet advisors were withdrawn from China. By 1963 Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the CCP, was publicly denouncing his Soviet counterpart Kruschev as a revisionist (one who while disguised as a Marxist was supportive of anti-Marxist trends, who did not adhere to orthodox Marxist doctrines but wanted to revise the orthodox) and a capitalist-roader (one who travelled along the capitalist road). This was part of a campaign on Chairman Mao’s part to become

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The Kam People of China2 (in English) and Culture Dictionary of the Kam People3 (in Chinese). This volume, Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930–1949, was written with the support and encouragement of Dr Norman Geary, to provide foreign and non-Kam readers with a deeper understanding of Kam culture. The book consists of anthropological memoirs, a record of what I saw and heard during my rst 20 years of life in the village of my birth. In the years before Liberation, Xiangye was only connected with the outside world by narrow, winding, precipitous mountain paths, as it was located in mountainous terrain. The same was true of neighbouring Miao and Han villages. The people of Xiangye lived for generations in this remote area without much interference from outside. They worked and lived in a peaceful natural environment and like the environment, their lives seemed pure, transparent and tranquil. The mountains were green throughout the year and all kinds of fruit grew in the wild. People helped themselves to whatever they needed. Paddy elds decorated the mountains and valleys everywhere, brimming with water and full of sh and shrimps. The nearby Langdong river was so clear you could see the bottom and watch the sh dancing in shoals. Men or women went and shed there whenever they wanted. Poultry and dogs wandered round the village at will. Water-buffalo and cattle were raised in pens on the ground-oors of the houses. A forest of grain-stores stood alongside people’s homes. No one failed to observe the traditional customs of life and work handed down over the generations. When occasionally a disturbance arose within the village, the senior elder hurried to sort things out, to persuade and cajole until harmony was restored. Various surnames were represented in the village, but if you were not from the same clan as your neighbour, you were probably related through marriage, so the whole community was one large family related either by blood or by marriage. Whether rich or poor, male or female, old or young, people addressed one another according to the generation into which they were born. For example, children addressed each other the recognized leader of the international communist movement. This all formed the backcloth to the dark years of Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, a period of immense social upheaval and chaos in China. Such events on the national stage had a powerful impact on the people in the remote Kam village of Xiangye, as evident from Professor Ou’s postscript. 2 Geary et al. (2003). 3 Ou Chaoquan and Jiang Daqian (2002).

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as ‘older brother’ or ‘younger brother’, ‘older sister’ or ‘younger sister’. They addressed men of an older generation as ‘uncle’ and women of an older generation as ‘auntie’. Then there were cousins, blood uncles and aunts, and parents. Orphans or older single relatives lived in the extended family and worked for their keep. When adults, they were addressed by the head of the house as ‘uncle’ or ‘granddad’, ‘auntie’ or ‘granny’. They all worked and lived together, and there was no differentiation in status between them. There was always help on hand for those who lacked food or clothing, and there were no beggars and few burglars. There was generally no quarrelling or hurling of insults outside the immediate family circle. This harmonious atmosphere characterized community relationships. It had been inherited from previous generations and passed down from one generation to the next, for as long as people could remember. My father was one of the two village elders referred to in Life in a Kam Village (Ou Galao, cf. Chapter 26).4 He led the way in maintaining nationality traditions, supporting the people in such a way that they were able to remain united even when under pressure from neighbouring nationalities to divide and scatter. His leadership was consistently endorsed by fellow villagers. I was 14 when my father died unexpectedly. News of his sudden death spread around the village at one or two o’clock in the morning. Everyone in the village gathered around in a state of shock and fear, expressing grief at losing the leader on whom they had depended so much. Women were weeping and crying repeatedly: “Pity him! Pity him!” Men were sighing in sorrow and sympathy. While climbing the stairs, one elder wailed out: “Brother Xi has gone! What hope is left for our village!?” Many men groaned as they wept: “Brother Xi, you have left and abandoned us! What shall we do now?” Others sat motionless, dumbstruck, in a state of melancholy, smoking homegrown tobacco. That was 1944. From that time onwards, the prestige of elders diminished and swiftly disappeared. The bao leaders appointed by the government were unstable: one year it was someone from the Yang clan, the next it was an Ou, then a Tian. Some bao leaders did not even serve

4 Professor Ou’s father, one of the two main elders in the village, was elected by acclamation as the bao leader in the 1930s and served in that capacity until his death in 1944.

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half a year before they were replaced. Not one of them enjoyed prestige equal to that of my father. So it was that the indirect control over the village exercised by external local government ofces quickly became more direct. Thereafter, people felt unsure of themselves and of their own authority, which made life difcult until Liberation in 1949. My mother came from a village named Sebian, formerly in Liping county but currently in Rongjiang county. Her village was one of the centres where traditional Kam law or kuan was developed and practised.5 I rarely observed her washing her own clothes or washing her face, but compared with other village women her clothes were clean and her face was fair and clear. On her hands there were no traces of black soot from the cooking pots. She went around without shoes on her feet the whole day long. Her hair was wound into a plate or a bun at the crown of her head, always jet-black and glossy. Mother spoke with a Sebian (southern Kam) accent, which sounded ne to me, and her vocabulary was rich and expressive. She enjoyed mimicking the speech of others and this gift often had her audience rolling about in stitches. I never once observed her engaged in a quarrel. Everyone in the village addressed her as ‘auntie’. Whenever she met anyone, she invariably stopped to exchange greetings and chat for a while, and she often presented them with fruit or vegetables from whatever she happened to be carrying, treating ‘outsiders’ with the same care and attention as if they had been members of her own family circle. Most men who reached the age of 18 without a partner spent their whole lives unmarried. My mother loved to help young men in such a predicament. A young man’s family only had to mention the problem to her and she would willingly go the same evening to the home of a prospective bride, armed with a few eggs, to serve as matchmaker for the man in question. Even if the man’s family did not invite her to do this job, she sometimes took the initiative to suggest to them suchand-such a woman. If the man acquiesced—by lowering his head and smiling—she went to the woman’s home to serve as matchmaker. My mother had a good way with words and generally was able to persuade others, so that most women’s families agreed to her proposals. Mother never accepted a penny in payment for helping others arrange a marriage. Nor did she accept chicken, cured meat, pickled sh or even an egg. Sometimes she even brought goods from our own home

5

Cf. beginning of Chapter 26.

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to give away to the prospective wife’s family. She often remarked that a man was meant to have a wife and a woman likewise should have a husband. Everyone should have a spouse and children. Ever since Pan Gu6 created the earth and the sky it had been like that. When she saw others living a single life, she personally felt their sense of desolation, so she served enthusiastically as matchmaker for them. About half of the Ou families in the village had at one time or another beneted from this kindness of hers. With the problem of spouses and children resolved, it was much easier to enter the post-Liberation age with a sense of wellbeing. Having been born into a poor family, my mother spent her life working hard. Each year she planted cotton, spun thread, and wove and dyed cloth, making a set of clothing for each person in the household, young and old alike. She did all kinds of housework. In hot weather, she went to the Langdong river to catch sh. She often entertained guests from both within and outside the village. She remained engrossed in her work from morning until night and I practically never observed her having a rest. If she had just completed some particularly exhausting task, however, she might op into a chair for a moment, whereupon she immediately felt drowsy and began to doze off. Mother was not stingy and never stored up belongings. My father’s health was poor and he was not able to drink rice wine or eat meat, and this meant that our home usually had wine and meat to spare. At any one time my mother was raising two or three pigs. In winter, the pork was cured so that it could be used later for guests. Every month mother brewed a large jar of rice wine for guests or temporary workers. In the village no one used to buy or sell rice, or rice wine. Generally, ‘uncles’ loved to drink rice wine and there was often an insufcient supply of their own home-brewed wine. My mother frequently invited them to come to our home and drink. One particular uncle alone drank about 1.5 litres of rice wine a day during the two main meals, and his own family could not brew enough to keep up with his appetite. He liked going to the river to catch sh and usually brought home ve kilograms or more. When there was no rice wine, he gazed at the freshly cooked sh in the bowls with furrows on his forehead. Our family and his were neighbours, and when my mother noticed that he had no wine to drink, she always called him over to our

6

In Chinese mythology, Pan Gu is the creator of the universe.

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home to get some, 1.5 litres each time. He often reciprocated by giving us one or two sh he had caught, joking with my mother: “Auntie, if it weren’t for you giving me rice wine to drink, I wouldn’t bother going to catch sh. What good is sh without rice wine!?” During the busy farming season our family invited workers to plough the elds or harvest the rice. At the beginning of a semester, someone was usually invited to keep me company when I made the journey to school. My mother always insisted on entertaining such workers to sh and pork, repeatedly urging them to eat and drink more. The villagers enjoyed working for my family. After work they rst went home and changed their clothes, then returned to our home to eat the evening meal, just as if they were special guests. Standard payment for their work was around eight kilograms of rice grain a day, but my mother always added another ve kilograms or so to the payment, until the workers protested that it was too much. Our household employed three families of tenant farmers. Mother always treated these three families as though they were her own relatives, calling their family heads ‘granddad’, ‘older brother’ and ‘younger brother’, respectively. According to custom, we received half of their harvest in lieu of rent for their elds and in return we guaranteed that the members of their families had enough to eat and to wear, and were not exploited by outsiders. Mother was hospitable. When outsiders entered the home, she treated them as guests even if she did not know them, as long as they mentioned the name of some friend of the family. When they left, she presented them with gifts of cured meat and glutinous rice. Some guests left at the crack of dawn, taking advantage of the fact that we were still in bed to walk off wearing clothes, straw sandals and large bamboo rain hats they had picked up in the house. When Han people from Liujin came to buy rice, mother always sold it to them at a low price. Moreover, if one yuan’s worth of rice did not ll up two wicker baskets, she always made up the difference so that the baskets on their shoulder-poles were full up when they left. She often invited them to eat breakfast with us before leaving. Several nuns from the Buddhist temple in Liujin were friends of my mother and they often came to buy rice. Mother sold half to them and gave them the other half, then prepared a vegetarian meal for them. Mother often went to the Han markets. People only had to stop and talk to her on the streets and she would respond to them as though

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they were good friends. Many of them came to Xiangye as our guests, stopping over for several days at a time, eating meat and drinking wine. They left armed with gifts of cured meat, pickled sh and glutinous rice. There was a constant succession of visitors like these, but my mother never went as a guest to their homes, nor in fact did she even know where they lived. Why did my mother treat such people so kindly? Why was she so generous and hospitable, making friends with so many Han people? In the past, no one paid so much as a moment’s attention to such questions. Actually, being kind and benevolent towards others was merely an outworking of the traditional Kam code of behaviour, practised in Xiangye as elsewhere, and my mother simply provided a good example of such behaviour. There is no way I can do justice to my mother’s kindness in writing. Extraordinarily, however, at the time it was difcult to pin-point the basic differences between my mother’s love and the love and concern of other members of the Xiangye extended-family community. For 20 years I was equally moved by both sources of love and affection, experiencing the same joys as others in the village and sharing the same sorrows and sufferings, anxieties and fears. We sympathized with one another and embraced the age of Liberation together. In 1950 I said goodbye to my loving mother, wife and daughter, two sisters-in-law (both married to my brother), nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles. (At that time my brother had already been imprisoned as a counter-revolutionary element, because he had served as an army ofcer in the Nationalist cause.) I left to begin life in the outside world, leaving Xiangye village and Guizhou province, not knowing when or whether I would ever return to live there. Early in 1951, as I entered The Southwest Institute of Nationalities in Chengdu, the process of land reform was being implemented in the village. While at university, I heard that my family had been denounced as belonging to the ‘landlord’ category. In consequence, the family was immediately stripped of all its land and property. No one in Xiangye, however, was hard-hearted enough to possess the house that had been built by my parents. It was assigned to different villagers in turn, but they each declined to take it. In the end, it was possessed by the family of a mute Han man who had migrated into the Xiaozhai part of the village. Another large house in Zhanmo village that belonged to our family and had been occupied by a tenant

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farmer, was seized by the new government and transformed into local government ofces. My mother was forced to move, along with three daughters-in-law and their children, into a dilapidated house, to live there together with the family of one of my uncles. How could almost 20 people from the two households live crowded together in such a home? But the two families had both been classied as landlords and the new living circumstances were part of the consequences. Other villagers, who had earlier seemed like part of our own family, changed completely in their attitudes and became hostile. This was the result of pressures on them from party cadres to dissociate from the families of landlords or risk being treated in a similar way. It happened thus that any sense of affection or loyalty between their families and my mother’s was suddenly and irrevocably lost. The rst time I left Qinghai province and returned to Xiangye to visit my mother was in the spring of 1964. The village of Xiangye had burnt down in 1958. Within the space of an hour, all the ganlan houses7 in the village had been razed to the ground. The two ancient sweet gum trees guarding the village entrance were both destroyed by the re, as was the great yew tree at one of the wells in the village.8 The ancient well itself was also destroyed. A few houses of varying heights had been built on the former foundations of the perfectly ordered ganlan homes. At the time of my visit, some pillars for the new houses had just been erected. Men were still in the process of planing and sawing the wood, driving holes through it and tting the planks to the roof trusses. For many, the whole process of rebuilding had taken a long time because of the scarcities of those days. In order to satisfy accommodation needs quickly and to reduce the amounts of manual labour and materials required, people seldom built according to traditional styles during those years. Six years after the re most building work had been completed. About half of the new houses were single-storey, with storage space above. Ten or more houses had been rebuilt in the traditional ganlan style. There were also some low one-storey houses, more like sheds than traditional homes. No new buildings were built on the foundation of our old home, or on the central square in the village. Instead this all became

7 8

For references to ganlan, cf. Chapter 6. See plate 5.

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open space, referred to as the ‘re prevention land’, for curtailing the spread of re. For fear of re, some people built their new homes on cotton elds or vegetable gardens. The place where elders used to talk together and children used to play was completely taken over by newlybuilt one-storey homes. These did not in the least resemble the former Kam homes that had been clustered together there. There were no longer any grain stores or racks for drying glutinous rice. The green vegetable gardens and the empty spaces of the cotton elds had been occupied by buildings of different shapes and sizes. By this time my mother was living in a little wooden shed built along one side of my cousin’s house. The roof and walls of the shed were made of bark from China r. In all, the total area of the shed was about four square metres. When it rained, the rain seeped in. The shed was exposed to the wind from three sides. It was not tall, so that even my mother, who was only around 1.5 metres tall, could not stand up straight. The repit was positioned just at the entrance to the shed. Beside the repit was a short stool for my mother and a small tree stump for her granddaughter. At one side there was a bed made from wooden sticks and on the bed there was a lthy old blanket. Beside the bed there were two wooden buckets lled with fresh spring water, several clay bowls and a pot for standing on the tripod. Just beside the head of the bed was placed a small bucket lled with rice grain. Holding back sobs, my mother said to me: “Son, this is our house now.” Afterwards my cousins told me that there were no fellow clan members who could help my mother, there was no timber, there was nothing. All they could do was erect this small shed for her, to prevent pigs, cattle, chicken and ducks from coming and going as they pleased. In the past, the wind-and-rain bridge and the bullghting arena had been two important landmarks in Xiangye. When I returned in 1964, the wind-and-rain bridge was completely dilapidated. It had no roof. The railings (for leaning against) on each side and the planks set on stone slabs (for sitting on) had disappeared. The bare wooden surface of the bridge was all that remained, broken in places and practically disused. It was certainly no longer a place where people sat down to rest or to enjoy the cool breeze. More than half the area of the former bullghting arena had been eroded by the stream. Only a third of it remained, in the form of uncultivated wasteland, completely unrecognizable from earlier days. The rice paddies were full of water, but there were no sh or shrimps to be seen. I heard that thieves had often come at dead of night to stun

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the sh using electric charges and then steal them, with the result that the paddy-eld sh had already been nearly extinct for many years. Only a few small sh survived the electric-raids. Few people ate fresh sh, never mind pickled sh. When winter arrived, however, people could still be seen carrying bucket-loads of small sh from the paddy elds to the local government ofces, as before, to serve as gifts for ofcials. There was no cured meat or dried sh hanging above the res—as there would have been in earlier years—in any of the homes I visited. Nor were there any stacks of rewood to be seen outside the doors. Instead most people cut and burned rewood day by day as they needed it. The mountainsides around the village which had formerly been teeming with trees were now shaved and bald. Firewood could only be gathered at a distance of about 1.5 kilometres from the village. In 1964, at the time of my rst return visit to Xiangye after Liberation, I was a teacher at the Qinghai Institute of Nationalities. At that time, the villagers assumed that a university teacher was a cadre (i.e. an ofcial of high standing) and that I was not implicated in any of the negative associations of being a member of a landlord’s family. Just as in the 1940s, when I had returned to the village after studying outside, everyone crowded around to greet me with smiles on their faces, asking about this and that, concerned about my wellbeing. They asked how cold it got in Qinghai and other similar questions. In the earlier years people had always remarked: “Now that you have come back home, you should stay here! Life outside is so full of hardship, but life here in the village is good. Sure, don’t leave again!” Such urging was typical and constantly repeated. When I returned to Xiangye in 1964, however, the reception felt quite different. My clan elders asked repeatedly and impatiently: “Now that you have seen your mother, when will you be leaving again?” They were afraid and reluctant to have me stay much longer, though everyone was still laughing and joking, and the place still seemed full of excitement. My mother sat to one side weeping quietly, not daring to spoil the ‘polite’ atmosphere. She only kept repeating how much she had missed me and my brother and how much she pitied us for the hardships we faced outside. She never said a word about her own misfortune, as if she were still harbouring some faint hopes of improvement in the future and feared spoiling such hopes by making people angry at that time. By 1965 relationships between China and the former Soviet Union had become strained and the movement against revisionism had begun.

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I had been working under the supervision of a Russian professor of anthropology at the Central Institute of Nationalities in Beijing from 1956 to 1958, and mainly because of this connection, in 1965 I was wrongly accused of being a KGB agent and a revisionist. So it transpired that I was arrested and sent to work in a reform-through-labour farm. In spring of 1970, I was granted compassionate leave from the labour farm to go home and visit my elderly mother. The village seemed quiet and subdued. No one crowded around to welcome me and there was no atmosphere of euphoria as on my previous visit. My mother was still living in the same small wooden shed. Its walls and roof were rotten and about to collapse. In the six years that had elapsed since my previous visit, my mother had become disproportionately older and more decrepit, and her voice had become weak and feeble. On this occasion she quietly conded in me various circumstances that had grieved her sorely. From 1951 onwards, after the land reform, mother had suffered daily humiliation at the hands of certain progressive political elements in the village. This took the form of public denunciation, censure and condemnation. Among the people whom she had served as matchmaker, organizing their weddings, there was one man who criticised her for not doing the matchmaker’s job earlier. He only married after he was 20 years old and so was unable to have as many sons as he would have, had he married earlier. Meanwhile his wife cursed her for not having brought eggs to give to the wife’s family when she served as matchmaker. Others were not courageous enough to stand up for my mother and acknowledge the good work she had done for them as matchmaker. Instead, some people falsely accused her of presenting them with gifts of cured pork that was worm-infested, sour sh that had begun to taste rotten, rice wine that had turned sour and unhusked rice that had turned mouldy. They accused her of using these poor-quality things to buy popularity and they cursed her for exploiting tenant farmers and temporary labourers. The mutual help she had enjoyed along with members of her husband’s clan was also said to have been a form of exploitation. Now at last they were going to get even with her. So in these public meetings she was subjected to erce and unfounded censure. She did not understand why she was being accused, but only felt that she was the victim of injustice, weeping and crying for mercy from beginning to end.

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What caused her more grief than anything else was one slanderous accusation against her, which had been levelled about two years before. Sobbing as she spoke, she related how at that time she had already been incapacitated: she could no longer carry water or collect vegetables. With great effort, she could just about make her way through the village with the help of a walking stick. It seemed strange, then, when a strong young farmer slandered her by accusing her of stealing sh from his rice paddies. His elds were near the mountains. To reach them, you had to cross a small wooden bridge and negotiate many winding, slippery ridges between paddy elds. It had already been ve or six years since my mother had been able to venture to that area and even longer since she had been able to go and catch sh. The farmer fabricated the sh-stealing story nevertheless and everyone accepted his testimony without question, meting out punishment in keeping with the given crime. Day and night my mother claimed sobbingly that injustice had been done and she constantly pleaded for Heaven to understand and render justice to her situation. She told me more about the person who had fabricated the shstealing charges against her. Before Liberation, his father had been tied up and blackmailed by the director of police in the administrative area. My mother had felt pity for him as he was being tortured and several times she had pleaded on her knees for him to be shown mercy. When the director of police realized that my mother’s son-in-law was a leader in the region, he gave the order for the man to be released. The freed man insisted that my mother had saved his life and in the next life he would certainly requite kindness to her in a spirit of subservience (literally, like water-buffalo and horses). When my mother reached this point in the story, she stopped crying and gasped repeatedly with all her remaining strength: “I’ve been betrayed! The hearts of the people in this place are evil! How wicked are the hearts of the people in this place!” She regretted marrying into Xiangye, reckoning that the people of her home village Sebian were kind and would never hurt their own people in this way. In 1951, my older brother had been sentenced to life-imprisonment and was still serving his sentence in prison. (He was nally pardoned and released in 1980.) My older sister had married into another village and died of starvation in the early 1960s. I had participated in the revolution but was now charged with being a revisionist and was serving a sentence of reform-through-labour. My mother herself was left alone in that small rickety wooden shed, poverty-stricken and in poor health.

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Naturally she found the heavy pressure of her circumstances practically unbearable—especially since to her dying day she could not fathom why such pressure existed or where it came from—and she was in a state of utter despair. Early the next day I left Xiangye. With the help of her walking stick, my mother accompanied me to the head of the village. As I said goodbye, she didn’t say a word, but only wept. Before turning the last bend on the mountain path visible from Xiangye, I looked round one last time. Mother was still standing there as if transxed, staring towards me in the distance, as if to say: “Son, your mother won’t be able to wait for you any more. She won’t be around the next time you visit.” Over a year later, while working on a reform-through-labour farm in the west of Qinghai province, I received a letter announcing my mother’s death. The cadres in charge denied me permission to go home and pay my respects. Later I discovered that in March or April of 1971, when it was still bitterly cold but winter was turning into spring, my mother had fallen ill and had been conned to bed. By that time her granddaughter had married and had left to live in Zhanmo and there was no one to light the re, to carry water or to cook rice for her. With no water to drink and no food to eat, she could not endure the hunger and cold, and succumbed to her illness. Within two days she quietly passed away. By the time her death was discovered, her corpse was already stiff. My cousins had to carry her body to the mountainside and bury her there. Five years later, in 1976, I went home again. The only trace of the grave to be seen was a small mound of soil. This marked the only remains of my mother, who had spent the last 20 years of her life drowning in her own tears. By the time I returned to the village in 1990, it was 14 years since the Cultural Revolution had run its course. Farmers cultivated their own land and their desire to do so had increased. They could sell any excess produce in the markets and much more was being grown than during the time of the Great Iron Ricebowl (from 1958 to 1979). Life in general had improved. People could eat to their hearts’ content. Every household had plenty of rice wine to drink and pork to eat. Several more houses had appeared on the mountainsides, non-ganlan in style, and the village population had increased. The clothes of the people who crowded around me had changed dramatically, especially those of the young women who had dispensed with skirts and were wearing trousers. Their jackets reached down to

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their knees. The last traces of colourful embroidery were to be found on the sleeves and collars of the women’s jackets. Their hair was wound into plates and not into buns. They wore green ‘Liberation shoes’ (with rubber soles) on their feet and none of them wore silver jewellery. In dress there was a clear tendency towards Han styles. Changes in material culture, however, seemed minor in comparison with the toppling of the traditional way in which people related to one another. After Liberation, earthshaking changes took place in Xiangye. My family lost land, homes, possessions, everything. In order to survive, the 10-person household scattered, as the women in the family remarried and moved to live outside the village. In 1958, this ancient Kam village was razed to the ground and much history was destroyed in a ash. From all my family’s previous wealth and wellbeing, only a small wooden shed remained as a dwelling for my mother and that was vulnerable day and night to surprise attacks from wind and rain, freezing temperatures and local people. Altogether I returned to the village on four different occasions. From all that I saw and heard on my return visits, it was difcult to uncover much of the culture and scenery from my earlier years, which had made such indelible impressions on my mind. No longer were clan members like members of one big family; nor was the whole village characterized by harmonious and affectionate relationships as before. When my mother died, I lost my last close relative in Xiangye. On my last visit in 1990, after I had erected a gravestone on the mound of soil that marked her grave and wiped the tears from my eyes, I hurriedly left that place where I was born and had grown up. In 1998 I heard some terrible news. The ‘newly built’ Xiangye that had existed for 40 years had again been burnt to the ground late one night. Within the space of two hours, houses and property had again been destroyed by re. Many households were left with only the iron tripod they had used for cooking rice. In subsequent years, the village has once again been rebuilt and I do not know what it looks like now. I believe that the village land is still there, together with the paddy elds, mountains and water, as before. Ous, Yangs, Luos, Zhangs, Wus and Tians still populate the village, speaking half-Kam and half-Chinese. They have not yet become Han nationality people. Nevertheless, the detailed anthropological characteristics of Xiangye contained in the eye-witness report represented by Life in a Kam Village

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have already been replaced in practice by different cultural features and they will never recur in future. Until now there have never been any written records on the Kam village of Xiangye as it existed before Liberation. Its traditional culture is one representation of traditional Kam culture in general. Life in a Kam Village will help the reader to understand more fully the harmony between the Kam people of that generation and their natural environment; the outstanding tradition of harmony between people; and the signicance of their material culture. I hope that this careful arrangement of eye-witness accounts and research can supplement the existing corpus of research on the Kam nationality generally, reecting the diverse nature of the Kam culture. It goes without saying that the Kam people of different areas were affected in different degrees by people belonging to other nationalities, and the people of Xiangye reected their own unique circumstances in this regard. I also trust that Life in a Kam Village will serve to preserve an accurate anthropological record of the actual situation in pre-Liberation Xiangye in particular. Although society has changed dramatically and Xiangye society of the 1930s and 1940s as represented in Life in a Kam Village has basically vanished, it is hoped that the book will preserve for posterity a measure of understanding of the former society.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

TRANSLATOR’S POSTSCRIPT Eis eip jiuc kuenp nanc laos das, eis av buh jiuc nanc dah nyal. If you don’t open up a road it’s difcult to go to the mountains; if you don’t build a bridge it’s difcult to cross the river.

My wife and I began working with Professor Ou Chaoquan in the year 1998, after we had entered an agreement to co-author a book about the Kam people of China, together with three other Kam professors. We found Professor Ou to be meticulous, accurate and enthusiastic. Only after the book had been published in 2003, did the subject of Professor Ou’s personal history begin to emerge in the course of private conversation. I remember a sense of astonishment upon hearing that his academic career had been interrupted for 14 years while he served a term of hard physical labour. At the time of writing he is 77 years of age and still making up for those lost years. Three years ago Professor Ou embarked on this project to ‘tell the truth’ about 1930s and 1940s life in Xiangye, while omitting to retell certain aspects of the Kam culture story that had been sufciently detailed in our earlier book. Such a commitment to ‘the whole story’ has usually not been embraced here in China. To some here it still feels threatening, for example, to discuss in writing the exploitation of the Kam by the Han in the 1930s and 1940s. Most people in China understand that such exploitation occurred,1 but the thought is that discussing it in print will only serve to endanger relations between nationalities. 1

Blum (2001, pp. 61–62), commenting on the relations between Han and minorities, throws some light on typical perceptions among the Han: “A saying attributed to the Miao is this: ‘Shi bu neng dang zhentou, Han ren bu neng zuo pengyou’ (A stone can’t be a pillow, a Han can’t be a friend) (Dreyer 1976:108). Han hearing such an expression explain it as having arisen during periods of harsh policy and excessive da Hanzu zhuyi ([great] Han chauvinism). In general, all Han I spoke with, except a few who work exclusively with minorities, expressed incredulity at the ingratitude of minorities toward Han or certainty that the minorities admire the Han. Yet people were aware of ‘hatred’ and the need to ‘maintain distance’ between Han and other nationalities,

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In writing this book, Professor Ou has adopted a mainly objective stance, endeavouring to write with the integrity he learned in the discipline of anthropology. In doing so, he has described in writing some of the injustices that happened in Xiangye two or three generations ago. It is hoped that such description will help rather than hinder nationality relations, by frankly acknowledging tensions in the past with the hope that such tensions will not persist or be repeated. Indirectly the book points away from the discord and towards the relative harmony that currently characterizes the relations between the Kam and the Han, and has traditionally prevailed within the Kam nationality itself. The book leaves one with a sense of the special staying power, dignity and grace of the Kam people. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the tsunami of globalization is surging over paddy elds into the Kam villages.2 Cultural foundations are being tested to the limit. Three generations from now, will the people of Xiangye still speak in Kam? Maybe it was because we arrived safely before sunset, thereby accomplishing our rst goal and feeling a corresponding sense of satisfaction. We had travelled 12 hours that day—13th August 2006—to reach our destination, having set off from Rongjiang county town. (I was accompanied on the trip by a Kam colleague from the standard Kam speaking area, Mr Wei Peilei.) The sun was still shining when we arrived. A few people were already sitting around at the entrances to their homes, in anticipation of an evening at home, having nished their work in the elds. Most were busy with routine early evening activities. My feet were sore where the wet plastic sandals rubbed against the ankles and toes, after crossing through rivers and streams 20 times to reach the village.

even though they knew the ofcial line about all fty-six nationalities belonging to a happy family.” 2 Writing of the impact on Chinese nationalities of globalisation in general and tourism in particular, Mackerras (2003, p. 180) observes: ‘Tourism is likely to increase in the ethnic areas, as more and more of them become alive to the potential prots Han or foreign visitors bring. At least some ethnic societies will become more modern, undergoing the wide-ranging and sometimes contradictory social, cultural and economic implications of modernisation. Some ethnic cultures will weaken or even die under this impact. However, the stronger ones will survive or even get stronger as people turn to their own traditions as a way of demonstrating difference.’

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Maybe it was related to the months of working on Professor Ou’s book, a delight and an anticipation of déjà vu on reaching the village that had only recently been described in English for the rst time. Maybe it was prompted by what felt like the proud isolation of the village, emphasized by the three hours of trudging along country paths from Langdong, the nearest town in Rongjiang county. People in Xiangye told me I was the rst foreigner ever to visit the village. Although that may not have been strictly true, by the time I entered it, the village had imposed itself unforgettably on my mind as ‘remote’.3 Maybe it was because, having recently translated Professor Ou’s postscript (Chapter 32), I had expected something more severe and austere. Or maybe the village really was beautiful. For whatever reason, my main thought on entering Xiangye was how beautiful the village appeared. I had been to many Kam villages in the course of nine years living in Guizhou province, but this seemed at that time the most beautiful of all. There were paddy elds all around as we approached. As we entered, they divided the village into two parts: Dazhai and Xiaozhai. Many of the homes were grand, built in traditional Kam style. As we walked past her home, a young woman with two small children greeted us, inviting us to sit down. When we protested that we must keep going, she replied that we should return and sit down later, when we had opportunity. This was typical Kam hospitality. The party secretary in the village, Mr Yang Xiubiao, kindly hosted us that evening. Together with his neighbour and relative, Mr Ou Chaoheng, he answered some questions about the present-day Xiangye. The village community is comprised of 347 households, with a joint population of 1,515 people. Dazhai is only slightly bigger, with 183 households versus 164 in Xiaozhai; and a population of 775 versus 740 in Xiaozhai. (In the 1930s, Dazhai and Xiaozhai were home to around 100 and 30 households, respectively—cf. Chapter 4.) All the people in Dazhai and Xiaozhai are Kam, and speak the Kam language. It was not difcult to communicate with the Kam people in the village using ‘standard Kam’ from Rongjiang. 3 On 30th March 2007, the translator and Mr Dean Schauer approached the village by vehicle from the north. Their journey was blocked over a mile short of the village, by mud that was too thick and wet for the hired car to cross. This experience served to reinforce the impression of remoteness created by Xiangye village.

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Rice farming is clearly still the main work and source of livelihood. Mr Yang said that although the area seemed to be teeming with paddy elds, the rice production did not do much more than satisfy the subsistence needs of the villagers themselves. The population of the village has increased over the years, but the area of paddy elds has basically remained the same. All households still have their own cotton elds and women still make their family’s clothes with home-grown cotton. Fifty percent of adult men smoke, but not one woman. Practically all adult men drink ricewine, usually around 0.2 litres a day, shared between two meals. There are 222 children enrolled at the village school, divided between one preschool class and six primary school classes. About 20% of adults are illiterate in Chinese, and these are mostly women. All homes have television and 50% have a telephone. Only the primary school has a computer. Lorries come to Xiangye about three times a day, driving about an hour from Taiyong in the north, but there is no scheduled bus service to the village. On market days, every six or seven days, the number of lorries increases to ve or six. At 7:25 the following morning, our host’s son turned on the television and we watched the end of the morning news. As Chelsea scored, the camera ashed to a delighted Roman Abramovich, owner of the club. But Liverpool prevailed 2–1, after Crouch headed the nal goal. It felt incongruous to watch the goals in the 2006 English Charity Shield Final from this remote Kam village. Yet the world is closing in fast on Xiangye and Xiangye is at last moving out into the world. As we left the village an hour later, we met one of Professor Ou’s relatives returning with sickle in hand from his early-morning farmwork. He proudly informed us that his son is studying at university in Nanjing, a city in eastern China. The party secretary and his neighbour had earlier informed us that, at a guess, around 30 university students had grown up in the village throughout its centuries of history. They said that currently there are 12 students from the village at university. These numbers seem to suggest a spurt in university attendance over recent years. Like all other Kam villages everywhere, over the last decade Xiangye has lost most of its able-bodied young men and many of its young women to city jobs far away from home. At the end of his postscript (Chapter 32), Professor Ou observes that in 1990 ‘changes in material culture seemed minor in comparison with the

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toppling of the traditional way in which people related to one another . . . From all that I saw and heard on my return visits, it was difcult to uncover much of the culture and scenery from my earlier years, which had made such indelible impressions on my mind. No longer were clan members like members of one big family; nor was the whole village characterized by harmonious and affectionate relationships as before’. He sums up such sentiments by remarking that ‘Xiangye society of the 1930s and 1940s as represented in this book has basically vanished’. Having earlier translated these words of Professor Ou, I was surprised to arrive in Xiangye and discover the village retaining so much of traditional Kam culture, including language, clothing, hospitality and courtesy. Of course the scenery had changed. We saw no sign of the dilapidated wind-and-rain bridge or bullghting arena and the layout of the housing had been irretrievably altered by the res that had ravaged the village. It seems as though there is some nostalgia in Professor Ou’s concluding remarks. They call to mind his pleasant memories of evenings sitting beside the re (Chapter 10): ‘Visitors chatted and smoked until after 10 pm, then left. Men and women, old and young alike often sat together around the re. There was mutual respect between older and younger generations, and everything was quarrel-free, peaceful and harmonious. It was the happiest and most tranquil time of day, and helped establish warm bonds and relationships among family members’. But for every such pleasant memory, there was a recollection of hardship, both in the physical and in the inter-personal realm. For example, there was often malaria at harvest time (cf. Chapter 7)—now there is not. There was erce social stigma against wasting money or possessions (cf. Chapter 9). There were animosities between the young men of Dazhai and Xiaozhai (cf. Chapter 16). There was typically ill-feeling on the part of each member of a young couple involved in an arranged marriage (cf. Chapter 19). There was often a sense of estrangement between marriage partners and even indelity in the marriage relationship (cf. Chapter 23). There was some competition between different clans in the community (cf. Chapter 25). Children were often reproached in public by their parents, even when they did nothing to deserve such reproach (cf. Chapter 30). And the villagers were always vulnerable to extortion and invasion from outside (cf. Chapter 31). So it seems that the outcome of a contest between the Xiangye of the 1930s and 1940s and the Xiangye of today with respect to ‘harmonious

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and affectionate relationships’ and even with respect to ‘culture and scenery’ or ‘society’ is by no means a foregone conclusion. Paradoxically there is a happiness born of selessness and privation. The Chinese journalist and radio presenter Xinran (2003, p. 226) writes that during a visit to a village called Shouting Hill, two and a half days’ jeep ride from the city of Xi’an, she ‘saw mothers, daughters and wives who seemed to have been left behind at the beginning of history, living primitive lives in the modern world’. But ‘out of the hundreds of Chinese women I had spoken to over nearly ten years of broadcasting and journalism, the women of Shouting Hill were the only ones to tell me they were happy’. According to a recent World Values Survey, Nigerians are the happiest people in the world.4 Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, declared: ‘I’m happy, but the only time I had real joy in my life was when I was in prison [for three years]. Then there was just God and me and my fellow prisoners, whom I had to help’.5 Many people who lived through the Second World War residing in London looked back on the war years as the happiest of their lives because of the sense of community prevailing at the time. The lives of the villagers of Xiangye in the 1930s and 1940s were not as primitive as those of the women on Shouting Hill, nor as conned as the life of Obasanjo in prison, and not quite as dangerous as those of Londoners during the Blitz, but the general feeling of wellbeing in Xiangye as well as in these other situations was perhaps an outcome of the community spirit born of the collective will to overcome adversity. The lack of such wellbeing—if there is such a lack today—is perhaps in some measure compensated for by a corresponding lack of adversity. But Professor Ou’s sense of loss with respect to the culture of his childhood is still valid. The Xiangye of the 1930s and 1940s has indeed vanished, together with its characteristically close and reliable interpersonal relationships. There is a memorable photograph in a book about Ireland by Jill and Leon Uris (1976, p. 86) showing a ginger-bearded roughly-clad middle-aged farmer holding a scythe. The caption warns: ‘Have yourself a good look now, for when I’m gone you’ll never see the likes of a man like me, again’. Professor Ou’s book is an invitation to inspect the Kam culture of the 1930s and 1940s. It’s gone now, and you’ll never see the likes of it again.

4 5

Cf. Power (2007), p. 56. Ibid., p. 57.

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GLOSSARY Angying 昂英 Anshun 安顺 Ba Fu 八福 baba 粑粑 Baidao 白道 Baiyue people 百越 bao 保 Bao (surname) 宝 Bao Da 包打 baojia 保甲 Beijing 北京 bianmi 扁米 bu luo fujia 不落夫家 Cai (surname) 才 Cen’ao 岑熬 Chao (surname) 韩 Cheboksalow 切博克萨罗夫 Chejiang 车江 Chen Wengliang 陈翁良 Chen Yongling 陈永龄 Chengdu 成都 Chuanqing 穿青 Congjiang county 从江 Danzhai 丹寨 Dazhai 大寨 De Xing 德兴 Deng (surname) 邓 Dou (surname) 斗 Emperor Qinshi erhu 二胡

秦始皇

Fanzhao 返招 Forty Eight Villages 四十八寨 Four Kam Villages 四寨侗 Fu (surname) 富 Fu Bin 富炳 Fujian province 福建 ganlan 干栏 Gaoyang 高洋 Guangdong province 广东 Guangxi Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region 广西壮族自 治区

Guiyang 贵阳 Guizhou province 贵州 Guizhou Sheng Di San Cehuiyuan 贵 州省第三测绘院 guoji 果吉 (same as niutuiqin 牛腿琴) Guomindang 国民党 Guzhou 古州 Hakka 客家 Han nationality Hemudu culture Hong (surname) Huaxi 花溪 Hubei province Hunan province

汉族 河姆渡 红 湖北 湖南

Ji’an 吉安 jia 甲 Jian (surname) 见 Jiang (surname) 江 Jiang Daqian 姜大谦 Jiangxi province 江西 Jianhe county 剑河 Jin (surname) 进 Jinping county 锦屏 Jiulie 九列 Jiuyi 九仪 jueba 蕨粑 juecai 蕨菜 kang Kaili Kejia kuan

炕 凯里 客家 款

Lan (surname) 蓝 Langdong 朗洞 Langhuang 朗晃 Lantang 滥塘 Lao Chu 老初 Lao Long 老龙 Lao Mu 老木 Lao Qiang 老强 Lao Shuo 老说 Lao Xiao 老小 Lao Yao 老要 Le Shi 乐史 Leishan county 雷山

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254 Li (surname) 李 Li Yanshou 李延寿 Liang Weian 梁维安 Liangwang 两汪 Liannan county 连南 Lilu 里路 Lin Kuan 林宽 Liping county 黎平 Liuai 柳哀 Liujiang 柳江 Liujin 柳金 Liukai 柳开 Liuluo 柳落 Long Yaohong 龙耀宏 Lu Qilian 陆琪莲 Luo (surname) 罗 Men (surname) 门 Mengyan 孟彦 Mi (surname) 米 Miao nationality 苗族 Ming dynasty 明代 Nanjia 南加 Nanjing 南京 Nanliang 南良 Nanming 南明 Nanshao 南哨 Nanshao river 南哨河 niubie 牛瘪 niubierou 牛瘪肉 niutuiqin 牛腿琴 Ou (surname) 欧 Ou Chaoheng 欧朝恒 Ou Chaoquan 欧潮泉 Ou Chaosheng 欧潮盛 Ou Kalao 欧卡老 Ou Laobao 欧老包 Ou Yangxiu 欧阳修 Ou-Yang (surname) 欧阳 Pan Gu 盘古 Pan Yongrong 潘永荣 Panxi 磻溪 Peng (surname) 彭 Ping (surname) 平 Pingdi 平地 pipa 琵琶 Qi Fu 欺负 Qiang (surname) 强 Qimeng 启蒙 Qing dynasty 清代

glossary Qing Ming 青明 Qinghai province 青海 Qingming festival 清明 Qingshui river 清水江 Qinwang 琴王 Qiu (surname) 邱 Rongjiang county

榕江

Sebian 色边 Seventy Two Villages 七十二寨 Sheng (surname) 生 Shi Lin 石林 Shi Wang 时王 Shimenkan 石门坎 shugan 树干 Sichuan province 四川 Song dynasty 宋代 suona 唢呐 Tai (surname) 台 Taigong 台拱 Taijiang county 台江 Tai-Liao 泰寮 Taiwan 台湾 Taiyong 太拥 Tian (surname) 田 Tianzhu county 天柱 tonghua 同化 Wang (surname) 王 Wang Liangfan 王良范 Wangjiazhai 王家寨 Wei Peilei 韦培雷 Wei Shou 魏收 Wengbei 翁贝 Wu (surname) 伍 Wu (surname) Wu Mian 勉 Wu Rukang 汝康 Wu Zelin 吴泽霖 Wulai 乌来 Wusong 乌送 Wuzhou 梧州 Xi’an 西安 Xian Guangwei 冼光位 Xiang (surname) 相 Xiao (surname) 孝 Xiaoguang 小广 Xiaozhai 小寨 xuehong 血红 Yang (surname) 杨

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glossary Yang Hanji 杨汉基 Yang Sen 杨森 Yang Xiubiao 杨秀彪 Yangquan 羊全 Yangtze river 长江 Yao nationality 瑶族 Yi nationality 彝族 Yongqian period 雍乾 Yuan river 沅江 yuan 元 Yue people 越 Yunnan province 云南 Yuyao county 余姚 zai 崽 Zai (surname) 在 Zaidao 宰岛 Zailian 宰练

255

Zailin 宰林 Zainu 宰努 Zhaihao 寨蒿 Zhaihao river 寨蒿河 Zhang (surname) 张 Zhang Min 张民 Zhang Sheng 张盛 Zhanghan 章汉 Zhanmo 展模 Zhejiang province 浙江 Zheng Guoqiao 郑国乔 Zhengcha 正岔 Zhenghan 正汉 Zhi (surname) 之 Zhong (surname) 锺 Zhong Shengzhi 钟声直 Zhongguo Ditu Chubanshe 中国地图 出版社 zuojia 坐家

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REFERENCES Bhalla, A.S. and Qiu, Shufang (2006), Poverty and Inequality among Chinese Minorities, Routledge, London and New York. Blum, Susan D. (2001), Portraits of “Primitives”: Ordering Human Kinds in the Chinese Nation, Rowman & Littleeld, New York. Chen Wengliang (1987), Guizhou Tianzhu Dongzu de tizhi, (Physical characteristics of the Dong nationality in Tianzhu county, Guizhou), in Kaocha Yu Yanjiu, Di Qi Ji (Observation and Research, Volume 7), Shanghai Keji Wenxian Chubanshe, pp. 58–70. Chen Yongling (1987), Minzu Cidian (Dictionary of Nationalities), Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, Shanghai. Cheung Siu-Woo (2003), Miao Identities, Indigenism and the Politics of Appropriation in Southwest China during the Republican Period, Asian Ethnicity, 4.1, pp. 85–114. Clarke, Samuel R. (1911), Among the Tribes in South-West China, Morgan & Scott, Ltd., London. Geary, D.N., Geary, R.B., Ou Chaoquan, Long Yaohong, Jiang Daren and Wang Jiying (2003), The Kam People of China: Turning Nineteen, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York. Guizhou Sheng Di San Cehuiyuan (1997), Guizhou Sheng Ditu Ce (Maps of Guizhou Province), Hunan Ditu Chubanshe, Changsha. Jenks, Robert D. (1994), Insurgency and Social Disorder in Guizhou: The “Miao” Rebellion, 1854–1873, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Jung Chang (1992), Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Flamingo, London. Le Shi (975), Taiping Huanyu Ji (Records of Peace Everywhere). Li Yanshou (643), Bei Shi: Liao Zhuan (Northern History, Commentary on the Liao People). Long Yaohong and Zheng Guoqiao (1998, Translated by D. Norman Geary), The Dong Language in Guizhou Province, China, Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington, Dallas. Mackerras, Colin (2003), China’s Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York. Ou Chaoquan and Jiang Daqian (2002), Dongzu Wenhua Cidian (Culture Dictionary of the Dong People), Huaxia Wenhua Yishu Chubanshe, Hong Kong. Ou Chaoquan and D. Norman Geary (2007), A Mother’s Misery and Cultural Change in a Kam Community, 1950–1990: Author’s postscript in the forthcoming book: Life in a Kam Village in Southwest China, 1930–1949, Asian Ethnicity, 8.1, pp. 61–75. Ou Yangxiu (1060), Xin Tang Shu: Nan Man Liao Zhuan (A New History of the Tang Dynasty: Commentary on the Liao Southern Barbarians). Power, Jonathan (2007), Obasanjo’s legacy, Prospect, April issue, pp. 54–57. Rossi, Gail and Lau, Paul (1991), The Dong People of China, A Hidden Civilization, Hagley & Hoyle, Singapore. Wei Shou (556), Wei Shu: Liao Zhuan (History of the Wei Dynasty, Commentary on the Liao People). Wellens, K. (2003), Book Review, Anthropos 98, pp. 555–556. Wu Rukang (1959), Guangxi Liujiang faxian de renlei huashi (Human fossils discovered in Liujiang of Guangxi), in Gu Jizhui Dongwu Yu Gu Renlei (Ancient Vertebrates and Ancient Mankind), issue 1. Wu Rukang (1989), Gu Renleixue (Ancient Anthropology), Wenwu Chubanshe (Cultural Relics Press), Beijing. Wu Zelin (1988), Buyizu de zuojia (‘Staying at home’ of the Bouyei nationality), in Wu Zelin Jinian Wenji (Commemorative Collected Works of Wu Zelin), Hubei Kexue Jishu Chubanshe, pp. 249–253.

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Uris, Jill and Uris, Leon (1976), Ireland: A Terrible Beauty, André Deutsch Limited, London. Xian Guangwei (ed., 1995), Dongzu Tonglan (A General Survey of the Kam Nationality), Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, Nanning. Xinran (2003, Translated by Esther Tyldesley), The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, Vintage, London. Zhang Min (ed., 1985), Dongzu Jianshi (A Concise History of the Kam Nationality), Guizhou Minzu Chubanshe, Guiyang. Zhang Sheng, Yang Hanji, Liang Weian and Shi Lin (1996), Dongzu Yanyu (Dong Proverbs), Guizhou Minzu Chubanshe, Guiyang. Zhongguo Ditu Chubanshe (China Maps Press, ed., 1995), Zhongguo Ditu Ce (Maps of China), Zhongguo Ditu Chubanshe (China Maps Press), Beijing.

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INDEX abduction 136, 160, 162 adolescence see coming-of-age agriculture see farming alcohol see rice wine almanac 211 ancestors 21, 28, 35–6, 42, 47, 94, 183, 191, 215 original female ancestor 47, 185 worship of 16, 99, 101, 177, 187, 212–3, 221 ancient trees see trees, ancient aprons 63, 111–2 arguments (quarrels) 85, 107, 136, 154, 162, 165, 174, 179, 186, 188, 191, 197, 221, 233–4, 251 army garrisons 3, 9, 13–4, 16, 35–6, 195, 226 assimilation x, 18, 226 baba 91, 177, 179 bachelors 74, 77, 156, 189–90, 203, 205 Baiyue people 35 bamboo 41, 55, 58, 64–6, 68, 71, 73, 75, 84–5, 91, 97, 100, 117, 121, 152, 180, 195, 207, 214, 217, 236, plate 47 bao leader 196–8, 225, 233 baojia 25, 101, 196, 225 bartering (exchanging, trading) 17–8, 27–8, 54, 71–2, 74, 78–9 baskets 37, 51, 54, 57, 61, 63–4, 71, 74, 81, 84, 91, 93, 95, 117, 151–2, 159, 177, 179, 211, 236, plate 22 beggars 169, 201, 233 birth 14–5, 76, 112, 145, 154, 161–6, 172, 230 Bouyei nationality 257 bride 85, 111, 117, 142, 149, 151–4, 160–2, 169, 170, 201, 234 bridges 3, 6, 39, 43–4, 124, 242, 247, plate 6 wind-and-rain (ower) bridge 45, 239, 251 building houses 41, 47, 69, 71, 77, 177, 186–7, 238 bullghting 44, 197

bullghting arena 44, 124, 155, 197, 205, 214, 239, 251, plate 6 calendar 53, 76, 212 capitalist-roaders 231 change in culture ix, 28, 231, 243–5, 250, 257 charcoal 17, 28, 64, 84, 177 Chejiang 6, 105 chicken ghts 196 childhood 115, 117, 119, 217, 222 children 14–5, 21, 23, 25, 29–30, 39, 42, 47, 73, 76, 81, 83–5, 91, 95–7, 99–100, 107, 109, 117–8, 135, 141–2, 148–9, 156–7, 163, 167, 169–70, 172, 180, 188, 190, 196, 207, 209, 211, 217–22, 228, 232, 235, 250–1, plates 42 to 48 Chinese language vii, ix, 1, 3–4, 8, 11, 15–6, 21, 25, 27–9, 31, 45, 117, 133, 136, 148, 189, 208, 220–1, 225, 227, 244, 250 Chinese New Year see festivals chopsticks 74, 97, 108, 180, 219 clan responsibilities 56, 63, 71, 101, 152, 157, 183–90, 207, 211, 213–5, 222, 239 climate 56, 60 cloth 49, 67–8, 78, 83, 85, 109, 111, 118, 187, 203 clothing 4, 7–8, 14, 18, 28, 36, 46, 67–9, 77, 79, 109–18, 133, 151, 162, 166, 181, 219, 233, 235, 251 codes of behaviour 237 cofns 109, 177, 180 coming-of-age 115–20, 219 communist party ix, 231, 238, 249–50 community ix, 44, 55, 64, 165–6, 183, 185, 190–1, 201, 203, 207, 222, 226, 232–3, 237, 249, 251–3 concubines 15, 27, 135–7, 162–6, 173 conscation of land 16, 163 of weapons 223 conscription 8, 208, 226–7 cooking 87–95, 125, 244 corn 59–60, 91

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cotton 61, 69, 109, 111–2, 179, 203, 211–2, 250 elds 61, 63, 67, 118, 127, 129–30, 171, 173–4, 178–9, 198, 219, 239, 250 growing of 41, 60–1, 63, 72, 118, 123, 125, 129, 179, 235 spinning of 6, 61–8, 85–6, 118, 121, 125, 133, 177, 235, plate 17 teasing of 63–5, 72 courtship 121–32, 135, 208 cows 46, 48, 54, 74 Cultural Revolution 232, 243 daily routine 81–6 death 44, 78, 113, 141, 190, 198, 207, 215, 230, 233, 243 death penalty 198 dialects 7, 14–6, 21, 29, 31 division of labour see men’s/women’s culture divorce 150, 154–7, 188, 197 dogs 39, 46, 48, 83, 232 Dong ix, 23, 257–8 dowry 151, 179 drinking game 101, 108, 229 drinking songs 101–2 drum towers 115, 196 dyeing cloth 33, 68, 83, 85, 118, 125, 179, 235, plate 19 East Guizhou Incident 105, 226 education x, 4, 69, 90, 179 elders 23, 28, 39, 111, 157, 173–4, 191, 193–200, 215, 221, 223, 229, 232–3, 239–40 elopement 126, 159, 161 embroidery 111, 118, 125, 179, 244, plate 32 emperor 12, 35, 212–3, 223 engagement 131, 135, 141–3, 145–8 exploitation 163, 201, 241, 247 extortion 226, 230, 251 family 9, 21, 29, 55, 59, 61, 64–5, 67, 71–3, 81, 85, 89, 91, 93, 99–100, 106, 115, 117, 123–7, 142–5, 147, 149, 151–2, 154–7, 161, 185–90, 195, 201, 212, 222, 232–3 famine 25, 74 farming 15, 51–60, 64, 69, 84, 126, 171, 188, 236, 250 fertilizing 51–3, 55, 59, 179 festivals 68, 90, 107, 111, 148, 187, 209–16, 230

Chinese New Year 54, 89–91, 97, 107, 115, 118, 149, 201, 211–3 Eating Bianmi 129, 131 Eating Bull Intestines 44, 89, 101, 210, 213–5 Eating New Rice 209 Eating Sweet Glutinous Rice Cakes 209 Kam New Year 44, 89–90, 94, 97, 115, 118, 149, 209, 211–3, 227, 229 Mid-Autumn 58, 209, 211 Sweeping the Graves 61, 101, 184, 186–7, 209 elds 6, 15–7, 30, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 51–61, 67, 69, 72–3, 83–4, 87–9, 91–2, 99–100, 103, 115, 117–8, 171, 174, 177–80, 188, 197–8, 201, 203, 209, plate 4 recrackers 151, 174, 179 repit 72, 81, 83, 92–3, 155, 221, 239, plates 28 and 29 sh 17, 38–9, 41, 51, 53, 59, 71, 73, 75, 83–4, 87, 89–95, 99–101, 107–8, 125, 129, 145, 149, 151, 179–80, 187, 197–8, 201, 203, 211–2, 219, 228–9, 232, 234, 236–7, 239–42, plate 41 catching of 39, 41, 44, 54–5, 57–9, 73, 89, 117–8, 123, 135, 171, 177, 179, 205, 220, 228, 235–6, 240, 242, plates 16 and 43 pond 44, 202 sour 92–3, 95, 100–1, 125, 151–2, 179–80, 187, 211–2, 228–9, 234, 237, 240–1, plate 26 food 16–7, 25, 27, 38, 56–9, 69, 75, 77, 84, 87–97, 99–101, 108, 125, 131, 151, 171, 177, 180, 188, 201, 207, 211–3, 225–9, 233, 243 barbecued 58–9, 89, 91–2, 95, 180, 228 boiled 87–90 cured 89, 94–5, 100, 151–2, 212, 228, 234–7, 240–1 fried 57–8, 74, 76, 89, 90–3, 95–6, 100, 106, 177, 180, 209, 211 preserved 92–5, 97, 100–1, 125, 136, 179, plate 26 snacks 91, 95–6 uncooked 95 forest 3–5, 7, 9, 14, 41, 46, 69, 175, 195 forts 10, 12–17 Forty Eight Villages 7, 29 Four Kam Villages 4, 7, 12, 29

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index fruit 17, 74, 84, 113, 177, 201, 232, 234 Fujian 14–6, 29 funerals 101, 186–7, 207–8 Gaeml 21, 23 ganlan 46–9, 69, 171, 173, 238, 243, plate 7 Gax 201, 203 glutinous rice see rice ‘glutinous rice children’ 37–8 gods 43, 75, 139, 145, 147, 155–6, 177, 197, 221 government 3–6, 8–9, 11–4, 16, 18, 25, 35, 45, 51, 53, 101, 105, 142, 183, 193, 195–6, 223, 225–6, 233–4, 238, 240 graves 28, 30, 61, 101, 177, 180, 184, 186–7, 209, 243–4, plate 39 Great Leap Forward 231 Guangdong 33, 35, 74 Guangxi x, 35, 74, 257–8 Guizhou vii, x, xii, 1, 3, 6–7, 18, 21, 28, 36, 101, 105, 167, 185, 231, 237, 249, 253–4 hair 18, 39, 67, 75, 109, 111–3, 115, 117–9, 133, 142, 149, 154–5, 172, 175, 220, 234, 240, 244 Hakka people 21, 29 Han area 108, 133, 135, 164, 208, 212, 228 culture 31, 97, 167, 180, 208, 212 customs 90, 133, 221 men 90, 111, 117, 119, 135–7, 162, 191, 226, 229, 237 nationality 15, 53, 90, 244, 247 people x, 1, 4–5, 9, 12, 14, 17, 21, 23, 27–8, 30, 35, 38, 45, 74, 77, 94, 101–2, 136, 139, 145, 165, 183, 190, 195, 208, 213, 220, 227–9, 236–7 towns/villages 1, 3–7, 15, 19, 103, 135, 165, 220, 227–8, 232 women 65, 135, 161, 164, 201 harmony 25, 85, 183, 191, 195–6, 232–3, 244–5, 248, 251 harrow/harrowing 53–6, 84, 117–8, 177, 188, plates 11 and 13 harvest 6, 30, 53, 56–61, 64, 74, 91–2, 105, 118, 179, 211, 214, 228, 236, 251 healing see illness, cure of herbs 58, 74–5, 91, 179

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hospitality 100, 102, 108, 136, 141, 177, 228–9, 236–7, 249, 251 houses 12, 17, 41, 46–8, 59, 65, 69, 71, 77, 83, 121, 164, 175, 177, 185–7, 207, 232, 237–8, 243–4, plates 7, 8 and 21 Hunan 9, 14, 35, 257 hunting 89, 177 hygiene 48, 136 illegitimate child 162, 173 illness 58, 75–6, 95, 106, 189–90, 230, 243 cure of 58, 75 indigo 69, 179 inheritance 77, 159, 162–3, 172, 177, 193, 195, 201, 220, 233 intermarriage x, 29–30, 35, 43, 186–7, 213 intruders 45–6 invasion 223, 251 jewellery 78, 113, 244 Jiangxi 14–5, 28–9, 35–6, 185 Jianhe xiii–xiv, 1, 3, 6–7, 9, 11, 19, 25, 28, 223 Jinping 4, 7, 12, 223 jueba 90 juecai 74, plate 23 Kam New Year see festivals Kam language 5, 7–8, 14–5, 30–1, 35, 125, 133, 257 orthography xi tones xi Kejia people 14, 21, 23 kitchen 48, 59, 63, 81, 83, 94, 162, 207, 225 kuan 193, 234 labour camp 164, 192, 241–3, 247 lamps (lighting) 77, 81, 85, 97, 161, 180 land god 155, 197 landlords 16–7, 23, 53, 55, 61, 163, 174, 186, 191, 201, 237–8, 240 Langdong xiv, 3–4, 6–7, 9–19, 21, 27, 37, 53, 78, 135, 164, 174, 186, 229 Langdong river xiv, 5–6, 28, 41, 73, 95, 118, 131, 201, 220, 232, 235 law 191, 193, 234 levirate 157 Liberation x, 15–7, 60, 163–4, 191, 223, 231, 234–5, 237, 244–5 Lin Kuan 12

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Liping xiii, 4, 7, 12–3, 37–8, 159, 166, 180, 193, 223, 234 Liujin xiv, 1, 3–5, 9, 45, 195, 198, 225, 236 Liukai xiv, 1, 3, 8 loom 66–8, plate 18 love songs 126–7, 208 lunar calendar see calendar magic 179 malaria 58, 76, 251 Mandarin Chinese see Chinese maps xiii–xiv, 257–8 market towns 5–6, 11–2, 17–9, 77–8, 84, 100, 103, 117, 136, 173, 199, 228, 236, 243, 250 marriage 43–4, 73, 85, 112, 119, 126–7, 131, 133, 135, 139, 142–3, 145, 147–54, 156–7, 159, 162, 165, 167, 169–70, 175, 186–7, 232, 234, 251 matchmaker 85, 133, 139–43, 145, 147, 179, 234–5, 241 mealtime etiquette 97–9, 219 meat 72, 75, 87, 89–90, 92, 94, 99, 101, 107–8, 125, 157, 179, 187, 209, 215, 219, 227, 229, 235, 237 barbecued 95, 180 cured 94, 100, 151–2, 211–2, 228, 234, 236–7, 240, plate 28 preserved 93 medicine 73, 76, 95 meeting place 129, 196–7 men’s culture 57, 177–82, plate 24 menstruation 112 Miao people x, 3–6, 8–9, 11, 17–8, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29–30, 33, 39, 78, 84, 113, 166, 213, 220, 226, 229, 232, 247, 257 Mid-Autumn Festival see festivals migrations 29–30, 35, 44, 183, 185 millet 59–60, 91 Ming dynasty 3–4, 9, 12–3, 15, 35–6 minorities xi, 11, 14–6, 18, 33, 35–7, 257 Mongoloid race 33, 35 mongoloid wrinkles 35, 37 murder 141–2, 225 mushrooms 74, 87, 129 music 205, 207–8 musical instruments erhu 86, 135, 207 niubatui 86, 205

niutuiqin 86 pipa 86, 205–8 Nanshao xiv, 5, 9, 11, 28, 45, 142, 196 Nationalist government/party 3, 25, 101, 195–6, 231, 237 nationalities ix–xi, 7, 11, 15, 21, 28, 30, 33, 35, 53, 84, 90, 201, 220, 231, 233, 237, 240–1, 244–5, 247–8, 257–8 New Year see festivals northern Kam 7, 29–31, 33, 35–6, 169, 180–1 old age 14–5, 25, 29, 44, 66, 77, 81–5, 97, 99, 101, 106, 109, 111–2, 115, 117–8, 157, 170, 187–8, 193, 195, 197–8, 208, 212, 230, 232, 251 opium smoking 51, 83 orphans 74, 81, 83, 143, 188, 201, 233 paddy elds see elds Pan Gu 235 party see communist party payment 72, 234, 236 pepper, red 38, 58, 74, 90, 92–3, 95, 97, 107, 228 physique 30, 33, 35–8, 257 pigs 15, 17, 44, 46, 48, 60, 66, 72, 75, 78, 83–5, 94, 125, 171, 177, 179, 235, 239, plate 36 pipes (for smoking) 84–5, 193, 195–6, plate 40 plough/ploughing 6, 53–6, 59, 61, 84, 115, 117, 171, 177–9, 188, 236, plates 11 and 12 poultry 46, 72, 125, 172, 225, 229–30, 232 pregnancy 154, 172 proverbs xi, 258 punishment 43, 198, 242 Qimeng 7 Qing dynasty 3–4, 9, 12–3, 35–6, 44, 231 Qingshui river 9, 28, 41 rain 6, 39, 43, 45, 48, 51, 57–8, 63, 83, 139, 211, 239, 244 rape 171, 173–4, 191–8 rebellion (insurrection, uprising) 12–4, 105, 167, 257

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index Republican period x–xi, 9, 212, 226, 257 revisionism 231, 240–2 rice glutinuous rice 34, 37–8, 47–8, 51, 58–9, 72, 90–3, 97–8, 100, 106, 118, 145, 152, 177, 179–80, 201, 203, 209, 211–2, 228, 236–7, 239, plate 9 hulling 81, 83, 164, 171, 179 seedlings 54–6, 63, 66, 118, 177, 179–80, 188, 201 threshing 52, 56–8, 63, 77, 79, 88–9, 211 transplanting 54–6, 63, 66, 118, 177, 180, 188 rice wine 57, 59, 68, 101, 103, 106–8, 117, 125, 135, 142, 151, 174, 187, 212, 227–8, 235–6, 241, 243, plate 27 romance 86, 121, 123, 127, 131 Rongjiang xiii–xiv, 3–4, 6–7, 11, 13, 25, 27, 29, 35, 37, 105, 159, 180, 195, 198, 223, 234, 248–9 salt 5, 16–8, 72, 74–5, 89–90, 92–5 sandals 17, 28, 70, 72, 111, 117–8, 177, 190, 207 school 29, 103, 126, 133, 135, 163, 220, 228, 236, 250, plate 46 Sebian 37, 159, 161, 193, 234, 242 selling 5, 16–7, 27, 61, 78, 235, 243 Seventy Two Villages 7, 29, 198 sexual behaviour 152, 169–71, 173, 175–6 shamanism 179 shoes 28, 109, 133, 234, 236, 244 sickness see illness silver 74, 78, 106, 112–3, 179, 193, 225, 244 singing 11–2, 14, 101–2, 124, 126, 131, 133, 205, 208 skirts 18, 37, 48, 94, 109, 111–3, 118, 127, 149, 152, 155, 166, 180, 220, 243, plates 31 and 33 slack farming season 59, 64, 68 smoking 83–5, 90, 96, 100, 105, 147, 166, 180, 233, 250–1, plate 40 soap 75, 77, 113, 126 society feudal 23 Han 23, 162 Kam 23, 31, 79, 139, 164, 166, 186, 245, 252 Xiangye 159, 245, 251

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soldiers 4–5, 9, 11–4, 18, 28, 36, 55, 105, 142, 166–7, 177, 189–90, 195–6, 225–7 Song dynasty 11–2 sorcerer/sorcery 75, 179 southern Kam 7, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37–8, 68, 159, 169, 180–1, 234 soybeans 27, 90, 94–6, 100 spinning see cotton spinning wheels 65–6, 85–6, 118, 121, 177, plate 17 spirits 75, 171, 174, Plate 5 split-seat trousers 115, 118, 170, 217 Spring Festival 212 ‘staying at home’ 121, 127, 153–6, 170, 257 stealing 197–8, 211, 240, 242 suppression 12, 36, 167 surnames 14–6, 25, 28–30, 36–7, 43, 47–8, 123, 141, 159, 183, 185–6, 213, 217, 226, 232 sweet potatoes 74, 91–2 taboo 44, 56, 87, 121, 157, 180, 186, 201 Tai-Liao 33, 35 Taiyong xiv, 3, 5–6, 9, 11, 45, 196, 223, 225, 250 taxation 8, 27, 53, 101, 177, 183, 190, 196–7, 225, 227 tea 76, 105, 228 temple 12, 155, 197, 236 thieves 83, 177, 190, 198, 201–3, 225, 239 Tianzhu 5, 28–9, 36–7, 183, 223, 257 tilt-hammer see treadmill timber 13, 46, 66, 71–2, 187, 203, 223, 239 toilet 48, 171, 180 trade 54, 72, 78 treadmill 48, 81, 83, 95, 164, 179, 209, plate 10 trees 41, 46–7, 69, 74–7, 177, 187, 203, 240 ancient 42–5, 193, 238, plate 5 felling 9, 41, 45, 59, 71–2, 240 planting 25 tripod 87, 89, 94, 239, 244, plate 25 trousers 18, 67–8, 109, 111–2, 115, 118, 170, 191, 198, 217, 243

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vegetables 17, 41, 43, 56, 60, 68, 73–5, 83–4, 87, 89–90, 92–3, 95, 99, 103, 106–7, 129, 133, 179, 188, 201, 203, 211, 219, 234, 239, 242, plates 14, 23 and 26 vegetable gardens 41, 68–9, 73–4, 83, 87, 93, 117, 201, 203, 211, 239, plate 3 village head 163–5 visitors 26, 84–5, 94, 99–100, 105, 107, 136, 151, 162, 190, 220–1, 223, 227–8, 237 washing cloth 68, 83 clothes 15, 39, 75, 77, 83, 103, 112–3, 118, 179, 234, plate 35 dishes 179 feet 111–2 hair 39, 112–3, 220 self 39, 75, 103, 154–5, 220, 234 vegetables 39, 43, 93, 103, 179, plate 37 water-buffaloes 44, 54–5, 75, 81–4, 89, 117, 177, 213, 221, 223, 230, 232, 242, plate 38 wealth 16, 54, 89, 93, 97, 100, 108, 125, 136, 139, 186, 195–6, 201, 206–8, 244

weapons 223 weaving baskets 71, 179 cloth 6, 61–4, 66–8, 78, 125 sandals 70, 72 wedding x, 68, 90–1, 97, 101, 111–2, 117, 127, 141, 143, 148–9, 151–4, 169, 172, 186, 188, 208, 212, 230, 241 weeding 56, 59–60, 63, 67, 118, 129, 171, 178–9 wells 13, 21, 42–4, 83, 85, 103, 105, 136, 180, 238, plate 5 wheat 60 wickerwork 177 widow/widower 74, 135, 156–7, 171–2, 188, 201 wood see timber women’s culture 57, 177–82, plates 34 to 37 Wu Mian 12–3, 36 Xiaoguang

5, 28–9

Yao people 30, 33 yield 51, 53, 56 Yue people 46 Zhanmo xiv, 27, 161, 166, 237, 243, 245–6

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PLATES

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1 Dazhai; where the path leads out of the village, the author’s mother stopped to send him off for the last time

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2 Road leading out of Xiangye towards Taiyong; there is still plenty of China fir in the area

3 Vegetable garden with a grand view, but far away from home Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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4 Terraced fields on hill slopes

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5 The Ou well with the burnt ancient yew tree; the paper tassles stuck to the tree are signs of homage paid to the spirit of the tree Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

6 The land behind the bridge used to be the bullfighting arena in Dazhai; there used to be no buildings on the field

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7 Kam houses built tightly packed beside each other; the top storey of the leftmost house is a faint reflection of the ganlan style

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8 Some houses are built on the hillside

9 Glutinous rice is dried hanging from the ceilings in the homes, in bunches like this Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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10 Treadmill or tilt-hammer

11 On the way to the field with plough and harrow

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12 Ploughing is a man’s job

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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13 Harrow

14 Rice needs to be dried before being shelled; vegetables need to be dried before being pickled

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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15 Haystack beside the harvested fields

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

17 Foot-operated spinning wheel

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16 Catching fish with a bamboo wicker fish trap

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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18 Loom

19 Drying cloth after a dye and wash during the dyeing process

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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20 Carpenter at work (planing)

21 New house being built

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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22 Fertilising the rice field prior to ploughing; note the dustpanshaped baskets

23 Children like to gather wild vegetables: some fresh fern sprouts (juecai)

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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24 After-lunch relaxation

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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25 Tripod in firepit and pot for cooking rice

26 Pots for preserving vegetables (and fish)

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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27 Entertaining guests with meat, vegetables and rice wine

28 Pork being dried over the firepit Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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29 Family gathering around the traditional firepit

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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30 Women in festive clothing

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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31 Skirt and leg cloth

32 Embroidering a piece for a baby carrier

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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33 Making pleated skirts is a painstaking business

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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34 Women relaxing

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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35 Washing clothes by beating them

36 Pig sty; domain of the women Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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37 Vegetables need to be washed, even those that serve as pig food

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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38 Bringing rice straw back for the buffalo

39 Tomb mound with grave stone

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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40 Village elder smoking a long pipe

41 Back from the fields with a catch of fish

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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42 Curious children

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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43 Girls catching fish in the paddy field

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Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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44 Babies go everywhere with their mothers, grannies or elder siblings

45 Girls

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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46 On the way home from primary school

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access

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47 Having fun with hats made of bambooshoot skin

48 Cycling on the ridge between fields

Chaoquan Ou - 978-90-47-42164-1 Downloaded from Brill.com05/05/2020 02:58:34PM via free access