Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1916-11-24

South China, was originally
the home of unciviliZed tribes
"A called by the Chinese wild
men," and their homes "barbarism
caves" These aboriginal tribesmen
are scattered freely through nearly all
parts of the province, but occupy prin-
cipally the great north and northwest
| sections.
If we draw a line across the map
| just west of Kueilin in the north and
Marking in the south, we will find that
| with the exception of LungchoW on
the Annamese border, by far the great
er half of the province has no estab-
| lished Christian work whatever. In
| this neglected region there are numer-
Gus walled cities, market towns ana
villages, all teeming with human life
The great majority Of the inhabitants
of these vast regions are aborigines,
variously called Mao, Yao, Tung and
| Chuang. These tribes have so in err
married with the Chinese that they
have adopted most of the latter's GUS
| toms, including mode of dress, but re-
| tain their own form of speech, which,
though monosyllabic, is still quite dis
| tinct from the Chinese language.
| Some of these tribesmen are met
with IN great numbers along the road
| leading to Tinglinkai. The scenery
along this route is beautiful, indeed,
writes a Liuchowbu correspondent of
the North Darby Mail. In places one
must walk for hours high up on the
mountain side, while so feet below
rushes a foaming mountain stream.
The valley is narrow and on either
side tower huge granite mountains,
wooded almost to the summit with q
stunted growth of fir, while far below
| by the gurgling stream the slender
bamboos grouping shyly together, bend
| gracefully over the rushing waters.
The path is tOrtuous one, winding in
and out round the many bends. Here
and there q homestead can be seen
guarding a small section Of terraced
| paddy fields, while to secure irrigation
| to his little farm the ingenious settler
has to run hollow bamboo pipes from
mountain spring, thus conveying the
crystal water to his home first, and
then from terrace to terrace all the
way down the mountain side, irrigat-
ing each small field.
These people belong to the Yao
| tribe. They have no written language
of their own. Those who have had
any schooling whatever have studied
the Chinese characters and can speak
a broken Mandarin as well as their
own dialect. The dress of the men is
| like that of the Chinese, but the wom-
ems dress differs somewhat. Their
blouses, instead of buttoning on the
right side, Chinese style, come together
in the front, and meet at the neck
in a sort of sailor collar. Some of the
women wear high-crOwned hats, gay
ly colored and profusely ornamented
! by numerous strings of beads that hang
about the shoulders and down the
back. Others have a fiat, thin cloth
covered board on their heads made in
n sort of Mother Hubbard bonnet.
| Still others of the poorest classes SIM
ply wrap their heads with long blue
cloth.
AS the tribe lives exclusively in the
mountain regions, where rice cannot
be cultivated in large quantities, their
diet consists for the most part of corn,
maize and other grains, with plenti-
full supply of vegetables and sweet po-
tatoes. While extremely shy and re-
| 4 on
| can be entered upon we found them
very friendly.
First Sight of a White Man.
On one occasion while travelling in
their district we had an amusing ex-
perience. After traversing the COM
paratively level road from Linhsi to
| Shanih we entered a wilder, more
| sparsely populated section of the coun-
| try where the most ordinary food,
such as rice and native vegetables, be-
| came our staple fare. We reached q
| small village about noon, and after
partaking of some red-colored rice and
some green's we continued our jour
ney westward. Our path now led us
up a high mountain, and for some ten
Ii or more we gradually assembled,
when, coming suddenly around bend
| in the road, we met a number of abo-
riginal women who We're out on the
mountain gathering fuel.
| They had never seen white man
| before and evidently did not care TO
see much of one now. For moment
they stood in amazement and looked
| at rs, but only for a moment; then
| they dashed off the road and down the
/ mountain side like frightened deer,
and were soon out of sight among the
wild grass and scrubby fir trees. We
4 stood both NAMED and amused named