The Guangxi tongzhi of 1733 was a new official gazetteer of Guangxi province compiled by a team of local officials, including the provincial governor Jin Hong and the prefect of Guilin 桂林, Qian Yuanchang. The gazetteer’s chapter on the customs of the Man (i.e., indigenous peoples) includes a long excerpt from an earlier (and now lost) work by Qian Yuanchang, the Yuexi zhu Man tuji, which probably served as an important source for the gazetteer’s ethnographic chapters. This excerpt is translated below.

The Yuexi zhu Man tuji appears to have been an early example of an emerging genre of illustrated ethnographic guides to the peoples of the Qing empire’s southwestern frontier, known in English as “Miao albums” and in Chinese as Bai Miao tu 百苗圖 (“Illustrations of the Hundred Miao”).¹ Many titles in this genre focused on the Guizhou peoples generically labeled as Miao, but the case of the Yuexi zhu Man tuji suggests that similar works were produced in Guangxi. Titles pertaining to Yunnan, Hunan, Hainan, and Taiwan are also known. Miao album texts are characterized by large numbers of hand-painted color images depicting the lifestyles, customs, and clothing of indigenous peoples, accompanied by textual descriptions of the same. Although the images in the Yuexi zhu Man tuji were not incorporated into the Guangxi tongzhi and are no longer extant, they are likely to have been hand-painted in color as well.

The textual descriptions in Miao albums were typically based on direct observation by local officials, while the painted images are believed to have been the work of professional workshop artists. These artists usually had not seen the indigenous subjects themselves and were instead relying on the textual descriptions, though in some cases, they could also use older, non-color, woodblock-printed images in provincial gazetteers as a model. The Yuexi zhu Man tuji was probably an exception to this norm, as Qian Yuanchang was himself an accomplished painter and likely produced the illustrations himself.

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The Liji describes southern peoples called Man who tattoo their foreheads, chisel (file or sharpen) their teeth, and do not cook their food.² Their villages and tribes are scattered across the regions of Dian (Yunnan), Ba (Chongqing), Shu (Sichuan), Chu (Hunan), and Yuè (Guangxi and Guangdong), bordering on the western Rong (Tibetans). The mountains and valleys of the western part of Yuè (Guangxi) are steep and treacherous, and their kind are especially abundant there, divided into many branches: these include the Yao 猺, the Zhuang 獞, the Lang 狼³, the Ling 狑⁴, the Ya 犽⁵, the Nong 㺜⁶, the Dong 狪⁷, the Yang 𦍕⁸, the Bing 𤝣⁹, the Sha 猀¹⁰, the Dan 蜑¹¹, the Turen 土人¹², the Longren 隆人, and the Yangshanren 陽山人¹³. If one added up their numbers and divided them by ten, then the Zhuang would make up 40%, the Yao would make up 30%, the Lang would make up 20%, and the other groups would be no more than 1% each.

In the days of Yao (Tang) and Shun (Yu), these lands were known as the treaty-regulated zone of submission (yaofu)¹⁴, and [the sage-kings] merely maintained peace covenants with their inhabitants. Through the ages, they have in most cases stubbornly rejected our civilizing influence. But now that our sagely dynasty’s moral power and awesome might have spread far and wide, the entire world has become one and customs have undergone a fundamental transformation. Even though these peoples’ dwellings, clothing, diet, and male-female relations remain different from the customs of the Hua, we can nonetheless discern a spirit of artless innocence and simplicity in their customs. I therefore provide here a concise account of them.

All the Man peoples farm the land for their food. They use glutinous rice to make porridge, which they drink from time to time throughout day. They gather assorted vegetables, as well as cow and sheep skins and bones, soaking them for a long time to make a thick sauce to accompany their meals. Even though they raise chickens and pigs at home, they do not lightly eat meat. Their paddy fields are in the lowlands and are called tian 田 (field); their dry fields are in the highlands and are called di 地 (land).¹⁵ All their tian are planted with rice, and the di are planted with assorted grains and interspersed with drought-resistant grains. If there is sufficient rain, there will be a bumper harvest—they call this “depending on heaven.” The rice in the paddy fields ripens both early and late, and is named according to the month, such as the sixth-month rice or the eighth-month rice. However, there is only one harvest each year, unlike in the eastern part of Yuè (Guangdong), where the fields yield two crops.

In their paddy fields, they especially like to plant taro, as taro can serve as a staple food. After the autumn harvest, they burn the hills to eliminate all kinds of pests. In the second month, after hibernating insects awaken, they burn grass and mix the ashes into the soil to fertilize it before planting. For plowing, they use cattle. For irrigation, they use wagons as well as water scoops to carry water. Men weed the fields, and women earth up the seedlings—none are idle or lazy. Whether pruning or reaping the crops, this is all done by women’s hands. They make wine by fermenting rice mixed with grass seeds; the flavor is extremely sweet. They dislike the bitterness of tea, so when thirsty, they drink only water.

Their men and women both wear hemp cloth garments, favoring deep blue, occasionally using blue-green or black. They do not wear fur or kudzu fiber clothing. Their bedding is especially rudimentary. When it is hot in summer, they frequently bathe in the creeks; when the winter gets cold, they gather around the stove all night. Most men shave the tops of their heads; some also shave the surrounding areas. Their hair may be braided, done up in a topknot, adorned with hairpins, or decorated with pheasant feathers. Their beards may be shaved or kept, some wear earrings, some wear metal rings around their necks—each according to the customs of their locale.

They wrap their heads in cloth, sometimes embroidered, sometimes plain. About half wear bamboo hats. Their clothes reach only to the waist. Some garments are longer, but still expose the knees and thighs. From the crotch down, cloth strips are cut and wrapped diagonally down to the feet. Some wear trousers and separately tie leggings around their shins. They tie a sash at the waist and like to hang from it a bronze box for storing tobacco.¹⁶ They carry very sharp small knives, called zuocha 左挿. They usually go barefoot; occasionally, they wear straw sandals.

Those who shave their heads and wear hats—felt in winter, horsehair in summer—and wear loose robes with wide sleeves, white leggings, and shoes: only the Xixiang Yao 西鄉猺 of Quanzhou 全州 county have this style. The Zhuang people of Xing’an 興安 county also wear pointed hats with horse tail hair.

The Man women have thick and black hair, and like typing it up in large buns, usually oriented toward the front. Some have them horizontally, like scrolls; some arrange them in three layered coils. Those with double hair buns are girls who have not yet married; after marriage, a single bun is adorned with a large comb made of silver, wood, or ivory, and ringed with flower hairpins, the number differing according to the wearer’s wealth or poverty. They may cover the hair bun with hemp cloth, a floral-patterned kerchief, or a bamboo hat. The hats are of exquisite craftsmanship and often use a veil of black cloth to cover half the face.

Each woman wears large earrings, with smaller pendants hanging down. Around their necks are silver rings, and on their chests, they sometimes hang a silver plaque. They dress in blue-green cloth garments, often with embroidered borders, reaching only to the waist. Underneath, they wear floral-patterned camisoles (dou 兜), with open fronts revealing their breasts as a mark of beauty. Some gather goose down into balls to decorate their clothing. Their trousers are short, but their skirts are long. About half go without trousers; their skirts are all deep blue-green, embroidered and pleated, sometimes elaborately so. When walking, they pull the skirt to the sides at the waist, often tying floral-patterned kerchiefs around their waists and hanging sachets (hebao 荷包) from them.

They are fond of smoking tobacco, often sticking a smoking pipe into their hair buns. Their feet are bare, no different from the men, but on festive occasions, they also wear shoes. When not carrying loads, they bring long-handled umbrellas, floral-patterned kerchiefs, or oil-paper fans when out. Their gait is light and swift, and they are unafraid of crossing streams or climbing mountains, no matter how high or deep.

Those who cover their heads with white cloth, tie broad sashes at the waist, and wear plain white garments without colorful embroidery—these are Lang women. Those whose clothes are adorned with feathers, who wear no skirts but wrap cloth leggings around their calves—these are Ling women. Only among the Yao people are there distinct names for groups according to their manner of dress and adornment. For example:

Those whose earlobes hang with interlinked rings, whose temples are decorated with hanging alum beads, whose hair buns are wrapped with banana leaves, who wear neither skirts nor trousers but simply wrap strips of cloth around the front and back, short in the front and long in the back, which they gather around themselves when sitting—these are called Flatland Yao (Pingdi Yao 平地猺).

Those who hang silver threads on their hair buns straight down to the nape are called Dog Bell Yao (Gouling Yao 狗鈴猺).

Those who wear a comb on the crowns of their hair buns, shaped like a fan, are called Comb Yao (Shu Yao 梳猺).

Those who place a wooden board on the crowns of their heads, decorated with rows of alum beads hanging like tassels, are called Crown Board Yao (Dingban Yao 頂板猺).

Those who pin two bamboo arrows about two feet long, covered with brocade, in their hair buns, tilting their heads side to side while moving through the forest so that they flutter like butterflies, are called Arrow Shaft Yao (Jian’gan Yao 箭桿猺).

Those who use porcupine quills as hair pins, add bamboo pieces, part the hair at the temples, and cut the back so it resembles a swallow’s tail, are called Swallow Tail Yao (Yanwei Yao 燕尾猺).

Those who tie strips of wood bark across their foreheads and carry baskets on their backs, hunched forward as they run—these are called Mountain-crossing Yao (Guoshan Yao 過山猺), also known as Mountain Yao (Shan Yao 山猺).

Those who insert triangular silver plaques, adorned with red fringes, in the side of their hair buns, and tie floral-patterned sashes at the waist, are called Pangu Yao 盤古猺.

All the Man groups are known by a single name, but only the Yao have these distinct names based on attire, and also divisions such as Raw and Cooked, or Black and White—Black means Raw, White means Cooked, and the Cooked are purer (chun 純) in nature than the Raw.¹⁷

The Man mostly live in mountainous regions. Some surround their villages with bamboo fences, while others build shrines (she 社) under trees, fashion huts with thatched roofs and walls, and erect wooden platforms to make multi-storied dwellings. People reside above, while livestock are kept below, and these are called malan 麻欄 or lanfang 欄房 (lan houses).¹⁸ Men and women, young and old, all live together in one house; when a son marries, he moves into another house. Only the Lang people arrange their houses in rows with the doors all facing one direction, keeping people and animals on separate sides of the house, and they do not like to live in upper stories.¹⁹

When not farming, men may gather firewood, hunt animals, trade horses, sell brocade in exchange for hemp cloth, fluff cotton to help with spinning, or work as boatmen, steering boats along the river with poles. Only the Dan people float their homes along the riverbanks and make their living by fishing. Women may spin and weave, sew garments, dye fabric, fetch water, pick vegetables, gather medicinal herbs, or carry firewood. The most skilled women may weave colored silk into brocade, or split silk threads to embroider handkerchiefs. Some women also put on makeup to beautify themselves and then form groups to ride horses and enjoy the springtime.

On the first day of spring, men carry large drums on their backs while women sing the song “Peace for All Seasons,” and everyone goes about to exchange greetings and celebrate. To welcome spring, the men dress as Spring Officials and the women follow singing; together they proceed to the village gate, whipping an ox as they go.

During the spring and autumn ancestral festivals, they worship their gods in the temple; baskets and trays are carried, wine is laid out, and a shaman is invited, dressed in a red robe and holding a tablet of office, appearing as if possessed by the gods. In front of the shrine, younger people pay respects to elders all around, an event called “visiting the shrine” (tanshe 探社).

At harvest time, everyone vies to pay taxes early; once the taxes are paid, each household celebrates, pouring wine from their jars, urging one another to drink together through the whole day.

If there is a dispute, people gather at the shrine, seat an elder at the head, and each party cuts grass to make tokens. For every matter discussed, one token is raised; the party with more tokens wins. When an argument is judged as weak, a token is discarded, and when an argument is judged as strong, a token is kept. This is called “competing in front of the elder” (sailao 賽老) or “debating reasons” (lunli 論理). After the debate concludes, the result is carved on wood, and no one dares go back on it as long as they live.

For marriages, they rely on matchmakers, each family providing a horoscope card [to determine compatibility]. They place a jar and brew wine in it; if the wine turns out well, it is considered auspicious, and the couple is married. As for the custom of choosing spouses by song, although recently it has been forbidden²⁰, in the valleys and mountains, it still occasionally occurs: on sunny spring days, young men and women sing to each other, known as “wandering flowers” (langhua 浪花) or “dancing under the moon” (tiaoyue 跳月).²¹ The men play reed flutes, and the women throw embroidered baskets (xiulong 繡籠)—the embroidered basket is a colorful silk ball. They dance in circles, and if the meanings of their songs match, the basket is tossed and returned, and so an engagement is made.

On the wedding day, the procession is led by a person carrying a wine jar. The bride walks holding a parasol with colorful tassels, followed closely by her relatives, and is sent off with music and drumming.

All these are customs of the Man that differ from those of the Hua. Their bodies are sturdy and their daily needs frugal; their simple and honest ways have much to commend. And even in their ignorance and clumsiness, intelligence and skill may also arise. Thus, we should not despise them simply because they reside in backward and benighted frontier regions, nor should we expect to govern them by the standards of the Central Lands.

As for their tendencies to risk their lives in pursuit of profit, seek revenge over slight grievances, and hide the guilty when a crime is committed—these long-standing practices do stain them morally. Yet now, having been bathed in the civilizing influence of sagely rule, they sing songs in praise of our age of peace, and someday soon, their customs will change for the better without them even realizing it. For example, the Huang 黃, Liu 劉, and Gu 古 clans are refined and polite in their manners. Their young men are students in the local academy, their voices reciting texts and echoing through the mountain valleys. Gradually, all will come to feel shame for the benightedness of their former customs and transform their stubborn nature. Within a few years, even their dwellings, clothing, diet, and male-female relations will be no different from Hua customs. If one then wishes to discern their ethnic type (zhong 種), it will be impossible; thus I have made these illustrations to record what would otherwise become mere hearsay.

As for their languages, which sound like the warbling of birds²², each group has its own local dialect. I have provided categorized translations but cannot do so exhaustively.²³ As the Liji says: “The people of the five regions had mutually unintelligible languages,”²⁴ and this was so even among civilized places —how much more so among the southern Man, whose speech is like the shrieking of shrikes!²⁵

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1. For a full annotated translation of one such text, with images of all eighty-two of its paintings, see David Deal and Laura Hostetler, The Art of Ethnography: A Chinese “Miao Album” (University of Washington Press, 2006). ↩︎
2. This alludes to the document “Wangzhi,” which actually does not mention tooth-chiseling and only describes the Man as tattooing their foreheads, “pigeon-toed,” and not cooking their food. See source 1.6. ↩︎
3. The Guangxi tongzhi explains their ethnonym Lang (meaning “wolf”) by likening their behavior to that of wolves: “They are gluttonous by nature and eat meat with blood still in it, making a foul-smelling mess. In their dwellings, they sleep on nothing but grass. That is why they are called Lang.” It adds: “There are also Cooked Lang who live in houses with roof tiles and plant rice in fields. They often come out to trade in mountain products and are no different from [Chinese] commoners (min 民).” ↩︎
4. The Guangxi tongzhi describes the Ling as follows: “In the mountains of Dateng [Gorge] 大藤 and Luoyun 羅雲, amidst secluded cliffs and deep valleys, live the Raw Ling people. They dwell without houses, gathering acorns and yams when hungry, hunting foxes and digging for rats. They eat bees, wasps, cicadas, and locusts, relishing them as if they were shepherd’s purse. They wear garments made of grass and communicate in bird-like sounds; only through multiple rounds of indirect translation can one understand them.” Dateng Gorge and Luoyun were locations in what is now Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, and were the scene of several major Yao revolts against Ming rule. ↩︎
5. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Ya: “The women of the Ya have blackened teeth and tattooed faces, and they embroider their foreheads with patterns resembling flowers, grass, dragonflies, and butterflies. This is what the Liji refers to as [the Man] who tattoo their foreheads and lacquer their teeth. When marrying, a woman carries her own umbrella, and a procession of dozens of her fellow villagers and clan members accompanies her. Those who live deep in the valleys are called Raw Men (shengding 生丁) or Black Men (heiding 黑丁), while those who live mixed among the [Chinese] commoners are called Cooked Men (shuding 熟丁) or White Men (baiding 白丁).” ↩︎
6. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Nong: “The Nong call themselves Nong, but they do not like farming (nong 農). They make a living by selling firewood and buying grain, and their households do not keep stores of pounded rice overnight. Men only marry after thirty years of age, and sometimes they remain single for life, working as hired laborers or servants for others.” ↩︎
7. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Dong: “The Dong people live in mountain valley settlements (xidong 谿峒), and are thus also called Settlement Men (Dongren 峒人). They wear their hair in a topknot, adorn it with pheasant tail feathers, dress in clothes made of grass, and are skilled in music: they play the huqin, blow on the six-piped sheng, and sing long songs while closing their eyes, nodding their heads, and stamping their feet in a dance called the Hundun Dance 混沌舞, singing in groups while leaning on one another. By nature, they do not like killing…. In their customs, they honor the young and look down on the old. When their hair starts to turn gray, they pluck out all their beards. In the spring, they often bury great logs in the ground to build towers several tens of feet high, upon which singers spend the night; this is called a Luohan Tower 羅漢樓. ‘Luohan’ refers to young ruffians.” ↩︎
8. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Yang: “The Yang people can be found in many locations on the southern borders of Guizhou, their land adjoining that of the Raw Miao. If they lose in group fights, they butt their heads together like sheep (yang 羊) as a way of settling things. Their ways of life are all crude and simple: their houses are made of thorny branches and are not plastered with mud; the doors are never locked. The men farm according to the number of mouths to feed, and the women weave cloth according to their own body measurements. In their spare time they live by fishing and hunting. When marrying, a dog is given as a betrothal gift. When a parent dies, they burn the parent’s clothes and belongings, calling this ‘sending it to the grave.’” ↩︎
9. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Bing: “The customs of the Bing people are similar to those of the Yao, but they are rather cunning and unruly. They are naturally able to withstand the cold, which is why they are called Bing (homophonous with bing 冰, “ice”). Living by rivers and streams, they go about naked while fishing and hunting even in the depths of winter. When meeting officials and elders, they do not know to kneel or bow; instead, they sit cross-legged as a form of respect.” ↩︎
10. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Sha: “The Sha people are also of the Bing type. They live along sandy riverbanks, building simple shelters to dwell in. They hunt fish and shrimp and eat them raw—this is what [the Liji] calls ‘those who do not cook their food.’ They are skilled at detecting the earth’s qi to locate water sources; when a flood is imminent, they move away in advance. They migrate along the river, never staying in one place for long. When the water recedes, they eat river snails and earthworms—everything is edible to them.” ↩︎
11. The Guangxi tongzhi says of the Dan: “The Dan people live by the sea, making their homes on boats for generations. The poor among them build rafts from bamboo. They have no land of their own and do not farm or weave, but rely solely on fishing for their livelihood. Some weave shelters on the water’s edge. Their kind (zhong 種) has three branches: those who catch fish are called ‘fish Dan,’ those who gather oysters are ‘oyster Dan,’ and those who collect timber are ‘wood Dan.’ They are also skilled at discerning the color of the water to locate the dwelling places of dragons. For this reason, the Dan people paint images of snakes in their shrines to worship, claiming themselves as descendants of dragons (longzhong 龍種) and also calling themselves ‘dragon households’ (longhu 龍户). Mạc Đăng Dung (founder of the Vietnamese Mạc dynasty) belonged to this kind.”
    For a different explanation of the term “dragon households,” see source 5.20. Ming sources claim that Mạc Đăng Dung’s father was a Dan fisherman who migrated to Vietnam, but Mạc Đăng Dung himself claimed descent from the Viet scholar Mạc Đĩnh Chi. ↩︎
12. The Guangxi tongzhi does not describe the Turen (the term means “Native People”), but Zhou Qufei’s Lingwai daida (1178) mentions a group with this name in Qinzhou, Guangxi, “descended from the Luo-Yue (Lạc Việt) of old”: see source 5.11. ↩︎
13. The Guangxi tongzhi describes the Longren and Yangshanren in a section on “vagrants” (lang 浪): “The Vagrants were originally fugitives from neighboring provinces. Those who came from the eastern part of Yuè (Guangdong) are called Yangshanren. Those who came from Hunan are called Mashanren 麻山人. Those who came from the Jiao Barbarians 交夷 (i.e., Vietnam) are called Longren. They are all called Vagrants. If they receive amnesty, then they become Vagrant Commoners (langmin 浪民), and if not, they flee into large marshes and become bandits, called Vagrant Rebels (langzei 浪賊). They resemble the Yao in appearance but are even more violent and vicious than the Zhuang.” ↩︎
14. On the zones of submission, see source 2.2. ↩︎
15. This was a standard administrative distinction between paddy fields and dry fields in the Qing. ↩︎
16. Tobacco smoking had spread to China from the Spanish Philippines in the late 1500s, and became a popular habit in the 1600s. Guangxi became a hub for tobacco cultivation as a cash crop, with both paddy fields and dry fields used to produce it in the uplands. ↩︎
17. The Guangxi tongzhi describes these distinctions as follows: “The Raw Yao live in the deep valleys and do not interact with the Hua. The Cooked Yao live interspersed among the [Chinese] commoners (min 民) of the prefecture, and some intermarry with them. The White Yao are generally like the Cooked Yao, and the Black Yao are generally like the Raw Yao.” It later notes that there is a similar Raw and Cooked distinction among the Zhuang. Note that Qian Yuanchang’s interpretation of the Cooked as “purer” morally than the Raw contrasts with Zhou Qufei’s reading of the Raw-Cooked dichotomy in twelfth-century Hainan (see source 5.11), where the Raw Li are “simple, honest, and uncouth” while the Cooked Li are “cunning, fierce, and dangerous” due to the influence of Chinese fugitives who have joined them. ↩︎
18. The malan or lanfang are also described in Zhou Qufei’s Lingwai daida and Qu Dajun’s Guangdong xinyu: see sources 5.11 and 5.20. ↩︎
19. This coheres with Qu Dajun’s observation that the Lang, unlike the Zhuang, do not live in stilt houses (see source 5.20). ↩︎
20. Apparently, Qing officials found it morally unacceptable for indigenous people to choose their own spouses, rather than defer to the authority of their parents. ↩︎
21. “Dancing under the moon” is also mentioned as a Guizhou indigenous custom in Tian Rucheng’s Yanjiao jiwen (see source 5.19). ↩︎
22. Literally gouzhou gezhe 鈎舟格磔, a nonsensical phrase originally used by the Tang poet Li Qunyu 李群玉to mimic the call of the Chinese francolin. ↩︎
23. This was presumably a vocabulary list accompanying each ethnographic description; unfortunately, none of these lists were incorporated into the Guangxi tongzhi and thus preserved. ↩︎
24. A quote from the “Wangzhi”: see source 1.6. ↩︎
25. “The shrieking of shrikes” alludes to Mencius’s denigration of a rival from Chu: see source 1.4. ↩︎