For information on Zhao Yi and the Yanpu zaji, see source 4.36.

Zhao Yi’s experience as a local official in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou allowed him to compare the extents to which indigenous peoples in each province had been changed culturally by contact with the Qing state and with Han Chinese settlers. His observations in the following excerpts show that the introduction of Confucian norms by Qing officials had made little impact on local sexual mores, and that even in parts of Guizhou that had undergone a transition to direct rule by centrally-appointed agents of the Qing state (gaitu guiliu 改土歸流), the social dominance of native chiefs remained overwhelming. But Zhao also notes that the Han settlers in Guizhou had taken over the arable land and displaced the indigenous people, who were forced to move into the hills.

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The customs of frontier prefectures

The customs of the native people in the western part of Yuè (Guangxi), as well as those of the Miao 苗 and Yao 猺 in Dian (Yunnan) and Qian (Guizhou), are generally pure and honest. However, in relations between men and women, they tend not to maintain boundaries and distinctions. Every spring, they go to the market and sing songs; men and women sit apart, and the songs are mostly about mutual attraction. If the attraction is not mutual, one sings songs of rejection—for example, lyrics like “You love me, but I do not love you.” Should a man and woman feel mutual attraction, then after singing, they join hands and proceed to a wine stall, sit together and drink, exchange gifts to confirm their feelings, and agree on a time to meet again. Sometimes, after drinking, they may even sneak into a mountain cave to be intimate. They view matters such as mating in fields and grassy areas as people in the interior provinces would regard watching a drama or gambling—that is, as nothing out of the ordinary.

When singing at the market, women sit among the crowd. Any traveler who comes may flirt with them even though he is a stranger; even intimate gestures such as embracing are not prohibited. It is also common that when husbands and wives are together at the market and the husband sees others flirting with his wife, he is pleased rather than angry, saying that his wife is beautiful enough to attract others, whereas if no one flirts with her, he might scold her upon returning home.

When men and women privately form a relationship, it is called “becoming sworn siblings” (bai tongnian 拜同年) or “being young people” (zuo housheng 做後生); this usually occurs before marriage. They saw that after marriage and bearing children, one must endure hardship to establish a household and can no longer engage in such playful affairs. Therefore, although marriages may happen early, husbands and wives generally do not share a bed at first. On the wedding night, the bride immediately takes an older woman from among her neighbors as her godmother and sleeps with her. For three days, the bride fetches water for her parents-in-law, then returns to her own family. Even after this, while she occasionally visits her husband’s home, they still do not sleep together, fearing that if she bears children, she can no longer zuo housheng. Generally, before the age of fourteen or fifteen, it is still the time for zuo housheng. Girls go out to bai tongnian with boys, and boys likewise with girls. After fourteen or fifteen, the inclination for such play fades, and they desire to establish a household, and only then do husband and wife live together. Thus, affection among couples is often not deep, and disagreements can easily lead to divorce. All this stems from not marrying immediately while still young.

When I was in Zhen’an 鎮安 [prefecture] (Baise, Guangxi) and wished to change these customs, I ordered that all married people were not allowed to sleep separately. The townsfolk all laughed when they heard this, thinking such affairs were not appropriate matters for the prefect to intervene in. Commoners near the city complied to some extent, but the remote villages continue as before.

The people of Qian (Guizhou) and Yuè (Guangxi-Guangdong)

In the native chieftaincies (tusi 土司) of Qian (Guizhou) and Yuè (Guangxi-Guangdong), groups such as the Miao, Luo 猓, Yao, and Zhuang 僮 constantly rebelled in previous dynasties, with not one year of peace. This was not necessarily due to poor governance or ineffective laws, but rather because these groups were powerful and numerous.

Eastern Qian was the domain of the Luoshi Ghost Kingdom 羅施鬼國, inhabited mainly by Miao people. Western Qian was the Luodian Ghost Kingdom 羅甸鬼國, mostly inhabited by Luo people.¹ [Chinese] migrant commoners (kemin 客民) living among them were less than one-tenth or one-twentieth of the population, so there was little means to restrain or control the native groups, and rebellions easily flared up.

However, many of the migrants were cunning: By engaging in trade with the native people and using moneylending with high-interest loans as leverage, they gradually seized native lands as collateral, like a silkworm nibbling on a mulberry leaf. Eventually, all the fertile land fell into their hands. The Miao and Luo gradually moved into the deep mountains, while all land near city walls and major roads became migrant property, passed down through the generations in families that became the new local elite. Thus, the migrant population grew strong, while the Miao and Luo became weak and no longer dared to cause trouble.

As for the native people in the western part of Yuè (Guangxi), who were formerly of the Yao and Zhuang kinds (zhong 種), they have all now become domesticated and accustomed to fearing the law, presumably because the native customs there were already soft and timid.

The Luo 猓 customs of Qian (Guizhou)

As for the relationship between native officials (tuguan 土官) and their native subjects, the distinction between master and servant is extremely strict. For a thousand generations, the [native] official has always been the master, and the commoner the servant. Thus, they see the native official’s interests as inextricable from their own, as if this dependence were an inescapable part of their inborn nature.

In Tianzhou 田州 (Tianyang, Guangxi) of western Yuè (Guangxi), the native official Cen Yidong 岑宜棟 (d. 1789), a descendant of [the native chieftain] Cen Meng 岑猛 (1489–1526), was notorious for his cruel treatment of the people—he imposed obligations far beyond what the regular law would permit. Even if the local people were literate, they were forbidden from sitting for the civil service examinations, for fear that they might enter government service and no longer be registered under Cen Yidong’s jurisdiction. Tianzhou is separated from Fengyi subprefecture 奉議州 in Zhen’an by a single river; whenever an examination was held in Fengyi, the people of Tianzhou could only listen to the sound of cannon fire marking the occasion and sigh from afar.²

When a girl of a family was beautiful, the [native] official would summon her to his own household, not allowing her to marry, and her family would not dare to betroth her to anyone. If someone brought a case to the official and the ruling was unjust, the wronged party would only privately weep at the ancestral tomb of former native officials. Even when a government-appointed official (liuguan 流官) had jurisdiction over the native chieftaincy, the people did not dare appeal to him.

Among the Luo people of Shuixi 水西 (Mu’ege) in Guizhou, the situation is even more extreme. Although the region was converted to direct administration by rotating officials (gailiu 改流) in the early years of our dynasty³, the descendants of forty-eight branches of the ruling clan remain chieftains as before. Whenever taxes or corvée are due, the chieftains arrange everything, and all is immediately completed. The orders of the government-appointed officials do not carry the same weight as the chieftains’ summons.

When Luo people saw their chieftain, they answered only on their knees, served food on their knees, and even presented water for washing his hands on their knees. If the chieftain had an affair requiring their loyal service, he would kill a chicken, drain its blood into wine, and have all drink it; from then on, their life and death depended on his command.

When I was in western Guizhou, I questioned the chieftain of the An 安 clan regarding a land dispute. All the witnesses were Luo people under his jurisdiction, and all held fast to their promises to him; even after being placed in cangues and stocks, they did not change their testimony. Even after the chieftain himself was interrogated and confessed the truth, his followers remained hesitant, glancing at each other and not daring to speak. They finally confessed as well after I ordered the chieftain to tell them to speak. The case was then resolved.

The benighted customs of the Miao and Luo

The customs of the Miao and Luo peoples include few taboos regarding relations between men and women. For example, when an elder brother dies, his younger brother marries his widow, and when a younger brother dies, his elder brother also marries his widow—this happens quite commonly.

Although the An 安 clan of Shuixi (Mu’ege) has been brought under direct administration, the forty-eight branches of their descendants still serve as chiefs. When a chief dies and his wife wishes to remarry, she cannot take her property with her, so she will choose one of his younger brothers to marry; the brother is glad to marry her, as he will benefit from her property. Thus, it is often the case that the wife is over forty, while her new husband is only twenty.

As for female slaves in the household, most of them have no husband and are allowed to have casual relations with men; if they bear children, the offspring become slaves as well. Therefore, the children born into servitude in Miao and Luo households commonly have no recognized fathers. I once resided in Bijie with a horse-raising family that had an old slave woman named Dawa 大娃 (“Big Girl”). When asked about her husband, she replied that she had never been married. When I inspected the slaves in the household, however, there were two boys, both of whom were her sons—a situation that is amusing, but completely typical and unremarkable for their customs.

Among the Zhongjia Miao 仲家苗, some have studied and achieved scholarly rank in the examinations, yet their women still do not wear trousers.⁴ One gentleman, having become a clerk, wrote a letter to his wife saying that on arrival at the post he had been assigned, she must wear trousers to act as a proper lady; his wife, never having worn them, refused to go with him.

In Yongchang 永昌 city (Baoshan) in Dian (Yunnan), even families of the gentry allow slave girls to go out and have sexual relations in the fields. Each day, the girls pay their master several tens of coins called “green vegetable soup” (qingcai tang 青菜湯), implying that, unable to afford meat, they can only buy vegetables for soup.⁵ Shen Baimen of Jiahe says that the Miao customs in Hunan are much the same: for women before marriage, nothing is forbidden; after marriage, however, husbands are very strict and forbid any private relations.

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1. Modern historians have debated over whether Luoshi and Luodian were different names for the same kingdom, or two different and competing states. Zhao Yi interprets them as different states ruled by different ethnic groups. ↩︎
2. Fengyi was also in Tianyang, Guangxi, but had been converted to direct rule by rotating officials in 1463. ↩︎
3. This was in 1698, when the last native chieftain of Shuixi died without an heir. ↩︎
4. On the Zhongjia Miao and their previous history of resistance to the Qing, see source 5.24. ↩︎
5. Zhao implies that the slave girls were paying their master a fee for the freedom to have relationships with men outside the household. “Meat” here may mean marriage, while “vegetables” means casual love affairs. ↩︎