Miao people

Nomenclature: Miao and Hmong

The term "Miao" gained official status in 1949 as a minzu (ethnic group) encompassing a group of linguistically-related ethnic minorities in Southwest China. This was part of a larger effort to identify and classify minority groups to clarify their role in the national government, including establishing autonomous administrative divisions and allocating the seats for representatives in provincial and national government.

Historically, the term "Miao" had been applied inconsistently to a variety of non-Han peoples. Early Western writers used Chinese-based names in various transcriptions: Miao, Miao-tse, Miao-tsze, Meau, Meo, mo, miao-tseu etc. In Southeast Asian contexts words derived from the Chinese "Miao" took on a sense which was perceived as derogatory by the Hmong subgroup living in that region. In China, however, the term has no such context and is used by the Miao people themselves, of every group.

The later prominence of Hmong people in the West has led to a situation where the entire Miao linguistic/cultural family is sometimes referred to as Hmong in English language sources. Following the recent increased interaction of Hmong in the West with Miao in China it is reported that some upwardly aspiring non-Hmong Miao have even begun to identify themselves as Hmong. However, most non-Hmong Miao in China are unfamiliar with the term as referring to their entire group and continue to use "Miao", or their own separate ethnic self-designations.

Though the Miao themselves use various self-designations, the Chinese traditionally classify them according to the most characteristic colour of the women's clothes. The list below contains some of these self-designations, the colour designations, and the main regions inhabited by the four major groups of Miao in China:

Demographics

According to the 2000 census, the number of Miao in China was estimated to be about 9.6 million. Outside of China, members of the Miao linguistic/cultural family sub-group or nations of the Hmong live in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma due to outward migrations starting in the 18th century. As a result of recent migrations in the aftermath of the Indochina and Vietnam Wars from 1949–75, many Hmong people now live in the United States, French Guiana, France and Australia. Altogether, there are approximately 8 million speakers in the Miao language family. This language family, which consists of 6 languages and around 35 dialects (some of which are mutually intelligible) belongs to the Hmong/Miao branch of the Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) language family.

The Hmong live primarily in the northern mountainous reaches of Southeast Asia including Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, and in far Southwest China mostly in the provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, and to a very limited extent in Guizhou. There are about 1.5–2 million Hmong in China.

Most Miao currently live in China. Miao population growth in China:

3,600,000 Miao, about half of the entire Chinese Miao population, were in Guizhou in 1990. The Guizhou Miao and those in the following six provinces make up over 98% of all Chinese Miao:

In the above provinces, there are 6 Miao autonomous prefectures (shared officially with one other ethnic minority):

There are in addition 23 Miao autonomous counties:

Most Miao reside in hills or on mountains, such as

Several thousands of Miao left their homeland to move to larger cities like Guangzhou and Beijing. There are 2,000,000 Hmong spread throughout northern Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and on other continents. 174,000 live in Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes.

History according to Chinese legend and other considerations

According to Chinese legend, the Miao who descended from the Jiuli tribe led by Chiyou (Chinese: 蚩尤 pinyin: Chīyóu) were defeated at the Battle of Zhuolu (Chinese: 涿鹿 pinyin: Zhuōlù, a defunct prefecture on the border of present provinces of Hebei and Liaoning) by the military coalition of Huang Di (Chinese: 黃帝 pinyin: Huángdì) and Yan Di, leaders of the Huaxia (Chinese: 華夏 pinyin: Huáxià) tribe as the two tribes struggled for supremacy of the Yellow River valley.

Archaeological discoveries

According to André-Georges Haudricourt and David Strecker's claims based on limited secondary data, the Miao were among the first people to settle in present-day China. They claim that the Han borrowed a lot of words from the Miao in regard to rice farming. This indicated that the Miao were among the first rice farmers in China. In addition, some have connected the Miao to the Daxi Culture (5,300 – 6,000 years ago) in the middle Yangtze River region. The Daxi Culture has been credited with being amongst the first cultivators of rice in the Far East by Western scholars. However, in 2006 rice cultivation was found to have existed in the Shandong province even earlier than the Daxi Culture. Though the Yuezhuang culture has cultivated rice, it is more of collected wild rice and not actual cultivated and domesticated rice like that of the Daxi.

A western study mention that the Miao (especially the Miao-Hunan) have some DNA from the Northeast people of China, but has origins in southern china. Recent DNA samples of Miao males contradict this theory. The White Hmong have 25% C, 8% D, & 6% N(Tat) yet they have the least contact with the Han population.

Chu

In 2002, the Chu language has been identified as perhaps having influence from Tai–Kam and Miao–Yao languages by researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Qin and Han dynasties

The term Miao was first used by the Han Chinese in pre-Qin times (in other words, before 221 BC) for designating non-Han Chinese groups in the south. It was often used in combination: "nanmiao", "miaomin", "youmiao" and "sanmiao" (三苗; pinyin: Sānmiáo)

Ming and Qing dynasties

During the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911) 'miao' and 'man' were both used, the second possibly to designate the Yao (傜 Yáo) people. The Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties could neither fully assimilate nor control the indigenous people.

During the Miao Rebellions, when Miao tribes rebelled, Ming troops, including Han Chinese, Hui people, and Uyghurs crushed the rebels, killing thousands of them. Mass castrations of Miao boys also took place.

During the Qing Dynasty the Miao fought three wars against the empire. In 1735 in the southeastern province of Guizhou, the Miao rose up against the government's forced assimilation. Eight counties involving 1,224 villages fought until 1738 when the revolt ended. According to Xiangtan University Professor Wu half the Miao population were affected by the war.

The second war (1795–1806) involved the provinces of Guizhou and Hunan. Shi Sanbao and Shi Liudeng led this second revolt. Again, it ended in failure, but it took 11 years to quell the uprising.

The greatest of the three wars occurred from 1854 to 1873. Zhang Xiu-mei led this revolt in Guizhou until his capture and death in Changsha, Hunan. This revolt affected over one million people and all the neighbouring provinces. By the time the war ended Professor Wu said only 30 percent of the Miao were left in their home regions. This defeat led to the Hmong people migrating out of China.

During Qing times, more military garrisons were established in southwest China. Han Chinese soldiers moved into the Taijiang region of Guizhou, married Miao women, and the children were brough up as Miao. In spite of rebellion against the Han, Hmong leaders made allies with Han merchants.

Politically and militarily, the Miao continued to be a stone in the shoe of the Chinese empire. The imperial government had to rely on political means to ensnare Hmong people, they created multiple competing positions of substantial prestige for Miao people to participate and assimilate into the Qing government system. During the Ming and Qing times, the official position of Kiatong was created in Indochina. The Miao would employ the use of the Kiatong government structure until the 1900s when they entered into French colonial politics in Indochina.

20th century

During the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Miao played an important role in its birth when they helped Mao Zedong to escape the Kuomintang in the Long March with supplies and guides through their territory.

In Vietnam, a powerful Hmong named Vuong Chinh Duc, dubbed the king of the Hmong, aided Ho Chi Minh's nationalist move against the French, and thus secured the Hmong's position in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, Miao fought on both sides, the Hmong in Laos primarily for the US, across the border in Vietnam for the North-Vietnam coalition, the Chinese-Miao for the Communists. However, after the war the Vietnamese were very aggressive towards the Hmong who suffered many years of reprisals and genocide. Most Hmong in Thailand also supported a brief Communist uprising during the war.

Han Chinese origin Miao clans

One of the origins of the Miao clan names originate from a great number of Hmong lineage clans were founded by Chinese men who married Hmong women, these distinct Chinese descended clans practice Chinese burial customs instead of Hmong style burials.

The Hmong children of Hmong women who married Chinese men was the origin of numerous China and South East Asia based Hmong lineages and clans, these were called "Chinese Hmong" ("Hmong Sua") in Sichuan, the Hmong were instructed in military tactics by fugitive Chinese rebels.

Marriages between Hmong women and Han Chinese men is the origin of a lot of Hmong lineages and clans.

Hmong women married Han Chinese men to found new Hmong lineages which use Chinese names.

Chinese men who married into Hmong clans have established more Hmong clans than the ritual twelve, Chinese "surname groups" are comparable to the Hmong clans which are patrilineal, and practice exogamy.

Hmong women married Han Chinese men who pacified Ah rebels who were fighting against the Ming dynasty, and founded the Wang clan among the Hmong in Gongxian county, of Sichuan's Yibin district.

Hmong women who married Chinese men founded a new Xem clan in a Hmong village (among Northern Thailand's Hmong), fifty years later in Chiangmai two of their Hmong boy descendants were Catholics. A Hmong woman and a Chinese man married and founded the Lauj clan in Northern Thailand.

A marriage between a Hmong woman and a Chinese man resulted in northern Thailand's Lau2 clan being founded, another Han Chinese with the family name Deng founded another Hmong clan, Han Chinese men's marriages with Hmong women has led some ethnographers to conclude that Hmong clans in the modern era have possible all or partly have been founded in this matter.

Jiangxi Han Chinese are claimed by some as the forefathers of the southeast Guizhou Miao, and Miao children were born to the many Miao women married Han Chinese soldiers in Taijiang in Guizhou before the second half of the 19th century.

Imperially commissioned Han Chinese chieftancies "gon native", with the Miao and were the ancestors of a part of the Miao population in Guizhou.

The Hmong Tian clan in Sizhou began in the seventh century as a migrant Han Chinese clan.

Non-han women such as Miao women became wives of Han Chinese male soldiers who fought against the Miao rebellions during the Qing and Ming dynasties since Han women were not available.

The Ming dynasty Hongwu Emperor sent troops to Guizhou whose descendants became the Tunbao. The origin of the Tunbao people traces back to when the Ming dynasty sent 300,000 Han Chinese male soldiers in 1381 to conquer Yunnan and the men married Yao and Miao women.

The presence of women presiding over weddings was a feature noted in "Southeast Asian" marriages, such as in 1667 when a Miao woman in Yunnan married a Chinese official. Some Sinicization occurred, in Yunnan a Miao chief's daughter married a scholar in the 1600s who wrote that she could read, write, and listen in Chinese and read Chinese classics.

The Sichuan Hmong village of Wangwu was visited by Nicholas Tapp who wrote that the "clan ancestral origin legend" of the Wang Hmong clan, had said that several times they were married into the Han Chinese and possibly one of these was their ancestor Wang Wu, there were two tpes of Hmong, "cooked" who sided with Chinese and "raw" who rebelled against the Chinese, the Chinese were supported by the Wang Hmong clan. A Hmong woman was married by the non-Hmong Wang Wu according to The Story of the Ha Kings in Wangwu village.

By province

The 2000 Chinese census recorded 8,940,116 Miao in mainland China.

By county

(Only includes counties or county-equivalents containing >0.25% of mainland China's Miao population.)

Miao Fish (苗鱼 miáo yǘ)

Miao fish is a special way of cooking a fish by Miao people. It has been recognized as a local featured cuisine with its tasty flavor: the mixture of fish, green peppers, ginger slices and garlic provided people with great eating experience.