34 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 123 



They all played the liu sheng awhile and sang 

 many songs, and during die night of the fif- 

 teenth day Li Shan first came forth and de- 

 livered an address saying, "Tonight Ntzi es- 

 pecially called upon me to speak to you all, 

 and orders all of us to worship the flag and 

 see who can by worshiping cause the flag to 

 stand erect, and that person will be king." 



But when one row of them after another 

 had worshiped, nobody by worship had 

 caused it to stand erect. Afterward when 

 they came to the third son of Mong Ts'ai he 

 knelt down in worship and the three flags 

 stood up straight. The people who were then 

 present were silent. Afterward Li Shan ad- 

 dressed them in a loud voice saying, "Now 

 this matter has already been accomplished. 

 We must not wantonly be troublesome. In 

 the future you must have die command of 

 the king before you can act." 



They then appointed five leaders, each to 

 do his work, and made large wooden guns 

 and also long bamboo guns, and made bombs, 

 and hunted for sulphur and saltpeter to make 

 gunpowder, and agreed that that year, on the 

 third day of the third moon, they would 

 begin to fight. In the great forest they actually 

 built a big wooden temple where they daily 

 burnt incense and offered sacrifices, worshiped 

 the banner, manufactured hemp strings, cut 

 down wooden prongs, wooden poles, and 

 wooden clubs, and practiced boxing. 



Alas, at that time there was a leader inside 

 their fortification named Great General T'ao 

 Ssu. His heart was very evil, and his nature 

 very wicked. At one time he even said he 

 would kill his own son, and immediately he 

 used the execution sword and stabbed him to 



iw 



death. One day they made him angry, and: i' 

 he secretly ran to the barracks of the Chinese, 1 i 

 and reported their (the Miao's) plans to the 

 Chinese officials. The Chinese officials gave(|i(i 

 him a great deal of silver and told him to 

 go and pour water into the big guns in their | dii 

 barracks. They determined to begin the battle j JJj 

 at a certain time. 



When he received this plot he came back] d! 

 and supervised the manufacturing of thej U 

 workmen as before. He secretly took his beltj ai 

 and his handkerchief and soaked them in 

 water and dropped the water into the guns 

 and also into the gunpowder. 



Early in the morning on the third day of 

 the diird moon the Chinese officials came out- 

 side and surrounded their fortification. They 

 were not afraid or terrified, thinking that 

 they had all kinds of big guns, and also that 

 they had stiff bows and arrows. But when 

 their gunners lighted the fires to shoot, their 

 guns would not ignite. They saw that the 

 powder in the jars was also all wet, and then 

 they were frightened. 



The Chinese officials fought their way in. 

 They could not resist and all fled in disorder, 

 and all of them were captured by the Chinese 

 officials and executed in a mountain gulch. 

 The whole gulch was then full of dead, and | 

 their blood flowed away in a stream. Every 

 one of them was killed. 



Later that T'ao Ssu was taken by the (Chi- 

 nese) officials and he was enclosed (housed) 

 in a big house, and his whole family was 

 daily given good food to eat, and he was pro- 

 vided for all of his life. In this way the 

 affair of having a king was ended (extin- 

 guished). 



Relations With Non-Chinese Groups 



A Brother and a Sister Were Captured by 

 Cannibals. The Sister Saved Her Brother 

 (190) 



In ancient times there was a family of 

 White Miao. Their parents were dead. Once 

 the older brother went out for a walk. Only 

 the sister remained home. The brother that 

 day walked to the home of a Miao family of 

 the Kw'a tribe who ate people, and was cap- 

 tured by them. They took a needle and stuck 

 it into his knee and shut him up in a pen. 

 The sister at home waited a long time, but 

 her brother did not return. 



She could not help worrying and prepared 

 to go around everywhere to find her brother. 

 One day she went to the home of some Kw'a 

 Miao. When she arrived the older people 

 of that family had gone out to work, and 



only small children were left at home. The 

 children asked her, "Have you come to be _ 

 eaten by us?" She said, "Yes." Then the 

 children said to her, "You may stay in the 

 pen with our big calf" (her brother). The I 

 children then led her so that she could see. 



She went and looked, and it was her older 

 brother. He was tied up. She recognized him, '. 

 and took her knife for killing people and 

 killed the children, and took her brother on 

 her back and ran away. 



When she had gone three or four //, she 

 arrived at a cave and they hid inside. But 

 when the Kw'a people came back and did not 

 find him they took their wolf-dogs for chas- 

 ing people and looked for them everywhere. 

 The dogs ran very fast and came flying to 

 their cave. Then she took die sharp knife 



