586 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
the guests come in crowds to the wedding! Enter it right, be at peace, return con- 
tented! In drinking at the siphon, do not drink to suffocation; in eating of the meat, 
do not choke yourself! Protection by day, watchfulness at night! May the good 
spirits listen to your prayers, that not a hair of your heads may fall! 
3 
POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE LOLO COUNTRY. 
J have said that the Lolos are divided into clans, into tribes, which 
not only lack a common bond, but are often in conflict, weakening 
and ruining themselves in bloody feuds. It is seldom that two or 
three tribes join against an enemy. When such an agreement is 
made it never lasts long, but is broken as soon as the expedition ends. 
The most powerful of the tribes, called Lo Hong, which can put in 
the field 10,000 fighters, some say 20,000, has never been able to 
assert its supremacy over the smallest tribes so as to make them 
submit to its law. Political isolation of the clans, favored, if not 
caused, by the nature of the soil and the wild character of the region, 
still predominates. It is kept this way by its pride, a peculiarity of 
the seigniors, and of the least little chief who can not conceive of an 
authority superior to his own. Scattered over a wide region, in 
small villages of 10 to 20 households, rarely more, connected by 
simple paths or trails often dangerous, the Lolos do not form a 
compact body of people that might be termed a nation. They are 
still in a stage of political evolution. No village, even that of the 
most powerful tribal chief, has yet been raised to the dignity of a city 
of the lowest class. An assemblage of a hundred families in a sort of 
small intrenched camp is altogether exceptional. 
Origin of the: Lolo—How was it that Kientchang came to be the 
home of the Lolo; isit claimed that he was merely an immigrant in an 
ancient epoch? Why did he penetrate into this wild and inhospitable 
mountain pasture? Did he come to conquer it, driving back or 
uniting a more feeble race, or was he only a refugee in quest of a 
shelter, a human outcast driven aside by the flood of great invasions ? 
Did he flee from the west or from the east, from Birmanie or some 
region of Szech’uan, or from a much greater distance? Some tradi- 
tions place him as coming from Shensi, but it would be imprudent for 
any one to think of solving the problem at this time. It requires 
long and patient research on the conditions of this people’s existence, 
its lack of culture rendering the study a very intricate one. ‘It is 
likewise very difficult to determine its racial origin. The existing 
types present some variations, some ethnic order, that indicate a very 
varied ancestry. There is an undoubted mixture even in the noble 
caste, the Os noirs, among whom you would search in vain to make 
out one well-defined race. 
