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! 



POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE LOLO COUNTRY. 



I 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 01 

 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 ; is it 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. 



