50 THE HAINANESE MIAO 



The young people are married at seventeen or eighteen, 

 and it seems to make no difference whether the young couple 

 live with the groom's parents, the bride's parents, or set up 

 housekeeping in their own home. The wedding is usually 

 held at the groom's home, two or three young girls and a 

 young man or two from his village going for the bride and 

 escorting her back. The bride wears no distinctive dress 

 except a peculiar headdress under her kerchief, and an em- 

 broidered girdle of undyed cloth. She also carries two small 

 towels of this same material thrown over her shoulders, and 

 one to cover her face. According to their custom, the bride 

 and groom sit on the same bench and eat and drink together, 

 and then declare their allegiance to the family by serving 

 tea to the parents or in some other simple way. 



The Miao in their heathen state apparently worshipped 

 any and all gods in an effort to appease them but with little 

 definite idea or set ritual. Idols do not seem to be in 

 evidence in their houses, and being a roving people, they 

 have no temples. They have within the last few years be- 

 come interested in the Gospel and whole villages have become 

 Christian, much as has been the case in the mass move- 

 ment, so-called, in India, They are a simple people, highly 

 emotional and temperamentally religious, which is often true 

 of hill peoples. Thus certain emotional phases of religion 

 immediately become paramount in their eyes, and without 

 careful teaching they are liable to be led astray on these 

 points. 



The Miao have no written language of their own, but 

 pick up Chinese character with amazing rapidity. The Chris- 

 tian villages each put up a chapel at their own expense, meet 

 every morning for prayer before they go to their work, and 

 every evening for a short service and an hour or so of study. 

 When a Chinese evangelist or a missionary comes to the 

 village, they study until midnight, when they are sent home 

 in self-defence by the teachers — and at 2 a.m. they are 

 up pounding rice, so that we wonder when they sleep. They 

 are a wonderfully interesting people, these "Children of the 

 Forest," as they style themselves, and it is a rare privilege- 

 to be among them and come to know them. 



