It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
from the pens of men who have not.
In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:--
(i) The Hua Miao--The Flowery (or White) Miao.
(ii) The Heh Miao--The Black Miao.
(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)
The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's _Kwei-chow and
Yuen-nan Provinces_, Prince Henri d'Orleans' _Du Tonkin aux Indes_, and
Mr.
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