Community Portrait:
Lao Iu Mien

by Miriam Gross

It is more serious to do wrong against the spirits than against the government. With the government, you can usually come to an agreement. If you do wrong against the spirits, you will die.
—Iu Mien "Song for Making Good" 1

Even though we are separated by the ocean, our hearts are still together.
—Iu Mien folk song 2

Origins

One day around 2440 b.c., the battle between Ping Huang (Ping Wang), the emperor of China, and the King Kao (Kao Wang) was not going well.3 The emperor offered the hand of his third daughter in marriage to anyone who could chop off the head of his enemy. Many tried, but the only one who could manage it was P'an Hu (King Pan), a three-colored dog who hung around the emperor's court. Although the emperor was not happy, he fulfilled his promise and gave the dog his daughter. Then the dog and the emperor's daughter went away to live in the far-off mountains. They had six sons and six daughters who became the forefathers of the twelve clans of the Iu Mien.4

Throughout Chinese history the Iu Mien, who were called Yao by the Chinese, a name which means "barbarian,"5 were harassed by provincial authorities for being a minority. The Iu Mien are thought to have been converted by missionaries to Taoism between 1234 and 12796 and to be influenced by Buddhism as well.7 In the second half of the fourteenth century they were driven from Nanking (Nanjing) and took a trip on the China Sea to Canton where they spread across the southern Chinese mountains, reaching Yunnan and many of the countries in Southeast Asia.8 The northern and southern parts of Laos were settled by Iu Mien in two separate waves: the Southern Mien arrived in the 1840–50s, the Northern Mien mainly after the turn of the century.9

The Iu Mien remained a more cohesive group organizationally and culturally than almost every other tribe, despite their dispersion over thousands of miles of territory.10 One of the main reasons, in addition to their descent from a single ancestor, King Pan, was that they shared an extraordinarily strong culture and common vision of reality. They believed in an existence in which the living and the dead were two opposite poles of a single universe.11 Although originally the two worlds were completely intermingled, now they were separated, but only by a piece of paper.12 Sacred and secular activities and time were still thought to be inseparable.13 Thus, the spirit and human worlds were intimately connected and affected the everyday reality, leadership selection, economic and social organization, and mental and physical well-being of each other.

Relationships between the Human and Spirit Worlds

The Iu Mien human world consisted of three sets of relationships. The first was among family members and between fellow villagers. Because families normally grew to sixteen to twenty-five members14 before they fissioned due to internal conflicts, family life became a complex web of interrelations in which each person had an assigned place and role to play. In addition, the family interacted with the other members of the village, some of whom were not part of their extended family or their clan. The second set of relationships was between the family and the natural world. Natural events often made the Iu Mien livelihood insecure. At the same time, many wild animals such as tigers still roamed free on the mountainside, making it dangerous to leave the village alone. Finally, although somewhat protected by their isolation, the Mien always had to develop a relationship with the majority government. Many Mien headmen were elected by the government and had to successfully juggle village concerns and the often overbearing demands of the provincial authorities. Trained by centuries of interactions with Chinese provincial authorities, Mien tended to politely and graciously discuss problems when dealing with officials, made sure that all parties saved face, and had a written contract specifying every detail of agreement.15 However, when outside circumstances became particularly untenable, the Iu Mien would move on.

Mirroring the human world, the spirit world consisted of three different types of spirits. The ancestor spirits (indoor spirits) lived in houses in a village and were the closest and most protective of their family.16 In order for the ancestor spirits to survive happily, living family members had to sacrifice animals (although never dogs) so they would have food to eat, and burn paper money so they could buy things in their world.17 In return, the ancestor spirits would protect the family from other spirits, and help family members when they were ill. Because the support and succor of ancestors was so important to well-being in the human world, families kept a register listing ancestors up to nine and sometimes even twelve generations back.18 After nine generations it was assumed that ancestors had been reborn.19 All children born, adopted, or married into a family were added to the register to ensure that ancestors knew whom to protect.20 The second type of spirits were those associated with nature (outdoor spirits). Like natural forces in the human world they were unpredictable and often malevolent.21 Except for the annual outdoor ceremony to propitiate the natural spirits, most rituals were held indoors and focused on the particular ancestors of the household.22 The last set of spirits were the most distant and the most powerful. They were part of the Taoist celestial government that included up to thirty-three levels of hierarchy with various divisions and subdivisions and appeared to be modeled on the Chinese provincial court system.23 Like any governmental agency, petitioning for assistance required writing formal memoranda and contracts.24 Such contracts to both the ancestors and the celestial government were written by the higher-ranking Iu Mien priests who learned an ancient version of Chinese characters especially for this task. Because the priests were the only ones who could both see and communicate with the spirit world, it was their duty to resolve disputes between the two sides.25

Advantages of the Priesthood—Protection and Healing

By becoming a priest, any male individual ensured greater protection and healing for his family. He could not only mediate directly with the spirit world, but could also receive a set of spirit warriors and messengers who would accompany and help him in his endeavors.26 Perhaps the most important benefit was that only those who reached the higher levels of the priesthood received salvation and were comfortable in the hereafter.27 Priests could also conduct ceremonies both to cure people who were currently ill, and to prevent them from becoming sick.28 Shamans who served as mediums and families knowledgeable in healing herbs also helped in curing ceremonies.29 People became sick because their souls left their body–usually due to an angry spirit.30 Individuals were thought to have ten souls. Three resided in the body and were located in the head (knowledge), the heart (compassion), and the legs (strength).31 The other seven could wander more freely from the body and protected the first three. While all children's souls were easily scared away from their bodies,32 the souls of unborn children were particularly fragile because they resided in a recognized series of household objects (they moved each month) and had only a very partial affinity to their future body.33 When people died, their souls had to be purified so that they could ascend to their appointed place in the spirit world.34

Working Together to Succeed

Although it was clearly to the great advantage of the family to produce priests, and to hold healing and other ceremonies, all were dependent on hosting and participation in extraordinarily expensive ceremonies. Equally expensive were "bride price" and marriage ceremonies, which often involved hosting hundreds of people for many days.35 Bride price was paid to reimburse parents for the emotional loss of their daughters.36 Marriage ceremonies were important because they created a relationship between two families.37 Marshaling such extensive wealth took the concerted and unified effort of an entire family. The more people in each family lineage working and living frugally together, the more likely a family would succeed.38

Once families had developed the appropriate amount of human resources, they supported themselves and made extra money in a variety of ways. Most people raised livestock and worked in the fields growing rice and vegetables for food and poppies for opium production. Until 1959 production of opium was legal in Laos and became the Iu Mien's major cash crop as well as that of other hill tribes.39 Although opium was used medicinally to help with severe pain, few Iu Mien ever became addicted.40 Because of the use of fallow fields, soil depletion caused most Mien villages to move only every ten to fifteen years. In addition to farming, some Iu Mien worked as blacksmiths, silversmiths, and traders.41 Merchant Mien often worked together with or acted as middlemen for the Hmong who lived higher up on the mountain.42 They sold products to lower-level tribes and to the Lao and usually used contracts to ensure business was conducted without contention. Finally, if a family already had higher-level priests or shamans as members, it gained wealth through payments received by the family for their services.43

Getting Married and Forming a Household

The process of getting married and forming a household was one of the most important aspects of Iu Mien life. Iu Mien couples generally chose each other and were allowed to marry if their astrological signs written in the Book of Days, which was based on the Chinese calendar, matched up.44 Very few Mien married non-Mien45 because it was considered difficult to bridge the cultural differences involved. Generally, unmarried daughters were given a separate bedroom and allowed to quietly host their suitors.46 All children born during this period were considered members of their grandfather's household and often remained there after the daughter got married.47 Young women who came to their in-laws family already having had a baby received a higher bride price since they were of proven fertility.48 If a young man's family did not have the resources for the bride price, he would go live with and work for his father-in-law, six years for half the bride price, and twelve years for the whole bride price.49

Once young men got married, they continued living with their parents and brought up their children in the supportive environment of the extended-family household. Because most couples married when they were very young, it was assumed that they would learn parenting skills and gain the maturity they might not yet have as teenagers from their parents.50 In addition to children, grandchildren, and occasional relatives, households were swelled by many adoptions (particularly those unable to have children themselves). Although the Iu Mien adopted other Mien, many of their adoptions were from other tribes or from the Lao. Because ancestors could be reborn anywhere, an adopted child could well be a member of one's own lineage.51 In addition, the Mien always felt that cultural identity far outweighed race in bringing family members together.52 Approximately 6–10% of all Mien children were adopted.53 Thus by working hard together as a large and unified family, the Iu Mien ensured their success at achieving what was important in both the human and the spirit worlds.

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