The Yao People

The Yao live in mountain communities scattered over southern China. Seventy per cent live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region with the rest in Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Jiangxi. Half speak the Yao language, others speak Miao and Dong and many have learned the languages of the Han and Zhuang. With no written language, the Yao use Chinese-although they have a rich oral literary tradition.

Yao ancestors lived around Changsha, Hunan and trace their roots to Hunan's Qianjiatong basin. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Hunan's Yao raised cattle and used iron farm tools. Yao in Guangxi and Guangdong caught on to this during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911).

Yao still hunt and farm though many live in poverty. Alcohol and tobacco, rice and sweet potatoes, pumpkins and peppers-Yao enjoy these items. Those in northern Guangxi, on a daily basis, drink "oily tea"-tea made of leaves fried in oil, boiled into soup then mixed with puffed rice or soybeans.

Yao dress is colorful, unique and distinct among China's peoples. Most men dress in either blue or black and wear jackets buttoned in the middle or to the left; some wear trousers, others prefer shorts. Women's tastes vary more. Some wear short skirts, some long; some wear collarless jackets, some knee-length ones with buttons in the middle; they use embroidered clothes, silver bracelets, earrings, necklets and hairpins. Items are embroidered using blue, black or white cloth with silk thread and have images of animals, plants, the heavenly bodies and other objects. Women learn the art of embroidery at six or seven and continue embroidering well into old age.

Yao boys must pass trials in order to enter manhood. "Trials" consist of jumping from a high platform onto a mattress below, climbing a ladder of knives, walking on hot coals and fishing an object out of moderately hot oil. After completion of the trials, the priest pronounces the boy a man and prays for him. The boy then replaces his embroidered hat with a turban. After this he may marry and raise a family.

Yao practice traditional medicine and have established the Daqing Dekun Hospital of Traditional Yao Medicine in Heilongjiang Province. They treat cancer, lupus, and other diseases.

They celebrate the Danu Festival, the Spring Festival, the Land God Festival, the Pure Brightness Festival and the Shauwang Festival. Danu means "not to forget history" and the festival celebrates the birthday of the goddess Mituoluo who birthed the Yao people. The Shauwang Festival is for courtship with young men and women singing about love antiphonally. Other songs are about Yao history or legends, and some about hilarity. Instruments include drums, gongs, the suona horn, and the long waist drum.

Traditional Yao religion is animistic with elements of Taoism and ancestor worship. This results from contact with and assimilation of Chinese culture. One icon used in Yao religion is the spirit painting, a "portable" icon. When unrolled, this painting transforms an ordinary room into a temporary temple. In Thailand in the early 1980s, Yao sold many of these paintings because of hunger, but not before the paintings were first "desacralized." They believe that the power of the paintings lies in the spirit.

The Yao spirit world is hierarchical with two kinds of spirits: those above the sky and those below. Those that are below are malevolent. Images are used to represent the spirits that are "above." The deities are from the Taoist tradition. Family ancestors link the deities with the living and the ancestors, along with the deities, are invoked on special occasions. Shamans cater to the spirit world on man's behalf. Many Yao in northern Thailand converted to Christ in the early 1980s. Ten thousand have turned to Christ in China, but these belong to Yao sub-groups and may have to learn other dialects to reach their fellow Yao.