The religion of Miao Floridos

Miao Floridos, Flowery Miao since they call them in English or Ah-Mao as they are named they themselves, they live principally in the northeast of the province of Yunnan and the adjacent regions of Guizhou and Sichuan.

At present they are Christian. In fact, on having traveled round his grounds, the villages of the Ah-Mao, intermingled between those of the Chinese they have and the Yi, they are unmistakable for the presence in each of them of a white church, which depositor lifts on his constructions of adobe or bricks.

One tells that at the beginning of the XXth century, the Ah-Mao were living oppressed by the Chinese landowners and Yi. When some of them knew, by means of the British missionary James Adam, the existence of a god ready to save the Ah-Mao, the news was spreading like the gunpowder between his villages, turning into mass to the new religion.

What was considered to be one of the biggest successes of the Christian missionaries in China, the society Ah-Mao transformed in a few years shaping it according to the Christian ideals. About his ancient religion little is already known, except for the testimonies of the missionaries who registered the characteristics of the world that would change forever.

Following W.H. Hudspeth (1)

"His religion is a type of animism. The world of the spirits is so real for them, like the world of the alive ones, although there do not seem to be touches of what we would call "big gods". They believe of vague form in the trasmigración of the souls, and certainly they venerate the spirits of his ancestors."

"The mountains, the sacred trees, the sacred stones and the doors, are a cult object."

"They have neither temples, altars nor idols."

"The cult to the trees, closely related to the fertility of the ground and the fecundity of the cattle, is extremely elaborated. In every village one keeps cult to some tree or stone of the neighborhood and if this one was in an a little high place that the houses of the village, it is thought that it is especially effective. This tree is the guard of the village. To scrape his crust and even to start a branch, it would be thought a sacrilege."

The everyday life of the Ah-Mao was regulated by a series of rites of religious magic character. Directing them of some form there was a series of shamans that they were thinking they could control and direct these invisible powers. These shamans were playing an important role in the society Ah-Mao since it was thought there could treat some illnesses, like the fever tifoideas that were causing so many death toll, the malaria, and other minor illnesses. They had a wide knowledge of the plants and the grasses, with which they were treating a good number of illnesses. "Offering a primitive medical service to the tribe."

Other religious specialists were been afraid on the other hand and they hated, being thought that they could shoot invisible secret arrows that could hurt to the people. They were suffering from the anger of the people when in the village unexpected misfortunes were happening.

(1) W.H. Hudspeth. - Stone Gateway and the Flowery Miao load Press to yourself. London. 1937

Copyright © 2004 www.wuhancom.net