The Hmong: Part 1 Legend and History

Hmong Girl

The word Hmong means free. The Han Chinese designated them Miao (barbarians) and determined to wipe them from the face of the earth from the beginning of the Han civilization up to the present. For more than 2000 years of recorded history, they have been persecuted and maligned. Their crime has been an unwillingness to be assimilated into other cultures as slaves or second-class citizens. Wanting only a homeland for themselves, they have settled in the most rugged terrain in order to be left alone.

There are about 5 million Hmong living in southern China , about 90,000 in northern Thailand, 200,000 in Vietnam, and a similar number in Laos where they are the most numerous Lao Sung (Highland Lao) group. A Tibeto-Burmese speaking people who mostly migrated into Laos within the last two centuries, they live on the upper slopes or mountaintops of the northern provinces . Coexisting with Mien (Yao), Akha, Lahu and other related highlanders. They grow rice, corn and opium by shifting cultivation (slash and burn) technique. On the whole, they maintain friendly contacts with neighbouring villagers and "are able to live in harmony with other people without becoming overly sociable with anyone not of their tribe".

There are several theories as to the origin of the Hmong people, some more fanciful than others: Christian missionaries proposed the theory in the late 19 th century that the Hmong were one of the lost tribes of Israel. Highly unlikely. Nor were they, as parlayed by other missionaries, the original inhabitants of present day Laos. (But then again, the prevailing Christian belief, as suggested by Genesis, was that Creation was only some 6000 years prior. Charles Darwin was catching a lot of flack from the church about that time.) Archaeological evidence suggests the earliest humans, of Austro-Asiatic stock, arrived about 10,000 years ago. Millions of years before the advent of the Hmong, 15-meter long dinosaurs of the early Cretaceous era roamed the flatlands of Laos. Their scientific name is Tangvayosaurus hoffeti; but I digress.

Black Hmong, Northern Viet Nam

To recount the ancient history of an oral culture is a particularly difficult undertaking. It is reliant upon three things: the memory of its elders, the veracity of those memories, and the shadows left behind in the writings of other cultures that confirm those memories.

The last is particularly problematic because the relationships between Hmong and other groups that sought to dominate or assimilate them were consistently hostile and prejudiced. Referred to as rebels by Confucius, barbarians and mercenaries by French, Thai and some American scholars, Hmong identity in the eyes of others has been least presented by the Hmong themselves.

Efforts to reconstruct the history of the Hmong are further hampered because so many of the elders that retained the oral traditions were killed in the fighting and the aftermath of the Viet Nam War.

There are various colorful Asian folk tales and others describing the origin and the several thousand-year history of the Hmong.

One Hmong legends describes life in an ancient time in a land of ice and snow. Some people believe that was Mongolia . Another legend suggests the migration of the Hmong started much earlier in West Asia, from where they traveled north along the Caspian Sea, east across Siberia, and then south to Mongolia . Later migrations brought them to the lands of what became ancient China , and eventually to the mountainous regions of Northern Laos, Viet Nam , Laos and Burma .

It is believed that the Hmong did settle at some time in Mongolia . Folk tales recount Mongolia was named for a Hmong girl of that name. The tale tells of a local ruler having passed away: For several nights the eldest son watched over his father's body but each night a ghostly knight on a horse would scare the son away. Finally the youngest son was told to guard the body but was terrified and ran away as well. Everyone in the family was frightened witless, except for a young daughter, named Mongolia . Unafraid when the apparition appeared, the ghost congratulated her on her bravery. He told her that as she was without fear, he would make her Empress of all the surrounding land and it would be named after her.

Legend and ancient Chinese historical record concur the Hmong were a powerful people, who constructed large agrarian communities and were the rulers of the fertile area around Beijing, preceding the Han Chinese.

According to Chinese historians, the Hmong lived in China 's Hebei province in the 3rd millennium B.C. About 2,700 B.C, the expanding Han Chinese population moved southward into territory ruled by the Hmong, then referred to as the Jiu Li Tribe - actually a confederation of several tribes. The Jiu Li leader was the legendary warrior Chief Chi-yu. He fought ten battles with the invaders, just northwest of modern-day Beijing ( Peking ), winning nine but losing the tenth. When Chi-yu was captured he was executed and cut into nine pieces, the body parts buried in nine far-distant mounds so that the Jiu Lu people would never be reunited.

After so many battles and so much loss of life , the Chi-yu Empire collapsed. Hmong civilization came to an end and Chinese civilization began. Everywhere the Hmong settled, Han Chinese and other ethnic groups joined forces to attack them, driving them from the fertile lowlands into the mountains.

The Han continued to move southward on the heels of the Hmong. Chinese annals of 2200 BC mention the Ta Mung people of the San-Miao Kingdom in Schechuan Province. Once again, the Hmong were defeated, but this time they were nearly exterminated. The Hmong dispersed, most migrating southward into the lower reaches of the Yellow River, to Yunnan Province and the mountain fastness of Northern Viet Nam and possibly Northern Laos, where they could retain their cultural integrity. No one knows what happened to those who fled northwestward. Probably they were absorbed into other ethnic minorities.

Forced into Rugged Terrain Millennia Ago, the Hmong Prefer to Remain in These Mountain Fastnesses Today

The survivors became a vast interwoven cultural group who dominated Southwestern China. The Hmong eventually extended their culture as far north as Mongolia, as far west as Tibet, east to the Red River Valley of North Vietnam and south into present-day Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

Between 704 - 223 BC, the great Hmong kingdom of Chu existed in Yunnan. During a war that lasted two hundred years the great kingdom fell to Chinese rule and China was united. All known Hmong books were burned and those who dared use the Hmong language were punished by death. Another genocide campaign ensued. Hmong of those days are said to have had blonde hair and blue eyes, which was how they were easily pinpointed and killed. (Interestingly enough, there are many blonde-haired Hmong today). Hmong history was preserved onto pictorial quilts, known as pang dao, as they continued to flee in order to preserve their culture and freedom.

Lantien Hmong, Lao/Chinese Border

For the next 1000 years the Hmong continued to fight wars of survival against the Chinese. The Sung Dynasty was formed in 960 and demolished what remained of the Hmong Kingdom. It is told in a Hmong legend that after this defeat the Chinese ordered all Hmong people are to be divided according to their regions. 5 Hmong groups were formed; black/blue, flowery, green, red, and white. This was to insure that the Hmong no longer reunited as a whole. It was effective to a certain degree for even today there is disunity because of this division, but it did not stop the Hmong people from uniting against cruel Imperial Chinese rule for the next seven hundred years.

In 1615 the Chinese began building a 100-mile long Great Wall in the west to block out Hmong rebellions, from Baojing to Tongren. It was called the "Southern Great Wall" and cost the Chinese 4,000 bars of silver and incredible manpower to build. Patrolling the Southern Great Wall were six to ten thousand troops.

The Southern Great Wall Was Built to Isolate the Hmong

Soon after, during the Ching Dynasty, Hmong and Chinese again entered into a period of intense bloodshed. The first Hmong in northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma arrived in 1746 to avoid Chinese persecution, looking for new lands to farm, a new homeland.

In 1748, the Hmong in the border regions of Southwest China entered into conflict with a local Chinese governor, Le Tsong-tou. Realizing that fighting against the skilled guerillas was futile, the Chinese entered into a short period of diplomacy with the Hmong. Gifts were offered regularly for cooperation, but soon a new cycle of extermination began.

The Chinese general Ouen-fu was given 120,000 infantry and cavalry to destroy the Hmong. He pursued them into the rugged terrain they lived in, resulting in his and his troops death. The Chinese troops were no match for the jungle-bred Hmong. They had neither had the chance to escape nor fight, and as their troops were weakened in number and strength, the Hmong finished off what remained of Ouen-fu's army.

The Chinese Emperor then selected General Akoui to succeed in the task. Akoui gathered intelligence and concluded two things: a quick retreat or a steady supply line was an impossibility in jungle warfare, and secondly, Hmong strongholds overlooked every major pass.

His solution was to require his soldiers to carry everything they needed, eliminating the need for a supply line. For the passes, Akoui carried disassembled cannon and used them effectively against the Hmong strongholds.

Akoui eventually penetrated into lesser Kin-tchuen and laid siege to the city, during which the Hmong king, Seng-Ke-Sang, died of disease and starvation. He succeeded at last in breaking up the last Hmong kingdom.

The continual hegira of the Hmong continued ever southward. Always settling in high mountains, always hounded by the Chinese. In the early 1800s, large number of Hmong began to settle in present day Laos, beginning when Chinese merchants hired Hmong to grow opium poppies, which thrive at high altitude. They coexisted with local lowland princes, paying yearly taxes in tusk, rhinoceros horn and opium. By the time Laos became a French protectorate in 1893, the Hmong had settled in greater number in Laos and could be found in Xieng Kouang, Samneua, Luang Prabang and Phong Saly provinces.

Hmong Musical Tradition, Still a Unifying Bond Today

When the French took over the collection of taxes, the displeased local princes levied further taxes, which led to the Hmong ambushing a Lao tax collector and his guards in 1896 in Xieng Khouang province. Following subsequent negotiations with the French, the first Hmong tasseng (canton administrator) was established.

Under this arrangement, Hmong leaders collected taxes from their own people and had autonomy concerning village administration, bypassing local Lao officials. This was to affect later political events in Laos, for it gave the Hmong a tendency to prefer dealing directly with Western allies (French or Americans) instead of the Lao, largely due to a basic distrust of Lao authorities based on these early administrative conflicts.

The Pa Chay revolt in 1918 to 1921 pitted Lowland Lao against the French. It strengthened the bond between pro-French Hmong leaders and colonial officials. At its peak, the rebellion covered a territory of 40.000 square kms, spanning from its source in Dien Bien Phu in Tonkin to Nam Ou in Luang Prabang, Laos, south to Muong Cha north of Vientiane, and northeast a far as Sam Neua.

Mostly left to their own devices, the period of French colonial authority in Laos was a peaceful respite for the Hmong. The Second World War affected them little. When the French gave Laos independence in 1948, the Americans began to show interest in the Hmong as potential counter-communist forces.

Upon US urging and promises of an autonomous homeland, the Hmong were persuaded to fight for the Americans, providing 99% of all the US ground forces in Laos. For many years, the Hmong people fought at our request with incredible bravery and tenacity, greatly slowing the advance of the North Vietnamese.

They were formidable jungle fighters – the only effective ground forces outside of Thai mercenaries that operated in Laos – as long as they were able to fight moving battles. The United States convinced them instead to hold defended positions, promising to protect them with air power.

A US veteran of that theatre said, “We supplied air cover, but every combat trooper knows aircraft can't take and hold ground. We depended on the Hmong to do this. Without modern arms, without medical help.” Then we pulled out without doing anything to protect them against the terrible retribution that was promised and has been delivered. The Hmong were left to face the revenge of the winning communists in 1975.

After the fall of Saigon, the Hmong were abandoned to fight both the Prathet Lao and the North Vietnamese alone, without air support. They could not fight tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft with rifles. Another dark period of genocide was visited upon them. Great numbers were slaughtered in their villages or at airfields where promised evacuation planes failed to come. A few fought every foot of the way across Laos to cross the Mekong River into Thai refugee camps where they were further mistreated by corrupt UN and Thai officials. Out of an estimated 3,000,000 prewar Hmong population less than 200,000 made it to safety.

In the Aftermath of the Viet Nam Debacle, Thousands of Hmong Spent 7 or More Years in Thai Refugee Camps Before Being Accepted by Western Nations for Resettlement

The Hmong are a proud, reserved and polite people. While true that they refuse to be absorbed by other cultures, it cannot be said that they are an aggressive people. Aggressiveness is manifested only in defense against outsiders who are a threat to their property, family or freedom. They have spent the last several millenniums trying to live in peace in a homeland of their own.

Today they are still being persecuted and resettled in Laos to lowland sites, where they can be policed more closely by the Lao Govt. and be coerced to adapt lowland culture. Throughout the highlands of Northern Laos however, the Hmong continue to flourish, carrying on their age-old traditions, wearing their own exquisite costumes and practicing shamanistic animism. Clever and industrious, they enter market economies at their own speed without sacrificing their culture or morality.

They cannot go much further south. Today they are further dispersed than ever. Since 1975 there has been a Diaspora of Hmong around the world. Many settled in the United States, Europe and Australia, where they continue to try and preserve their culture, language and customs. And even in these ‘progressive', modern countries they are maligned – simply because they wish to remain Hmong.

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