Prayer Profile
The Highland Yao of Laos
The Highland Yao, also known as the Mien, are people of the mountains and people of learning. Unlike their neighbors, they are villagers with a strong tradition of literacy. Although they are found throughout the northern tier of Southeast Asia, they look to China as their ancestral homeland.
Centuries ago, while living in northern China, the Yao were constantly pushed southward by the expansion of the Han people. In the late 1800's, feuding warlords challenged one another for control of new lands, including those occupied by the Highland Yao. Villagers began crossing the border into Southeast Asia, particularly into Burma and Laos. The Highland Yao found that. northern Laos provided high mountains, virgin jungles, and a non-intrusive government—favorable conditions for establishing prosperous communities. Many believe that the Highland Yao are distantly related to the Hmong who also migrated from northern China and who are linguistically similar. The language of the Highland Yao is Mian.
What Are Their Lives Like
Houses in the Highland Yao villages are made of durable hardwood and have packed dirt floors. They are large enough for ceremonial gatherings and sturdy enough to withstand strong hurricane-force winds and torrential rains that sweep across the highlands of Laos. Villagers cultivate rice and corn, and gather wild jungle products such as resin and honey to trade with Lao merchants. Their principal cash crop, however, is opium. The "black tar" opium can be used as money when doing business with Chinese traders. Without health services, opium has been an important drug, but has also caused serious addictions.
Social status in the Highland Yao villages is determined by behavior, accomplishment, generosity with others, and scholarship in religious studies. The basic village household may consist of a man, his wife, their unmarried children, their married sons and daughters-in-law, their grandchildren, and other relatives. Because the extended family lives together, child rearing is a cross-generational affair, with grandparents giving the young parents "on the job training."
Each person has a well-defined role in Yao society. Women are generally responsible for the day-to-day essentials of life, while men are concerned with the long-term welfare of the family. Men are also responsible for relations between the living family, their dead ancestors, and the world of spirits. In the villages, men fell the jungle trees and burn the areas to be cultivated. The women plant, hoe, and harvest. Villages work together in building houses and clearing fields, and celebrate together at feasts.
Within each village community, there are a select few who gain prominence because of their literacy in Chinese. Young men from well-to-do families study and master Chinese characters in the expression of Yao concepts. They become experts in the writing of ritual texts and family genealogies.
Highland Yao dress reinforces their ethnic identity. Yao men wear distinctive earrings and specially embroidered tunics. Women wear elaborate costumes with bright red wool collars. Infants wear intricately embroidered caps, believed to protect them from harm from malevolent spirits.
What Are Their Belief?
The religion of the Highland Yao is far more than a component of their culture. It is a total belief system that explains all the natural events of life and provides a way to gain control over those events. The Yao are influenced by their ancestors, as well as by their animistic beliefs (the belief that the natural world around them is inhabited by spirits). Time and resources are spent to make sure that the ancestors remain content and the spirits are pacified. Rituals that reflect a blending of Taoist belief and animism are often conducted by well-trained priests.
What Are Their Needs?
As with most animistic cultures, the Highland Yao live in fear of displeasing the spirits of ancestors or nature. A desire to be free from fear and their emphasis on kindness and generosity within society would provide an opening for the Gospel. Prayer is the key to seeing them reached for Christ.
Prayer Points
-Take authority over the spiritual principalities that are keeping the Highland Yao bound.
-Ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers to live and work among the Highland Yao.
-Ask the Holy Spirit to grant wisdom and favor to the missions agencies that are targeting the Highland Yao.
-Pray that God will reveal Himself to the Highland Yao through dreams and visions.
-Pray that the Lord will raise up long term workers to join the few who have already responded.
-Ask God to speed the completion of the Jesus film and other evangelistic materials into the Mian language.
-Ask the Holy Spirit to complete the work begun in the hearts of the Highland Yao believers through adequate discipleship.
-Ask the Lord to raise up strong local churches among the Highland Yao by the year 2000.
© Copyright 1997
Bethany World Prayer Center
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THE Iu-MIENH PEOPLE
Who are they and where have they come from?
The Iu-Mienh people are one of six ethnic groups that have for centuries been called "Yao" by the Chinese, Southeast Asians and others. Some have innocently adopted this term, which to the Iu-Mienh themselves means "barbarians." For this reason, the tribe strongly prefers the term "Iu-Mienh", which to them means "the people"-and all others are outsiders.
In China there are 2 to 3 million Yao. Of these an estimated 700,000 are Iu-Mienh. The name is also spelled Iuh Mienh or Yiu-Mienh and they most often shorten it to Mienh. In the unified script spelling of the language the "h" is written at the end of "Mienh" to denote the falling tone with which the word is pronounced. In English we usually write simply "Mien." In Vietnam "Yao" is written "Dao."
HISTORY
Iu-Mienh originated in China. Some records indicated these people were known as early as 1500 B.C. in central China. Others say that their existence became known about 500 B.C.
With the increasing dominance of the Chinese population, the Iu-Mienh were gradually forced into mountain areas. For various reasons, including a resistance to levies imposed by the Chinese government, a search for freedom and an escape from famine, a number of Iu-Mienh moved from the Shantung and central areas of China into Southeast Asia. The majority remain in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of south China.
One branch of the Mienh has legends of having traveled by sea on a difficult voyage after which they say they began their animistic spirit worship.
The Iu-Mienh migration from China was made in two different movements. The first group of Iu-Mienh migrated into northern Vietnam in the 1700's. These people are called "Man", another Chinese term for "barbarians." The migration of the Iu-Mienh into Thailand and Laos did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century.
As early as 1963, the Iu-Mienh in Namtha, a northernmost province of Laos and a center for United States' CIA mercenary forces, were engaged in CIA activities led by a warlord "Chaomai" and his brother "Chaola". They were gradually forced to abandon their villages as the Pathet Lao, the Lao communist force supported by North Vietnam, gained more and more territory. "The long-standing family cooperation with the Royal Lao, French and United States governments (the U.S. in particular) naturally means that they and their followers would be marked for execution in the Communist takeover" (Hartmann, John).
Escaping persecution and seeking freedom, most of the Iu-Mienh in Laos moved south and then west. They fled across the Mekong River into Thailand where they were confined in refugee camps in the northern provinces of Chiengrai and Nan. In those camps food was insufficient and life was difficult.
But many have since been resettled in various countries around the world. Today, there are about 25,000 Iu-Mienh people in the United States. Most of these are located in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. In China, there are still 700,000 Iu-Mienh. Approximately 300,000 are in Vietnam. In Thailand, there are 40,000. There are still some left in the war torn country of Laos. These are numbered to be about 10,000. There are also Iu-Mienh people in other countries such as France, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark and possibly in Australia and Burma.
The Iu-Mienh are one of the newest tribes currently making a new life in the United States who survived through many disastrous war experiences. Life in America is as tough for many as it was in Laos when the Communists were taking over. Cultural shock was awaiting like a lion ready to devour these newcomers as they arrived. Due to the language barrier, many can not get a job and they do not have a piece of land to raise their own food. Many wish they had not come here to America.
For a Iu-Mienh to learn English is not as easy as it is for an American to learn a foreign language. The Iu-Mienh are not an industrialized people. The Iu-Mienh culture and language have been kept alive by oral tradition. Their written language has not been developed until recent decades. Thus, learning English is not just learning a language to them. It is like teaching a baby to speak: the whole process of learning a language (language acquisition) is involved. Therefore, if we want to succeed in bringing these people the message, it is important that we consider using the primary language as a vehicle.
CUSTOMS
Mienh women in Thailand and Laos wear black embroidered trousers, black jackets with red wool pom-poms around the neck and down the front, and black turbans. The dress of the women in China and Vietnam varies considerably from this. In western countries western dress is worn usually now except for special occasions.
For the most part they have lived in remote mountain villages of Asia growing rice, corn, vegetables and opium and raising pigs and chickens and using horses for hauling supplies.
Premarital sexual encounters have been normal. Monogamy is the norm but there are many cases of polygamy.
Traditions and history have commonly been passed on by means of antiphonal chanting of questions and response.
RELIGION
The great majority of the Mienh still practice a form of Taoism in which they worship and seek by involved rituals, incantations, and offerings to get on the good side of the spirits of their ancestors. In addition they feel bound to practice a form of polytheistic animism in which they endeavor to placate the spirits of the tiger, the knife, and numerous other "jungle" spirits. Magical curses are put on enemies.
Those who fled Laos as refugees have been most open to the Gospel. Christians now are estimated at 4,100 + in U.S., 1,200 in Thailand, and 1,600 in North Vietnam and a few elsewhere.
Prepared by C.W. Callaway Oct. 1997
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