The Hlai, also known as Li or Lizu, are a
Kra–Dai-speaking
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
, one of the 56
ethnic groups
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
officially recognized by the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The vast majority live off the southern coast of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
on
Hainan Island
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...
, where they are the largest minority ethnic group. Divided into the five branches of the Qi (Gei), Ha, Run (Zwn), Sai (Tai, Jiamao) and Meifu (Moifau),
the Hlai have their own distinctive culture and customs.
Names
黎 (Lí), which was pronounced /lei/ in
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
is the Chinese transcription of their native name, which is Hlai. They are sometimes also known as the "Sai" or "Say". During China's
Sui Dynasty
The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...
, their ancestors were known by various names, including ''Lǐliáo'' (), a general term encompassing several non-Han ethnic groups in
Southern China
South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...
. The name Li first is recorded during the
Later Tang
Tang, known in historiography as the Later Tang, was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China and the second of the Five Dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in Chinese history.
The first three of the Later Tang's four e ...
period (923–937
CE).
History
Liang & Zhang (1996:18-21)
believe that the original homeland of the Hlai languages was the
Leizhou Peninsula
The Leizhou Peninsula, alternately romanized as the Luichow Peninsula, is a peninsula in the southernmost part of Guangdong province in South China.
History
Qing naval forces were stationed at the Leizhou Peninsula. During the 19th century ...
, and estimate that the Hlai had migrated across the
Hainan Strait
The Qiongzhou Strait, also called the is the Chinese strait that separates Guangdong's Leizhou Peninsula from the island province of Hainan. It connects the Gulf of Tonkin on its west to the South China Sea on its east. The strait is on aver ...
to Hainan island about 4,000 years before present.
According to Schafer, the Li people were originally spread out across the continental coastline, covering Northern Vietnam and the area west of Guangzhou, including Hainan. Their names were converted into the Chinese clan name Li. The earliest mention of the term Li as an ethnonym was in the Han dynasty, referring to people of the highlands of Central Vietnam at
Jiuzhen
Jiuzhen (Vietnamese: Cửu Chân, Chinese: 九真) was a Chinese commandery within Jiaozhou. It is located in present-day Thanh Hóa Province, Vietnam.
Michel Ferlus (2012) and Frédéric Pain (2020) propose that 九真 Old Chinese
Old Chin ...
(Vietnamese: Cửu Chân). After the Han dynasty these people were primarily located in Guangxi and western Guangdong.
The 3rd century ''Nanzhou Yiwuzhi'' mentioned bandits called ''Lǐ'' (俚) who lived south of
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
in the five commanderies: Cangwu, Yulin, Hepu, Ningpu and Gaoliang. They lived in villages with no walls and took refuge in the mountains and narrow passes. They did not have commanders or lords. In the early 6th century, the
Liang dynasty
The Liang dynasty (), alternatively known as the Southern Liang () in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the third of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. It was preceded by the South ...
waged
war on the Li people, calling it the "pacification of the Li ''dong''". In the Tang dynasty, the Li people of northern Vietnam were assigned a separate administrative status among the populace of the
Annan protectorate, only paying half the taxes of ordinary subjects. By the 11th century, records no longer mention the Li on the mainland.
State administration of
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...
's lowlands was indirect until the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
and state control of the inland mountains was indirect until the 1950s. By the 11th century, Chinese records state that Hlai people were living close to Chinese settlements and paid taxes to the central state. However by the end of the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
in the mid-17th century, virtually all areas of Hainan capable of intense cultivation had been settled by
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
, while the Hlai filled the niche of supplying mountain products. By 1700, the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
had re-established administration over Hainan. Migrant merchants started entering Hainan and threatened the economic niche of the Hlai, who broke out in violent protest against these "guest merchants" in 1766.
In 1751, He Xiang wrote an essay titled "Arguments against Settling the Li and Establishing Counties." In it he explained that Hainan was dangerous not because the Hlai people were fierce, but because of malaria and poisonous animals. He mocked previous campaigns against the Hlai for conquering hamlets of no value or significance while several thousand troops died of malaria. The highlands inhabited by the Hlai were also not economically valuable, and therefore had not yet been transformed. While many Chinese generals had made a name for themselves by "settling Guangdong", they all left the Hlai alone.
During the
Japanese occupation of Hainan (1939–1945), the Hlai suffered extremely heavily due to their communist resistance activities especially in western Hainan. Hlai villages were frequently targeted for extermination and rape by
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
and Japanese soldiers. In four towns alone, the Japanese slaughtered more than 10,000 Hlai people. The Hlai were persecuted by the Nationalists partly due to their support of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Nationalist forces massacred over 7,000 Hlai in a village. Nationalist officers had 9,000 Hlai and 3,000 Miao executed after tricking them to the war fronts during a fake conscription campaign. As the Nationalists retreated with over 1.5 million civilians that they evacuated to the hills with, they massacred and stole food from the ethnic Hlai as well as other tribal peoples. The Nationalists executed 2,180 Miao women and children of
Baisha and
Baoting
Bǎotíng Li and Miao Autonomous County () is an autonomous county in Hainan, China. One of the six autonomous counties on the island, its postal code is 572300. Baoting spans an area of , and has a population of about 168,000 as of 2020.
Histor ...
uprising origin.
Because the Hlai sided with the CCP during the Chinese Civil War against the Nationalists, the Hlai are looked upon favorably by the government of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
Language
The Hlai speak the
Hlai languages
The Hlai languages () are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquial name for the Leizhou branch of Min Chines ...
, a member of the
Kra–Dai language family, but most can understand or speak
Hainanese
Hainanese (Hainan Romanised: ', Hainanese Pinyin: ',), also known as Qióngwén, Heng2 vun2 () or Qióngyǔ, Heng2 yi2 (), is a group of Min Chinese varieties spoken in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan and Overseas Chinese su ...
and
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...
. The
Jiamao language
Jiamao (, ''Jiamao''; also ''Tái'' or ''Sāi'') is a possible language isolate spoken in southern Hainan, China. Jiamao speakers' autonym is ''1''.See Proto-Tai_language#Tones for an explanation of the tone codes.
Classification
Jiamao was l ...
spoken natively by the Sai (also known as Tai or Jiamao) subgroup has been noted for its dissimilarity to the dialects or languages spoken by the other subgroups of the Hlai.
A Qing dynasty report on the Hlai dated 1756 claimed that they did not have a writing system.
Culture
Women were able to become political leaders in Hlai society. In 1171, a Hlai woman by the name of Wang Erniang was bestowed the title of "Lady of Suitability" by the
Song court and given the post of commander-general over 36 ethnic groups in the south. She was the headwoman of the Hlai people and had a husband but nobody knew his name. She was very wealthy and adept at keeping order over her people. The Song dynasty communicated with non-Chinese southerners by relaying their orders through her. In 1181, her daughter inherited her position, and in 1216, another daughter inherited the position.
Among the Hlai, the women have a custom of tattooing their arms and backs after a certain age is reached.
The Hlai play a traditional wind instrument called ''kǒuxiāo'' () and another called ''lìlāluó'' (). The Hlai in Wenchang assimilated into the local population and pretended to be Hainanese while most of the Hlai population was exterminated in most other parts of Hainan only a small portion of the Hlai survived and fled to the mountains where they still maintain a Hlai identity.
Religion
The Hlai were primarily
animists
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, hu ...
. According to Hlai legends, their clans each originated from the marriage of a woman and an animal. The most prominent animal is the snake. Leigong, the God of Thunder, laid a snake on Li Mountain. From the egg hatched a woman named Limu (literally "mother of the Li") who lived off of wild fruits and nested in the trees. Eventually she married and their descendants became the Hlai people. Another version says that the woman arrived on a ship and married a dog, giving birth to the Hlai. The Hlai also worshiped other animals such as the ox, which was represented in each house by a stone that they called the "soul of the ox." The "Oxen's Festival" was celebrated on the eighth day of the third lunar month every year. On that day the oxen were forbidden to be killed or worked. They stayed at home and were fed liquor believed to protect the ox and guarantee plentiful harvest. The "najiaxila" bird of legend was worshiped as a protector god for taking care of an ancestor woman of the Hlai. Dragons and cats were worshiped as well since they are considered to be ancestors.
Genetics
The Hlai are believed to be descendants of the
Rau people Rau, Laoz ( Zhuang: ), Liao (Chinese: 僚人) or Lao peoples ( lo, ລາວລຸ່ມ),However, whether Lao belongs to the Lao group or Tày group is disputed. is an ethnic cluster covering Zhuang, Buyei, Tay– Nùng and other Northern Tai la ...
, Kra–Dai-speaking tribes of ancient China, who settled on the island thousands of years ago.
DNA analysis
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
carried out amongst the modern Hlai population indicate a close relationship with populations in the Southern Chinese province of
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...
,
most of them have Y-DNA O1a and O1b.
Notable people
*
Su Yunying
Su Yunying (; born 8 April 1991), also known as Sue Su, is a Chinese singer-songwriter of Li ethnicity.
Su was born and raised in Sanya, Hainan. Su rose to prominence in 2015 on Sing My Song, performing her own written debut song called "Yez ...
, singer
References
Bibliography
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{{Authority control
Ethnic groups officially recognized by China
Hainan