TERMINOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE MIAO KINSHIP SYSTEM

The Miao, or Miaotzu, is one of the very widely distributed tribespeople in Southwestern China. They are interpersed among the Han-Chinese in Szechuan, Kueichow, Yunnan, Hunan, Kwangsi Provinces and Hainan Island, and some of them have migrated southward to the mountainous regions of Northeastern Burma, Northern Thailand, Northern Laos, and Northern Tongking, Vietnam. The total population has been estimated at two to three million souls. The Miao studied are those inhabit the ·mountainous regions on the sources of the Yungning River, Southern Szechuan, and number approximately ten thousand souls. They are called by themselves as Hmong Ntsu, but by some of the Chinese as Yachio Miao, ''Magpie Miao'', and by others as Han Miao, ''Sinicized Miao'', who are one of the various affiliated ethnic groups collectively, but not accurately, called by D. C. Graham as the Ch'uan Miao or the Miao of Szechuan Province.