The Tai Race- Elder Brother of the Chinese

A SUMMARY 349 literature has been slowly accumulating, printed at the two Tai presses, one in the south, the other in the north. And for the care and training of converts in the first instance, medical and educational plants have been established with centers at each station. The educational work is now so articulated that from the out-village parish schools pupils come to the station board- ing schools, these in turn feeding our two colleges, and the col- wee aecceag the two theological schools and the one medical school. While the preparation of literature, the founding and develop- ment of medical work and the whole educational scheme are pri- marily for the care and training of converts, their training it- self is in turn for the ultimate purpose of the dissemination of the Gospel through them. Hence district Bible Study classes are held and the theological schools maintained. Hence also the organization into self supporting churches and into presbyter- ies. The latest and most promising manifestation of the spirit of self-propagation is the formation in the northern presbytery of two permanent committees on Missions. The Home Missions Committee is to foster evangelism and care for weak churches within the bounds of the Presbytery. The Foreign Missions Committee is to select and through the churches of the Presby- tery, to support its own presbyterial missionaries to the Tai be- yond the bounds of Siam. In summing up what has been accomplished of our Tai task, we should be guilty of capital omission if we stopped with the foregoing outline of the spiritual work which the missions and converts have organized and wrought and with the direct and tangible effects upon the converts themselves. For the by- products of this spiritual work have been immense, Siamese officials themselves being judges. On many occasions the high- est and most intelligent officials have publicly acknowledged the debt of Siam to American missionaries, not only for the introduc- tion of Western medicines and education, but even for the open- ing up of the country to Western civilization. Once opened up Siam’s progress has recently become phenomenal. Within the past three decades the study of Western medi—coirignineally introduced by our missionary physicians —has been seriously taken up and prosecuted in Government Medical Colleges, vac- cination, introduced by the missionary physicians, has now be- come compulsory under Government physicians. Hook worm treatment, also begun by missionary physicians, has also been

300 THE TAI RACE taken up by the Government. Regarding educational progress: Ea a high Siamese official said recently to one of our missionaries, a— ‘‘We appreciate very highly the work you American mission- aries have done for Siam as pioneers in medicine and education. We have now caught up with you in medicine and in the edu- cation of our boys. We have made a start in the education of our girls, and we intend to overtake you in this department also.’’? It was a just acknowledgment but seemed to the mission- ary a slightly exaggerated claim; only slightly exaggerated, however. For the compulsory educational system installed with- in the past two decades, founded upon that of England and in- cluding the study of the English language, is making rapid strides even to the remotest corners of the kingdom. This medical and educational progress would have been im- possible had there not been meanwhile fundamental changes in government and society. Within these same three decades hu- man slavery has disappeared. A feudal system not unlike that of Europe in the Dark Ages has been utterly abolished. In the place of hereditary feudal chiefs, living by what they could squeeze, the country is now administered by salaried officials, duly qualified, working at regular hours on well defined duties. Equally radical has been the revolution in the judiciary de- partment. A code, founded for the most part on the Common Law of England is administered by judges most of whom have read law in English. They administer it so well that England and France have abolished extra-territoriality for their sub- jects and citizens respectively. We hope it is only a question of a short time until the other Great Powers will do the same. Siam has earned the right to expect this from them. Under the impulse originally given her by our mission—atrheimseelsves without official position or prestige— Siam’s working out her destiny. What Siam has done other Tai could do, with the same initial impulse: and more also. For the farther north one goes among the Tai, the more vigorous he finds them. What Siam has re- ceived from Christ through his ambassadors the other Tai have still to receive. If we are to evangelize and church 20,000,000 Tai people, and have ‘‘occupied’’ the territory of but 8,000,000, manifestly there remains the territory of 12,000,000 yet to be occupied: and the work for the whole 20,000,000 must be carried on to that degree of completion which is implied in the original assumption of

A SUMMARY 351 responsibility and which has been begun in the ‘‘occupation.’’ It is a Task worthy our great Church. Will she be daunted by its magnitude? Will she not rather be put upon her mettle? Undismayed and heroic, will she not rise in the strength of her Lord to discharge her whole duty to the Tai Race, to Protestant Christianity and to her Master? And are the people responsive, receptive, inviting? Think of the unanswered bamboo letter, sent to the church by the Kamu of the French Laos State; one big notch —a big man, a mission- ary ;two notches — to come in the second month; six notches — six villages, who want to ‘‘enter.’’ Then there was the excep- tional providential call from the Fia in Tongking, from the Tai Dam country, who urged and insisted on our going to his coun- try, Song La, and promised to use his influence for us with the Tai officials, for he was related to them and known everywhere. In Kwangsi, our good big Swedish friend, Rev. F. A. Christo- pherson of Nanning, has an article in the South China Alliance Tidings entitled, ‘‘At a Wedding.’’ The gist is as follows: One of the Alliance Christians, Wong Chak Pui, lives in the country two days distant from Nanning. He is the only Christian in the village in which he lives. Evidently he can speak Chinese, for he came to ask Mr. Christopherson to go out and marry his son to a bride of the same race. But for a half day’s journey before reaching that village, ‘‘We walked for hours through fields of sugar cane. In speaking to people whom we met along the road we noticed that they were aborigines... . . As the bride had not yet arrived, we had plenty of time to speak to the people who had come to the wedding. The Cantonese dialect was not understood, but fortunately one of our little company could speak the To Wa (To or Tai speech) and he was a great help. . . . We tried to speak to them, but none could under- stand us. They were another class of people altogether, with different customs and habits. Most of the men had beards, the women wore skirts and very large earrings. A large field of service would be given to any one who would spend his life among this benighted people. . . . After the service we sat down to partake of a good Chinese feast, having the bridegroom at my side (16 years old, as appears in a previous paragraph). rye Not a word, however, could be exchanged between us: we spoke different languages. . . . After two days we reached Nanning, pleased with the trip, although we were not permitted to see the bride or able to speak to the bridegroom.”’

352 THE TAI RACE In the next number of the ‘‘Tidings’’ Rev. W. H. Oldfield of Liuchow-fu, has an article entitled ‘‘A Night in a Chawng Vil- lage.’’ The text of the article shows that the people were the same that are called To farther west, and Chawng in eastern Kwangsi and Kwangtung. In the first part of the article he gives pa tu as their word for door, exactly our word here. I will quote the last two paragraphs of his article entire: ‘‘ After sup- per we got out our Gospels and tracts and giving some to them, began to explain the Gospel to them. It was a strange new story and but few could understand our language; for, out of a company of sixty men, women and children, only six of the men could converse intelligently in Mandarin. The women and children could speak absolutely nothing but their native tribal tongue. ‘““How we wished we could speak their dialect and tell them plainly the Gospel message. Here is a people occupying fully one-half of this province, the vast majority of whom speak no other language than their own native tongue. To this people, as yet, the Gospel has not been given. No missionary in Kwang- si speaks their dialect: no Chinese worker is laboring among them: no Christian chapel has been opened in their territories. They live, they die, unreached, unhelped and unheeded. For decades they have been groping in darkness, for decades more they will have to grope, unless some one comes to give them the message.’’ In Kweichow the Chung Tai believe in a Good Being who lives in heaven, that he sends the rain and sunshine, and all good things come from Him. But they neither worship Him nor make offerings to him. They fear and worship the Evil Being and make offerings to him only. Among the Yangtze Tai, (Chin Tai they call themselves), in Northern Yiinnan, Mr. Metcalf who has charge of the Tai work there, writes of a visit to some Tai villages as follows: ‘‘An in- telligent old man of 72 was deputed by the villagers to tell us that they intended to act unitedly as a village and to consider the matter carefully before any of them destroyed their idolatry or placed themselves under Christian instruction. This old man, as we talked with him became the most serious and interested inquirer of the lot. He told me what will doubtless be of in- terest to you, that when he was quite a young fellow, as nearly as he could recall, about fifty years ago, a party of several Tai from the South passed through their village. They only stayed a day or two and preached to them and sang hymns. It is so

A SUMMARY 303 long ago he does not now remember the doctrine they preached, though he distinctly recalls the name of Iesu (Jesus) which they repeatedly used. He had never heard anything of them or the ‘ Christian teaching since, but said he believed all we said was true. A day or two after we left this village of Lao-ba they sent word to us, that if I could secure a Tai evangelist to come and teach them regularly they would as a village turn to the Lord and put themselves under Christian instruction. The new convert, our host at Sosok’a, brought me this news, and in- formed me that the people at Sosok’a and in other villages along that river are very interested and are looking to the Lao-ba people (Lao-ba being the most influential and wealthy village), to take a lead in the matter and they will follow suit. For the Tai Niia, you will remember the two princesses who visited us in Kengtiing, who said, ‘‘You talk like our books! Come to our country. We live twenty days away, up in China. Come and teach my people your books. You will find us in the Chief’s house when you come.’’ And the welcome I received from them and their people when I went to M. Baw in 1910 has already been told. Remember the Lii woman who wept at the picture of Christ on the cross; and the hands outstretched in the Lii markets from every direction and the voices crying ‘‘Give me two of the sacred books.”’ The Kun people whom we meet are always begging us to come back and live with them again. The Yin country has every strategic point already ‘‘occupied.’’ But in South Siam there remaineth much land to be possessed. Major Thorwaldsea, ‘‘the jolly Major,’’ our Danish friend who for many years was at the head of the Gendarmerie in Chiengrai, since we left Chiengrai has gone to Ubon near the southern French border. He is writ- ing about those millions destitute of the Gospel in that region, and urging that mission work be started among them. So we have swept the horizon of the Tai field again, and given you glimpses of the needs and opportunities of the different branches of the Tai Race. I have tried in this book to make you see the people of the Tai Race as I have seen them. How I wish they could actually pass before you in one grand pageant, that you who have money and youth, health and strength, might unite in giving to these waiting millions the Name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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