Front matter
NESTS
ABOVE THE
ABYSS
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
Books by the same author
ASCENT TO THE TRIBES
BY SEARCHING
GREEN LEAF IN DROUGHT
IN THE ARENA
PRECIOUS THINGS OF THE LASTING HILLS
STONES OF FIRE
ISOBEL KUHN
Nests Above the Abyss Foreword by
ARNOLD J. LEA
LONDON
OVERSEAS MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP
First published in U.S.A.
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Published in Great Britain a a
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Reprinted = = ..
December 1964 Reprinted a a ae January 1966 Reprinted a ke a March 1968 Reprinted es of a October 1969 Reprinted He a a .. June 1972
ISBN 85363 031 3
MADE AND PRINTED OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR
THE OVERSEAS MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP, NEWINGTON GREEN,
LONDON, NI6 9QD, BY THE CAMELOT PRESS LTD.,
LONDON AND SOUTHAMPTON
Foreword ie evening in the spring of 1942 the peace of our quiet Szechwan town was rudely shattered by the appearance of a large convoy of trucks and jeeps as a unit of the R.A.F. Though newly arrived in China, they were already obliged to move house in face of the Japanese advance from Burma. With them, dusty and-worn, came a dozen or so Yunnan missionaries, and amongst them the author of this book. That was our first introduction to Isobel Kuhn, I shall never forget her as she valiantly endeavoured in those days to adjust herself to low-lying Szechwan!
The proverbial "duck out of water" wasn't in it! She tried to find a quiet spot, but alas! our badly weeded and cramped garden was such a contrast to the beauties and spaciousness of the Yunnan mountains, and the Szechwanese to whom she spoke were so different from the simple, approachable Lisu people.
From the second or third day she was eating her heart out to get back! And the reason? Why, she had given her heart, her love, her life to those laughter-loving people of the hills of west
Yunnan. Privation, loneliness and fatigue, though hard to bear for one of her physique, could not keep her away longer than necessary. As soon as conditions were easier in Yunnan, off she went on a truck, accompanied only by a young Chinese girl, to make the long, arduous journey back to the West.
It is impossible not to be impressed with the price that had to be paid to bring the Gospel to the Lisu of the Upper Salween
Valley in west Yunnan, both by the Lisu from other districts and the incoming missionaries. Experience has shown that the best way of opening up new work is, where possible, first to send well-grounded Christian nationals to introduce the new message and life. In this way many prejudices are broken down and many preconceived ideas of Christianity are avoided. In 1919 J. O.
Fraser wrote concerning the need of this area: '""This district must be evangelized, but I want to find suitable natives to go first."
It was a tremendous thing to ask the untravelled evangelists from
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
the Lisu Church of the South to venture forth some sixteen days' journey into a land where food, dress and even speech were dissimilar, and dangers seen and unseen lurked round every corner.
They responded for Christ's sake and the account of what they suffered is humbling indeed and brings forth afresh praise to the Lord who gave such enabling grace.
To follow up this opening amongst the Lisu of north-west Yunnan, in 1934 Mr. and Mrs. Kuhn left the last vestige of civilization on the Paoshan plain, and went to live amongst the mountain people of that region (until the Mission withdrew from China due to Communist pressure). Here amidst sin, squalor, poverty and darkness they have radiated the glory of the Master, and shown the redeeming and reclaiming power of the Cross, as these pen portraits reveal. That Isobel Kuhn was able to write so vividly about the doings of the Lisu people is because she lived amongst them and, more still, lived with them; sharing with them their spiritual battles, big and small, and by her understanding sympathy entering into the very thoughts of their hearts. Mrs. Kuhn did not gloss over sin, nor did she omit the failures of one or another, and yet she wrote with a note of triumph as she traced the growth downward and outward of some of the Christians.
The chapter on "Unseen Missionaries" places prayer in its right perspective to the missionary programme. For the experienced prayer warriors there is much here to encourage, while for the uninitiated in this realm of Christian warfare there is the challenge to undertake for the Master a prayer ministry which is perhaps even more precious and difficult, if properly executed, than going to a foreign land.
ARNOLD J. LEA
Assistant General Director.
Contents Page Foreword CHAP. i:
The Munition of Rocks I.
Beautiful Feet Reach the Canyon
A Tree Beside the Waters
Nest for Singing Bird
A Rock in a Weary Land
The Prey of the Terrible
The Soul-seedling Patch
A Thief Who Laboured to Give to Others
The Unseen Missionaries
"Jes' Pebbles"
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I The Munition of Rocks Slee has a stronghold—isolated and unchallenged for centuries—a great mountain canyon in West China. Its river takes its source in Tibet and its banks rise to the height of eleven to fifteen thousand feet. The tiers of mountain peaks, flung around chaotically on either side as far as the eye can see, are separated from each other by deep ravines and abysmal chasms. Impossible as it may seem, this canyon is inhabited by human beings, for everywhere you look the canyon sides are checked like patchwork quilt with little hamlets and villages, and these almost perpendicular mountain sides are cut up into little squares or oblongs of farmed lands. Human homes, human nests, have been built on little knolls or jutting ridges that offer a scarce foothold—even over a dizzy drop down the bank. You may see them in such precarious positions that you almost hold your breath lest, even as you watch, they slide over the edge and disappear.
_ Anyone coming to the canyon must prepare to live perpendicularly as long as he stays; he must prepare to sweat and toil up and down steep mountain trails; he must prepare to live isolated from the rest of the world, from civilization with its medical, intellectual, and social comforts; he must prepare to have nature laugh at the feeble speck he is, and to have Satan hurl at him the fury of the hitherto unchallenged, unconquered lion faced in his own private lair. Surely this canyon is Satan's place of defence; here we will find his munition of rocks.
Are the Lisu tribespeople, who have built their nest-homes all over these mighty rocks where Satan reigns, enjoying the peace and happiness of living "'the natural life'? (For some have said, "The heathen are happy: why disturb them?"') Yes,
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
they are just as happy and peaceful as fledglings in a nest built on a ledge of jutting rock over one of these mountain abysses, when the monsoon winds sweep like a hurricane through the canyon, and pine trees over a hundred feet tall are uprooted and hurled down into space as easily as a child knocks down a twig in his sand pile. What chance has a little nest against such a strength? That wind is one of the munitions of rocks, and, as it hurls itself against the little dove's nest, with the dark gulf yawning beneath, what are the feelings of the poor little nestlings as they cling to the straw and sticks? They are a picture of the so-called "happy heathen'' when one of the Sharp Winds of life strikes him. These Winds hit from many directions.
There is the Wind of Physical Nature. In the Rainy Season, when the soil is softened by constant drenching, an animal higher up may dislodge a boulder with his foot; that boulder is hurled down into the ravine and woe betide all living things in its path! I had pointed out to me one such that had killed a woman standing in her doorway and had smashed her shanty home. In 1935 a Lisu Christian was sleeping alone in a hut in his cornfield when, some time before dawn, a rock as large as a dining table (they said) got loosened from the heights above and crashed down. It hit his hut, struck the end of his bed, and bed and occupant were shot out of the door and a hundred feet down the mountainside. He was knocked unconscious, but came to out in the open, in the dark, with the rain beating on his face. His hut of a moment before was nothing but a wreck of splinters.
Another young man, going out early to plough after a heavy rainfall, was struck by another such rock and cut in two at the waist. His oxen ran home frightened at the sight of his mangled corpse. Abyss of physical destruction! When will the Sharp
Wind hit?
Not only do landslides terrify the little nest, but earthquakes come just as unannounced. In May 1941 we were eating the midday meal in a Lisu shanty, when suddenly the shanty shook violently and we heard a great roar. One called out, "Thunder!" but the sun was shining brightly. Another shouted, "Aeroplane!" and we all rushed out to the edge of the high plateau to see.
THE MUNITION OF ROCKS
II No aeroplane was visible, but before us lay a sight such as I had never seen in all my life. The whole opposite mountain range seemed to be belching smoke and clouds of dust everywhere. My first thought was that it had turned into a hundredheaded volcano. Then, however, I noticed that the fires were probably caused by the friction of the earthquake. Soon the whole opposite mountain range was hidden by a barrage of smoke and dust. It was a literal picture of Ps. civ. 32: "He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke."'
| It did not clear until the next morning, for through the afternoon and long into the night again and again we heard the ominous roar of land sliding. Later we learned the sad details of much of that terror. Just one will illustrate. Forty Lisu were planting corn on a perpendicular field. The survivors said that all the intimation of danger they heard was when the earth shook; they heard a roar, looked up and saw the top of the mountain descending on them! When the dust and shock were over, of the forty persons only seventeen were to be found.
Sharp Winds from a Bitter Height! There is the Wind of Merciless Heathendom. In 1938, just thirty or forty miles to the south of us, a young heathen girl killed her husband and eloped with her lover. According to Chinese custom, she had been married (I suppose) against her own will, and when her true love came she eloped with him. They were caught and she was punished by being skinned alive. She was only eighteen years old. Poor little wind-torn nest! What a horrible abyss that is!
Contrast with that this other little nest, hit by the very same Wind.
Going out along Sunset Trail one evening, I met a fellowvillager climbing up laboriously. She was carrying a babe tied in a sling in front of her bosom so that it could nurse easily.
On the mother's back was a tall basket full of corn on the cob.
The basket was so tall that it towered above her head. As she saw me descending, she rested her load against the hillside and her face lit up with a smile. ""Ma-Ma,"' she said softly, calling me by my Lisu name. "S——!" I replied, greeting her by name.
I was deeply moved and said, "How do you come to be carrying
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
such a load? Don't you know that your body is not back to normal yet? This could give you life-long weakness. Where is your husband?"
"Oh, he's at home. But, Ma-Ma, you know him. He never does any work—just lives for the opium pipe. There was no food in the house and the little ones were hungry, so my mother gave me this load, but I have to carry it myself from Pine Mountain." (Pine Mountain is five miles away.)
I was very indignant, for her husband is a big, husky young fellow. "How did you ever come to marry such a man?" I asked.
"Why, Ma-Ma, it was arranged for me. You know our old heathen custom." She went on to tell me of the disappointment to find that the husband chosen for her was almost a devil.
He was an opium-smoker, a thief, and would even sell their house furniture when she was absent in order to get money to buy opium. Yet in the telling of this her face was not bitter.
There was a sweet peace upon it. As we parted she again thanked the Lord for meeting me and said, ""Ma~Ma, take-some corn out of my basket; they taste good roasted by the fire. I'd like to give some to you!" But I could no more accept that corn on the cob than David could drink of the water from the Well of Bethlehem. As I left her I thanked my Lord that He can bring an inward peace that passeth understanding, that though the body is going the spirit may dwell with Him in heaven.
This little Nest had found the Cleft of the Rock hewn out for her, and when the Sharp Winds blowing upon her were too awful to bear, she could find peace in that Cleft.
Very pitiful times are they when the raw Wind of Sickness blows upon them. Knowing nothing of germs, they attribute it to the bite of demons and are terrified and helpless. They think it necessary to make animal sacrifices, and they must pay the wizard or witch also. For such a simple thing as malaria (for which the Salween canyon is notorious) all the livestock, one by one, may be killed off, and the family reduced to dire want. How can they plough such mountainsides without an ox?
Their poverty adds to their misery. I saw a man dying of cancer. His big emaciated frame was just skin-covered bone,
THE MUNITION OF ROCKS
I3 yet he had to lie on a bare board day and night with no pillow to ease his pain. When he coughed up spittle they wiped it off
2 coarse straw paper which scratched his fevered lips merciessly.
When a really dreaded disease like smallpox comes, they often desert their sick and flee into the fields. The needless sufferings of the sick are indeed a raw Wind. This very thing is
Sp. x z one reason why they vie with one another to have the white man establish his home in their villages, for he brings his medicine and "unthinkable" ways of easing pain. Who can dare say,
"The heathen are happy: leave them alone"?
There is a little Wind, not comparable with the monsoon, but it blows bitterly on some. It is the Wind of Helpless Ignorance.
In the canyon a few Chinese schools have been established by the government. They are so isolated that they are not often inspected and the teachers soon become such opium-sots that even the heathen Lisu thinks it useless to send his children to sit under them. For this reason they are illiterate people. Until the missionary came and reduced their language to writing they had no books and could not of course write letters. When one's friend moved to another village, even though only a few miles away, it was like death. Possibilities of meeting again, or of any kind of communication were slim, especially for the women, who seldom travel. Yet when the Lisu are taught, they prove to be as intelligent as the white man. The Christians are keen to learn. An American, looking at a young Lisu Bible student once said, "That is a bright-looking boy. Just under-privileged, that's all." That same under-privileged one once sighed and said to me, "Ma-Ma, you white people are very fortunate. No matter what you want to study—farming, medicine, music, stones or stars, it seems there is someone who can teach you about it.
We Lisu have no one to teach us anything, no matter how much we yearn to know."
A Lisu evangelist, being introduced to some American soldiers said, "All that we Lisu have, we owe to the white man."' It is sweet to be needed and to be able to share.
But we are not through with these Winds. Daily there blows the evil Wind of Sin, blowing softly, wooingly at first, but most
I4 NESTS.
ABOVE THE ABYSS
destructive of any in its end. Wide yawns the waiting abyss when this Wind blows.
With no shops, no radio, no books, no pleasures to break the humdrum monotony of their farm life, Satan knows the children of men must have some excitement, so he offers wine-drinking, quarrels, gambling, and immorality. When they have gambled away their money, they will often stake their children, their wives, even their own bodies as slaves. So in one night a whole family can be gambled away into life-long slavery.
I said the Wind of Sin blows softly at first. The Lisu are naturally singers and love music; and Satan and sin have given them a set of licentious yodel songs which they call, "Try-tosay-it."" On the surface, I understand, it is Nature-talk, as of birds, or the meetings of streams, but each is a metaphor so vile that no Christian Lisu will translate it for you or even repeat it.
This suggestive metaphor is often composed spontaneously.
At dusk the young men will melt on to the high trails and, as they slip along through the shadows, they will sing a line of challenge, yodelling it at the end. Their voices are carried down the mountainside by the clear air to a group of girls in a village, perhaps, or sleeping in a cornfield to guard the grain from wild animals, and these will answer back. This is where the Try-tosay-it comes in.. There are time-used phrases, but if you are clever enough to make up a new one, he must find an answer to it. "Make up a harmless one, for an example,' I once asked a Lisu evangelist. So he gave the following:
"Td give the wide world to have you!" might come yodelling down the mountainside in a strong, young masculine voice.
A girl will take it up and yodel back, "My father's a good shot. You wouldn't dare come near our house!"
And so the musical word-combat, the Try-to-say-it gets under way. In the darkness the singer's position is hidden, indicated only by the direction of the voice. But urged on with home-made whisky, and a humdrum or unhappy day, one can understand the attraction of the unknown, unseen, offered love-call.
One night in a Lisu shanty, all the village around silent and dark, I was awakened. From far up on the high mountain peak
THE MUNITION OF ROCKS
I§ towering above us, through the stillness, a chorus of yodels was coming. The clear, strong voices, full of youthful vim, were attractive, and they kept getting nearer and nearer. I understood nothing, discerned no words, but as I lay there unable but to listen, that musical young call lilting through the night made my flesh tingle. And then I knew the power of this "munition" from the Rock Height, and I prayed, "Oh Lord, keep Thine own to-night if there be any who must also hear this. Oh, if I were a heathen girl with no Christ in my heart to quieten me, that call would entice. Thank Thee, Lord, that I am in Thee."
And cuddling well into the Cleft of my Rock, I prayed on for younger ones upon whom that Sharp Wind was blowing. Not a voice from the village responded, so after about a half-hour of yodelling, the adventurers passed on and left us. But from then on, I knew why there are practically no pure young Lisu among the heathen. I heard a pretty heathen girl once boast, "There isn't a man in the valley can beat me at Try-to-say-it!"' and her husband endorsed her proudly. That it was vile, licentious language in which she was so adept meant nothing to him.
But it is an abyss of destruction that awaits the little falling Nest. The unseen singer by daylight loses his glitter and often proves to be worse than the husband deserted for him. Homes are broken up; deformed children are born; and social diseases take their toll, and other unmentionable miseries perhaps, prove into what an awful pit the little Nest has fallen.
But the Cleft Rock? is making a difference. I once asked a handsome young Christian, "Do the girls ever yodel after you?"
"Sure they do—often from a cornfield as I go by," he replied.
"What do you do then?" I inquired curiously.
"Run down the road just as fast as I can!" he answered firmly.
I could hardly keep my face straight at the picture thus conjured up, for this particular laddie was noted for his courage and valiance—yet in my heart how happy I was for his answer.
He had been studying the scriptures and knew that God says unhesitatingly, more than once, "Flee youthful lusts'? (2 Tim. ii. 22; 1 Cor. vi. 18). And God has rewarded. Three years ago
He gave this young runaway a sweet little Christian wife, one 1 "And that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. x. 4).
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
whom an American soldier claimed was "the prettiest girl in the district.''
One more Sharp Wind from the Bitter Height. The worst of all Satan's munitions of rocks is the Wind of Death; the spiritual hopelessness of the heathen Lisu, which, though pushed to the edge of his daily consciousness, every now and again sweeps in upon him with terror and horror.
A little bamboo hut on the mountainside. It is evening and the family is gathered around the central fire which blazes up and throws a golden light into every cranny of the simple primitive dwelling. Grandparents, father, mother and several children all are concentrating their attention on the little five-year-old son, who is lying on the wooden bed screaming.
"You shouldn't have told him!" expostulates one of the adults. ""He is quite small yet. Too bad." (The speaker had no need to mention the death of their neighbour, whom the little boy had dearly loved. It was in all their thoughts.)
"Well, you can't keep it from him," retorts the oldest son.
"He's heard the villagers talking about her. And besides he ought not to continue to run to her house the way he does.
Her ghost" (in a lowered, fearful whisper) "might get him. She loved him so!"'
"Yes, yes," says another, turning pale. "We all have to face this sooner or later. But it was early to tell him that some day he'd be put in the grave. He's only five years——"
"I won't! I won't!"' shouts the child hysterically, sitting up and looking around. "You can die if you like; I'm not going to!"
"Who're you that can help it!"' sneers his big brother. "Everybody has to——"
"Shut up, will you?" snaps their mother savagely; then, turning to the child, she tried to put her arms around him.
"No, of course you won't, A-bi-rao; you——"
"You're a liar!"' screams the child. "They say all of us have to die," and again he goes off into hysterical wails.
This is a typical scene, and that little child is the hero of one of the following pages. He told me the essence of that childhood terror, and how the Lisu have no hope beyond the grave, saying that for years after that awful introduction to the fact of death
THE MUNITION OF ROCKS
he could not come upon a grave on the mountainside without getting cold all over.
Another young evangelist, in quite a different part of Lisuland, told me he was six years old when he first learned of death, and cried so hard and so long that he was ill for days. Sharp
Wind from a devilish height! The Wind may scare the nestlings, but it is nothing to the terror of looking over the side and seeing the gulf yawning beneath! And as for loved ones who must bury their dead—they sometimes weep themselves blind, and some go out of their mind. The Lisu have told me of such.
The wizard of the village may be asked to perform Ma-mu.
This is an incantation for calling up the dead. Animal sacrifices are offered; the wizard goes through his rites and becomes possessed. He says his soul is wandering up the canyon to the north, searching for the dead one. He will tell what he sees in his search; local places known to all, places farther north known but dimly. Then he will "find" the dead one. When that occurs, the dead man or woman's voice will come through the wizard's mouth and talk to the family. The voice is identical with that of the dead one and makes the relatives sob with excitement.
Sad reminiscences of past days or loving greetings to this one or that are accompanied with no word of peace as to the present state of the departed. When the incantation is over, no comfort has been obtained, grief and loss have been newly stirred up, and that is all that a Lisu wizard can achieve. After some years
(if I remember rightly) the dead man's spirit cannot be traced... he is "gone". No wonder a loving heart grieves itself blind or mad. And other hearts harden themselves. I heard a heathen mother tell of the death of a darling girl of twelve or thirteen.
"T was grieving myself ill, ss——"' She laughed lightly. "Forget her! Make an end of it!' She had hardened her heart and become so shallow that no call for pity or thoughtfulness could evoke a response in her.
"In time past .
. [ye] were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy"' (1 Pet. ii. 10).
The great heart of God yéarned over these lost ones, over these little nests hopelessly perched above the mouth of the B
NESTS ABOVE THE ABYSS
awful abyss, and now Lisuland has a Cleft in the Rock wherein to hide when the cruel Wind of Death blows by.
I remember a wooden chapel on a high mountainside. It was packed to the doors for an evening meeting. The speaker was the five-year-old boy mentioned above, now grown up and a wellknown evangelist among them. He was relating that story, and went on to tell of a later year when he heard Leila Cooke speak on "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
"As she explained that verse," he said, "suddenly the truth of it broke in on my understanding, and the fact of eternal life, a life after death, a hope beyond the grave, shone before me. I was thrilled through and through; faith and acceptance of the Saviour were born right then in my soul. It was that verse on the resurrection that brought me to Christ; and I have a feeling that I am not the only Lisu to become a believer because of this truth. All of you who were led to become Christians by the resurrection doctrine, hold up your hands!' And all over the building hands shot into the air and the glowing joy on their faces told its own story.
I have heard the wail of the heathen for their dead and my heart could hardly stand the hopelessness of their agony. But praise God for the refuge of the Cleft Rock, when the Wind of Death sweeps down from the Bitter Height.
One evening as I was viewing the lovely sunset from our front garden, a servant came around the corner of the house, and with a grave face said, ""Ma-Ma! Cha-fu-yi is dead. He was drowned in the ravine stream this morning. His parents are just carrying his body home on their backs now."
"Oh, no!" I cried out, for Cha-fu-yi was the darlingest Lisu youngster that I knew, and the pride of his parents. As I hurried up the hill to their house, memories of the wee fellow crowded in on me.
He was always so plucky. When he was very small he had taken sick and my husband was called upon to give him some bitter medicine; so of course, baby-like, he thereafter viewed the big White Man as an enemy who put nasty stuff in your mouth!
One day in playing he unconsciously wandered into our front
THE MUNITION OF ROCKS
IQ yard and, looking up, suddenly saw John standing on the house platform. Scared, he started to cry and retreat as fast as small legs could take him. John called out to him not to be afraid, but, thinking that was a subtle snare, the little lad was all the more upset. His daddy had taught him to protect himself from dogs by throwing rocks at them, so, as John again called out to him, he stooped down and picked up a big stone to guard himself from the White Monster. He looked so sweet, so baby-brave, the tears rolling down his small nose, the big stone tightly clutched in tiny fist, and the chubby legs trying to run fast in retreat.
Valiant-hearted to the last gasp—that was little Cha-fu-yi.
What could one say to comfort har eens at such a loss? As I ran toward their house, I prayed in my heart for words, but I had no need for them.
As I came up to the sad scene—the little six-year-old figure was laid out on a plank of wood, Daddy, Mummy, and neighbours all weeping—his father turned to me and said, "It's all right, Ma-Ma. If he had grown up he might have gone into sin." And then we talked of heaven and the joy of the reunion there.
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee.
The stories that succeed this are all of little nests, perched always over the mouth of the abyss, but with a Cleft Rock that follows them through all their storms.
Beautiful Feet Reach the Canyon How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion,
Thy God reigneth!
Isa. lii. 7.
AMMA! Mamma!" Cries of delightful terror brought small children running to their mothers to bury their heads on the familiar shelter of the blue apron, while one ear was kept free to hear the exciting talk of the older ones.
"Yes, truly, he is white-skinned! My husband told me—he is down there in Li-yi-gwey-pa's house, looking at the creature.
I'd love to go too, only I dare not! It must be a demon. Who else would have human shape, yet a white skin? And they say his eyes are not black, but the colour of the river and——"
"Then of course he's a demon! We all know the demons can - take human form. No, I wouldn't dare go either, and I'm so glad the children are afraid to go. Demons steal children," and the speaker embraces tightly the small, excited form buried in her apron.
"But they say he's awfully nice! Such a kind smile, and he talks Lisu and also speaks Chinese. He has other people with him too, that talk the same sort of funny Lisu and they are black-haired, black-eyed and olive-skinned like us. They say they are Flowery Lisu from down the tail of the canyon. That could be true; you know we are called Black Lisu and"
"Are we?" pipes up a young girl. "Why? We aren't an blacker than the Chinese."
; '
"Tt isn't our skins, daughter," speaks up an old granny con-