Miao (Hmong)

(map)

After people had lived on the earth for 9,000 years, two brothers noticed that someone was coming at night and undoing everything they had done in the field in the day. They laid in wait and saw an old man filling their furrows. The elder brother wanted to kill him, but the younger brother said they should first question him for his reason. The old man said their work was futile because a flood would soon come. The brothers realized the man was the Lord of the Sky and asked him what they should do. He told the elder, violent-tempered brother to build an iron boat and the younger brother to build a wooden boat and to take his sister, males and females of each animal species, and two seeds of each species of plant. In the seventh month rain fell for four days and nights. The iron boat sank, but the wooden boat floated up to the sky. Seeing the earth flooded, the Lord of the Sky sent a dragon in the shape of a rainbow to dry it. The brother wanted to marry his sister, but she resisted. But after various tests proved it was the will of the Lord of the Sky, they married. Their child had no head or limbs. Thinking it was an egg, they cut it open. It contained no child, but the pieces became people when they fell to earth. By cutting it into the smallest possible pieces, they created innumerable children and repopulated the earth.

Geddes, William Robert. Migrants of the Mountains: The cultural ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 22-23.

Two brothers plowed their field daily, but Ye Seo came at night and turned the soil back. The brothers watched and caught the old man. The other brother wanted to beat him, but the younger brother said, "Let us ask why he is doing it." The old man said that they should stop farming because a deluge was coming. "The older brother is not a good speaker. Let him make an iron barrel. The younger brother speaks well. Let him go and make a wooden barrel." When the flood came, the older brother sank in the iron barrel, but the younger brother, with his sister, floated. Ye Seo took the wooden drum into the sky. With a four-pronged weapon, he dug deep pits in the ground into which the water receded. Ye Seo sent the brother and sister to earth and wrote their names in a book. The sister was unwilling to marry her brother, but after various tests, they became convinced that it was the will of heaven, and they married. The next morning the wife gave birth to a son like a piece of wood. They cut it into pieces from which people arose.

Geddes, William Robert. Migrants of the Mountains: The cultural ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 23.

Joser (Ye Seo), the Spirit of the Sky, sent two spirits to warn the people of a coming flood. Some people weeding their fields found the weeds back the next morning. They watched and caught the two spirits. One man wanted to shoot them, but his companion wanted to ask the spirits why they were replanting the weeds. The spirits told them that a flood was coming and they should be preparing drums instead of farming. Only one man took their advice. When the flood came, he put his two children, a brother and sister, in the drum, and they floated up to the sky. Joser heard them beating on the inside of their drum and saw that the earth was flooded. With a long stick he punched holes into the earth to drain the water. This is why the earth's surface is uneven. When the children landed, Joser asked which was the older and learned it was the brother. He told the two to marry, as there were no other people on earth. The girl gave birth to a baby with no limbs or head. The couple complained to Joser, who told them to cut the baby into many pieces and throw them in every direction. Each piece gave rise to a different people.

Geddes, William Robert. Migrants of the Mountains: The cultural ecology of the Blue Miao (Hmong Njua) of Thailand (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 23-24.

Long ago, the whole universe turned upside down, and the whole world was flooded. All living beings perished except one brother and his sister, who took refuge in a large wooden funeral drum. The drum rose and bumped against the sky. Heaven heard it and sent sky people to observe. They used copper lances and iron spears to pierce holes in the land, and the water drained away. The brother and sister heard the drum land and emerged to find no other living beings. The brother wanted to marry his sister, but she resisted. She proposed, as a test, that they roll rocks down opposite slopes of a mountain. If they were found together at the summit the next day, she would marry him. The brother got up during the night and carried the two stones to the top of the mountain. The sister saw them together the next morning and concluded that they could be married. Later, they gave birth to a child like a round, smooth stone. They cut the egg-like creature into little pieces and threw them in different directions. Two pieces that landed on the goat house became the Lee clan. Two that fell in the pig pen became clan Moua. Two that landed in the garden became the clans Vang and Yang. Thus arose all the Hmong clans. The bizarre child also produced chickens, pigs, oxen, insects, birds, and all other living things.

Johnson, Charles and Se Yang. Dab Neeg Hmoob / Myths, Legends and Folk Tales from the Hmong of Laos (St. Paul, Minnesota, Linguistics Department, Macalester College, 1992), 115-117.