Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/854

 INDO-CHINA

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INDO-CHINA

before a line, presenting so many engineering difficul- ties, could be a financial success. The (iovernment of Laos is directed by a French administrator in the name of the king; six-thirteenths of the cost of admin- istration is borne by Cochin China, five-thirteenths by Annara-Tong-king, and two-thirteenths by Cambodia.

The Laotine is taller than the Annamite, and more graceful if less robust. His forehead is high and nar- row; his face long and oval, his complexion varies from }-ellow to brown. His eyes in general have the obliquity characteristic of so many of the Far Eastern races, his hair is straight and black, and he seldom wears moustache or beard. Light-hearted and indo- lent he limits his exertions to such as are indispensable at the moment, the fertile and inexhaustible soil of his smiling valleys making all serious struggle unneces- sary. The men work but sLx months of the year, during which they prepare the rice-fields, fish, hunt, or ply on the Great River their trim pirogues, guiding them with a careless skill through the most dangerous rapids. The remainder of the year is spent peacefully in the midst of their families, and all labour is hence- forth thrown exclusively on the women, without, however, lessening in any degree their imperturbable gaiety. In the Laotine home a word of anger, a dis- pute is unknown; the greatest misfortunes are ac- cepted in a spirit of quiet resignation, the outcome equally of the attractive disposition and the religious beliefs of the people. It is at Luang Prabang, the residence of the king and the French administrator, that Laotine life may be seen under the most favour- able conrlitions. Situated in the midst of lofty moun- tains clad with primeval forests, life in this town is one endless succession of promenades, choral entertain- ments in the cool of the evening, dances, theatres, regattas, etc. The old capital, Vien-tian, destroyed by the Siamese in 1828, is already overgrown with jungle. Apart from its historical associations it con- tains to-day nothing to attract the visitor save the remains of the palace and a pagoda, which for beauty of architecture and originality of ornamentation are still unrivalled in Laos. For the Catholic Vien-tian possesses a further interest as the scene of the first attempt to preach Christianity in the then extensive Kingtlom of Laos. The Portuguese Jesuit, (iiovanni Maria Leria, preached the Gospel here for five years, until, in consequence of the violent opposition of the bonzes, he was compelled to leave in December, 1647.

In Laos as in Annam, Buddhism, though its tenets have somewhat tinged popular beliefs, can no longer be regarded as the popular religion. Its philosophy, scarcely understood by a few of the bonzes and edu- cated laity, is a my.stery to the mass of the population. The Laotine of the present day is a nature-worshipper and a fatalist. Pha ya gnom phi ban, the great chief of the Plii-ba (or genii), watches over all beings on this earth, and each day sends his emissaries to distril)ute illness and death to men in accordance with the de- crees fixed from all eternity. With a curious disregard for consistency in his fatalism, the Laotine believes that these jihis, the immediate cause of all good and evil, are accessible to prayer. The supposed interven- tion of these occult powers is sufficient explanation for every natural phenomenon. If a native falls ill and ordinary medicines fail, the pliis are the cause and the sorcerer alone can save the invalid. The sorcerer consulted proceeds, after certain prescribed prayers, to half-bury an egg in a Ijowl of rice. Some additional grains are then let fall on the egg, and the even or odd number remaining thereon is conclusive proof of the presence or otherwise of the phi in the invalid's body. If present, the phi is questioned in the same man- ner as to his wishes. Is it the sacrifice of a buffalo or a pig that he ilesires? According to Laotine beliefs, spirits are everywhere and one must exercise the great- est care to preserve health and life. The Ngnuoc lies in wait for boatmen who fail to discharge their debt of

prayers and offerings; the Phi-pet and the Phi-loc infest the villages; the Phi-hucn can be prevented from entering the houses and insinuating themselves into the bodies of the owners only liy daily offerings of water and rice placed on the little altars built for the purpose near the huts. In Laos there are certain men —the Phi-pop — who are supposed to communicate with the demons and to have marvellous powers of making themselves invisible, introducing evil genii into the bodies of men to consume their vitals, etc. Once suspected of belonging to this class, a native is no longer tolerated in the village, but is banished to one of the numerous hamlets specially reserved for the Phi-pop and avoided liy all travellers. Although amulets are common in Laos, they are seldom worn on the person. The retailing of the teeth of a boar, horns of a stag, tiger-claws, and religious verses as amulets is an important perquisite of the bonzes.

(6) Kwang-ehau-wan. — According to the terms of the Franco-Chinese Convention of 10 April, 1898, China agreed to lease to France a bay on its southern coast, and granted to the latter country, among other concessions, the permission to build a railway — at present in course of construction — from Tong-king to Yun-nan. The group of little islands at the entrance to the bay were ceded to France in August, 1899, the total French territory ha\-ing now an area of about 200 square miles and a population of 180,000. The bay is situated near Hai-nan Strait about 2t)0 miles west- south-west of Hong-kong. It has two narrow, easily defended entrances, is about twenty miles in length, and is perfectly sheltered from storms. A large river empties itself into the bay, and on its bank stan<ls the town of Chek-hem, an important commercial centre with an extensive coast trade. The imports include cotton yarns, cottons, and opium; the principal ex- ports are earth-nuts, mats, sacks, and sails. As the possession of the bay includes the control of the pre- fectures of Lei-chau, Lien-chau, and Ka-chau, the whole peninsula of Lei-chau is under French influence.

Christi.vnity. — There are numerous references to Indo-China — the classical Chrij.se, i. e. the Golden Island, as it was at first esteemed, or the Golden Cher- sonese — in early Western literature. In his "An- tiquities of the Jews", Joscphus identifies it with the Ophir from which Solomon drew his stores of gold. Cosmas Indicopleustes, the Alexandrian monk, vis- ited it between 530 and 5.50, and was the first to spread clear ideas concerning the relative positions of it and other coimtries in the Far East. We owe much of our earliest information concerning the customs of the natives to Blessed Odoric of Porilone, a Franciscan who journeyed through the East between 1318 and 1330. But it was only after Vasco da Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 that regular communication betw'een the West and the Far East was made possible, and the work of evangelization coulil be begun in earnest.

The appearance of Christianity in Indo-China may fitly be dated from the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury, when it was preached by some Portuguese mis- sionaries. The early missions do not seem to have made much impression on the natives, owing perhaps to the great hatred of Europeans infused into the Easterns by the cruelties of the Portuguese filibusters, but on the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the early decades of the seventeenth century Christianity began at once to make rapid headway. Both in Cochin China and in Tong-king the Jesuits worked with in- credible zeal from 1618. Between 1627 and 1630 Fathers Alexander de Rhodes and Anton Marquez of the French Province converted over 6,000, including numerous bonzes, who, during the temporary expul- sion of the Jesuits dictated by fear of their wonderful success, kept alive the Faith. So rapidly did the Christian community increase that in 1659 the spir- itual administration of Tong-king and Cochin China