According to the French missionary, Paul Vial (Les Lolos, Shang-hai, 1898) the Lolos say that they come from the country situated between Tibet and Burma.  The proper manner to address a Lolo in Chinese is Lao-pen-kia.  The book of Father Vial contains a very valuable chapter on the writing of the Lolos.  Mr. F.S.A.  Bourne writes (Report, China, No.  I. 1888, p. 88):—­“The old Chinese name for this race was ’Ts’uan Man’—­ ‘Ts’uan barbarians,’ a name taken from one of their chiefs.  The Yun-nan Topography says:—­’The name of “Ts’uan Man” is a very ancient one, and originally the tribes of Ts’uan were very numerous.  There was that called “Lu-lu Man,” for instance, now improperly called “Lo-Lo."’ These people call themselves ‘Nersu,’ and the vocabularies show that they stretch in scattered communities as far as Ssu-mao and along the whole southern border of Yun-nan.  It appears from the Topography that they are found also on the Burmese border.”

The Moso call themselves Nashi and are called Djiung by the Tibetans; their ancient capital is Li-kiang fu which was taken by their chief Meng-ts’u under the Sung Dynasty; the Mongols made of their country the kingdom of Chaghan-djang.  Li-kiang is the territory of Yue-si Chao, called also Mo-sie (Moso), one of the six Chao of Nan-Chao.  The Moso of Li-kiang call themselves Ho.  They have an epic styled Djiung-Ling (Moso Division) recounting the invasion of part of Tibet by the Moso.  The Moso were submitted during the 8th century, by the King of Nan-Chao.  They have a special hieroglyphic scrip, a specimen of which has been given by Deveria. (Frontiere, p. 166.) A manuscript was secured by Captain Gill, on the frontier east of Li-t’ang, and presented by him to the British Museum (Add SS.  Or. 2162); T. de Lacouperie gave a facsimile of it.  (Plates I., II. of Beginnings of Writing.) Prince Henri d’Orleans and M. Bonin both brought home a Moso manuscript with a Chinese explanation.

Dr. Anderson (Exped. to Yunnan, Calcutta, p. 136) says the Li-sus, or Lissaus are “a small hill-people, with fair, round, flat faces, high cheek bones, and some little obliquity of the eye.”  These Li-su or Li-sie, are scattered throughout the Yunnanese prefectures of Yao-ngan, Li-kiang, Ta-li and Yung-ch’ang; they were already in Yun-Nan in the 4th century when the Chinese general Ch’u Chouang-kiao entered the country. (Deveria, Front., p. 164.)

The Pa-y or P’o-y formed under the Han Dynasty the principality of P’o-tsiu and under the T’ang Dynasty the tribes of Pu-hiung and of Si-ngo, which were among the thirty-seven tribes dependent on the ancient state of Nan-Chao and occupied the territory of the sub-prefectures of Kiang-Chuen (Ch’eng-kiang fu) and of Si-ngo (Lin-ngan fu).  They submitted to China at the beginning of the Yuen Dynasty; their country bordered upon Burma (Mien-tien)