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so strict is caste rule, that marriage within the clan or outside of the noble caste is absolutely forbidden and may be punished by death or banishment.
Commoners are of several varieties. Bondsmen are born in serfdom and have to give service to their nobles all of their lives. Although they are not slaves, failure to fulfil feudal obligations make them liable to enslavement. Since they are not Black-bone Yi, the commoners are permitted to marry outsiders, even though the commoners regard themselves as Yi people. Their original Yi blood, therefore, has been very much thinned through inter-mixture with enslaved Han and with other non-Han peoples. A bondsman may become rich and substitute the labour of others for his obligations to the noble lord, but he may not refuse to bear arms when called to do so by his lord. If a bondsman dies without a son, all of his property goes to his master.
Aside from this system of bondsmen and noble lord, there existed concurrently a system of slavery among the Yi. These were in two categories: (1) the so-called "separate-slaves" lived an uncertain state of matrimony as matched by their owners, but resided in their own households working some land provided by the noble. A small part of their time is allowed for the cultivation of their own plots after they have cultivated the plots of their owners. (2) The children of these "separate-slaves" become household slaves, entering the master's house at the age of five or six when they can perform simple tasks. House-slaves are divided up among the owner's own sons and daughters of the same generation when these marry. The male and female slaves are paired off as "separate-slaves" by their new masters, and the cycle begins again.
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It appears that what are separate-slaves may themselves acquire slaves when they manage to accumulate enough wealth. It would seem, thus, that slaves must possess some rights allowed them by their masters. Even the slaves of slaves may possess slaves. Moreover, although having the bonds of slavery, some slaves may become richer than many bondsmen or even than some nobles. The forcible abolition of the system where the Communists had gained control was not without problems. Slaves regarded the cadres as new masters who were supposed to feed them and give them their orders; otherwise they did nothing. Many slaves also regarded freedom as the right to be idle, which
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