ok, i know that hmong daw and hmong leng got this tradition from the tai/daic people, but my question is where specifically? ball tossing is a major new year's tradition for hmong daw/leng, but is conspicuously missing from the other groups. so im thinking, if we can nail down a hmong group in china that does ball tossing during the new year, we can nail down a pretty close geographic area of where our great great grandparents started their migration into southeast asia. even if we can find a group of tai/daic people who does ball tossing living around hmong people, it would help. what's puzzling is that hmong guizhou and hmong guangxi live around a lot of tai/daic people, dongs and zhuangs being the biggest groups, yet they don't do ball tossing during the new years. going by language, hmong daw and hmong leng can identify with hmong yunnan and specifically hmong wenshan; however, that's just the largest concentration. hmong people who speak hmong daw/leng can be found in pockets all over yunnan, guizhou, guangxi and even sichuan, making it a pretty messy picture. so anyone have an idea of where we picked up the new year's ball tossing tradition?

the o.g stated that "ball tossing" was adopted from the "Ncua."

Zhuang are the only people I know that ball toss and are Tai speakers. hint: Wenshan Miao and Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Zhuang

i think that we probably got it from chijmna or vietnam from tai or zhuang people i saw on a vid which showed zhuang girls throwing a wrapped peice of fabric thing. the black tai also does it to
2:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pw4iSBUKJk...8AA0A7BC4AFF164

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

yea thanks for the info. i guess it never occured to me that it was the 'miao and zhuang' autonomous region of wenshan. yea i think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that it was from this region our papi's migration started. tho i think they may have gotten the idea from here, like txoomsuab2 said, they probably didn't actually practice it till they were in vietnam cause none of the hmong wenshan do ball tossing during the new years. 'ncua' is pretty close to how zhuang is pronounced.

no problem. my theory--- some Zhuang assimilated into the Hmong culture carrying ball tossing game into the Hmong culture.
Zhuang people adopted Hmong clothing and etc..... it's not a surprised. The Zhuang are known as "Mab" as well. That's what the Hmong from Wenshan called them.

but Ncua, I believe Ncua => Zhuang.... there are lots of Zhuang living in Northern Vietnam as well. Since, the word "Ncua" is used by the Hmong of southeast Asia, it probably refers to the Nung (Zhuang) of Northern Vietnam.