While conducting dialect surveys in China during the 1930s, IHP researchers, beyond making audio recordings of speakers in their local dialect, recorded local stories, legends, and other anecdotes. The Archives have preserved one such story discovered in 1934 from a stele inscription in She County, Anhui.
The story is as follows: After returning home, the husband of Madama Huang did not encounter his wife before once again departing. To inform her, he entrusted an oral message with a grasscutter. The grasscutter, however, failed to pass the message to Madame Huang after forgetting the matter, which led to her being suspected and accused of murdering her husband by others in the community. Confessing under torture, Madame Huang was then executed by lingchi (death of a thousand cuts). Her unjust death was later believed to have caused a great drought, and in response, local authorities had to offer yearly sacrifices to Madame Huang. Zhou Yun, an instructor at the Huizhou prefectural academy, and several friends raised funds to erect a stele which includes the following inscription: “This is an admonishment to those who forsake their families for benefit, an admonishment to those who mislead others via correspondence, and an admonishment to those who incite disasters by torturing and killing the innocent.”