THE FIVE GREAT CLANS
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sibility of the watch to compensate the owner, so that they acted as a rudimentary form of insurance, as well as guards. They also acted as fire-watchers and firemen. One further advantage was that in this way there was always a small body of men under arms in case of attack from bandits or other clans.
Men who were apprehended by the watch were taken before the village leaders for trial and judgement. Punishment frequently took the form of a beating, the criminal having a sack tied over his head to prevent his seeing who administered it. At the same time restitution of goods stolen, or a cash equivalent, had to be made. The system still survives, performing the same functions, though the watch no longer have to deal with bandits. Nowadays offenders caught would probably be handed over to the police, though a lineage member might well be subjected to the informal justice of his own lineage leaders in preference to this. Certainly it is not unknown for the lineages still to execute their own forms of punishment on wrong-doers. The chief advantages of the watch-system from the villagers' point of view are that both thieves and the police are kept away.86
One of the marks of a wealthy family, in this part of China at least, was the ability to buy and maintain outsiders in a position of servitude. Sai Man87 or Ha Fu, as these servile families were called, were to be found in each of the villages of the five clans, while other smaller lineages of the area do not appear to have possessed them — a further mark of the superior wealth and status of the five. Under this system of servitude, a male would be bought from his family and raised as a servant in the house of the purchaser. In due course he would be married at the owner's expense and provided with a house to live in and fields to till. He paid no rent, nor did he give up any proportion of his harvests; in theory, all he was required to do was to work for his owner on special occasions such as weddings and feasts, and to help at lineage ceremonies. In practice he was at the beck and call of all the lineage to do any task they set him. He was a servant for life, as were his wife and his descendants. In return for a guaranteed income and house he forfeited his freedom and submitted to a position of degradation throughout his life. Financially better off than the poorer members of the master lineage, he was socially way below them. Sai Man were not taken from