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L. G. AIMER
emigrants who had left the Colony. The masons in Grass Field Village, who had their village within a day's journey, naturally had a word in all village affairs; but the Big Stream men working in Vancouver or on Aruba in the West Indies had a very limited influence on decisions made in the home community.
VI
Traditional leadership in these Hakka villages was gerontocratic in nature. There were no formal isu (M) or fang (M) leaders. An informal council of old men met occasionally in the ancestral hall to discuss current problems. These persons' influence was directly correlated to the distribution of economic control within the community. As long as this differentiation was small, all elders would have had fairly equal status. Age differentiation within the group does not seem to have been of vital importance.
The process of emigration created new economic groups. In Big Stream Village, where emigration abroad early dominated the scene, the informal council of village elders is made up of four former overseas Chinese. Two of them have worked in the United States, one in Canada, and one on Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies. The last-mentioned man has quite a good house and has apparently had some resources, but he is in poor health, struck by rheumatism, a fact he ascribes to excessive use of alcohol in his younger days. His sight is bad and is hardly improved by the smashed pair of spectacles on his nose. This 76-year-old man said that he was 'willing to accept anything, whatever it is and whenever it comes.' He has no children. His influence on village affairs is apparently very limited. It seems as if he is taking part in the village council meetings merely to represent the first minor lineage, even if I was never able to confirm a strict rule that all fang (M) should be represented there.
Of the other three leaders, two are men who have spent much time in New York in the United States, and one who has been working in Vancouver, Canada. One of the New York men is Village Representative and the official spokesman with the British administrative authorities. He is 73 years old and a