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peoples. They too are an ancient population living on the seaboard without any trace of their earlier habitat. But as we have seen in the first chapter they have been so overwhelmed by the force of Chinese culture that not a trace remains of their original customs. However it is proposed to show that some aspects of their life might suggest a connection with the "Indonesians", however far fetched the theory may be,
The Tanka boats must be of recent design, and they were probably evolved as a result of contact with foreign peoples, even as late as the Portuguese. The eyes painted on the prows of Hoklo boats may also point to earlier contacts, although it is possible that this custom evolved quite independently. What seems more likely to be the survival of an earlier boat is the “dragon boat” or huge canoe used by the Tanka, Punti and Hoklo in their yearly festival.
This festival occurs on the 5th of the 5th month when the 'dragon' constellation is highest in the sky and celebrates the death of a poet Chü Yûan who drowned himself in a river in Hunan because his King would not take his advice. But it is difficult to understand the connection between the poet and the rather war-like parade of boats accompanied by the beating of a drum and throwing of rice into the waters. In fact, the festival appears more likely to be an annual sacrifice to a fishing god, or in places where rice culture depends upon irrigation caused by floods, to an agricultural god. Its distribution (in connection with the Chü Yuan legend) is confined to South China and to Szechuan. In Fukien, besides the poet a famous general is sometimes commemorated. Remembering the tendency of all religions to adapt new gods to old customs, we may be justified in discounting Chü Yuan from the festival's origin,
The regatta is formed by a number of very long canoes paddled to the rhythm of a drum beaten in the middle of the boat by some forty to eighty half naked men. It is unlike any other Chinese feast and the canoe and style of paddling are more reminiscent of Polynesian methods than of Chinese. Similar regattas exist all over the Indonesian regions; in Pnom-penh, for instance, it is almost identical (see accompanying illustrations),* and the first mention of the feast in Chinese literature occurs in books written
* Plates 17-18.