HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH
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about the customs of Southern peoples published during our era. Another point worth mentioning is the resemblance between the dragon boat and boats in scenes of everyday life depicted on bronze drums found in Tonkin. These drums were made by the natives under the tuition of their Chinese masters. One of them shows the picture of a long thin boat with a dragon's head being paddled by its crew with a drum in the middle.
Another possible survival of Indonesian culture might be seen in the matshed dwelling in our region. It is unnecessary to build matsheds in a place where typhoons occur so frequently and where there is an abundance of stone, and the explanation can only be given that matshed dwellers have no tradition of building in stone. The Indonesians are invariably matshed dwellers, they do not even use stone walls as protection. In many places they build houses on stilts. This however may be an independent custom on either side, although it should be noted that among some peoples of Indo-China there are identical huts on stilts akin to those of the Tanka and of the water population in the West river regions.
Again remembering the phenomenon that one religion can take on the divinities of another, we cannot ignore the possibility that the Tanka worship of Tin Hau (A1⁄2, i.e., the Heavenly Queen) their principal saint is an adaptation of an earlier aboriginal goddess. The original Tin Hau lived in Fukien and kept a lighthouse to guide sailors to port. She was officially canonised by the Chinese Board of Rites at the request of local officials but there was a much earlier goddess known among the Indonesians who could avert storms or drought. Temples to her existed in the Tonkin delta at the beginning of our era. It is not likely that the Tanka adopted the enthusiastic worship of such a late personage as Tin Hau without some tradition behind it.
However we can never be certain that the Tanka are of Indonesian stock. Whether or not the Indonesians have left descendants, it is certain that they were the founders of maritime commerce in the Far East. Using perhaps canoes and coasting in such stages as for instance from Swabue to Lamma Island,
8 續齊諧記 and 越地記, both Han dynasty books.
9 V. Goloubew-Le Peuple de Dong-Son. (Hanoi.)