HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH
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V. THE TANG16 FAMILY
The task of opening the larger valleys to cultivation was not undertaken on a scale until the Sung dynasty (960 to 1278). Until that time there may have been cultivation by the garrisons, by Chinese peasants or by the Yao tribes which are believed to have lived in the region, but there is no record of any land tenure until the eleventh century when a new peasant immigration occurred which marks a revolution in the history of this region.
The immigration was by Chinese of a northern type who brought with them a particularly strong tradition which has lasted until this day. The first to arrive were a family surnamed Tang who are at the present time the largest landowners and it is they whom we must consider the founders of the Punti population.
The Tang genealogy shows that they are descended from a general of the later Han dynasty whose home was in Honan. His descendants came south into Hunan in the sixth century A.D. and at the beginning of the 10th century they appear in Kiangsi. Their migration into Kwangtung is therefore along much the same route as the later Hakka population took.
Hence it becomes clear why the Punti and Hakka populations, in spite of differences in language and a wide gap in time between their arrivals in the region, have such identical customs, architecture and outward appearance. They are both of the same Northern Chinese stock and belong to successive waves of migration which followed the same route. The Punti who arrived earlier, when the differences between their own dialect and Cantonese were less marked, took over or modified for their own use the Cantonese dialect. Their long sojourn in the south with probable inter-marriage may have altered their features to some extent, and either on the route of migration or in the region itself, they adopted the dragon boat festival. These are the only differences between them and the later Hakka population.
The migration of the Tang family was probably due to the pressure that was being exerted throughout the course of the Sung dynasty by the Tartar invaders. Whilst it was continuing and
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