BOOK REVIEWS
183
In making the attempt to study the area, Mr. da Silva has performed a most valuable service. He has brought to the task special talents not often found in combination; local birth, knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, a geographer's training, interest in ethnography, and a sympathetic and discerning eye.
The book has five chapters, entitled: Chapter I-General Background; Chapter II--Historical Background; Chapter III-Ecological Adaptation and Livelihood; Chapter IV-The Ecology of Padi Cultivation; and Chapter V-Traditional Land Tenure. Of these the three dealing with ecology are the most valuable. Chapter III, in particular, gives a fully integrated account of the traditional means of livelihood in a coastal village area that is not available in any other work, to which he adds a description of the various influences at work on local minds, emphasising how they combine to form a unified cosmological whole (pp. 63-64). This unity of conception is the predominant feature of the local rural scene, and one that imposes itself very strongly on the consciousness of the long-term observer. Chapter IV, which deals with the farming and fishing calendars and describes the sequence and ecological importance of rice cultivation is another valuable contribution to knowledge of the local scene, of a kind and to a degree that, so far as I am aware, has not yet been supplied. In short, these chapters help to repair a deficiency noted by Reischauer and Fairbank, the reconstruction 'with verisimilitude' of 'the daily life of the average Chinese villager in the pre-modern centuries.' (p. 383, Vol. 1 of East Asia, The Great Tradition, Harvard, 1958).
The third section of the Chapter on Traditional Land Tenure contains some new and interesting information on land measurement and land classification but the rest is rather sketchy and inadequate on what is a notoriously complicated and difficult subject. The historical chapter is too broad to be effective and Mr. da Silva's knowledge of the island from this viewpoint does not match the superior quality of the other sections. He is misleading on family connections, e.g. pp. 28 and 32, whilst the maps and charts before p. 20 and at p. 35 are not as comprehensive as they could be made to be. The unevenness of the information acquired, and the lack of balance between the ethno-botanical treatment and the historical aspects, mar an otherwise very interesting, stimulating, and informative book.