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to the common ancestor. Or it may be that several individuals will tacitly be recognized as the responsible leaders.
Associated with the ancestral temple is a clan council which serves in an executive capacity. The number of members in this council may be fixed, as reported by Leong, or it may include all the Chia-chang. If the size of the council is fixed, the positions may be filled by popular agreement amounting to election, or in rotation by the various Chia-chang.
III
The administrative and judicial affairs of the clan are managed by the officers of the ancestral temple. Most clans, through this temple, possess an estate, either in the form of productive farm lands set aside by former clan members, or as a revolving fund raised at some time by popular subscription. This estate the clan council has the duty of administering for the profit of the clan. As an added incentive they will often be granted a larger share of the yearly income from the estate. Regular and necessary expenses to be met from this fund are for the upkeep of the ancestral temple, the care of the graves, and the periodic ceremonies of worship, with their attendant feasts and theatricals.
Charities also come under the jurisdiction of the clan leaders, for poor relief has been in the main a traditional familist concern in China. Poverty is commonplace, and in many areas it is very intense. The care of the poorer members of the clan, and of widows, children and aged who have no other means of support, must be attended to by the council of leaders. Rewards in the form of annual grants are often given to the scholars of the clan. To families
1 Leong, Y. K. and Tao, L. K.; Village and Town Life in China, p. 28. 2 Tsu, Yu-Yue; The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy, p. 79, ff. gives an extended account of the history and administration of one such clan estate founded in 1064 A.D., reporting particulars of the rules and procedure of administration. These are quite complicated. Clan estates are sometimes quite large: Tang, Chi Yu; An Economic Study of Chinese Agriculture, p. 236, gives an example of six villages in Swatow, Kuangtung, a province where clans are strong. In these six villages totaling 5000 people, 5325 mao of land were owned by the different clans in perpetuity.
* Taylor, J. B.; The Study of Chinese Rural Economy, p. 43, figures that in the Kiangsu villages surveyed half the population, and in the Chihli (Hopei) villages over eighty percent are below the poverty line. It is Mallory's belief, however, that the abject poverty of the masses is a recent thing, living conditions having seldom if ever been so hard as now. Mallory, Walter H.; China: Land of Famine, p. 107.