CO129-381 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [11-12] — Page 297

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Enclosure 2.

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Notes by Mr. S. B. C. Ross.

Rice

I

AN 12

I have taken two villages at random, one Yun Tun

Ha which is a typical Hakka pure village, that is there is only one surname in the village. The other is a Hakka mixed village and has 8 surnames. A market is so mixed that it is impossible to trace how the

various surnames came in but in a village like Sheung Wun Yiu each family can be traced. I send you the tables I have drawn up as I think they will shew what an invaluable record the Census will be when

completed.

Population tables. In the two villages which have a combined popula-

-tion of 208 there are no less than 22 persons over 61 years of age. Th

The oldest person in these two villages is 88 but throughout the Territory I have been struck by the large number of aged persons. At Ta Tit Yan for instance there are three brothers all hale and hearty whose ages are 92, 87, and 70. The old man mentioned above aged 88 has twin sons aged 50. My enumerator Ah Lun reported this to me as a specially curious circumstance, he was not surprised that they were twins but that they had succeeded in remaining the same age "strange"

he said they are still the same age both exactly 50".

Marriage table. I had never realised before that Chinese villages

contain no unmarried women over twenty. No one ever has the society of a grown up sister or female cousin. In the two villages there is only one unmarried girl over 20. She is 21 and is betrothed.

In the same way with the men few are unmarried

after 20. In Sheung Wun Yiu there are three men over 21 unmarried but they are very poor and work at the potteries. While the one man over

31 unmarried is dumb and also slightly idiotic.

I have often heard it stated by Puntis that they thes

do not allow the women to marry Hakkas. This the Census shews to be

merely Punti swagger. There are four cases in the two villages and I

nave noticed countless others.

A note at the bottom of the Larriage Table Sheung

Wun Yiu comments on an instance of Hakka child marriage. This customs it