BOOK REVIEWS
173
and its raison d'être: why we find rows of burial urns placed on the hill-sides of the "Territories, and why more permanent omega-shaped graves are scattered rather than in neat burial grounds.
The individualism and competition of geomancy in relation to the ancestors is to some extent balanced in another aspect of ancestral care with which the author deals: ancestor worship itself. But even so, at every level of a complex lineage, it seems, segments may be in competition with each other in ancestor worship. Differences in social status and ambition are shown in the way the very ancestors are admitted to the ancestral halls (through their tablets) and in the performance of the grand rites for such lineage forbears.
Two other sections, again well illustrated by New Territories material, should be of particular interest to people here. One is on social status, power and government, and the other on relationships between lineages. We are told of the rivalries between powerful higher-order groups, with illustrations taken from the Tang and the Man groups which have a history of mastery of large parts of the county from which the New Territories were cut out. Most of us know of the Tang lineage in Hong Kong; if not by name, at least by one of its villages in Kam Tin — the walled village often visited by tourists to the Colony. The large Man community at San Tin, near the border, is also becoming popular with visitors.
The strength of such lineages was not only in their man and fire power, as the author says, but in the command also of economic resources and call on political influence through scholarly ties with the traditional bureaucracy. But smaller communities might also combine with other weaker groups to form more powerful organizations to stand up to high-order lineages. These groups are what the author calls "yeuk combinations". In Cantonese yeuk (*) popularly means a pact, but it appears the term might have deeper political associations — a question Freedman goes into. Several yeuk combinations existed here: one at Taipo, and others at Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Sha Tin. Some of the armed resistance to the British when they first arrived in the 'Territories was bound up with such complexes.
The author warns us that this book does not represent the end of the story. I would say, however, that his skill in drawing on
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Page 181
BOOK REVIEWS
173
and its raison d'être: why we find rows of burial urns placed on the hill-sides of the "Territories, and why more permanent omega- shaped graves are scattered rather than in neat burial grounds.
The individualism and competition of geomancy in relation to the ancestors is to some extent balanced in another aspect of ancestral care with which the author deals: ancestor worship itself. But even so, at every level of a complex lineage, it seems, segments may be in competition with each other in ancestor worship. Differences in social status and ambition are shown in the way the very ancestors are admitted to the ancestral halls (through their tablets) and in the performance of the grand rites for such lineage forbears.
Two other sections, again well illustrated by New Territories material, should be of particular interest to people here. One is on social status, power and government, and the other on relation- ships between lineages. We are told of the rivalries between powerful higher-order groups, with illustrations taken from the Tang and the Man groups which have a history of mastery of large parts of the county from which the New Territories were cut out. Most of us know of the Tang lineage in Hong Kong; if not by name, at least by one of its villages in Kam Tin the walled village often visited by tourists to the Colony. The large Man community at San Tin, near the border, is also becoming popular with visitors.
The strength of such lineages was not only in their man and fire power, as the author says, but in the command also of economic resources and call on political influence through scho- larly ties with the traditional bureaucracy. But smaller communi- ties might also combine with other weaker groups to form more powerful organizations to stand up to high-order lineages. These groups are what the author calls "yeuk combinations". In Can- tonese yeuk (*) popularly means a pact, but it appears the term might have deeper political associations — a question Freedman goes into. Several yeuk combinations existed here: one at Taipo, and others at Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Sha Tin. Some of the armed resistance to the British when they first arrived in the 'Territories was bound up with such complexes.
The author warns us that this book does not represent the end of the story. I would say, however, that his skill in drawing on
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