EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY
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tinuum of generations. The Hakka concept of major lineage is intimately connected with a process of fission and resettlement; it seems impossible that one particular, geographically distinct, settlement could contain more than one tsu (M) or major lineage of the same clan. Minor lineages — fang (M), tracing descent to the different sons or grandsons of the first village founder, are always present and tend to live in hamlets separate in space, but close enough to form together a distinct compound settlement. If a fraction wished to manifest itself as a segment within the localized group by way of establishing a new ancestral hall, it remained part of the existing system, and became merely an addendum to a series of lower order segments already in being.
This kind of segmentation, the result of accumulation of wealth and status, does not appear to have been frequent in Hakka society. In none of the three villages studied has ramification of ancestral halls occurred below the minor lineage level. This might be correlated with the small amount of social and economic differentiation pertaining to the small-sized hill settlements in 'traditional' times.20
Another factor may be of importance in this connection. As far as my experience allows me to generalize, Hakka ancestor ceremonialism differs from that of the Punti population in the arrangement of the ancestral halls. The Hakka do not have individual tablets symbolizing particular dead persons, but they have one tablet for the collective unit of dead ancestors in the centre of the table for ritual paraphernalia. All ancestral halls in the valley have been rebuilt after the war, and on a smaller scale than before. A look at the District Demarcation Maps, drawn soon after the British takeover in 1899, seems to reveal that in Big Stream Village and Plum Grove Village, where segmented ancestral halls on minor lineage basis could be found, the different units were erected side by side, thus probably expressing the unit of higher order.21 Ancestral ceremonialism, expressing unit, thus seems to have been instrumental in a process of fusion, discouraging segmentation within the existing structural framework.
Segmentation implying an expansion beyond the limits of the localized settlement, requires some consideration. Freedman, in scrutinizing social conditions in the provinces of Kwangtung and
EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY
57
tinuum of generations. The Hakka concept of major lineage is intimately connected with a process of fission and resettlement; it seems impossible that one particular, geographically distinct, settlement could contain more than one tsu (M) or major lineage of the same clan, Minor lineages — fang (M), tracing descent to the different sons or grandsons of the first village founder, are always present and tend to live in hamlets separate in space, but close enough to form together a distinct compound settlement. If a fraction wished to manifest itself as a segment within the localized group by way of establishing a new ancestral hall, it remained part of the existing system, and became merely an addendum to a series of lower order segments already in being.
This kind of segmentation, the result of accumulation of wealth and status, does not appear to have been frequent in Hakka society. In none of the three villages studied has ramification of ancestral halls occurred below the minor lineage level. This might be correlated with the small amount of social and economic differentiation pertaining to the small-sized hill settlements in 'traditional' times.20
Another factor may be of importance in this connection. As far as my experience allows me to generalize, Hakka ancestor ceremonialism differs from that of the Punti population in the arrangement of the ancestral halls. The Hakka do not have individual tablets symbolizing particular dead persons, but they have one tablet for the collective unit of dead ancestors in the centre of the table for ritual paraphernalia. All ancestral halls in the valley have been rebuilt after the war, and on a smaller scale than before. A look at the District Demarcation Maps, drawn soon after the British takeover in 1899, seems to reveal that in Big Stream Village and Plum Grove Village, where segmented ancestral halls on minor lineage basis could be found, the different units were erected side by side, thus probably ex- pressing the unit of higher order.21 Ancestral ceremonialism, expressing unit, thus seems to have been instrumental in a process of fusion, discouraging segmentation within the existing structural framework.
Segmentation implying an expansion beyond the limits of the localized settlement, requires some consideration. Freedman, in scrutinizing social conditions in the provinces of Kwangtung and
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