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30. Were they elders? In the situation found by the first British administrators I think we may distinguish four kinds of ‘leader', all of whom, at some time or other, might be labelled with the English word 'elder'. There were the gentry (shan sz) the titled scholars and their relatives, marked off definitely in their cultural and political status. They were of course few in number and distributed very unevenly among the villages. We come next to three groups to whom the term fu lo might be applied. There were village constables ('ti-pao') and the heads of such other official groupings as a particular magistrate might choose to recognise; these men forming the routine channel between state and people, were subject to the contempt of both and only in foreign eyes, and then only sporadically, might be seen to be such persons as merited the title of 'elder'.
31. When we turn to the next group we are in the realm of clan organisation. In the language of anthropologists, the clan was segmented. That is to say, the clan as a whole was socially and ritually a unit in respect of the main ancestral hall, but within it lesser units crystallised about more immediate ancestors in such a way that, in the most developed systems, there was a complex of lesser units nesting within greater, each unit being in principle defined in terms of an ancestral hall and its associated estate. (This is a big subject which hardly bears summary treatment; for all the qualifications which I should ideally have entered here I must refer the reader to my Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, London, 1958.) Every unit defined in the hierarchy from household at the bottom to the clan at the top was headed, in theory at least, by a man who came to his position by his seniority in generation and age. The clan-head was the oldest man in the most senior surviving generation. (He might not be the oldest man in the clan, for he might be younger than a member of a generation below him; and in such cases his generation seniority might be waived in favour of the older man). Similarly, in the primary segments (fong) into which the clan was divided, usually on the basis of descent from the several sons of the founder, the heads were the oldest men in the senior generation. And likewise in the lesser segments (also called fong). These were the elders of the clan.
32. But since they came to their position by the natural processes of biology and time, there was no safeguard against the accession
SOCIAL RESEARCH In the N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963
209
30. Were they elders? In the situation found by the first British administrators I think we may distinguish four kinds of ‘leader', all of whom, at some time or other, might be labelled with the English word 'elder'. There were the gentry (shan sz) the titled scholars and their relatives, marked off definitely in their cultural and political status. They were of course few in number and distributed very unevenly among the villages. We come next to three groups to whom the term fu lo might be applied. There were village con- stables ('ti-pao') and the heads of such other official groupings as a particular magistrate might choose to recognise; these men form- ing the routine channel between state and people, were subject to the contempt of both and only in foreign eyes, and then only sporadically, might be seen to be such persons as merited the title of 'elder'.
31. When we turn to the next group we are in the realm of clan organisation. In the language of anthropologists, the clan was segmented. That is to say, the clan as a whole was socially and ritually a unit in respect of the main ancestral hall, but within it lesser units crystallised about more immediate ancestors in such a way that, in the most developed systems, there was a complex of lesser units nesting within greater, each unit being in principle defined in terms of an ancestral hall and its associated estate. (This is a big subject which hardly bears summary treatment; for all the qualifications which I should ideally have entered here I must refer the reader to my Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, London, 1958.) Every unit defined in the hierarchy from household at the bottom to the clan at the top was headed, in theory at least, by a man who came to his position by his seniority in generation and age. The clan-head was the oldest man in the most senior surviving generation. (He might not be the oldest man in the clan, for he might be younger than a member of a generation below him; and in such cases his generation seniority might be waived in favour of the older man). Similarly, in the primary segments (fong) into which the clan was divided, usually on the basis of descent from the several sons of the founder, the heads were the oldest men in the senior generation. And likewise in the lesser segments (also called fong). These were the elders of the clan.
32. But since they came to their position by the natural processes of biology and time, there was no safeguard against the accession
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