NOTES AND QUERIES
273
Yeuk Tau, Fan Ling (surname P'ang), and San Tin (surname Man) each held a share, and Tai Hang (Man) and Tai Po Tau (Tang) together held another share. Thus, in the New Alliance, but not in the Old, all the five major punti lineages of the northern and eastern New Territories were represented.
Included in the account books of the Old Alliance is a set of regulations, a translation with brief annotation of which we give below:
1. Management is to be rotated annually in the following order: first, Kam Tsin heung, Ping Kong heung, Ho Sheung heung, Yin Kong heung; second, the Liu surname of Sheung Shui; third, the Wan Shing T'ong of Sheung Shui; fourth, the Tang surname of Lung Shaan.
2. Each heung is to keep an account book. When it is its turn to take care of the affairs of the year, ten days before [the annual sacrifice] it should send invitations to the shan-sz of each and every heung, and there must be no delay. [The word heung is clearly not used consistently. In regulation 1, it is used in the sense of a single village. In this regulation, it is used for the groups of villages that together held a single share. We have also not used any English equivalent for the term shan-sz because of the controversy over the term. In an area with a strong tradition of scholarship such as Sheung Shui, a shan-sz before the abolition of the official examinations in 1905 would probably have been a man who possessed an official degree, won in the examination or purchased. It is conceivable, though, that the term was used less rigidly in villages that did not produce a degree-holder.]
3. Each heung must have contributed [a sum to be used as] capital, that is, ten dollars from each surname. [The text specifies that the money must have been contributed on a "previous day". This is probably a clumsy way of stating that only a contribution at the time of the foundation of the alliance constituted a share.]
4. To facilitate checking, the field names, rents, and mortgage prices of all plots of land mortgaged or purchased from the different surnames are to be recorded. The right for rent
NOTES AND QUERIES
273
Yeuk Tau, Fan Ling (surname P'aang), and San Tin (surname Man) each held a share, and Tai Hang (Man) and Tai Po Tau (Tang) together held another share. Thus, in the New Alliance, but not in the Old, all the five major punti lineages of the northern and eastern New Territories were represented.
Included in the account books of the Old Alliance is a set of regulations, a translation with brief annotation of which we give below:
M
1. Management is to be rotated annually in the following order first, Kam Tsin heung [ 1, Ping Kong heung, Ho Sheung heung, Yin Kong heung; second, the Liu surname of Sheung Shui; third, the Wan Shing T'ong of Sheung Shui; fourth, the Tang surname of Lung Shaan.
2. Each heung is to keep an account book. When it is its turn to take care of the affairs of the year, ten days before [the annual sacrifice] it should send invitations to the shan-sz [±] of each and every heung, and there must be no delay. [The word heung is clearly not used consistently. In regulation 1, it is used in the sense of a single village. In this regulation, it is used for the groups of villages that together held a single share. We have also not used any English equivalent for the term shan-sz because of the controversy over the term. In an area with a strong tradition of scholarship such as Sheung Shui, a shan-sz before the abolition of the official examinations in 1905 would probably have been a man who possessed an official degree, won in the examination or purchased. It is conceivable, though, that the term was used less rigidly in villages that did not produce a degree-holder.]
3. Each heung must have contributed [a sum to be used as] capital, that is, ten dollars from each surname. [The text specifies that the money must have been contributed on a "previous day". This is probably a clumsy way of stating that only a contribution at the time of the foundation of the alliance constituted a share.]
4. To facilitate checking, the field names, rents, and mortgage prices of all plots of land mortgaged or purchased from the different surnames are to be recorded. The right for rent
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