RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 52 K. M. A. BARNETT (which would be amusing if it did not add so much to the difficulty of gathering information) where a district representative at a public function used in his speech a name for a certain mountain and ten minutes later, in conversation, denied ever having heard the name. For many years, while I was still adding to my field notes on the subject, I refrained from naming in any published material the villages where I found positive evidence of the former cult of Pan-ku. But now that I have applied the test to every village I do not think that future workers will be seriously hampered if I now disclose the result. The test is positive, on this score, for only three out of nearly a thousand villages. They are the sub-village of Tsau Uk160 on Ping Chau Islandt09 in Mirs Bay,41 where the stone associated with Pan-ku is in a small grove of trees immediately east of the village; the village of Pak Mong5 on the north shore of Lantao Island, where it is behind the village on the southwest side, but I could not get my informer to take me to the actual place; and in the village of Nam Shan Tung97 on the north side of the Saikung126 peninsula, where the grove is said to have been behind the present village of Pak Sha O,7 half a mile down the hill to the northeast. If to these three villages we add the villages still identified by the name of yonge we have positive identification for a little over 1%. Identification by the word kan53 is inconclusive, as the word has been borrowed into both the local Cantonese and the local Hakka dialects, but the abandoned village of Shek Shui Kan129 in the Sha Tau Kok114 peninsula, from what I might call its "anti-fung-shui" location seems unlikely to have been a Chinese site. Another word which is definitely identified by Chinese books of reference as having connexion with the Yao is che.19 Though a recent change in Cantonese pronunciation has now obscured the fact, this word was unique in both local dialects and therefore was evidently taken into Cantonese and Hakka without substantial alteration, and was also given a character of its own, which is not to be found in the Kanghsi Dictionary150 but is to be found in the Tzu Yuan24 and Tzu Hai,25 where the meaning assigned is hill-land cultivated in the manner I have described. Hill paddy is also known to Chinese agriculturalists by the name of che10,21. Locally however the word che has been given a new meaning, being used by all our farmers to mean that type of terraced land ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 30 SIR JOHN BOWRING poor in their declining years. Age may also be pleaded in ex-tenuation of crime, and in mitigation of punishment. Imperial decrees sometimes order presents to be given to all indigent old people in the empire. I am not aware of any detailed statistics giving the number of such recipients since a return published in the time of Kanghi (1657). Kienlung (1785) directed that all those claimants whose age exceeded 60, should receive 5 bushels of rice and a piece of linen; those above 80, 10 bushels of rice and two pieces of linen; those above 90, 30 bushels of rice and two pieces of common silk; and those above 100, 50 bushels of rice, and two pieces, one of fine and one of common silk. He ordered all the elders to be enumerated who were at the head of five generations, of whom there were 192, and, "in gratitude to heaven," summoned 3,000 of the oldest men of the empire to receive Imperial presents, which consisted principally of em-broidered purses, and badges bearing the character # shau, meaning Longevity. The Kanghi Tables, shewing the numbers who enjoyed the benefit of the Edict are these: PROVINCES Above 70 Years Above 80 Years Above 90 Years Above 100 Years TOTALS Chihle 11,111 535 11 646 Leaoutung 244 88 5 337 Kansuh 41,991 9,043 250 51,284 Shantung 65,225 26,067 1,330 9 92,631 Honan 8,132 3,651 451 5 12,239 Keangnan 34,088 + 1,065 3 35,156 Chekeang 21,866 982 22,848 Shanse 13,382 11,582 317 25,281 Hookwang 37,354 25,544 2,850 65,752 Keangse 7,190 580 + 7,770 Kwangtung 17,369 9,415 591 27,375 Kwangse Fuhkeen 489 114 Szechuen 10,213 5,232 369 Kweichow 176 99 13 Yunnan 749 94 603 15,814 288 843 +++ TOTALS 184,086 169,850 9,996 21 373,935 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 38 SIR JOHN BOWRING having been nursed and reared by tigers." "Where should we have been," he asks, "if our grandmothers and mothers had been drowned in their infancy?" And he quotes two instances of the punishment of mothers who had destroyed their infants, one of whom had a blood-red serpent fastened to her thigh, and the other her four extremities turned into cow's feet.* Father Ripa mentions, that of abandoned children, the Jesuits baptized in Peking alone not less than three thousand yearly. I have seen ponds which are the habitual receptacle of female infants, whose bodies lie floating about on their surface. It is by no means unusual to carry persons in a state of exhaustion a little distance from the cities, to give them a pot of rice, and to leave them to perish of starvation when the little store is exhausted. Life and death in China, beyond any other region, seem in a state of perpetual activity. The habits of the people, their traditions, the teachings of the sages all give a wonderful impulse to the procreative affections. A childless person is deemed an unhappy, not to say a degraded, man. The Chinese moralists set it down as a law, that if a wife give no children to her husband, *Doubt has been sometimes expressed as to the practice of Infanticide in China on any great scale; but abundance of evidence of the extent of the usage may be found in Chinese books. The following is a translation of a Decree of the Emperor Kanghi, entitled,- "Edict prohibiting the drowning of children." "When a mother mercilessly plunges beneath the water the tender offspring to which she has given birth, can it be said that it owes its life to her who thus takes away what it has just begun to enjoy? The poverty of the parents is the cause of this wrongdoing; they have difficulty in earning subsistence for themselves, still less can they pay nurses and undertake all the necessary expenses for their children; thus driven to despair, and unwilling to cause the death of two persons to preserve the life of one, it comes to pass that a mother to save her husband's life consents to destroy her children. Their natural tenderness suffers; but they at length determine to take this part, thinking themselves at liberty to dispose of the life of their children, in order to prolong their own. If they exposed these children in some unfrequented spot, their cries would move the hearts of the parents; what then do they? They cast the unfortunate babe into the current of a river, that they may at once lose sight of it, and in an instant deprive it of life. You have given me the name of Father of the People: though I cannot feel for these infants the tenderness of the parents to whom they owe their being, I cannot refrain from declaring to you, with the most painful feelings, that I absolutely forbid such homicides. The tiger, says one of our books, though it be a tiger, does not rend its own young; towards them it has a feeling breast, and continually cares for them. Poor as you may be, is it possible that you should become the murderers of your own children? is to shew yourselves more unnatural than the very beasts of prey.”— Lettres Edifiantes, vol. xix, pp. 101-2, It Page 45 Page 46 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 42 SIR JOHN BOWRING To GEO: GRAHAM, Esq., Registrar General, &c., &c., London. (Table No. 1) Reign of Monarch 1 Hungwu, 26th Year, 2 Hungchi, 3 Wanleih, 4 Shunchi, 5 Kanghi, 6 7 + A. D. Population 1393, 60,545,811) Mirror of History, Chi- nese Repository, vol. x. 1662, 21,068,600) General Statistics of the www Empire, Medhurst's ++ 4th ** 1492, 53,281,158 6th * 1579, 60,692,856 page 156. ++ 18th 6th ++ 49th ** - 1668, 1710, 25,386,209 23,312,200) China, page 53. 49th ** J 8 ** 9 Kienlung, 50th 1st 10 8th ** 11 8th 12 * *** 1710, 27,241,129 1711, 28,605,716 1736, 125,046,245 1743, 157,343,975 1743, 149,332,730 8th 1743, 150,265,475 13 18th ** "J 1753, 103,050,060 14 1760, 143,125,225 25th ** 15 16 25th 26th H 17 27th 1762, 198,214,553 4,552 1760, 203,916,477 1761, 205,293,053 18 55th 23 1790, 155,249,897 19 57th ++ 1792, 307,467,200 * 20 57th ** 1792, 333,000,000 21 Kiaking 17th >> 1812, 362,467,183 Yih-tung Chi, a Statistical work, Morrison's View of China. General Statistics, — Chi- nese Repository, vol, i. page 359. Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. vi., Grosier, and by De Guignes: quoted by Voyages à Peking, tom. iii. page 72. "Les Missionnaires" De Guignes: tom. iii. page 67. General Statistics, — Chi- nese Repository, vol. i. page 359. Yihtungchi, a Statistical work, Morrison's View of China. Memoires sur les Chinois, tom, vi.,- De Guignes, tom. iii, page 72. Allerstain; Groster: De Guignes: tom. iii. page 57. Z. of Berlin, in Chinese Repository, vol. i. page 361. General Statistics, ― Dr. Morrison, Anglo-Chin: Coll: Report 1829. Statement made to Lord Macartney - Statistics, Chinese Repository, vol. i. page 359. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 JOHN J. NOLDE larger prefecture of Kwangchou, whose administrative center was at Canton. Kwangchou itself was one of the fifteen prefectures which made up the province of Kwangtung, the latter being linked with the neighboring province of Kwanghsi to form the Viceroyalty of Liang-Kwang. Kwangchou prefecture was about 25,000 square miles in size and was occupied by a population of about five to ten million people. Now, when this area appears in the standard histories of nineteenth century China it is usually as the stage-setting for the activity of the foreigner and the conflict between the Western barbarians and Chinese officialdom. There are long accounts of the nature and organization of the Canton trade. H.B. Morse wrote six volumes on the East India Company. The diplomatic historian is concerned with the Amherst mission of 1816 and the Napier mission of 1834. There are detailed accounts of the effect of the dissolution of the Company on the Canton trade. And, of course, there are numerous descriptions of the Opium War and its causes and consequences.4 It would seem, somehow, that the history, if not the day to day living, of the people of the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton axis (if not all China) was inseparably linked with the foreigner, his exploits, the Canton system, and the opium traffic, But what was really "going on"? What was life really like? The most striking fact about the area during those times was not the foreigner and his trade but the deplorable state of civil administration. It was in chaos. Official authority did not extend much beyond Canton. Banditry and brigandage were the order of the day inland. Secret societies harassed government officials and private individuals at will, Piracy, especially, was a problem. In the early years of the century a large pirate fleet under the leadership of one Cheng I had been organized. While his theatre of operations extended from Swatow to the Philippines, and perhaps as far as Borneo, most of his activity was centered in these waters. Commanding a fleet of hundreds of junks and thousands of men, Cheng I virtually terrorized the coast. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 18 JOHN J. NOLDE larger problem. That this may have been the case is reflected in a memorial to Peking from an “unknown writer", a translation of which appeared in The Chinese Repository of April, 1838.24 The author states that the present sad state of affairs dates from the disastrous fire of 1822, the uprisings of minority tribes on the Kwangtung-Kwanghsi border (which I have not mentioned) and the devastating floods of 1833 and 1834. The memorialist urged Peking to take strong action, included in which should be the suppression of the opium traffic.25 From 1840 to 1842, the Opium War probably dominated the day to day life of our Hong Kong-Macao-Canton area. The Royal Navy controlled the river from Canton to the sea. The city itself underwent a kind of siege in 1841, and British troops and elements of the local militia actually clashed on the heights north of the city in May of that year. Hong Kong became a British colony. The local histories report almost nothing but the activities of the barbarians, as do the official memorials and edicts. Yet one wonders whether or not this is a case of the "big news story stealing the headlines". Except for the episode of May, 1841, the local populace was rarely and only peripherally involved. After the May incident, the British action was conducted in the north and Canton was outside the main stream of events. The best we can say is that we don't know, When we come to the late 1840's, the historian is faced with the same problem that confronted him in the 1820's and 1830's. The standard documents seem to suggest that the dominant theme was again barbarian-oriented, and the historian's emphasis has generally been on the post-war treaty settlement, the reopening of trade, and, especially, the anti-foreign movement which culminated in the "Canton City Question” of 1849.26 But what was really happening? It would seem rather obvious that the diplomatic negotiations of the time were of little concern to the average villager along the river. Similarly, the reopening of trade per se could have had only a minor impact. But the anti-foreign movement seemed to have been another matter, one in which the populace was directly involved. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT 135 three rows of houses, one behind the other. The centre one contains the principal tablets of the ancestors. Separate tablets commemorate the names and titles of the graduates and officers, which the clan has at different times produced. The second class are the Tangs, which belong to families who set up in them their private tablets of their ancestors. They are much smaller, consisting of only one edifice, with two small out-houses, but they are neatly decorated according to the Chinese taste. The Temples are in general inferior in size and beauty to the ancestral halls. The largest, most elegant, and most renowned is that of Chick-wan, which is dedicated to "Teen-hau" — the Queen of Heaven. The building may be seen from the entrance of Deep Bay. Imperial officers sent on a mission to Siam or Cochin-china, were in the habit of worshipping at this temple before starting, and if they returned safely from their perilous voyage, endowed the temple with rich offerings. By these means spacious buildings were gradually erected, and about six Taouist priests are supported on the income derived from the possessions of the temple. No Chinese vessel passes this way, without making some offering to "the Queen of Heaven." Second to this temple is the one in Man-chau, near San-keaou, which is also dedicated to the same goddess. The most popular idols to which temples are erected in Sanon, are "Teen-hao" — the Queen of Heaven; "Quan-yin" — the Goddess of Mercy; "Kwan-tai" — the God of War; and "Pak-tai" — the God of the North. In Sai-heong there is a considerable temple dedicated to a man who was once a high official at Canton. The following is the history of his apotheosis: The Emperor Kanghi once gave orders that the people should retire from the sea-shore, and settle some miles further in the interior, so that the pirates would be unable to carry on their depredations. This man interceded with the Emperor, and succeeded in getting the decree repealed. Out of gratitude to him, numerous temples were erected along the coast, in which he is worshipped. Altars are erected before the villages, in the fields, under green trees, and upon the hills, and are dedicated to the worship of the tutelary deities. They are the Gods of Land and Grain, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 120 JAMES HAYES there to support the dried fish trade in their native places and also to provision the merchant boats which followed the fishing fleets. Their presence is recorded for Shau Kei Wan before 1841,46 which is in line with their presence on Cheung Chau from the eighteenth century.” At Stanley, village tradition ascribes the foundation of the Pak Tai temple there in 1803 to them. This widespread presence of outsider merchants is clear evidence of a substantial trade not limited merely to the immediate marketing area. 48 I come now to a particular feature of the Hong Kong scene before 1841 that was to be encountered again in Kowloon in 1860 and in the New Territories in 1899. According to a near contemporary account compiled by three knowledgeable British officers in the 1860s: “Hong Kong so far back as the Ming dynasty was owned by a respectable family of the name of Tang. When Kanghi ordered the Coast to be cleared of its inhabitants [1662] the possession of Hong Kong was abandoned. But when the Emperor revoked his decree [1668], the occupation of it was again resumed and title deeds granted, authenticated records of which remain to this day in the offices of the chief magistrates of Sin Ngan [ ] and Tungkwan [ ]. The land tax for two centuries and upwards had been regularly paid by this family, its members being considered by the government as its true and lawful landlords.”49 The authors continue that, when ceding the Island to Britain: “No provision seems to have been made by the Chinese Government for the original proprietors of the soil, who made suit to the British Government humbly praying for remuneration. It was said that some eight or ten thousand dollars were paid for certain fields in Wong-nei-chong and Su-kon-pu not to the members of the Tang family, however, but to the persons occupying the soil and claiming to be its true and rightful owners. Whether they were so or not does not appear. 150 The Tang family to whose claims to land ownership of Hong Kong Island I shall return presently continued to suffer from ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 127 practices dating back to the complainants childhood and before suggests that the Tanka were using the Tai Tam Tuk anchorage from at least the very beginning of the nineteenth century. I turn now to the important question of how far back was Hong Kong occupied? This is practically an impossible question to answer for lack of sufficient information. As in many other places, like Tsuen Wan and north-west Kowloon, the present old, local, formerly tenant families appear mainly to have come into the area after the Great Evacuation of the Coast ordered by the Kanghsi emperor, 1662-69, and many of them not until the eighteenth century or even after. Yet it is an interesting fact that the maps in a later 16th century geographical work on Kwangtung, the Yueh ta-chi(A) contain names that are familiar to us today, on Hong Kong island as well as on the other islands and mainland of the Hong Kong region. Thus we find Chek Chu (Stanley), Tai Tam, Wong Nei Chung, Tit Hang, Chun Hoi and Shau Kei Wan, as well as Hong Kong itself, implying surely, that these places were settled at that time or were at least resorted to periodically. Also, the Tang correspondence from the 1840s quoted above specifically refers to recultivation of their land in various places in the late seventeenth century — though not necessarily by the former tenant farmers after revocation of the edict of 1662 referred to above. We also learn that the Tang land on Hong Kong island was entered in the Tung Kwun district land registry, suggesting that the registration might well be earlier than 1573, at which date the San On district was carved out of Tung Kwun and established as a separate county. 71 The island was certainly well-established in settled communities long before 1841. The temples alone give proof of that. To this day, two existing temples at Stanley, and two at Aberdeen (one at the former village and one on an islet now joined by reclamation to Ap Lei Chau) and the Tin Hau Temple at Tin Hau Temple Road, Causeway Bay (formerly called Hung Heung Lo or "Crimson Incense Burner") contain items that go back to the eighteenth or very early nineteenth century. There were others now demolished or resited that probably predated 1841. Details are given in the Table below. 72 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 HUNAN KANGSI Tems Jung Fal Tsang Shink Pok Lo Kwal Shin Link Ch Wes! Size Wu Shiu Hing San Hing Ping HDA + Yeung +0 + Less than 50 males born at 50-250 males born at 250-1000 males born at Over 1000 males born at Provincial boundaries → HÀNG KẺ NG FUKEN 38 Table 13 Places of Birth Outside New Territories 1911 & 1921 Censuses Miles 50 100 150 200 However, upon closer inspection, it appears that the original text is a mix of a table and a map legend. Here is a reformatted version in Markdown: ## Table 13 Places of Birth Outside New Territories 1911 & 1921 Censuses | Location | |-----------------| | HUNAN | | KANGSI | | Tems | | Jung Fal | | Tsang Shink | | Pok Lo | | Kwal | | Shin | | Link Ch | | Wes! | | Size Wu | | Shiu | | Hing | | San Hing | | Ping | | HDA | | + Yeung | | +0 | | Category | |---------------------------| | Less than 50 males born at | | 50-250 males born at | | 250-1000 males born at | | Over 1000 males born at | * Provincial boundaries ### Legend | Distance | |----------| | 50 | | 100 | | 150 | | 200 | It seems more likely that the original text is a mix of a table and a map, so a more accurate representation would be: HUNAN KANGSI Tems Jung Fal Tsang Shink Pok Lo Kwal Shin Link Ch Wes! Size Wu Shiu Hing San Hing Ping HDA + Yeung +0 Less than 50 males born at 50-250 males born at 250-1000 males born at Over 1000 males born at Provincial boundaries → HÀNG KẺ NG FUKEN 38 Table 13 Places of Birth Outside New Territories 1911 & 1921 Censuses Miles 50 100 150 200 However, the most accurate representation in HTML, following the original instructions, is the first response. To better represent the content, I will provide it in HTML format as requested: HUNAN KANGSI Tems Jung Fal Tsang Shink Pok Lo Kwal Shin Link Ch Wes! Size Wu Shiu Hing San Hing Ping HDA + Yeung +0 + Less than 50 males born at 50-250 males born at 250-1000 males born at Over 1000 males born at Provincial boundaries → HÀNG KẺ NG FUKEN 38 Table 13 Places of Birth Outside New Territories 1911 & 1921 Censuses Miles 50 100 150 200 ================================================================================