RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f
109

A NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

IN HONG KONG

PRELIMINARY REPORT

M. W. WELCH

During the Hong Kong University's Golden Jubilee in September 1961 I heard an excellent paper by Mrs. E. Maneely on archaeological possibilities in Hong Kong. It encouraged me to think that there was a role that even an amateur could play. We frequently sail in the New Territories and during our sails I began to search for what might be neolithic sites. I worked on a very simple principle: to look at the shore of islands, as we passed by, for places that, if I had been a neolithic man, I would have liked to settle in. There had to be a good harbour, well sheltered for mooring in storms. There had to be sufficient elevation for good visibility over surrounding waters and approaching boats. There had to be level land for cultivation as well as an accessible source of water.

CL

Having picked the first prehistoric site, we anchored and went ashore to explore. My surprise was great when within minutes of landing I discovered a fine polished adze exactly in the place I hoped to. Spurred on by the excitement of this discovery I looked around in earnest to find more artifacts. I went on to the next hillock and indeed had further success.

I found, in all, three sites on the same island, each on hills 30 to 50 metres above sea level, each located near or on kaolin deposits, and each in an area used for target practice by the British Army and Navy as well as by navies from Commonwealth countries. The island, Kau Sai Chau, between Port Shelter and Rocky Harbour, offers one of the few areas in the Far East which have been cleared of inhabitants and where firing can be carried out at will. Over several years of practice the hillsides have become peppered with shell holes and on some of them heavy erosion has started. Only in or near those heavily eroded areas, that look almost like moon landscapes, have I found artifacts, and all have been surface finds (though usually far

The author has lived for the past four years in Hong Kong, where she developed a keen interest in amateur archaeology.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r
110

CRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD

to within ten yards of the shore. We saw a hut on the beach, and six men at work with some bamboos. Here we disembarked and the sailors filled a cask with excellent water from a well close to the shore. The inhabitants who were fishermen were civil, but they appeared to be alarmed at our arrival14. Mr. Alexander and myself walked up to the high land over the point I, where we had a view of the island and of the north east end of Lantao, as well as of the eastern shore of the main as it is laid down in the charts. The general form of the island appeared to be triangular. Its length from north to south about a mile, and from east to west about three quarters. Its general surface is irregular, rising in unconnected hills or joined only at their bases, but these are smooth and thickly covered with grass of different kinds, some of which had been lately cut down. The soil is red, light and sandy; if we may judge from its verdure it is very fertile. Besides three or four other plants the gardener found some ginger, there were also some guava trees and wild figs15. The projection K is narrow but rather high, on it are five or six huts of fishermen, whose nets are suspended from different points, and hauled up occasionally by windlasses. Between K and I is a rocky bay, that appears to be very deep. South of the projection K we saw some trees, but there are not very many on the island17. About ten acres of land are under cultivation in two separate patches from the bay on the east shore where the land is low. The water on this side of the island is very rocky. Whilst on the hill we were visited by about fifteen persons, men, women and children, from these we learned, that the island is called Toong Shing-ow-a18.

As to its extent, its fertility and its situation, in a point of view merely military, it appears a desirable island, but perhaps it may be seen in a different light when examined as a situation for a settlement, intended to protect the large and valuable ships employed in the China trade. It appears incapable of future improvement to any very great degree as an harbour, since on account of the rapidity of the currents, the depth of the water and the badness of the bottom, large ships cannot lie with safety on that side of the channel next the island. A few may lie on the north shore, and perhaps but a few, and on this account it

¡
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653
16

S. G. DAVIS

The findings of the Man Kok Tsui site showed similar remains to those reported by Father Finn and Dr. Schofield at Hung Shing Ye, Yung Shu Wan and Tai Wan on Lamma Island and Shek Pik on Lantau Island. There was also a similarity of seashore settlements on raised beaches and low hills. Geologically however the sites are dissimilar. The Lamma sites are on granodiorite, Shek Pik on volcanic rock and Man Kok Tsui on porphyritic granite.

Although the finds at Man Kok Tsui were not as varied as those from the other sites mentioned above, the area of study was wider and closer attention was given to the relative position and distribution of finds. These showed a rough zoning of finds leading to a possible theory of "working", "dwelling" and "burial" areas.

The map of archaeological sites and positions of discovered remains indicates the richness of our Hong Kong area. Recent site studies have been made at Ha Tsuen, Deep Bay; Fanling; Upper and Lower Shek Pik villages, Lantau Island; and at Kau Sai Chau, Rocky Harbour (27).

During the levelling of the Shek Pik Reservoir in March 1962 the bulldozing machines brought to light coins clearly dated in age from A.D. 713 to 1226 (Tang Dynasty to Sung). Also found were richly glazed potsherds,

These finds come from poor farming land, until recently malarial and with no nearby natural resources of economic value. They might have been the property of a rich man (or party) who was possibly in transit or resting, or as has been suggested was the property of the court of the boy Sung emperor, Ti Cheng. In A.D. 1277 when the Mongols were extending their control over China, Ti Cheng in his flight stayed for some time in Kowloon City. Later he crossed the mouth of the Canton River over to Chung Shan, and thus probably travelled along the southern shore of Lantau Island, going ashore for food and rest.

In 1954 when the Shek Pik area was being surveyed for a reservoir, the University Team was first to do archaeological work there by trenching across the sandy raised beach, where in 1938, Professor W. Schofield had reported artifacts. During the work, a rock carving behind the beach was found about 200 yards from the seashore on the east side of the valley. It was cleaned up and later in 1958 had a protecting wall built round it,
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811
122

JAMES HAYES

permitted to settle there, and stringent measures will be taken to prevent its becoming as heretofore a resort for thieves and outlaws, who are hereby warned that they will be proceeded against with severity if they attempt to conceal themselves within the above-mentioned limits **6

Who were these people? Most of the inhabitants of Old Kowloon at this time were Hakkas, whereas the earlier inhabitants of the flatter and more fertile areas of the peninsula, especially round Kowloon City, not far beyond the northern boundary of British territory, were Cantonese. The major Cantonese settlements in the area south of the Kowloon hills date back to the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) and even before, whereas the Hakka settlers of the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula are of much more recent origin. Most of them appear to have come into the area in the first half of the 19th century, especially after 1841.

Several factors can be said to have operated in bringing Hakkas into the area in the middle years of the 19th century. In the first place, there appears to have been a continuing movement of Hakkas early in the century, seeking to settle on new land. Then, after 1841, there was the attraction of nearby Hong Kong with its opportunities for work, and perhaps wealth. The development of Victoria, the capital city, brought a demand for granite and this was readily available in the rocky outcrops of Kowloon, from which it could conveniently be transported across the harbour to the new building sites. In 1871 there were no less than eighty-one stone quarries in Kowloon more than for the whole of Hong Kong island. Quarrying is traditionally work in which Hakkas engage: they pride themselves on their strength and ability to engage in such strenuous labour.10 Thirdly, the prolonged unrest of the Taiping Rebellion forced many individuals and even whole families to leave their homes and settle in British territory." One of the more picturesque settlers in Ho Man Tin Village in the 1860s was a Hakka who had allegedly been one of the Taiping generals and rejoiced in the nickname "Seven Legged Heavenly Flying Tiger".

A contemporary observer who had spent nearly thirty years in South China described these people as follows: 12

Parties of tramps, called Hakkas or ‘guests' roamed over Kwangtung province squatting on vacant places along the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
54

L. G. AUMER

from piracy there. The mountains offered more security and this group established themselves in the remote Grass Field Village. In fact, this spot in the valley was then already occupied by people bearing the surname Ng. What form the contact between these original settlers and the intruders took is not clear, but evidently, as time passed by, the Ng were pushed off, and resettled themselves on an island in the Rocky Harbour area.11

The first Lau group in Grass Field Village seems to have constituted an extended family — one particular man is referred to as the founder of the village. He was of the 15th generation.12 The founder had two sons, one of whom moved out of the place and settled at Clear Water Bay. The progeny of the remaining son ramified in several offshoots. The village now consists of four hamlets inhabited by distinct lines of descent. Two branches have moved away to other areas; to Three Fathoms Cove in a northerly direction, and to the Yuen Long area in another part of the New Territories.

The Grass Field people, then, constitute a localized major lineage. As such they form part of a kin unit of a higher order, for which I would propose the designation 'clan'. In fact, a Grass Field villager is not usually able to establish his proper kinship relations with other villagers, at least not with those who are members of other main segments. In order to do this, he has to consult a kinsman with special knowledge or a genealogy book, which used to be kept in most villages. By these means he has a theoretical possibility to trace his actual relations through the genealogical links in the patrilineal line of descent. This will motivate the use of the term 'lineage'. The greater kin unit will, besides the Grass Field people, comprise the segments that resettled in other areas as well as the people living in the village of origin in Sai Kung, and the relatives, in all respects distant, in Mui Yuen in Kwangtung. Theoretically, other Lau descent lines, unknown to Grass Field people, would be included.

Before the Japanese Occupation fairly regular demonstration of kinship bonds took place when people from the Three Fathoms Cove and Clear Water Bay branches returned to Grass Field for common ancestor worship. There were, too, frequent contacts with the village of origin in China before the establishment of the People's Republic; delegates took part in ancestor worship
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
170

DAVID FAURE

now be described. In general, villagers from Ho Chung all the way east to Ko Tong, and those from the islands in Rocky Harbour, went to Sai Kung Market. Tung Sam Kei, and Hoi Ha villagers went to Tai Po and Tap Mun, but a boat from Pak Tam Chung came regularly to collect firewood, which was sent to Sai Kung. Pak Sha O villagers went to both Tai Po and Sai Kung. Shap Sz Heung, and Sham Chung, were in the Tai Po marketing area rather than in that of Sai Kung. To the south, villagers from Tseng Lan Shue and Pik Uk obtained their supplies from Kowloon. Villagers from the Tseung Kwan O to Seung Sz Wan area went to Hang Hau. Tin Ha Wan had several shops, but its residents, as well as those from Po Toi O and Tai Wan Tau usually went to Shaukiwan. In general, if the transport linkage between Hang Hau and Sai Kung is taken into account, the Sai Kung marketing area went from Seung Sz Wan to Ko Tong, beyond the present administrative boundary of Sai Kung District,29

So far as can be discovered, except for several from Tam Shui (Wai Chau), the shop-keepers of Hang Hau came from its own marketing area, i.e. from Mang Kung Uk, Pan Long Wan, Tseung Kwan O, and Ha Yeung. There were several general stores, selling food, including grain, meat, oil, salt fish, and salt. There was a goldsmith, a stationer, a tailor, and there were several ferries.3 By 1916, when the Sai Kung T'in Hau Temple was renovated, Sai Kung had for some time been the bigger town. There were at least eight general stores, two butchers, a teahouse, a tailor, a Taoist priest, a herbalist, a draper's, and two shipyards. Many of the owners came from outside the Sai Kung marketing area, from Shuen Wan and Sham Chung, both in the Tai Po marketing area; Sham Chun, Po Kut, and Sha Tseng, all three in Po On county; Wai Chau; and San Wooi.31 Brief information on some of these shops can be found in Table 1.

The biggest shop in Sai Kung Market was Saam Shing general store, followed closely by T'aai Shing. Saam Shing was the older, but T'aai Shing caught up quickly. Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing, who worked in T'aai Shing just before World War II, remembered that letters for Sai Kung villagers were brought to the shop with goods from Hong Kong. Mr. Lei Shiu Yam remembered that T'aai Shing used to help villagers collect their overseas remittances.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v
105

with rocks and reefs in addition; the name may mean "Dragnet Isles". The northernmost island is a dumb-bell with quite a good harbour, and a fishing village of huts very different from ordinary Chinese dwellings. This island was another settlement of early man. The southern larger isle has two or three villages on its dumb-bell isthmus. There is a shrimp paste factory here which exports to Europe and America. The names Tai and Sai A Chau mean "Big and Little Forked Island". A small island to the west of the group is also a dumb-bell; the isthmus here is covered at high tide.

Patung or Shek Kwu Chau (“Stone Drum Island") is rocky and barren, but with one small valley where cultivation is possible. It was once proposed to lease the island as a rabbit farm, but the proposers never went on with it.20

its English name

To the south-east of Lantau are a number of more important islands. Of these the most prosperous is Cheung Chau (“Long Island"). Cheung Chau is the best example of a dumb-bell island in these waters. The northern end contains a small hamlet and cultivation, the southern end contains the "Peak", or European reservation. It started there through missionaries building holiday bungalows on the hills: they began doing so in 1906, attracted by the beaches, the easy marketing and the village ferry to Hong Kong. This was run in the interest of the fish trade, but was taken over some 10 years ago by the Western Ferries Co., a Hong Kong concern,

Between the fish trade and the market gardens, Cheung Chau breeds more flies per square yard than any other place in the Colony. It has a street cleaning squad, but of course this cannot touch the masses of filth on private property. There is a fire engine, a Government school, a hospital, and a big temple to Pak Tai, god of the Pole Star, the finances of which were inextricably mixed with those of the market, the ferry, and the electric light station. There are plays annually performed in May for the pleasure of Pak Tai, and incidentally for his worshippers, in a huge decorated matshed put up in front of the temple. It draws big crowds, and stimulates business quite a lot. There are other temples too, and little shrines to local spirits. There is also
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x
62

BARBARA E. WARD

visited the village only at long intervals. Travelling to and fro they usually hitched a lift to Sai Kung from one of the fishermen, and then went by bus. Their wives, on the other hand, hardly ever left the village, except perhaps to see an opera performance at one of the neighbouring festivals listed above. The 'headman' and his brother normally followed a slightly different pattern. Their shop, a new departure opened shortly before the time of my arrival, required the permanent presence of one of them. The 'headman' had his fingers in a number of enterprises on the mainland, but returned frequently to Kau Sai to deal in pigs (his own and others') and to keep an eye on the illicit still which was his main source of income. He owned a small transport junk. (The other, and larger, shop was owned by an ex-fisherman, at that time permanently resident on shore but sharing fully in the fishermen's ritual and recreational movements). Hakka men being seldom present were not often included in fishermen's sociable gatherings; their social life was elsewhere. The ‘headman', and more especially his shopkeeper brother who was popular, who were present, were exceptions.

An overview of the various patterns of movement yields two obvious inferences which are as significant as they are self-evident. First, although mobile the fishermen were far from footloose. Not only did many of them (particularly the purse-seiners) return constantly to one particular base, namely Kau Sai, but their movements away from there also took place within a definitely circumscribed area. This comprised, in effect, the waters of Port Shelter and Rocky Harbour as far as Basalt Island, Bluff Island and the Ninepins, with an outlying channel to Shaukiwan or Hong Kong island (from which it was only a 10¢ or 20¢ tram or bus ride to all the bright lights of the city). Only occasionally and for limited purposes did Kau Sai-based boats go beyond the boundaries of this area. It included two market towns, Sai Kung and Shaukiwan, and a number of fishing villages the main ones being at Yim Tin Tsai, Lung Shuen Wan, Kiu Tsui, Pak Sha Wan, Pu To Au).

With the obvious difference that it contained more than one market and was within fairly easy reach of a great international centre of commerce and industry, this area was closely similar to
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1985
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x
63

what Skinner (1964) has called a standard market area. However, certain considerations both of fact and point of view make me hesitate to use this term here. First as to fact: the above are not the only differences that make it less than useful to regard this area as being centred upon a market town like a wheel upon its hub. As far as markets were concerned, it had, as we have just seen, two centres. As far as the Kau Sai fishermen recognized temple festivals, however, it had at least three, none of them lying in either market town. (This situation is further complicated by the fact that both the market towns and one other fishing village in the area also organised annual temple festivals, which some Kau Sai people did attend but irregularly and idiosyncratically). In the third place, both Sai Kung and Shaukiwan acted also as market centres and anchorages for large numbers of junks which ranged much further afield, either because they were deep-sea craft with a wider range of occupational movement than the inshore boats of Kau Sai and its neighbours, or seasonally. Both towns were also centres for quite large land populations; Shaukiwan being in fact a rapidly expanding industrial suburb of Victoria City on Hong Kong island.

It is likely that most of the peculiarities of this kind of market situation are to be explained by the extreme mobility of the boat population and the proximity of the great conurbations of Victoria (Hong Kong) and Kowloon. (Regarded from the point of view of the local land dwellers Sai Kung does fall neatly into the standard market category and Shaukiwan drops out of the picture altogether). It remains true, however, that in this study I am not taking a "market centred" point of view. For the fishermen of Kau Sai, Kau Sai was the centre of the Universe. Markets at Sai Kung and Shaukiwan, temple festivals at Pak Sha Wan and Lung Shuen Wan, were important, but peripheral. Moreover, mobility was such that every part of the Port Shelter-Rocky Harbour area was freely accessible and frequently visited, And all parts of it contained fish. Borrowing a term from Zoology, the area is from this point of view perhaps more usefully thought of as a "territory" than as a market area. Like herds of impala the fishermen of Port Shelter and Rocky Harbour, including those domiciled in Kau Sai, roamed their territory and exploited their niche in it, regardless of the fact that
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x
24

eighteenth century. The Fungs () came there much later, at the end of the nineteenth century: they had fled from the Tai Ping rebels to Shek Lung Tsai in Sha Tin, and from there moved to Ngau Chi Wan. Very little is known of the Six Villages Alliance, and it is likely that it was more loosely structured than the League of Seven.

It will be noted that Tai Hom, of the League of Seven, is completely surrounded by land that formed part of the Six Villages Alliance. Tai Hom, which is a single-surname village of the Chu (*) clan, is the only village of the League of Seven with no genealogical connections with Nga Tsin Wai. That it formed part of the League of Seven, rather than the Po Kong Six Villages Alliance is probably due to the circumstances of Tai Hom's foundation. The Founding Ancestor of the Chus, Chu kui-yuen, was a Hakka from Ng Wah District far to the northeast of Hong Kong22. He was a stone-cutter. He came to Hong Kong in 1762, to look for work in the quarries which were at that date starting up in the eastern part of what is today Victoria Harbour. He prospered, and established a quarry at Shek Tong Tsui in 1771. Later, he found Shek Tong Tsui rather remote, and exposed to pirate attack, and moved to Sha Po near Kowloon City. Later still, he bought quarry-land at the tip of Cape d'Aguilar Peninsula, and founded nearby the village of Hok Tsui. He had eight sons. His eldest son died unmarried, and Hok Tsui is today lived in by the descendants of his second, third and fourth sons. The fifth and sixth sons died unmarried or disappeared later. Chu kui-yuen bought more land, at Tai Hom, for his seventh son, Yan-fung, leaving his youngest son, Cheung-fung,

, the land at Sha Po. After Kui-yuen's death, his widow lived at Tai Hom with her seventh son, who acquired a minor official post at Kowloon City, presumably after the re-establishment of the yamen there in 1841. Yan-fung was born in 1781, and died in 1857. Tai Hom was, therefore, a late settlement. It is unlikely to have been founded earlier than 1800. The land at Tai Hom was not fertile, and was steep and rocky (the Chus ran a quarry there, which supplied poor quality stone used for laying foundations in the Kowloon City area). Until 1992 a few remnants of Tai Hom, including the Chu clan Ancestral Hall, remained, buried within the Diamond Hill Squatter Area. It is likely that Po Kong refused to guarantee the good behaviour of these incoming Hakka (some already settled family was always required to guarantee incomers under the Pao-chia rules), while Nga Tsin Wai was willing, and that it was this which brought Tai Hom into the League of

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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
A NOTE ON THE JAPANESE GUN EMPLACEMENT AT TATHONG POINT, TUNG LUNG CHAU

ROBERT HORSNELL

399

At Tathong Point, also known as Nam Tong Mei, a small rocky peninsular at the extreme southern tip of Tung Lung Island, there still exists the remains of a little known war-time Japanese gun emplacement. Its purpose was probably to protect the south-eastern approaches to Victoria Harbour. This gun emplacement is not mentioned in the book Ruins of War by Tim Ko and Jason Wordie and is not listed in the Gazetteer of the Batteries of the Fixed Defences of Hong Kong in Denis Rollo's book The Guns and Gunners of Hong Kong, although Rollo does mention an observation post for the Devil's Peak Battery at the southern end of Tung Lung Island built in 1935/36. From information in an old Public Works Department file it appears that the gun emplacement was built by the Japanese during the Occupation (1941-1945).

In 1965, the gun emplacement was converted by the Public Works Department's Architectural Office into an engine room for the Marine Department's Tathong Point Lighthouse Station to house the electric marine light, foghorn engines, light standby engine and switchboard. The staff quarters adjacent to the engine room were built later in 1973/74 to replace the old lighthouse keeper's quarters built in 1949 lower down near the jetty and landing stage. The old vacated quarters were used as stores for some time then later demolished. The remains of the concrete platforms on which these old buildings were built can still be seen amongst the rocks.

From the original P.W.D. drawings for the conversion works, it is possible to learn something about the construction of the gun emplacement. It was built of concrete with a floor area of about 40 square metres. The walls are about one metre thick but the roof is much thicker especially over the rear part which contained the expense magazines. The chamber which housed the gun consists of a rectangular room with a semi-circular bow front in which the wide angle embrasure for the gun was formed. The armament is not known but from the size of the gun embrasure it was probably a large coastal defence gun.

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