RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1962
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HEROLD J. WIENS

mountainous regions of south China but also across the southern borders in Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

The Yao, like the Miao, also are mountain-loving people, but appear to have originated as ethnic groups in the hill country of east-central China, in such regions as the present provinces of Anhwei, Chekiang and Kiangsu. They were here as early as Chinese records mention them, but they appear to have gradually abandoned these areas, as Han-Chinese settlement increased in density, and friction over land and other matters led the Yao to seek more isolated mountains. Since they were like the Miao in their type of fire-field or forest-burning, shifting cultivation, they inevitably came into close contact with the Miao and have many cultural features in common with the Miao. Elements of the language also appear similar. Some Chinese ethnographers have considered the Wu-ch'i Man a Yao rather than a Miao group, and others believe them to have common origins. This confusion is probably due to strong Mon Khmer influences originating from India and Southeast Asia in the earliest times.

4

One of the supporting arguments for the common origin of Yao and Miao is the common cult attached to the dog and the tiger. The Yao trace their ancestry mythically to the union of a princess with a supernatural dog-hero called P'an-hu. Yao myths trace their movement southward from both the central Yangtze valley regions and from the Chekiang-Fukien mountains. Folk songs of the Yao indicate further that they crossed over the Nan-ling mountains in great numbers during the period of Huang-ch'ao's rebellion in the reign of the T'ang Emperor Hsi-Tsung (A.D. 874-889),4

When the Miao moved into the Kweichow region in the earliest times, they probably found the Yi or Wu-man peoples already in occupation of western Kweichow. The Yi certainly preceded the Han in this part of China, and the Han Chinese have known of the Yi in their present habitats in southwest China for over 2,500 years. The peculiar manner in which the

* Chiang Ying-liang, Hsi-nan pien-chiang min-tsu lun-ts'ung (A discussion of the peoples of the southwest borderlands), Canton, 1948, 74-79; see also Ling Shun-sheng and Jui Yi-fu, Hsiang-hsi Miao-tsu t'iao-cha pao-kao (Report of research on the Miao of west Hunan), Academia Sinica, Shanghai, 1947.

4 Hsu Sung-shih, Yueh-chiang liu-yü jen-min (The peoples of the Yueh river drainage), Shanghai, 1939, 130-135.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
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NOTES AND QUERIES

Natrix aequifasciata Barbour

233

The first specimen of this species known from Hong Kong was sent to me by the Police on 8 May 1978 for identification. It is a juvenile, having bitten the boy who caught it in a stream near Shing Mun Reservoir in the New Territories on 7 May 1978.

A second specimen, also immature, was kindly given to me by Dr. Frank F. Reitinger. He had found it inside a tunnel in a catchment channel near Shek Kong Village in the New Territories while collecting at night on 17 June 1978.

According to Pope (1935, p.95), Natrix aequifasciata is an inhabitant of mountain brooks and is known from various localities in Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Hainan, and Fukien in China. In a recent publication (Anon., 1977), it is listed also for Yunnan, Kweichow, Kiangsi, and Chekiang provinces in China.

Opisthotropis balteatus (Cope)

On 25 May 1977 I received a live immature female of this snake from Mr. R. J. Clibborn-Dyer, who had found it early that day on the Ting Kok Road close to Shuen Wan in the New Territories. The place where this specimen was found was beside an abandoned waterlogged paddy-field, through which a stream flowed into the sea.

Opisthotropis balteatus is known to occur in Southern China (including Hainan), Vietnam, and Cambodia. It frequents mountain streams, and Pope (1935, p.168) concludes it to be an inhabitant of low to moderate altitudes.

Opisthotropis kuatunensis Pope

Two immature specimens of this little-known snake were given to me by Mr. Jerry K. S. Lee, who collected them in the central area of the New Territories mainland. The first was found at about midnight on 16/17 November 1974 in a catchment channel near Shek Kong Village. The second he found on the night of 13/14 July 1978 in a stream at an altitude estimated to be about 823 metres on Tai Mo Shan.

The type and fifteen paratypes of this species were collected by Pope in Chungan Hsien in north-western Fukien, China. In describing the habits of Opisthotropis kuatunensis, Pope (1935, p.170) remarks that: ‘... it inhabits the highest forest cascades of the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
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Lanka, and then to Malacca where he converted a Japanese resident. The two set out to convert Japan and they landed at Kagoshima in 1549. Such was their success that 400,000 converts are said to have been made.

When he understood that the Japanese had long considered China the source of wisdom and knowledge, Xavier made up his mind to bring the Christian message to that vast country. After failing to persuade the Governor General of Goa to send an embassy to China so that he might accompany it and thus evade the laws against foreigners entering the Imperial Empire, the missionary decided to proceed privately.

He joined a group of merchants and in 1552 reached the small Portuguese settlement on Sanchuang Island, south of what was later to become Macau. However, he was stricken with fever and the merchants, fearing official reprisals, refused to take him to Canton. Undaunted, Xavier intended to carry on by junk; but his fever worsened and, in a miserable hut on the shore, on December 3, 1552, he died.

A colleague recorded:

"I went at once to the ship to obtain vestments and all else necessary for the burial ... some of those on the ship returned with me and we made a wooden coffin in which we placed the body clothed in priestly vestments. It was very cold; so most of them stayed aboard, and there were only four of us at the burial, a Portuguese, two slaves and a Chinese."

Today relics of the saint can be seen in three places. His body lies in an ornate shrine in Goa and it is exhibited to pilgrims at intervals of several years. The saint's right arm up to the elbow was removed in 1614 and was sent to Rome where it has been venerated in the Jesuit Church of Gesu for more than 300 years.

The sole remaining relic is the fragment of bone in the tiny Macau church.

In 1619 three bones from the elbow to the shoulder of the right arm were extracted at Goa. One was sent to Cochin, now Southern Vietnam, another went to Malacca and the third went to Macau. By this time the Portuguese empire was faltering and
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983
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247

THE CULTIVATION OF THE "INCENSE TREE” (AQUILARIA SINENSIS).

JU KOW-CHOY

There are several popular theories concerning the origin of the name Hong Kong (#). One is based on the legend of a female pirate named "Heung Ku" (Aunty Heung, ). A second relates to a hill on Hong Kong Island Hung Heung Lo Shan (Red Incense Burner Hill). A third refers to the stream near Pokfulam which provided a source of "Fresh and Fragrant Water" to passing ships in the old days. Professor Lo Hsiang-lin and Madam Chang Yuet-ngo, however, consider that the name was derived from the Incense Tree or Heung Tree.* A book by Professor Lo and colleagues published in 1959 and entitled Hong Kong and its External Communication before 1842, includes a chapter on "The Cultivation and Exportation of Incense", a summary of which follows:-

"Incense" is a product of the southern part of Kwangtung Province. There are several varieties, each from different species of trees. The general name of the varieties of incense (solidified wood sap), produced in Tung Kwun and Po On districts, which included Hong Kong and the New Territories in those days, was "Kuan-heung" from Incense Tree (Aquilaria Sinensis Gilg). Originally a native of Tonkin (North Vietnam), it was introduced to Kwangtung during the Tang Dynasty (619-907 A.D.). In Hong Kong, the best brand was produced in Lik Yuen (now Shatin) and Sha Lo Wan (the western seaboard of Lantau Island).

The successful cultivation of the Incense Tree depends on three conditions. Firstly, suitability of soil; secondly, adoption of proper cultivation methods; and thirdly, the mastering of tapping and cutting techniques.

"Kuan-heung" was highly valued by the people of the provinces of Kwangtung, Kiangsu, and Chekiang, who used large quantities annually. Locally, the produce was collected by the

See Plates 18-19.
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who can wear a colourful ribbon), and for his father and grandfather he applied for 2nd grade titles to be conferred on them." His filial piety was difficult to surpass. He died in Vietnam at the age of 73. When his sons and grandsons carried the coffin back to his native village, thousands of Chinese and foreigners, officials and commoners, accompanied it until they reached the ship. There were people crying for him, drawing pictures of him, and writing essays about him. Cities far away, such as Singapore, also had his life-story written in the newspapers with the headline ‘Death of a Philanthropic Gentry' (*). He was really a great man. I am his old colleague, thus, I know all about his personality and activities. Here I cannot give the details, but can only give a general account of him.

“Written in 1904 by Chen chao-ch'ang (陈兆昌), a Tsun Sz (遵司), appointed by Imperial Command an official of the Han Lin Academy, and humbly offered while the writer was in charge of the Shan Hai Kuan area (山海关).

NOTES

Eitel, E.J., Europe in China: History of Hong Kong, 1895. p. 311 ff. Ah-lum's wife and children were poisoned, and Eitel clearly had doubts as to his involvement in the crime. The defence of Ah-lum was conducted in a lynch law atmosphere and his arrest and deportation, even though he had been found innocent had, according to Eitel "reduced (him) from affluence to beggary.”

2 Hsiang-shan T'ieh-ch'eng Chang Shih Tsu-pu (AKA) (Clan Record of the Chang clan of Heung Shan and Fat Shan) (1934). Chi-ching Pu (2) section, Hang Chuang (孝庄) sub-section, pp. 8-9a.

1 According to the Clan record, ancestor Chung-te (忠德) immigrated to Shih-t’ou village (石頭村), eight miles to the southwest of T'ieh-ch'eng (铁城) Fatshan (Foshan) during the latter part of the Southern Sung dynasty. The lineage then segmented into 3 sub-lineages in the 7th generation. The 1st remained in the original settlement, the 2nd moved to Nan-Ping (南屏), and the 3rd to Long-Mei (龙美) in Hsiang-shan (Heung Shan) county. 3 generations later, in the 10th generation, 3 descendants of the 1st sub-lineage emigrated to Ping-Lan (坪兰), Ya-Kang (雅岗) and Wai-chieh-yung (外借涌) in Heung Shan, respectively. Ancestor Ch'un-chen (纯真) of the 10th generation was the first to move to Ya-kang, but the family was not regarded as native to Ya-kang until ancestor Miu-hsien (妙贤) of the 14th generation registered and started a new segment of the lineage (开户立户). Thus, an Ancestral Hall was built in the middle of the Chia Ching (嘉靖) period in memory of him. Ah-lum was of the 18th generation of the Cheung lineage, and the 9th of the Ya-kang segment. He was born in 1828, and died in 1900.
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period — which lasted from the bronze age Dongson period of the third century B.C. to the end of the T'ang dominance in the early tenth century A.D. He has divided this long period into six distinct phases, constructing the main characteristics of each one as the centre-piece of a chapter.

The first (Chapter 1, "Lac Lords") covers the emergence of organized society in the plains of the Hong and Ma rivers (near present Hanoi) under feudal lords. Sources for this bronze age period are largely archeological and linguistic, with a heavy reliance upon the interpretation of myths and legends.

The second chapter or phase ("The Han-Viet era”) charts the invasion of Chinese forces and particularly the southern expedition of Ma Yuan, the great Han general, and the emergence of a mixed Sino-Viet ruling class.

The third phase (Chapter 3, "Regionalism and the six dynasties") covers the consolidation of Chinese political and cultural domination.

Chapter 4, "Local rule in the sixth century" is the fourth phase, which Taylor calls a "time of self-discovery” for the Vietnamese. It was a time when Chinese control weakened slightly before the consolidation of Sui-T'ang control of the south. And in this weakening the Vietnamese, according to Taylor, began looking to their pre-Chinese roots.

The Sui-T'ang period of rule is covered in Chapter 5, "The protectorate of An-nam". In this phase he chronicles the "intensity" of pressure upon Vietnam to conform to the Chinese model of civilized society, as well as the growing resistance to Chinese domination. That resistance bore success of sorts when in the tenth century the T'ang dynasty collapsed and Vietnamese rebellions succeeded in throwing off direct Chinese rule. This is Taylor's Chapter 6, "The T'ang-Viet confrontation", and Chapter 7, "Independence".

While critical of Chinese and French historians as treating the Vietnamese past as a “branch of Chinese history" Taylor uses
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
HAINAN ISLAND: 

A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH 

D.L. MICHALK* 

115 

Introduction 

Hainan Island forms the extreme southern limit of the People's Republic of China, save for the Paracel Reefs. Sometimes referred to as the Tail of the Dragon, Hainan lies between longitudes 108°30′ and 111° east and latitudes 18° and 20°31' north. It is separated from the mainland by the 25 km Qiongzhou Straits, and is part of Guangdong, accounting for 15 percent of the Province's area. Located in the South China Sea, Hainan is about 300 km east of Vietnam across the Gulf of Tonkin, some 500 km southwest of Hong Kong, and a similar distance from the provincial capital, Guangzhou. 

Hainan is oval-shaped with the longest NE to SW axis measuring 309 km and the shorter NW to SE axis, 221 km. With an area of 34,077 km2 (Anon., 1982b), Hainan is about half the size of Tasmania and ranks as the world's twenty-sixth largest island. Although it accounts for less than 1 per cent of China's land area, its tropical climate, rich mineral and petroleum resources and strategic location make it an important, yet undeveloped region of China. 

Hainan has always been regarded as a backwater by successive Chinese dynasties and a mystery to foreigners. Indeed, had it not been for a handful of inquisitive academics and devoted missionaries who "found Hainan" around the turn of the century, our knowledge of the island would have amounted to little more than folklore. Using these western sources, the aim of this paper is to provide a brief insight into the history of Hainan, particularly the role played by foreigners in its development. 

* Senior research agronomist, Agricultural Research and Veterinary Centre, New South Wales Department of Agriculture.
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Northern Vietnam) he asked to be relieved of office and left the capital for Guangzhou. In 327 he settled in the Zhuming cave of Mt. Luofu where he busied himself collecting medicinal herbs and refining cinnabar. His extensive writings include several important treatises on Taoism and Chinese medicine. (Source: Zongjiao Cidian [Dictionary of religion], Shanghai, Cishu Chubanshe (Lexiographical publishing company), 1981, pp. 997-998; see also Jin Shu [The Book of Jin], volume 72, Zhonghua Shuju). Needham calls him "the greatest alchemist in Chinese history" (Science and Civilization in China, vol. II, Cambridge University Press, 1956, p. 437).

14 The story that Huang Yeren was late for the levitation because he was drunk, we heard from a young official of a local Taoist organization whom we interviewed in Guangzhou on August 27, 1987. Cultural affairs cadres whom we interviewed at the main temple on Mt. Luofu on August 28, 1987 indignantly denied this story. The young official also related the story that Huang Yeren (Huang the wild man) had originally been called Huang "also [in Cantonese “yah”] man” (in many Luofu folk-tales the Yeren is said to appear in the shape of an animal). Later the character for "also" (in Mandarin “ye”) had been substituted by that for "wild" (in Mandarin also "ye"). We have not found any documentary sources which confirm this information.

19 Michel, Soymié, "Le Lo-feou chan", 1954. Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-orient, Tome XLVIII (ler semestre), 1954, pp. 1-137, raises another possibility (see pp. 109-110): that the Yeren tradition is based on contacts in ancient times, possibly including periodic trading exchanges, between people of the plains of Guangdong and aborigines living on or near the mountain. In the eyes of the plainsmen, the aborigines would appear strange in many respects, especially in speech and appearance. Stories derived from these contacts might have become the basis for the Yeren legend. Supporting this interpretation, Soymié notes, is the fact that Yeren was thought to be able to appear as a man or a woman, a young person or an old person, and that Yeren is in fact a category of "strange person apparitions” rather than a single figure. Clearly, once such a flexible figure had become established in the popular imagination, sightings of almost anything on the mountain could feed into the growing folklore about Yeren.

16 Some stories of healings by Yeren are contained in Luofushan Fengwuzhi (Records of Mt. Luofu scenery), Guangdong Lüyou Chubanshe (Tourist affairs publishing co., 1984). This source also records the tradition that the cave of Yeren was guarded by a mute tiger. The chapter in which the healings are recorded is titled, "The earth-bound fairy riding on a mute tiger."

17 Source: Nanhan Shu (The book of Southern Han), Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe, 1981 (reprint), volume 17. This story was also related to Ragvald by scholars of the provincial Wenshi Guan (Research institute of culture and history) whom the first author interviewed in Guangzhou, September, 1987.

18 These details are in notes provided to the first author by the Wenshi Guan scholars (see previous footnote), and were evidently taken by them from an addition to the Nanhan Shu, titled Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (Collating the variants), volume 17.

19 We have not yet been able to verify the exact location of the temple, which apparently is called Huangxianweng miao (The temple of old saint Huang). There may be several other Huang Li temples in this region.

20 According to Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (volume 17) his original name may have been Wang rather than Huang. Evidently he changed his surname to Huang (in Canton...
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In the 2nd year of the reign of Tung Chih (1863), he assisted in commanding the Hung-tan Fleet to defend Chin-kiang. Because of his bravery, he was granted the title of Tsung-bing. In the 5th moon of that year, he was transferred back to Kwangtung.

In the 4th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1865), he was appointed to be the Deputy Fu-cheong of Lung Mun. Next year, he patrolled in the coastal waters near Tsui Mun, north of Hainan Island, and captured the pirates Mak Cheong-yau, Yeung Wong (楊旺), Fan Chau-bong (范周邦) and Szeto Shing (司徒成). In the 6th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1867), he was transferred to be the Ngai Chau Fu-cheong. In the 7th year of the reign of Tung Chih (1868), while patrolling along the coast of Hainan Island, he captured the pirates Chan Hay-fu, Kat Tang-kiu-yeung and Cheung Hoi-mo at Kwangchow Wan. In the 6th moon of that year, he got the pirate Lok Fuk-shing at An Po near Chao-tam-yeung#. After several years of patrolling and fighting, he brought peace to the coastal area of southern China. Then he was sent to Hainan Island where he took part in a successful campaign against the Lai. After that, he was transferred to be the Fu-cheong of the Tai Pang Brigade A, with his headquarters at the Kowloon Walled City. He stayed at this post for 16 years.

6

In the 9th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu (1883), he was promoted to be the King Chau Tsung-bing. In 1884, when the conflict between the French in Vietnam and the Ching Government aroused, he was transferred to be the Kit-shek Tsung-bing.

In the 13th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu (1887), he was King Chau Tsung-bing again, until he died a year later, still in post.

During his time in Kowloon, he heard of Choi Leung, a native of Tung Kwun, who was a local merchant on the island of Cheung Chau in the Hong Kong region. He was engaged in establishing a charitable hospital and a tomb. The hospital was only a dying house for the poor Chinese to be brought there and die in peace. It was not a hospital in the modern sense. The tomb was the burial place for unidentified persons whose bones were found along the shore of Cheung Chau Island. General Lai got involved with the scheme. He compiled a subscription book and urged contributions by officials, gentries, scholars and merchants to help.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
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not orthodox spirits shen

but dark spirits. Yinshen, the ghosts of those who have died a violent death before their due date.

Chinese usually describe this group, in English, as the 108 Martyrs. They are never portrayed as images and tend to be regarded more as public worthies, folk hero "ethnic group" ancestors rather than deities. The tablet is very similar to the ancestral tablet and simply states that it is the 'Tablet to the One Hundred and Eight Brothers'. It is venerated and although the spirits of the brothers are occasionally asked for advice by devotees they are not usually prayed to for major requests or protection, although in Java in one temple the tablet was prayed to by seafarers before they set out on a long journey. Their festival, simple and not in any way lavish, is generally celebrated on the 15th day of the tenth lunar month, though in Singapore it is held on the 3rd of the eighth lunar month.

The question is, who were the One Hundred and Eight Brothers? Three separate versions of the story of their demise have each been recounted with great solemnity, conviction and confidence by temple keepers in Java, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and even in a Chinese temple in Bali. In Penang the story centres on a junk-load of Hainanese immigrants heading for South-east Asia which never arrived. One version claims that they were mistaken for pirates and wiped out by the 'French' [sic] navy off Annam or the 'British' off Malaya again having been mistaken for pirates. Another version suggests that they were all drowned during a typhoon off the southern tip of what is now Vietnam, and yet another that they were annihilated by Chinese government forces off the Leizhou peninsular immediately north of Hainan when, again, they were mistaken for pirates.12 The third story is that they were the original immigrants from Fujian province who arrived in Hainan to settle but all died in Hainan from disease or at the hands of the aborigines. A twist to the version heard in Penang claimed that the typhoon which sank the junk in the South China Seas drowned all but one of the one hundred and nine aboard, one small boy being saved after days of drifting on wreckage. He then died in Malaya at a ripe old age.

12

One hundred and eight is a secret symbolic number used by secret societies, and one of the Triad gangs in British Malaya was known as the 'One Hundred and Eight Society.' with a devotee in Seremban
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411

YET MORE ON THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1917-1921

DAVID MAHONEY

Keith Stevens writes that Brian Fawcett in his article on "THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE" quoted a figure of 30,000 Chinese who returned to and remained in France, from China, after World War I. He added that the figure appears excessive. In fact, the total of all the Chinese labourers recruited by the French for the French Chinese Labour Corps during World War I did not exceed 50,000.

The French began their recruitment of Chinese in 1916, some six months before the British did. The scheme was initiated following preliminary discussions on the practicalities of recruiting Chinese labourers to be shipped to France to work in munitions factories to release Frenchmen to serve in the trenches, with the initial idea being to recruit Chinese from the area around the French treaty port of Guangzhouwan in Guangdong in southern China. This, however, was rejected and Jiangsu province - a northern province where the Chinese were hardier and used to northern climes - was selected, particularly in view of the wide French missionary influence in that province. A French Army major was despatched from French Indo-China (now Vietnam) to Shanghai where he was based in the French Concession ostensibly as a French civil servant, to avoid embarrassing the Chinese, to report on the practicality of the proposal. His report was favourable and accepted, and recruitment of Chinese volunteer labourers was started in Jiangsu province, in the vicinity of Shanghai in July 1916.

The labourers were transported by sea from Shanghai to Marseilles, where the main French CLC was situated, and Le Havre, and trained and worked in munitions factories across France such as Bergerac in the Dordogne, or in private concerns such as the Schneider factory at Le Creusot. Such employment was not possible in Britain due to the objections raised by British trade unions. French Chinese labourers were often billeted in French homes, and an unknown but comparatively large number married French women, some of whom accompanied their husbands back to China. The few labourers who died in France were buried at French civil cemeteries. Their records were maintained at the Headquarters in Lyons.

'JHKBRAS: Vol. 40, 2000, pp. 33-111.
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