This chapter studies how the organizational response by Jiangxi rural communities to environmental challenges resulted in a distinctive, corporate lineage–centered communal organizational context. The following sections discuss how a frontier society in southern Jiangxi created an environment characterized by intense intercommunity competition over resources, the emergence of corporate lineages as the principal communal organizational form, the institutions and functions of corporate lineages, and class differentiation in lineage-based communities.
Widespread lineage organizations as the dominant rural organizational form in southern Jiangxi were the result of migration into a resource-poor frontier region.
Chinese civilization was born in the Yellow River valley in Central China. The vast southern part of contemporary China was considered for a long time a barbarian region. It was populated by dozens of non-Chinese minorities. The most prominent include Nan Man, Li, and Bai Yue.1
However, driven by dynastic changes, wars, and foreign invasions, the ethnic Han Chinese living in Central China were forced to expand into the unfamiliar and harsh southern barbarian region. In this process of Han Chinese migration to the South, the most important wave was the migration of ethnic Chinese, called Hakkas, into the present tri-border region of southern Jiangxi, northeastern Guangdong, and southwestern Fujian.
Hakka literally translates to “guest people,” the term used by local inhabitants to describe the incoming Chinese. Historian Luo Xianglin traces the Hakka migration process and divides it into five periods.2 The first period began in AD 317 when northern nomad minorities invaded Central China and forced the Jin court to flee southward. Large numbers of ethnic Chinese also migrated through the current Anhui and Henan Provinces into the Gan River valley of Jiangxi and settled into central Jiangxi.3
The second period started in the late Tang era, when the massive Huang Chao peasant rebellion disrupted the peace in Central China. Again, wars and the breakdown of the state forced Hakka Chinese residing in central Jiangxi along the Gan River to flee farther south to the tri-border region.4 This region, in the opinion of experts, began to emerge as the core region of Hakka Chinese. This period is also considered the “incubation period” of Hakkas as a subethnic group with a distinctive subculture.5
The third period of Hakka migration began when the Song dynasty was invaded by the Mongols. The Song court fled across the Yangtze River and brought with it more Chinese from Central China. The Hakka Chinese in the southern Jiangxi core region during the process also expanded further southward into the north and east of the present-day Guangdong Province.6
The fourth period of Hakka migration occurred during early Qing. According to Luo Xianglin, this wave of migration was caused primarily by internal population growth of the Hakkas. After several hundred years of relatively peaceful development, the Hakka population at the tri-border region increased dramatically. The region was ecologically poor and hilly; hence it was unable to support the population growth. At the same time, peasant rebellions in Sichuan Province in West China resulted in the decimation of large portions of its population. Under the sponsorship of the Qing government, many Hakkas moved to Sichuan. However, at the same time others migrated eastward through Fujian and across the sea to present-day Taiwan.7
The fifth period started during mid-Qing. The population growth of the Hakkas again forced those already living in northern Guangdong to migrate farther southward to the coastal regions of Guangdong. They settled in the areas around what are now Guangzhou and Hong Kong.8
These five major periods of population migration in the region show that dynastic changes, wars, and foreign invasions in Central and North China resulted in a continuous migration process into southern undeveloped regions. The Jiangxi revolution of the 1930s took place almost exactly in this Hakka core region of southeastern Jiangxi, southwestern Fujian, and northeastern Guangdong, though it was limited to southeastern Jiangxi and southwestern Fujian. As Luo Xianglin in the 1930s and Yan Sen in the 1980s found, almost all counties in southern Jiangxi and southwestern Fujian that constituted the Jiangxi Soviet Republic are pure Hakka counties. They include Xunwu, Anyuan, Xinfeng, Xingguo, Yundu, Huichang, Ningdu, Shicheng, Ruijin, Guangchang, and Yongfeng in southern Jiangxi, and Changting, Shanghang, Wuping, and Yongding in southwestern Fujian.9
Besides the major migrations by Hakkas in the region, there were also many smaller migrations within the southeastern region of China during the Qing dynasty. The most prominent was that of the “shed people,” who populated the mountains along the borders between Jiangxi and Guangdong and between Jiangxi and Fujian.
“Shed people” refers to migrants who lived in simple huts up in the mountains. According to Stephen C. Averill, from the early Qing period, there were migrations of people, many of whom were Hakkas, from inland Fujian and Guangdong into the mountainous areas of southern Jiangxi that became known as the “strongholds of shed people activity.”10
These often sporadic and small-scale migrations from inland Fujian and Guangdong to the mountains of southern Jiangxi were the result of demographic pressures. The limited land resources of the two provinces were increasingly inadequate to support the population growth. Guo Songyi’s research found that in 1766, while Jiangxi had an average of 4 mu of agricultural land per person, Fujian only had 1.8 mu, the second lowest in China.11 Thus, “shed people were mostly poor peasants migrating from other regions, but the largest groups were from Fujian and Guangdong.”12
According to Zhuang Jifa, because the southern mountains of Jiangxi were rich in tea, fruits, and other cash crops like indigo, many landless Guangdong peasants poured into these mountains and settled in simple sheds.13 A report by Jiangxi officials in 1731 found that southern counties such as Wuning, Wanzai, Yongxin, Shangrao, and Yongfeng were populated mostly by shed people.14
Other Qing documents in Jiangxi reported the invasion by shed people from Fujian. The counties bordering Fujian had the most severe problem. In Ruijin County, “people from the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou regions of Fujian poured in by large groups,” and, in many mountains of Xingguo County, “drifting migrants began to surpass the number of native residents.”15
In sum, the tri-border region of southern Jiangxi, southwestern Fujian, and northeastern Guangdong was characterized by constant population migration. The earlier movements were caused by large and traumatic historical events like wars and foreign invasions that pushed ethnic Chinese from Central China into the region. The later population migrations were the result of demographic change in the region. These pushed some Hakkas further southward into the coastal regions of Guangdong and eastward to Taiwan through Fujian. However, at the same time, the activities of the shed people also pushed large numbers of poor landless peasants of Guangdong and Fujian back to the mountains in southern Jiangxi.
The Hakka core region, together with greater Southeast China, which comprises Fujian, Taiwan, and Guangdong, is characterized by constant intercommunity competition for survival and development. This was caused by the unique ecological and social environments of the region.
Even though in the eyes of the Chinese the vast south used to be a barbaric place with very harsh living conditions, by the Qing period, after centuries of population migration, the southeastern part of China began to experience severe ecological pressures due to demographic changes.
As Luo Xianglin observes in his classic study of Hakka migration, the last two waves were caused by internal population growth of Hakkas residing in the core region. Hakkas were forced to move farther eastward to Fujian coastal regions and from there to Taiwan, and further southward to the coastal regions of Guangdong. However, it was not long before these regions began to experience their own demographic pressures. The activities of shed people were efforts by the people in Guangdong and Fujian to move back to the mountain areas of the old Hakka core region.
The southeastern part of China during the Qing suffered some of the most severe ecological pressures. The southeastern region, except its coastal parts, is hilly. As Yu Qing observes, since Hakkas were forced by wars to migrate from Central China, this historical experience influenced their later settling pattern. They chose to settle in the hilly areas of the tri-border region because they were militarily defensible. However, a negative consequence was that they lacked land for agricultural use. Land suitable for agricultural purposes was limited and grossly inadequate for the quickly growing Hakka population.16
Luo Ergang’s 1937 study of ecological pressures in mid-Qing shows the severe problem facing the region. In his study of agricultural land holdings per person in twenty provinces in 1812, Fujian was the second lowest with only 0.93 mu per person. Guangdong ranked the fourth lowest with 1.67 mu per person.17 According to Luo, because of land productivity differences, 4 mu per person in the North and 2 mu in the South were required to subsist. The southeastern part of China clearly faced grave ecological pressure.18
The ecological pressures and limited natural resources in the region were greatly aggravated by constant migration. The problem was that migrants to the area would inevitably ask for a share of the local resources. Since the region had only very limited production resources such as land and water, the new claims by migrants to resources naturally led to conflicts and competition between existing communities and new communities of migrants. This problem of intercommunity competition caused by constant migration in a resource-poor region became the dominant feature of southeastern China.
Cohen’s study traces the history of conflicts between Hakkas and local communities in Guangdong. The local Cantonese-speaking communities, called puntis (local people), mobilized to defend their interests in the face of the encroaching Hakkas.19 Initially, Hakkas lived on the outskirts of punti villages, usually on the hillside, and worked either as tenants of puntis or cultivated poor lands. Moreover, Hakkas lived dispersed among puntis.20 However, Cohen found that Hakkas gradually consolidated their positions in the area dominated by puntis by residing in groups, for they had to hang together to check the exploitation of puntis. As tensions with both punti landlords and tenants rose, puntis and Hakkas gradually began to live in separate villages to facilitate easy mobilization. Moreover, Hakkas began to systematically take over punti villages. As a foreign observer noted of the changeover from Cantonese to Hakka occupancy of villages: “Soon after the appearance of a Hakka house inside the walls of a punti village, the puntis disappeared completely.”21
With the creation of separate punti and Hakka communities, large-scale battles broke out in Guangdong in the nineteenth century. By 1860, the fighting was so severe that, according to one foreigner, “there were shipments of arms and even the dispatch of armed steamers from Hong Kong to assist one or other of the belligerent parties.”22 The fighting was so pervasive and intense that the Qing government had to dispatch imperial troops to stop the organized violence and to resettle Hakkas. The governor of Guangdong had to set aside certain regions for Hakka settlement. Cantonese were ordered to give up their lands to Hakkas, in return receiving vacated Hakka farms.23 Luo Xianglin estimated that organized violence between Hakkas and puntis resulted in about 500,000 dead, wounded, and missing.24
However, conflicts between native and migrant communities were not confined to Hakkas. The shed people in new communities in the hills also competed with existing local communities on the plains and in valley areas. As Averill documents in his study of shed people in southern Jiangxi, the dominant attitude of the local communities and of the majority of Qing officials toward the shed people “can only be characterized as one of antagonism.” Although most shed people worked either as tenants for local landlords or on the mountains, their relations with the local population were marked by conflicts. Their primitive forms of agriculture quickly exhausted the soil and often caused severe erosion problems. Some of the shed people were alleged to turn to banditry, threatening the property and order of local communities.25
Liu Min’s study of shed people in southern Jiangxi shows that to control the conflicts between the local communities and communities of shed people, the Qing government adopted a policy of segregation. They ordered shed people and local people to enter into separate population registration systems, and they had to live in separate communities.26 The Qing government established separate quotas in imperial exams for shed people to minimize conflicts with local communities.
Mao Tse-tung noted that even in the early Republican era of the twentieth century the conflicts between the two sides in southern Jiangxi were still very intense. He found that in the southern border regions, there existed “very deep division” between local populations and migrants. According to Mao, migrants occupied hilly areas and were suppressed by local populations who controlled the plains.27
In Fujian, the grave ecological problem and scarce resources also resulted in widespread intercommunity competition. The Communist army found that even in the 1940s it was very common to employ community-organized violence to control land and water rights. As one report by the Land Commission of the Eastern Military and Administrative Committee noted, “Whenever new lands were found, they could not be claimed by any village or lineage in a peaceful way, but through intense confrontations among them. . . . If both sides had rough parity in powers, then armed feud would break out.”28
A Qing magistrate of Pinghe County in southern Fujian observed that intense intercommunity conflicts created a situation of well-defined geographic spheres of interests among communities: “People utilized mountains and rivers as natural defense positions. Each clan is a fortress and every individual is a soldier. People of the same surnames lived in separate and well-defined boundaries. They had generations of competition with and hatred for each other.”29
Widespread and armed intercommunity conflicts, especially in pure Hakka counties in western Fujian, resulted in a unique pattern of residence: large fortresses that served both as living and fighting facilities for an entire community. Yang Guozhen and Chen Zhiping’s research during the 1980s reveals that, especially in the Hakka counties of Yongding, Shanghang, and Longyan, it was a common practice for an entire community to build and live permanently in a round, multistory fortress to defend against attacks from other communities.30 Interestingly, these fortresses today are still the homes of some Hakka communities in Fujian.
Pervasive intercommunity conflicts, therefore, characterized southeastern China. Conflicts were the result of demographic change and constant population movement in a resource-poor region. This problem, however, was further intensified by the political environment of the region, which had long been a lawless frontier with weak state authority. Thus, as Zhuang Jifa observes, this region was a “migration-development society” with weak law and order.31 Not only was the region far away from the national power center in Beijing, it was also situated in a mountainous setting that inhibited effective communication with and supervision by state authorities who were located in cities and counties.
In this frontier society, communities had to survive as if in a state of nature. Conflicts among them could not be settled by strong and speedy state interventions. Rather, they had to be settled by the communities themselves. Therefore, frequent and large-scale armed feuds became the major means through which communities took the law into their own hands. Feuds in this region were particularly notorious during the Qing period. The Qing court frequently expressed its grave dissatisfaction with the widespread armed feuds in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. For example, Emperor Yongzheng in 1734 commented, “I heard that the Zhangzhou and Chuanzhou regions in Fujian had strong traditions of fierce fighting. These big clans with large numbers often exploit the weak and solitary. Armed feuds often broke out over small incidents.”32 Emperor Qianlong personally ordered Fujian officials to take resolute measures to stop widespread armed feuds in the regions.33
In his study of armed feuds among communities in southeastern China, Harry Lamley notes that this phenomenon was both the result of scarce resources and an expanding population, on the one hand, and weak state authority, on the other. In his account, in the Chaozhou Prefecture, Qing officials usually hesitated to enter localities where armed feuds were rife.34
In this environment of weak state authority, communities often built tall walls for military purposes. This phenomenon was not found in any other rural areas in China. As one British traveler found in the mid-nineteenth century in the Chaozhou region, “All the neighboring counties were in a state of anarchy; the villages, towns, and hamlets were all walled, and each seemed prepared to fight with its neighbors. There were villages, certainly not a quarter of a mile from each other, both surrounded with distinct walls about sixteen to twenty feet high.”35
As discussed in the previous chapter, peasant communities often built cooperative institutions to respond to environmental challenges. It was natural that the unique social environments of southeastern China would result in some kinds of communal organizational response. The next section discusses how the communities in this region responded organizationally to their environments.
British anthropologist Maurice Freedman first found that the dominant communal organizational form in southeastern China was strong corporate lineages. His pioneering book, Lineage Organization in Southeast China (1958), and its follow-up, Chinese Lineage and Society (1966), laid the foundation for later research on the subject.
According to James L. Watson, a lineage is “a corporate group which celebrates ritual and is based on demonstrated descent from a common ancestor.” A lineage “is a corporation in the sense that members derive benefits from joint-owned properties and shared resources; they also join in corporate activities on a regular basis. Furthermore, members of a lineage are highly conscious of themselves as a group in relation to others, whom they define as outsiders.”36 A later study by Patricia B. Ebrey and James L. Watson further pinpoints the basic feature of lineages: “a diagnostic feature of lineage (as opposed to other descent groups) is that a lineage has ownership of collective assets vested in the group or segments of the group.”37
Lineage is a more restrictive concept than descent groups or surname groups. According to Ebrey and Watson, descent group “refers to groups of agnates, defined by descent from a common ancestor. Its members are aware of their kinship, but corporate behaviors may be limited to activities such as ancestral rites or compilation of genealogies.”38 Surname group refers to “any group or category of people who are united solely on the basis of shared surname and very distant presumed kinship.”39 Lineage, therefore, is the most restrictive concept among the three and is organizationally the most elaborate and institutionalized.
Even though Freedman’s study focuses primarily on Fujian and Guangdong, the Hakka core region in southern Jiangxi, southwestern Fujian, and northeastern Guangdong was also dominated by corporate lineages. From this region Hakkas later expanded into other regions in Fujian and Guangdong. As Mao Tse-tung found in 1928 in southern Jiangxi, “No matter in which county, feudal lineage organizations are extremely widespread. Usually, villages are single surname villages, or several villages have one surname.”40 This lineage-dominated communal organizational form in southeastern China distinguished itself from the rest of China. However, how do we explain this unique community organizational form in the region?
I argue that this was the result of organizational adaptation by peasant communities in the region to their distinctive environments. As discussed in the previous section, southeastern China was characterized by constant intercommunity competition in a resource-poor ecological setting. The problem was intensified by the weak state authority in a frontier society. Lineages emerged in communities of the region as a result of communal organizational adaptation to the environmental challenges.
Freedman, while hypothesizing a number of causes for the strong corporate lineages in the region, primarily emphasizes its lawless frontier environment. In addition to the cooperative effort necessary to bring wild land under cultivation, there was also a need for organized defense:
When settlement took place in rough frontier conditions, single lineage communities were likely to develop fairly quickly and when, in contrast, people moved into areas under firm government control, any initial agnatic heterogeneity in the incoming groups was probably perpetuated.41
Jack M. Potter’s study of lineage-centered communities in Southeast China also notes the role of the lawless frontier setting: “In such weakly controlled area, conditions often approached a state of near anarchy, and strong lineages were one method of mutual protection and self-help. The lineages would take on important legal, political, and military functions.”42 As Potter continues, “In the great southward migration Chinese agriculturalists moved into areas inhabited by non-Han minority people, establishing themselves mainly by force as enclaves within hostile population.” Thus, “under frontier conditions, strongly organized and highly integrated lineages were almost essential for continued survival.”43
Early large-scale migration to the region might have provided the necessary initial organizational means to create lineages. The early Hakka southward movement was driven by large, catastrophic historical events, such as wars, foreign invasions, and rebellions. Thus, earlier Hakka movement tended to involve large-group migration, such as parts of or an entire village.44 This pattern organizationally facilitated the initial creation of lineages. Since some villages in Central China were already populated by surname groups, it was easy for these so far only loosely connected surname groups to develop into more institutionalized corporate lineages when they tried to survive in harsh and hostile new environments. Even if village members who migrated together were not related in any way, longtime acquaintance and prior common residence also helped crystalize them into highly structured groups in the new environment. Numerous scholars have noted that many genealogies in southeastern China are fabricated. As David Faure observes in his study of lineages in Guangdong, “Whether the genealogical linkage claimed is real or fictitious is beside the point from the people of lineage organization: it matters only that members of the lineage are prepared to accept the linkage as real.”45
In anthropological terms, this process of lineage formation, whether strengthening an existing surname group or uniting people with no linkages at all, occurs through fusion rather than through the segmentation used in lineages with a real common ancestor. In the case of fusion, lineages “tend to assume the guise of an organization based on descent from a single ancestor.” The way to achieve this is the compilation of fake genealogies.46
This process of lineage formation, facilitated by the historical processes of early migration, in turn generated strong dynamics for the creation of lineages by other communities. If some communities organized themselves through lineage institutions, unorganized and weak communities had to respond by creating their own lineages. Averill’s study of shed people in southern Jiangxi found that since they faced already organized local communities, lineages were organized through fictive kinship. They were formed by people who came originally from different places and may not have been related at all, “except through lines of descent artificially contrived to meet at some common ancestor.” According to Averill, “Whatever the defects from a genealogical perspective, these lineages were useful for providing an organizational principle—fictive kinship—around which large numbers of people could be gathered in a short time to defend their economic and political interests.”47
Zhuang Jifa’s research on lineage organization in Fujian also demonstrates how, as organizational responses to existing powerful lineages, weak communities and small surname groups had to organize into large, artificially created lineages to compete. He found that both in late Ming and early Qing it became common for small groups to unite to counter large lineages that exploited them. The lineages created through this fusion process often deliberately chose a common surname that expressed their purpose of unity. These artificially created surnames included, for example, Tong (togetherness), Qi (united), Bao (encompassing), and Hai (universal).48
The dynamics of large-scale migration and demographic change in a resource-poor region caused the emergence of strong lineages in southeastern China. Not only were early large-scale migration patterns conducive to the creation of early lineages in the region, but these in turn forced other communities to adopt the same organizational response. A lawless frontier environment sharpened the structural problem of intercommunity competition for survival and further contributed to lineage formation.
In this context, lineage organizations were institutionally more stable compared with other non-kin-based organizational forms. Non-kin-based associational organizations were inherently unstable. Either they could not retain members for long, or they faced the classic collective action problem. In contrast, lineage organizations minimized institutional instability. Because of real or fictive blood ties, members had a clear sense of belonging. As Watson observes, lineage members were “highly conscious of themselves as a group.”49 As the next section will show, frequent rituals of ancestral worship had a central place in the institutional process of lineages. They served to constantly reinforce members’ consciousness of common identity. Moreover, lineage organizations also had concrete resources to maintain the organization and its membership. As will be explored in greater detail in the next section, common property, usually land, offered material interests to individual members. Members thus had strong incentives to stay in the organization.
How do we assess the thesis of organizational response to a frontier society? Freedman also points out a possible correlation between lineages and the economic system of the region, the rice economy. He attributes lineage formation to the cooperative nature of the rice-growing enterprise. The irrigation necessary for rice economy required communities to use certain organizational mechanisms for the task.50
This hypothesis, however, cannot explain why only this region had strong corporate lineages since many other regions in China also had rice economies. In fact, the lower Yangtze River region in central-eastern China had a more advanced and extensive rice economy. However, this region did not have strong corporate lineages. The middle-southern region of China, such as Hunan and Hubei, also had rice economies but did not have strong corporate lineages.
Potter provides an alternative, economically based hypothesis in addition to his frontier thesis. He argues that lineages needed capital to create corporate property. Thus, only the highly productive rice regions in the South could do this.51 However, even though this hypothesis explains well why strong corporate lineages were found only in South China, it cannot explain the differences among regions in the South. Again, only southeastern China had strong corporate lineages. The lower Yangtze River region was traditionally more developed and richer than the southeastern region but did not have strong lineages.
This section discusses the key institutions and functions of lineage organizations in southeastern China. They include rituals, corporate properties, leadership and decision making, and social-welfare functions.
Ritual Practice
An important part of lineage life was centered on regular ancestral worship. Since lineage was based on common descent, the cult of the ancestor was paramount in maintaining the organization. In Potter’s words, the ancestral cult was the worldview of lineage members.52
As Watson notes, the fact that a lineage celebrates ritual unity implies “that members of a lineage are conscious in and of themselves as a group. It follows, therefore, that a lineage cannot exist unless its members gather periodically, at a grave or a hall, to celebrate rites of unity.”53
Ancestral cult rituals were frequently and regularly held by almost all lineages in southeastern China to periodically revive and reinforce the group consciousness of common belonging. As British anthropologist Hugh D. R. Baker points out, “The Chinese lineage is founded in both kinship and ritual.”54 Usually, members of a lineage participate in the rites led by lineage elders. The process was solemn and highly elaborate. In many lineages in southeastern China, the expense of ancestral worship consumed a large portion of the lineage incomes from their corporate properties.
Apart from their rather solemn parts, rites were usually followed by a feast of the entire lineage. Even though this part of the ritual stood in sharp contrast to the sacred nature of ancestral worship, its function was the same. The wild drinking and eating by all members promoted a sense of brotherhood and equality.55 As Deng He concludes in his study, through worship and feasting, “lineage members not only experienced the greatness of the organization but also the happiness of brotherhood.”56
Corporate Land
As Watson points out, one of the defining features of lineage was the existence of jointly owned property, which usually took the form of corporate land. This institution was imperative because it determined the ability of a lineage to survive as an organization. Whether a lineage can organizationally survive depends on its ability to hold its members together. Common land provided the most important material base for this purpose. According to Potter, “Collectively owned land in the form of ancestral estates is a sine qua non for the development of strong lineage organization in China.”57
Besides financing the building of ancestral halls and supporting ancestral worship, the most important role of corporate land was to retain lineage members for economic reasons and thus promote lineage solidarity. One way of economically retaining members was to provide personal income for lineage members from the division of surplus income from common property. Even after the ritual expense, the lineage often had a surplus from the rent of its corporate land, and it could be dispensed to lineage members either directly or through various social welfare benefits.
As Chen Han-sheng found in Guangdong in the 1930s, “Sometimes the income from the rent is distributed among the member families according to the number of individuals, and sometimes according to the number of sub-families.”58 For the lineages in the New Territories of Hong Kong, “the income left over after paying for taxes and the ancestral sacrifices is divided equally among the male members of the group.”59 As Potter notes, lineage members therefore “have such a strong economic interest in remaining with the group that only a few would permanently leave their lineage.”60
Another way to attract lineage members economically was through the right to use the land. As Freedman notes:
When the landlord was often the agnatic group of which the tenant was a member, and when being a member of such a group meant having a prior right to tenancy, the poorer people had every reason to stay in the community rather than go to try their luck elsewhere.61
Because of its central importance to maintaining the lineage as an organization, corporate land constituted a large portion in the total agricultural land in southeastern China before 1949. In most communities corporate land usually ranged around 30% or higher. In his classic 1936 study of Guangdong, Chen Han-sheng found that, based on the lowest estimate, no less than 35% of the land in the province was corporate land.62 Later studies in the 1960s in the New Territories of Hong Kong, which formerly belonged to Guangdong, showed that corporate land still constituted an important share of the economic activities of lineages. For example, Baker’s study of one Hakka lineage found that 52% of its land was corporate.63 Rubie Watson’s study of another lineage found that 44% of its land was corporate property.64 And the corporate land of a lineage studied by Potter constituted 93% of its total agricultural land.65
In Fujian, corporate land constituted perhaps an even larger share of agricultural land. Communist land reform documents revealed that in the 1940s corporate land in northern Fujian averaged 58.32%, in eastern Fujian 49.53%, in northwestern Fujian 66.92%, in southern Fujian 44%, and in central Fujian 48.92%.66
In core areas of the Jiangxi revolution, no systematic data is available. However, Communist documents do contain some information about the importance of corporate land in local economies. For example, Mao Tse-tung’s investigation in Xunwu County in southern Jiangxi found that 40% of its land was lineage owned.67 A report by the Party Committee of Changting County identified 33% of its land as corporate controlled.68 Another party document showed that in Gonglue County land controlled by landlords and ancestral estates respectively produced 150,000 and 220,000 shi of grain, meaning the latter possessed more land than the former.69
Corporate land was usually managed by one of two methods. In the first, the lineage leased the land to another lineage. A lineage thus became a corporate landlord.70 This practice was found both in Guangdong and in Fujian. Another method was to lease the land to individual tenants who could be lineage members or outsiders. However, lineage members often had priority in tenancies and received better lease terms.71 But these practices were not universal.
Corporate land was property jointly owned by all members of a lineage. Usually it could not be sold. Even when it could be sold unanimous consent of members was required. These were safety measures to ensure the continuity of corporate property and thus the continuity of the organization itself.72
Social Welfare Services of Lineage
As Watson observes on the economic roles of lineages in southeastern China:
The ideology of common descent is a powerful organizing principle in Chinese society but this in itself is not enough to hold members of a lineage together, in the same community, generation after generation. As shareholders in a corporation, members expect to receive some benefits, material or otherwise, from their collective holdings. In most cases benefits derived from the surplus income of ancestral estates, which is either reinvested by the managers or shared out in annual dividends.73
Thus besides the common land that offered direct material inducements, for members to stay in the organization, lineage also performed a variety of welfare services. These included lineage schools for the education of all lineage children, charities to support the elderly and widowed, and expenses for the burial of the dead.
As Chen Han-sheng discovered in the local chronicle of Mei County, a Hakka area in northern Guangdong, of the social welfare functions of lineages in the nineteenth century:
It has been a long and well-established tradition to maintain Tai-fien or the clan land for ancestral worship. The annual income thereof, besides defraying the expenditure for worship, has a threefold use. Those families sending their boys to the ancestral temple to study may receive a regular stipend; also scholars in the clan who have been admitted to the public ceremony of worshiping Confucius may receive an annual subsidy; and those scholars who are to participate in the civil service examinations either in the provincial or in the national capital, may have their travel expenses partially or entirely paid from the clan fund. . . . The finance of the clan does not confine itself to education. All the elders who are above sixty years of age receive an annual grant of rice and, on every occasion of ancestral worship, a certain amount of meat. Some of the very poor or permanently disabled members of the clan also enjoy such an annual grant. Some financial assistance is given, too, to those clan members who cannot meet the expense of the wedding or funeral. Whenever a famine occurs, relief is offered from the clan treasury.74
According to many studies, these social welfare functions were still performed by lineages in the 1960s in the New Territories of Hong Kong.75 In the powerful corporate lineages in Fujian, social welfare services were also an integral part of the functions of lineages.76 Communist documents on the southern Jiangxi revolution complained about how the social welfare functions of lineages impeded the revolutionary process. For example, as reported in one CCP document, lineages “gave some of their income to the poor members and subsidized education of lineage children. As a result, peasants’ lineage consciousness is especially strong, and they compromised with the landlords and rich peasants of the same lineage.”77
Leadership and Decision Making in Lineage-Based Communities
Lineage leadership was also unique in that it was the elders who formally controlled lineage affairs. As Chen Han-sheng found in Guangdong in the 1930s, “As a rule, the clan head is the oldest man of the clan, and the clan chief or clan trustee is selected from among the oldest generation living.”78 C. K. Yang’s study of Guangdong communities in the 1940s found that “the clan was directed by the council of elders and the business manager. In principle, the council elders were the center of authority that made all important decisions concerning the affairs of the clan.”79
Even though in some lineages the power of the elders and the lineage head was paramount only in a formal sense, their moral authority was still vital in the functioning of the lineage. The positions of the elders and the councils they made up occupied the highest level of the formal power hierarchy.
In some lineages the real power was vested in managers of ancestral estates and corporate property. In most cases, these elite positions were awarded on merit. According to Chen Han-sheng, “The clan manager, the clan treasurer, or the clan chief-accountant, is usually somebody who in his early years had passed the civil service examinations, or somebody who has graduated from a certain provincial school.”80 The manager tended to be someone who had certain qualifications for the position. There were also specific rules on the terms of appointment: “normally, the clan treasurer or the clan chief-accountant holds his office for one year, but he may be reappointed year after year.”81
Potter’s study of lineages in the New Territories of Hong Kong in the 1960s found that:
The tenure of office for the manager of the ancestral lands varies from one group to another within the village. In some groups, one manager may serve one year at a time, whereas in other groups, one manager may serve throughout his lifetime. Life tenure, however, is not common in the village and is usually found only in the smaller ancestral estates that do not have sizable property holdings. Most “kin-corporations,” if they may be called by the term, stipulate that the managership is to be rotated every year among the different subbranches, or fang, that make up the group.82
When each fang decided who should have the privilege of acting as the manager for the lineage during its tenure of management, it either used the lottery method or selected an educated member.83
From these examples we can see that the formal leadership in lineages was either based on seniority, like lineage heads and lineage councils, or on merits, like lineage managers and treasurers. There were extensive and elaborate rules on who was qualified for leadership positions. In some sense there was a disjunction between economic and political powers in lineages. Even though a rich member might have greater influence on lineage affairs than a poor member, the formal decision-making institutions and rules in lineage organizations were unrelated to the wealth of members. This feature is unique in the various forms of agrarian social organizations.
The preceding sections of this chapter, however, should not be taken to imply that lineage-based communities in southeastern China were classless communities. On the contrary, a lineage community was like the larger society in that historical and social forces also created among its members groups of different wealth and status.
First, even though corporate land constituted an important part of peasant economies in southeastern China, most land was still private. There were landlords and tenants. Some were rich and some poor. Within lineages, even though corporate land affected all lineage members economically, some members also had their own private land while others were completely landless. Therefore, although Chen Han-sheng found that four out of every five peasants in Guangdong lived with their lineages, the distribution of private land varied widely. He gave the average land holding per family for each of the four categories of peasants: landlord, 203 mu (roughly 34 acres); rich peasant, 24.8 mu; middle peasant 6.0 mu; and poor peasant, 2.0 mu (roughly one-third of an acre).84 In fact, poor peasants made up about 74% of Guangdong families while owning only 19% of the land.
Mao Tse-tung’s study of Xunwu County in southern Jiangxi found that even though 40% of the land was corporate, the landlord class, which made up about 4% of the population, still owned 30% of the land while all other peasants, who made up 92% of the population, owned only 30% of the land.85
In the western Fujian county of Changting, even though corporate land was 33% of the total, landlords held another 30%. Peasants, who made up at least 70% of the population, had only 15% of the land. Commercial capitalists held another 20%.86 Thus, in southeastern China, which had a lineage-dominated agrarian social structure, a strong landlord economy operated beside the corporate-based economy.
Second, within lineages different segments that made up the organization might also have very different economic status. Individual members of some segments held more wealth than other members. Potter gives a simple description of the differentiation process. Among the corporate land of a lineage, some, if not most, was owned by all members of the lineage, and every male had an equal share of its income. However, frequently lineages also developed within themselves several segments. Each segment might also have its own land. Its income was not divided among all individuals in the segments but rather by branches. If the founder of a segment had two sons, the income would be divided into two equal parts. If one of these two sons produced six sons, then his share of the income would be divided after his death into six equal parts, each of which consisted of one-twelfth of the original estate. If the other son of the founder had only one son, then he would get his father’s entire share, or one-half of the original estate. Thus, the members of the third generation of the segment would share unequally in the common property of the segment.87 Naturally, these processes gradually led to disparate wealth holdings within lineages, and social differentiations began to emerge. The richer members could further consolidate their position by purchasing private land and might become private landlords. With time, within the same segment some members became landlords while other members became tenants.
Third, a political class used its position to exploit the rest of the lineage and became wealthy in the process. Even though the lineage head and managers were selected largely because of their seniority or merits, these lineage leaders often misused their powers in lineage management to make themselves rich.
Chen Han-sheng observes that lineage income, consisting of rent from land, houses, fish ponds, and interest on loans, was often embezzled by lineage managers. As in some cases, “the common property of a clan is so manipulated as to become a modified form of private property. The vast sum of clan incomes, representing the fruit of the labor of multitudes, is quietly passing into the possession of a relatively few people.”88 As Chen Han-sheng concludes, this created “a new exploiting class which [was] able to turn the common heritage, such as the clan lands, to individual use.”89 However, as he noted, in the lineage such misuse of power by the governing members of the organization was unknown to the great majority of the peasant members. The formal rules on selection of leadership and decision making disguised the abuse of power by lineage leaders.
In sum, even though lineage as a formal organization dominated the rural communities of southeastern China, a landlord economy still operated actively alongside the corporate economy. Collective and common group identity promoted by lineage ideology coexisted with class differentiation among lineage members.
Southeastern China was marked by constant intercommunity competition for survival. This was caused by migration and demographic change in a resource-poor frontier region. Communities had to organizationally adapt to this unique environment. During the process of organizational response, strong corporate lineages emerged as the dominant form of community organization in the region. The organizational principles of lineages created the most stable type of community cooperative institution. Their emphasis on ritual unity, common corporate property, extensive welfare services, and elder-controlled decision-making processes helped strengthen group solidarity, which was essential for survival amid constant intercommunity competition. However, all the efforts by lineage organizations to promote an ideology of formal equality and brotherhood coexisted nonetheless with objective social differentiation among community members.
1. See Luo Xianglin, A Guide for Research on Hakkas (Guangzhou: Xishan shucang, 1933), p. 79.
2. For more discussion on Hakka migration, see Chen Yundong, Hakkas (Taipei: Lianya, 1979); James Lee, “Migration and Expansion in Chinese History,” in William H. McNeill and Ruth S. Adams, eds., Human Migration: Patterns and Policies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978).
3. Luo Xianglin, 1933, p. 41.
4. Ibid., p. 46.
5. For discussion of this “incubation period” of Hakka subculture, see Myron Cohen, “The Hakka or ‘Guest People’: Dialects as a Sociocultural Variable in Southeastern China,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1968), p. 244; Yang Xisong, “A Discussion on the Origins of Hakkas and Southern Fujian People,” Kejia zazhi, No. 11 (1990), p. 10.
6. Luo Xianglin, 1933, p. 51.
7. Ibid., pp. 59–61.
8. Ibid., pp. 62–63.
9. For more information on geographical distributions of pure Hakka counties in southeastern China, see Luo Xianglin, 1933, p. 94; also see Yan Sen, “The Tones of Jiangxi Dialects,” Jiangxi shifan daxue xuebao, No. 3 (1988), p. 44.
10. See Stephen C. Averill, “The Shed People and the Opening of the Yangtze Highland,” Modern China, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1983), p. 84.
11. See Guo Songyi, “An Analysis of the Reclamation Policy of the Feudal State in Early Qing,” Qingshi luncong, Vol. 2 (1984), p. 105.
12. Ibid., p. 120.
13. See Zhuang Jifa, “Migration and the Development of Secret Societies in Fujian and Guangdong during Qing,” in Institute of Modern History, ed., Papers from the Conference on Early Modern China (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1989), p. 760.
14. These reports by Qing officials are quoted in ibid.
15. These remarks were recorded originally in Ruijin County Gazetteer and Xingguo County Gazetteer. All were quoted in Guo Songyi, 1984, p. 120.
16. For this discussion on the settling patterns of Hakkas and perennial land shortages, see Yu Qing, Hakkas Searching for Their Roots (Taipei: Wuling, 1988), p. 54.
17. For this data, see Luo Ergang, “Population Pressure before the Taiping Revolution,” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi jikan, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1937), p. 42.
18. Ibid., p. 20.
19. Cohen, 1968, p. 248.
20. Ibid., pp. 253–54.
21. Quoted in ibid., p. 267.
22. Quoted in ibid., p. 278.
23. For these figures, see Luo Xianglin, 1933, p. 62.
24. Ibid., p. 3.
25. See Averill, 1983, pp. 99–100.
26. See Liu Min, “Household Registration for the Shed People during Qing,” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu, No. 1 (1983), p. 24.
27. Mao Tse-tung, 1928, “A Report by the Jinggangshan Party Committee to the Party Center,” in Collected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Tokyo: Hokubosha, 1972).
28. These Communist documents were quoted in Yang Guozhen and Chen Zhiping, “Fortresses in Fujian during Ming and Qing,” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu, No. 2 (1985), p. 52.
29. These comments by the magistrate of Pinghe County were also quoted in ibid., p. 55.
30. For more discussion on the fortresses in Fujian, see ibid.; Wei Jiaxiong, “Folk Traditions of Fujian and Taiwan during Ming and Qing,” Zhongguo shi yanjiu, No. 3 (1990), p. 123.
31. See Zhuang Jifa, 1986.
32. These comments by Emperor Yongzheng were quoted in Wei Jiaxiong, 1990, p. 115.
33. See Wang Sizhi, “An Analysis of the Lineage System,” Qingshi luncong, Vol. 4 (1982), p. 176.
34. See Harry J. Lamley, “Lineage Feuding in Southeastern Fujian and Eastern Guangdong under Qing Rule,” in Jonathan N. Lipman and Stevan Harrell, eds., Violence in China: Essays in Culture and Counterculture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), pp. 37–38.
35. This observation was quoted in Maurice Freedman, Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London: Athlone Press, 1958), p. 8.
36. For this definition of lineages, see James L. Watson, “Chinese Kinship Reconsidered: Anthropological Perspectives on Historical Research,” China Quarterly, No. 92 (1982), p. 594.
37. See Patricia B. Ebrey and James L. Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 5.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Mao, 1928.
41. Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (London: Athlone Press, 1966), p. 164.
42. Jack M. Potter, “Land and Lineage in Traditional China,” in Maurice Freedman, ed., Family and Kinship in Chinese Society (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970), p. 135.
43. Ibid., p. 136.
44. Burton Pasternak, “The Role of the Frontier in Chinese Lineage Development,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1969), pp. 553–54.
45. David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 2.
46. For more discussion on lineage formation through the fusion process, see James Watson, 1982, p. 604.
47. Averill, 1983, p. 105.
48. For the fusion type of formation of these artificial lineages in Fujian, see Zhuang Jifa, 1989, p. 738.
49. James Watson, 1982, p. 594.
50. For more discussion on the impact of rice economy on lineage formation, see Freedman, 1966, p. 160.
51. Potter, 1970, pp. 132–33.
52. Sulamith H. Potter and Jack M. Potter, China’s Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 23.
53. James Watson, 1982, p. 597.
54. Hugh D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 71.
55. For more discussion on the ritual of lineage feasts, see Rubie S. Watson, Inequality among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
56. Deng He, “The Internal Structure of Lineages in Modern China,” Shanxi daxue xuebao, No. 2 (1991), p. 40.
57. Potter, 1970, p. 127.
58. See Chen Han-sheng, Landlord and Peasant in China: A Study of the Agrarian Crisis in South China (New York: International, 1936), p. 30.
59. Jack M. Potter, Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 61.
60. Potter, 1970, p. 129. For more discussion on the roles of corporate land in the maintenance of lineage organizations, see Deng He, 1991, p. 42.
61. Freedman, 1958, p. 127.
62. Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 35.
63. Baker, 1968, p. 171.
64. Rubie Watson, 1985, p. 68.
65. Potter, 1968.
66. These statistics from the CCP land reform documents were quoted in Zheng Zhenman, “The Development of Corporate Landlordism in Northern Fujian during Ming and Qing,” in Fu Yiling and Yang Guozhen, eds., Fujian’s Society and Rural Economy during Ming and Qing (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 1987b), pp. 126–27.
67. See Mao Tse-tung, Report from Xunwu, trans. Roger R. Thompson (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).
68. These statistics on corporate land in Changting County were from CCP Changting County Party Committee, 1930, “A Work Report by the Changting County Party Committee,” Zhongyang geming genjudi shiliao xuanbian (ZGGSX), Vol. 1, p. 287.
69. CCP Jiangxi Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee, 1932, “A Work Summary by the Jiangxi Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee,” ZGGSX, Vol. 1, p. 459.
70. For corporate landlordism, see James L. Watson, “Hereditary Tenancy and Corporate Landlordism in Traditional China: A Case Study,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1977), p. 170; also see Potter, 1968, p. 100.
71. Potter, 1968, p. 113; also see Freedman, 1958, p. 13.
72. For this discussion of the mechanisms used in preserving lineage corporate property, see Potter, 1968, p. 111.
73. James Watson, 1982, p. 600.
74. Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 27.
75. See James Watson, 1977, p. 168.
76. For discussions on social welfare services provided by lineages in Fujian, see Yang Guozhen and Chen Zhiping, “More on the Fortresses in Fujian during Ming and Qing,” in Fu Yiling and Yang Guozhen, eds., Fujian’s Society and Rural Economy during Ming and Qing (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 1987); and Wang Rigen, “The Development and Social Origins of Corporate Land of Fujian Lineages during Ming and Qing,” Zhongguo shehui jingji shi yanjiu, No. 2 (1990).
77. This was quoted in Jiangxi Soviet Area Provincial Party Committee, 1932, p. 445.
78. Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 37.
79. C. K. Yang, A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1959), p. 93.
80. Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 38.
81. Ibid.
82. For the rules of selecting lineage managers in the New Territories of Hong Kong, see Potter, 1968, p. 105.
83. Ibid.
84. For these statistics, see Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 7.
85. See Mao Tse-tung, 1990, p. 122.
86. These statistics were from CCP Changting County Party Committee, 1930, p. 287.
87. For this discussion of the social differentiation process among segments, see Potter, 1968, pp. 108–9.
88. Chen Han-sheng, 1936, p. 38.
89. Ibid., p. 39.