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TYPES OF LINEAGES IN CH'ING CHINA: A RE-EXAMI NAT I ON OF THE CHANG LINEAGE OF T ' UNG-CH ' ENG Patricia Ebrey University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Hilary Beattie's Land and Lineage: A Study of T'ung-ch'eng County, Anhwei in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties (1979) provides abundant evidence about the lineage of Chang Ying SIä (1638-1708), the author of one of her major documents. In this paper I would like to argue that this evidence could be read differently if one tries first of all to see kinship and kinship activities as the actors of the time saw them. In particular I will argue that the Changs may not have been the type of lineage described in the anthropological literature, as Beattie seems to assume, but a different type, one that needs further study. The major source available on the Chang lineage is their 1890 genealogy, the successor of a series of earlier genealogies compiled in 1606, 1666, 1747, and 1814. Prefaces, rules, biographies, essays, and vital data were copied from one genealogy to the next, so that it is possible to reconstruct with some accuracy the material in the earlier genealogies. In using genealogies, it is always important to keep in mind that they were written by particular men, who had a variety of concerns and interests, and that they were written for ritual purposes as much as more mundane ones. To see this social and cultural context, the genealogies need to be supplemented wherever possible with other sources revealing the ideas and activities of the authors 2 of the genealogies. Using the genealogy this way, the history of the Chang lineage can be partially reconstructed. The first sign of lineage activity among the Changs came in 1606 when Chang Ch 'un :(? (1540-1612), the family's first chin-shih, then in his sixties, drew up a chart of the nine generations of his ancestors who had settled in T'ung-ch'eng m W. · In the preface he wrote for this genealogy he discussed the need for genealogies1 records of the merits of ancestors; he also described, in general terms, the merits of his own ancestors. Then he lamented that "I have ancestors but do not know the years they were born or died, where they are buried, or the deeds, words, actions, and hobbies they had in their life." He also expressed dismay that his "ancestors have descendants, and yet when there are cappings or weddings we do not send announcements to them; at the seasonal sacrifices we do not assemble them; at deaths and burials and disasters we do not inform them" (CSTP second preface, 3b-5a). By writing in this way, Chang Ch 'un was associating his efforts with long-established values, but he also was admitting that no agnatic kinship organization existed at the time. To give more substance to his stated goals, Chang Ch' un gave 26 mou to endow sacrifices to his ancestors and charity to kinsmen in need. However, sometime in the next half century this land fell into neglect (Beattie 1979:91). In the mid-seventeenth century, Ch'un's grandson Ping-i 3Ü $ (1593-1667) wanted to restore these ritual and charitable practices. He brought the fields back into cultivation, using 3 the income for sacrificial expenses and for aid to poor agnatic kinsmen. He also bought the land next to his ancestors ' graves so that he could plant pine trees to shade them (WTC 43:16b). In addition he compiled a new genealogy. In his preface for it he emphasized how his grandfather Ch 'un had entrusted the old genealogy to him, but how nothing had been done to keep it up. Now a man over seventy, he was the only surviving person with adequate memory of the missing generations, and so he wanted to compile a revised genealogy, one that would give even more detail than the earlier one had (CSTP: third preface). From his own age, and his expressed concern with how quickly facts about the dead were forgotten, I cannot help but suspect that Ping-i was apprehensive that he too would soon be forgotten unless...

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