WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

220
L. BOSSEN
lineage which has the next largest number of households. Each team
has a single surname that accounts for 50 to 83 percent of the
households, and a secondary lineage comprising from 10 to 36 percent
of the total households. Together, the two main surnames accounted
for 73 to 100 percent of the male household heads in each team. 9
In 2004, I collected household membership from the registration
books for every member (total 408) of one team, including the
households headed by women. Classifying them according to the
surname taken by the children of the household showed that 70
percent of the households belonged to the dominant lineage,
supporting the evidence for surname concentration from 1989. Huang
Tu Village thus resembles an association of eight “single-lineage”
communities (three of them dominated by non-Huang lineages) with a
few minor lineages distributed among them. The fact that each
landholding team is very strongly associated with one or two surname
groups suggests that son preference in this area is related to the social
significance of lineages and not just to the labour, old-age security, and
lineal continuity concerns of individual families. Lineage identities
exercise considerable influence on the alliances and rivalries of
everyday life.
Table 5 Huang Tu Village: surname concentration among male household
heads, for each of the eight teams, 1989
Primary lineage Secondary lineage
Primary & secondary
lineage
Team Percent
Percent
Percent
1 83 10 93
2 82 12 94
3 78 20 98
4 77 18 95
5 64 36 100
6 57 36 93
7 53 20 73
8 50 35 85
Notes: - Primary lineage is the lineage with the most households bearing the same surname
within each team. Secondary lineage refers to the second most common surname in the team.
Source: Village registration books.
9 This is very similar to Hu Mingwen’s description of Liuxia village (Jiangxi Province,
Wannian county, Huyun township). Liuxia village is composed of four “natural
villages” in which each has a different dominant surname (2004:6).