A Chinese kin, lineage or sometimes rendered as clan, is a patrilineal and patrilocal group of related Han Chinese people with a common Chinese surname sharing a common ancestor and, in many cases, an ancestral home.
Description
Chinese kinship tend to be strong in southern China, reinforced by ties to an ancestral village, common property, and often a common spoken
Chinese dialect unintelligible to people outside the village. Kinship structures tend to be weaker in northern China, with
clan members that do not usually reside in the same village nor share property.
Zupu—the genealogy book
A
zupu () is a Chinese kin register or
genealogy book, which contains stories of the kin's origins, male lineage and illustrious members. The register is usually updated regularly by the eldest person in the extended family, who hands on this responsibility to the next generation. The "updating" of one's
zupu () is a very important task in Chinese tradition, and can be traced back thousands of years. After several generations, the local clan lineage will often publish a compendium of these zupus. The overwhelming majority of zupus remain in private hands, though a large number may be found in the Peking University,
Shanghai Library, Cornell University and Tōyō Bunko.
Chinese lineage associations
Chinese lineage associations, also
kinship or
ancestral associations ( or ), are a type of
society relationship institutions found in
Han Chinese ethnic groups and the fundamental unit of Chinese ancestral religion. They gather people who share the same
Chinese surname belonging to the same kin, who often have the same geographical origin (ancestral home), and therefore the same patron
deity. They are not seen as distinct from the Chinese kin itself, but rather as its corporate form. These institutions and their corporeal manifestations are also known as
lineage churches or
kinship churches (), or, mostly on the scholarly level, as
,
[Scholar of Chinese traditional religion Liyong Dai uses the term "Confucclesia", "Confucian church".] although this term has principally other different meanings.
Chinese kinship associations provide guanxi (social network) to members and they build and manage or temples dedicated to the worship of the of the kins as their congregational centers, where they perform rites of unity.
A lineage is a corporation, in the sense that members feel to belong to the same body, are highly conscious of their group identity, and derive benefits from jointly owned property and shared resources.
Different lineages may develop through the opposite processes of fusion and segmentation.
Ancestral shrine
Ancestral temples or shrines are the congregation places of lineage associations, by whom they are built and managed. These temples are devoted to the worship of the
of a certain kin, where the kin members meet and perform rites of unity and banquets.
Variations
Consort kinship
In Imperial times, a
consort kin was a kin with special status due to its connection with an emperor. Throughout Chinese history, consort kins have exercised great power at various times. There have been several usurpations of power by consorts, the most notable being the
Han dynasty's Empress Dowager Lü (), the
Tang dynasty's
Wu Zetian (), and the
Qing dynasty's Empress Dowager Cixi (). The Han dynasty usurper
Wang Mang was a nephew of the Grand Empress Dowager Wang.
Qing period
During the
Qing dynasty, the imperial government encouraged Chinese kins to take up some quasi-governmental functions such as those involving social welfare and primary education.
See also
Citations
Sources
External links
