ID Number

Title

Item Name

Culture

Material

Manufacturing Technique

Place Made

Date Collected

Collector

Date Owned

Owner

Acquisition Date

Source

Source

Measurements

Condition

Accession Number

Description

Carved wooden pulley (a) with a large iron hook attached at the top. A length of twined rope with a hook attached at one end (b) is threaded through the pulley; wooden hook is made from a v-shaped branch. Part c is a long fragment of matching twined rope.

Narrative

This pulley apparatus, and many other objects in this collection, was collected from the abandoned agricultural village of Tsing Fai Tong, in Tsuen Wan District, Hong Kong. The village, like many others in remote and mountainous areas of Hong Kong, had been abandoned because life there was not economically viable in contemporary Hong Kong. Its former inhabitants, members of the Fu lineage, had moved down to the coastal area of Sham Tseng. Elizabeth Johnson collected the objects from the ruined houses with the permission of the Fu lineage, who donated them to the Museum of Anthropology through the intercession of the District Officer, James Hayes. As Hong Kong’s New Territories modernized it was common for people to discard objects that were no longer useful. Hakka people are one of the two original land-dwelling groups that settled the area that became the New Territories of Hong Kong. Their spoken language, and some customs, differed from those of the other original group, the Cantonese or Punti. The Cantonese arrived first and settled on the best rice-growing lands, while the Hakka began to arrive after the late 17th century and settled the more hilly lands.

History Of Use

Traditional village houses in the New Territories of Hong Kong often had a cockloft, a partial second floor at the upper back of the house. One use to which these could be put was for storage, including storage of the family’s rice after it had been dried but before it had been husked. According to Mrs. Yau Chan Shek-ying, of Kwan Mun Hau Village, hook arrangements like this had been in common use, to raise heavy materials such as baskets full of rice. The pulley, with its metal hook, was purchased, and the hook fastened the pulley to the ceiling of the house. The wooden hook was hand-carved. The rope was made by hand from hemp, sometimes by women.The material to be raised was placed on the wooden hook. The rice was either spread on the floor of the cockloft or enclosed in bamboo screens. According to Mrs. Yau, there was no fear of the stored rice being eaten by mice, because of cats kept by the families. The black coating may be soot from the cooking stove of the house. After the mid-twentieth century the New Territories of Hong Kong began to undergo fundamental changes. The people who had been settled there before 1898, when the British colonizers claimed the area, began to give up rice agriculture and coastal fishing, turning instead to wage labour and increased employment overseas. By the end of the century, educational opportunities leading to the possibility of white-collar work also increased, together with western influences. These changes meant that objects and clothing once useful and appropriate were no longer needed and generally were discarded. Some were saved by their owners, who sometimes were willing to donate them to museums, sharing, also, their knowledge of how they were made and used.