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Description

Miniature standing human figure--figure wears a long-sleeved top, billowing yellow pants and slippers,and has long, braided black hair. A single metal wire curved out of the top of the head. Entire figure stands on a red lacquered cube of wood.

Narrative

This image was purchased by Elizabeth Johnson from Mountain Folk Craft, a shop in Kowloon.

Iconographic Meaning

The braid suggests that the ancestor was an unmarried young woman. Married women wore their hair in a bun.

History Of Use

Small carved and painted images were used by boat-dwelling people to represent deceased ancestors so that offerings could be made to them. Boat-dwelling people, called Tanka or, more respectfully, Seuih Seung Yahn, spent their entire lives on boats except for going ashore to fetch water, to market their catch, to bream their boats, and to bury their dead. They made their living through fishing or transport of goods. They were discriminated against by land-dwellers, and their children were not allowed to attend school, so that they remained illiterate. For this reason, they could not represent ancestors with written tablets giving their names. In Hong Kong, their conditions improved in the 1960s, when they were encouraged to move onto land and their children to attend school. Whether or not they continue to use images to represent ancestors is a subject for future research.