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Journal of Chinese Australia, Issue 2, October 2006
Departed friends Michael Williams
For most of those who left their homes and villages in southern China to journey around the Pacific or in Southeast Asia, the ideal of eventual return was prominent.
All ?returned home to get married; remitted money home and sent their local-born sons home for education; returned home for visits and went home during the Depression and the second world war. They had the bones of their deceased villagers sent home for proper reburial.[1]
Many returned after a few years with money and the 'honour' that accompanied this, others returned only after many more years and sometimes as poor as when they had set out. Still others died far from home. Yet even in this last case, their own and their fellow travelers' sense of fitness ensured that the return of these 'departed friends' to the place of their birth was achieved more often than not.[2] The shipment of bones, which took place from at least 1855 until the mid-20th century, is one of the most consistent behavioural patterns of the huaqiao and one that demonstrates attachment to the qiaoxiang, as well as changes to this attachment overtime.[3]
What follows here is unfortunately not as full an account of the ceremonies and celebrations that accompanied these departed friends as might be wished. The records of officials and the accounts of various, usually non-Chinese witnesses have, as these types of sources often do, stripped the histories of the feelings of respect that undoubtedly were accorded such departed friends. However it can be hoped that by detailing the 'bare bones' (sorry) of numbers and organisation, others with greater knowledge of ceremony and the personal that accompanied this aspect of people's lives and deaths, will contribute in the future.
The practice of returning the bones of the dead to rest in the soil of their ancestors was a fundamental one in Chinese culture and played an important role in the bond with the qiaoxiang.[4] In the qiaoxiang, funeral associations were common and probably provided a model for this kind of activity in the destinations.[5] Reverend William Young reported bones being returned from Melbourne in 'small wooden cases, or carpet bags' in 1868.[6] Concern that bodies not be lost was so strong that 'the putting of coffins on board vessels going to and fro in case a Chinaman dies' was common by the 1890s.[7] New South Wales Royal Commissioners were told in the 1890s that it cost '?0 to remove a man's bones from the country' and that Way Kee's society (Dongguan and Zengcheng people) paid ?29/19/2 to 'raise 84 bodies'.[8] Money was also donated by the huaqiao to the Tung Wah Hospital of Hong Kong to support its role in the transfer of bones to the qiaoxiang.[9]
Journal of Chinese Australia, Issue 2, October 2006
Departed friends Michael Williams
For most of those who left their homes and villages in southern China to journey around the Pacific or in Southeast Asia, the ideal of eventual return was prominent.
All ?returned home to get married; remitted money home and sent their local-born sons home for education; returned home for visits and went home during the Depression and the second world war. They had the bones of their deceased villagers sent home for proper reburial.[1]
Many returned after a few years with money and the 'honour' that accompanied this, others returned only after many more years and sometimes as poor as when they had set out. Still others died far from home. Yet even in this last case, their own and their fellow travelers' sense of fitness ensured that the return of these 'departed friends' to the place of their birth was achieved more often than not.[2] The shipment of bones, which took place from at least 1855 until the mid-20th century, is one of the most consistent behavioural patterns of the huaqiao and one that demonstrates attachment to the qiaoxiang, as well as changes to this attachment overtime.[3]
What follows here is unfortunately not as full an account of the ceremonies and celebrations that accompanied these departed friends as might be wished. The records of officials and the accounts of various, usually non-Chinese witnesses have, as these types of sources often do, stripped the histories of the feelings of respect that undoubtedly were accorded such departed friends. However it can be hoped that by detailing the 'bare bones' (sorry) of numbers and organisation, others with greater knowledge of ceremony and the personal that accompanied this aspect of people's lives and deaths, will contribute in the future.
The practice of returning the bones of the dead to rest in the soil of their ancestors was a fundamental one in Chinese culture and played an important role in the bond with the qiaoxiang.[4] In the qiaoxiang, funeral associations were common and probably provided a model for this kind of activity in the destinations.[5] Reverend William Young reported bones being returned from Melbourne in 'small wooden cases, or carpet bags' in 1868.[6] Concern that bodies not be lost was so strong that 'the putting of coffins on board vessels going to and fro in case a Chinaman dies' was common by the 1890s.[7] New South Wales Royal Commissioners were told in the 1890s that it cost '?0 to remove a man's bones from the country' and that Way Kee's society (Dongguan and Zengcheng people) paid ?29/19/2 to 'raise 84 bodies'.[8] Money was also donated by the huaqiao to the Tung Wah Hospital of Hong Kong to support its role in the transfer of bones to the qiaoxiang.[9]