Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the eight extant geometric rock carvings along Hong Kong's coastline - also indicate that
these early peoples practised some form of folk religion involving animal worship.
Archaeologists say Hong Kong's Stone Age inhabitants enjoyed a relatively nutritious diet
of iron-rich vegetables, small mammals, shellfish and fish harvested far offshore. Early
Chinese historical records call the diverse maritime peoples along China's southeastern
coasts the 'Hundred Yue' tribes, which potentially included some of Hong Kong's prehis-
toric inhabitants.
The Five Great Clans
The first of Hong Kong's mighty 'Five Clans' - Han Chinese, whose descendants hold
political and economic clout to this day - began settling the area around the 11th century.
The first and most powerful of the arrivals was the Tang, who initially settled around Yuen
Long (the walled village of Kat Hing Wai is part of this cluster).
The Tang clan was followed by the Hau and the Pang, who spread around present-day
Sheung Shui and Fanling. These three clans were followed by the Liu in the 14th century
and the Man a century later.
The Cantonese-speaking newcomers called themselves
bun day
(Punti)
,
meaning 'indi-
genous' or 'local' - something they clearly were not. They looked down on the original in-
habitants, the Tanka, many of whom had been shunted off the land and had moved onto the
sea to live on boats.
The discovery of coins and pottery from the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25-220) on Lantau
and at several important digs, including a tomb at Lei Cheng Uk in central Kowloon, at-
tests to the growing Han influence in Hong Kong at the start of the first millennium.
An Imperial Outpost
Clinging to the southern edge of the Chinese province of Canton (now Guǎngdōng), the
peninsula and islands that became the territory of Hong Kong counted only as a remote
pocket in a neglected corner of the Chinese empire.
The Punti flourished until the struggle that saw the moribund Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
overthrown. The victorious Qing (1644-1911), angered by the resistance put up by south-
erners loyal to the ancien régime, ordered in the 1660s a forced evacuation inland of all the
inhabitants of China's southeastern coastal area, including Hong Kong.
