Society
Dong clans are known as dou, and are further divided into ji, gong, and households (known as "kitchens"), respectively from largest to smallest in size (Geary 2003:68-69). Village elders were traditionally the village leaders, although the government replaced these elders with village heads from 1911-1949. Dong society was also traditionally matriarchal, as can be evidenced by the cult of the female goddess Sa Sui (Geary 2003:88). Before the advent of the Han Chinese, the Dong had no surnames, instead distinguishing each other by their fathers' names.
Dong common law is known as kuan and is practiced at four different levels (Geary 2003:62).
- Single village
- Several villages
- Single township / entire local rural area
- Multiple townships / large portion of the entire Dong population
Read more about this topic: Dong People
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“I have never yet spoken from a public platform about women in industry that someone has not said, “But things are far better than they used to be.” I confess to impatience with persons who are satisfied with a dangerously slow tempo of progress for half of society in an age which requires a much faster tempo than in the days that “used to be.” Let us use what might be instead of what has been as our yardstick!”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be.... What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them.... There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)