¹ Elliott, A. J. A., Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore (London, 1955)Google Scholar; the field study was carried out in 1950–1. Topley, Marjorie, “Some Occasional Rites Performed by the Singapore Cantonese,” Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, XXIV, Pt. III (1951)Google Scholar; “Chinese Rites for the Repose of the Soul,” JMBRAS, XXVII, Pt. I (1954)Google Scholar; “Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese,” Man, LV (1955);Google Scholar“Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note,” Man, LVI (1956)Google Scholar; “Chinese Religion and Religious Institutions in Singapore,” JMBRAS, XXIX, Pt. I (1956)Google Scholar; “The Great Way of Former Heaven: A Chinese Semi-Secret Religion in Malaya,” The New Malayan, 2 (Singapore, 1957); “The Emergence and Social Function of Chinese Religious Associations in Singapore,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, III (1961), 3; field studies in 1951–2 and 1954–5. Freedman, Maurice, Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore (London, 1957)Google Scholar; “Religion and Society in South-Eastern China,” Man, LVII (1957)Google Scholar; Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London, 1958)Google Scholar; “Religion et adaptation sociale chez les Chinois de Singapour,” Archives de Sociologie des Religions, No. 7 (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar; “Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth-Century Singapore,” CSSH, III, 1 (1960)Google Scholar; field work, 1949–50. Kaye, Barrington, Upper Nankin Street Singapore (Singapore, 1960)Google Scholar; this study of a single Chinese street was carried out in 1954–6.

² An earlier version of this paper, by Freedman alone, appeared as “Religion et adaptation sociale.…” The dates given in the last footnote will show the reader that the present discussed here must not be taken literally. We are already separated from our field by a few significant years.

³ For the general historical background see Purcell, V., The Chinese in Malaya (London, 1948)Google Scholar; The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London, 1951)Google Scholar; Freedman, “Immigrants and Associations.…”

⁴ In recent times Chinese Christians (the greater part Catholics) have probably not numbered more than about 25,000, while there have been only two or three hundred Chinese Muslims. That is to say, Chinese positively belonging to a non-Chinese religion account for only some 3 per cent of the total population of Singapore. Cf. Elliott, pp. 29f.

⁵ On agnatic and local organization in Fukien and Kwangtung and its religious correlates see Freedman, Lineage Organization; Chinese Family and Marriage; “Religion and Society.” A recent field study is briefly reported in Pratt, Jean A., “Emigration and Unilineal Descent Groups: A Study of Marriage in a Hakka Village in the New Territories, Hong Kong,” The Eastern Anthropologist, XIII, (Lucknow, 1960) 4Google Scholar.

⁶ Cf. Elliott, pp. 40f. At the time of the 1947 census 537,000 of the total Singapore Chinese population lived within the boundaries of the Singapore Municipality. This figure is only a rough guide to urbanization, because some parts of the Municipal area were semi-rural in character, while there were small urban settlements outside the Municipal area, Some of the Chinese in the countryside were fishermen, but the most characteristic rural occupations were vegetable-gardening, fruit-growing, and the raising of pigs and poultry.

⁷ Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage. …, 69, gives too low an estimate. See Directory of Chinese Personal Names in Singapore, prepared under supervision of Earl Swisher, External Research Staff, Office of Intelligence Research, Department of State (Washington, D. C., 1953). On Chinese names in Malaya see Jones, Russell, “Chinese Names,” JMBRAS, XXXII, Pt. 3 (1959)Google Scholar.

⁸ See Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage. …, pp. 218f. It should not be supposed that all the arrangements for ancestor worship in Singapore are without precedent in the big cities of China itself. Note Parker, E. H., “Comparative Chinese Family Law,” The China Review, VIII (Hong Kong, 1879), pp. 71f.Google Scholar: “In the provincial Metropolis of Canton there are Ancestral Shrines open to all persons in the Province who bear the same surname, and have contributed to the general fund, irrespective of race or origin, (i.e. Hakka, Punti, etc. etc.) Tls.200 are frequently paid for the privilege of placing a tablet therein, and grand sacrifices and feasts are held in the spring and autumn of each year.”

⁹ See Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage. …, pp. 44ff.

¹⁰ A Straits Chinese, “Local Chinese Social Organisation,” The Straits Chinese Magazine, 3, (Singapore, 1899) 10, 43f.Google Scholar

¹¹ On the various types of religious institutions see Topley, “Chinese Religion. …” Nobody has made a complete survey of Chinese temples and other religious places in Singapore; it would be an immense task. For general information see Chinese Temples in Singapore (Nan Fong Commercial Publishing Company: Singapore, 1951), in Chinese.Google Scholar

¹² See Elliott, p. 161.

¹³ See e.g. Harvey, E. D., The Mind of China (New Haven, 1933), 127.Google Scholar

¹⁴ de Groot, J. J. M., Les fêtes annuellement célébrées à Emoui (Amoy), Etude concernant la religion populaire des Chinois, trans. Chavannes, C. G. (Paris, 1886), vol. 11, 276f., 283f., 285–303Google Scholar; The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1910), VI, 1269ff., 1295ff., 1332ff.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Gray, J. H., China, A History of the Laws, Manners and Customs of the People, ed. Gregor, W. G. (London, 1878), II, pp. 22ff.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Doolittle, J., Social Life of the Chinese, A Daguerreotype of Daily Life in China, ed. and revised Hood, P., (London, 1868), pp. 437ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Note de Groot, The Religious System. …, VI, 1272, where he says that, although consultations through mediums may be of many kinds, they are principally concerned with “medical questions.”

¹⁸ See e.g. Wing-tsit, Chan, Religious Trends in Modern China (New York, 1953), pp. 9f.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cf. Granet, M., La religion des Chinois, 2nd. edn. (Paris, 1951), chaps. III and IVGoogle Scholar; “L'esprit de la religion chinoise,” Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine (Paris, 1953)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Cf. Wright, A. F., Buddhism in Chinese History (Stanford, 1959).Google Scholar

²¹ All information in this paper on syncretic religions is based, unless otherwise stated, on the field and documentary researches conducted by Marjorie Topley in Singapore. It will be presented in fuller form in later publications.

²² The great work on this subject is of course de Groot, J. J. M., Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China, A Page in the History of Religions, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1903, 1904)Google Scholar. Records and tables of religious leaders kept in Singapore show that many of the sects described or enumerated by de Groot were offshoots of a widely ramifying religion called Hsien T'ien Ta Tao, the Great Way of Former Heaven (which we later often refer to simply as the Great Way). Information gleaned from newspapers published in the Chinese People's Republic shows that syncretic religion is still so much alive as to need repressing. Some of the sects named in the newspaper are offshoots of sects known in imperial times. One sect, T'ung Shan She, was established in 1917. Another, I Kuan Tao, was founded in imperial times but changed its framework of ideas during the republican period. Both these sects belong to the Great Way.

²³ See e.g. Newbold, T. J. and Major-General Wilson, , “The Chinese Triad Society of the Tien-tihuih,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, VI (1841)Google Scholar; Schlegel, G., Thian Ti Hwui, The Hung League or Heaven-Earth-League (Batavia, 1866)Google Scholar; Stanton, W., The Triad Society or Heaven and Earth Association (Hong Kong, 1900)Google Scholar, reprinted from China Review, XXI, XXII; Ward, J. S. M. and Stirling, W. G., The Hung Society or the Society of Heaven and Earth, vol. I (London, 1925)Google Scholar; Favre, B., Les sociét´es secrètes en Chine, Origine—rôle historique—situation actuelle (Paris, 1933)Google Scholar; and cf. Freedman, Lineage Organization. …, pp. 116ff.

²⁴ An important idea of the Great Way is based on a Buddhist theory of cycles of Buddha influence (kālpa). In the Great Way three major cycles are recognized. These are associated with different Buddhas. Each cycle is divided into three periods. In the first there is perfect teaching: that of the Buddha himself. In the second there is “counterfeit” teaching based on correct teaching but gradually moving away from the truth. The final period is one of decay of the doctrine; it is followed by a catastrophe. Two complete cycles are believed to have already passed. The final cycle, believed by some of the sects to have now begun, is the one in which Maitreya, the Buddha To Come, teaches the doctrine. This too will eventually end in a catastrophe unless a revival of correct teaching can be brought about.

²⁶ In 1954 it was reported that there had been “anti-flood control” campaigns in Hankow and the surrounding area, in which the I Kuan Tao was involved. The news appeared in the Hankow-Yangtze Daily, July 17 and August 2, 1954.

²⁶ Although there have been a few examples from Malaya and Hong Kong of British officials being invited to open religious festivals for gods of the kind which in China were associated with the official religious system, we have come across no similar cases in Singapore.

²⁷ The Great Way appears to have been the first of the syncretic religions to reach Malaya and Singapore. More research will have to be done before this can be stated with certainty.

²⁸ We gather from elderly informants in Singapore that among the first members of the local sects were men of high rank who had devoted the greater part of their lives to the religion and gone overseas to escape official persecution.

²⁹ No detailed sociological analysis of the secret societies in Malaya and Singapore has yet been published. For historical data see Purcell, The Chinese in Malaya; Comber, L., “Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya: An Introduction,” JMBRAS, XXIX, Pt. I (1959)Google Scholar, and Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya, A Survey of the Triad Society from 1800 to 1800 (Locust Valley, N. Y., 1959)Google Scholar; Wynne, M. L., Triad and Tabut, A Survey of the Origin and Diffusion of Chinese and Mohamedan Secret Societies in the Malay Peninsula A.D. 1800–1935 (Singapore, 1941)Google Scholar. Freedman, “Immigrants and Associations. …” makes some sociological points on the subject.

³⁰ Sun Yat-sen established as his first revolutionary society the Hsing Chung Hui in Honolulu in 1894. In 1905 this society was combined with other groupings under the name of the T'ung Meng Hui, a branch of which was set up in Singapore in 1906. See Purcell, Chinese in Southeast Asia, 354.

³¹ See Blythe, W. L., “The Interplay of Chinese Secret and Political Societies in Malaya,” Eastern World (London, March and April, 1950).Google Scholar

³² Cf. Wright, pp. 114ff.

³³ For an analysis of some aspects of the sect see J. C. De Korne, The Fellowship of Goodness (T'ung Shan She) A Study of Contemporary Chinese Religion, mimeo. (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1941). He is not aware of the connection between the sect and the Great Way. Marjorie Topley hopes to publish more information on this subject at a later date.

³⁴ Explanatory Notes of “Tao Yuan” (Singapore Branch of Tao Yüan, no date), in English and Chinese.

³⁵ Hou Su-shuang, Tao Yüan at a Glance (Singapore reprint, no date), in English and Chinese.

³⁶ De Korne, pp. 18f., pp. 73ff.

³⁷ Unfortunately, more precise figures cannot be given. The total number of halls is nowhere recorded. A survey of them would encounter considerable difficulty. They are spread out over the Island and, because they are architecturally various, are not easy to identify. The estimate offered here is based partly on records kept by private individuals concerned with the activities or management of halls, and partly on records kept by the religious organizations which include halls among their member organizations.

³⁸ Lang, O, Chinese Family and Society (New Haven, 1946), p. 109Google Scholar, notes that numbers of women who had taken part in the anti-marriage movement in Kwangtung had, as they became older, posed a problem for the provincial authorities who had to provide special homes for them. In Singapore, however, there were few homes for the aged run by public bodies or private non-Chinese organizations; and those which existed did not seem to attract women of the kind we are discussing here.

³⁹ Elliott, pp. 172f.

⁴⁰ Explanatory Notes of “Tao Yüan”