What is the difference between a "clan" and a "sect", between an ethnic group and a sect? How to understand them correctly?

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"Clan" and "clan", "clan relatives", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", "clansmen", and so on.

Below, let's be specific, how to understand these words.

01 "clan"

We all know that ancient China is a patriarchal state, which was founded in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and to this day, this patriarchal concept still exists.

What is patriarchy? It's a system of distinguishing between people who are close and distant according to their lineage. A "clan" is a group of people who are related by blood.

▲Selected from the "White Deer Plain" stills

The word "clan", if interpreted in ancient Chinese, is an oracle bone character consisting of two parts, the upper part of which represents a fluttering flag, and underneath the flag there is a "vector". The upper part represents a flying flag, and underneath the flag stands a "vector". It indicates the meaning of gathering an army with a flag, and the Chinese character for gathering is "聚集".

So, "clan", its original meaning should mean gathering.

There is a sentence in Zhuangzi - Zaiyu that goes like this, "The clouds and air do not wait for the clan to rain, and the grass and trees do not wait for the yellow to fall."

What does it mean? Translated, it means that clouds don't wait to gather together before they become rain and fall. Nor does the grass wait to yellow before it falls. The word "clan" here means to gather.

By extension, it means that many people are gathered together, and for this reason there are expressions like "family", "race", and "nation".

While family emphasizes blood relations and kinship, "race" and "ethnicity" denote groups of people of the same nature.

Nowadays, we say "old people", "working people", here added "race" as a modifier, refers to the same nature of the meaning of the crowd.

02 "Zong"

Zong, from 宀示, 示, deity, 宀, house. It means, in its original sense, a clan temple, an ancestral temple. And we all know that in ancient times, when people made sacrifices, they worshipped the clan temples, ancestor temples, etc., which in actuality means they worshipped their ancestors.

So, "zong" not only refers to ancestors, there are clans, clans and other meanings, but also the same family as the center of a large group of people constitute the collective. In the Chinese dictionary, the terms "zongzi" and "zongfa" refer to this.

(Note: It is important to explain that when we talk about ancestors, we are often referring to those above the grandparent level.)

Compared with the term "clan," "zong" has a broader scope. A clan usually refers to a lineage of descendants that has been passed down from an ancestor above, who is related by blood. Generally speaking, it is the clan that comes first and the tribe that comes second, and the clan includes the tribe. It includes not only the part of the clan, but also the "clan table", which includes distant brothers of the same clan.

"Zong" and "clan", in fact, these two words are often combined in a piece of speech, the so-called "clan", The two words are often used together, as the words "clan" and "clans" refer to communities of the same origin from the same branch.

For those of you in the countryside, you may be able to better understand the meaning of these two words. This is because the countryside is most often divided into village settlements by clans, each of which has its own ancestral hall.

In some of the better economic places, clans tend to be exclusive, more exclusionary as neighbors of other surnames, and may even appear, the heterogeneous group of people ganged up and fought in a group.

03" Clan relatives "

Clan relatives, that is, with blood relations or have marriage relations of the family.

The blood relationship is better understood, so we will not discuss it.

In-law relations, simply put, is the marriage relationship as the intermediary of the kinship, which includes direct and collateral blood relations such as daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, father-in-law, husband's sister, as well as sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and so on.

We often say that close relatives cannot get married, which means that direct blood relatives and collateral blood relatives within three generations are forbidden to get married. So, like cousin and cousin get married, the idea of adding relatives to relatives this kind of feudalism, it is clearly inappropriate, let's listen to it, for the sake of future generations to consider.

Ancient China had a harsh system of clan punishment, the scope of which is divided into broad and narrow, such as the three clans, seven clans, nine clans, etc., we often hear the "nine clans", which is considered to be one of the most brutal penalties.

For example, the Ming law stipulates:

"Where the rebellion is a great rebellion, but *** plotters, not divided into the first from, are all death by lynching. Grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandsons, brothers and cohabitants, regardless of different surnames and uncles, brothers of the son, regardless of nationality of the same or different, the age of sixteen years or more, regardless of the serious illness, invalid disease, all beheaded."

What is here encompassed is, by and large, clan affiliation.

Through the above analysis, we can generally know that the clan relatives we are talking about are basically the male relatives of the same origin. In old China, the power of the clan was held by men, and the head of the family, the head of the clan, could represent the power of the "clan".

04 "Clan relatives"

The clan relatives are those who are distinguished by their family name, which refers to both relatives of the same clan and brothers of the same mother.

The first book of Romance of the Three Kingdoms reads, "Xuan De said, "I am a clan relative of the Han family, my surname is Liu, my name is Bei."

The term clansman here refers to the same clan relationship of the Liu family name.

Clan relatives include both direct and collateral clan relatives.

Direct lineage: for example, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, siblings, children, grandchildren and so on. Collateral relatives: such as uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and grandnephews.

Cao Xueqin's Dream of Red Mansions, with its numerous character relationships in the novel, is a good example of a large network of clansmen and collateral relatives.

▲Selected from the stills of the TV series "Dream of Red Mansions"

For example, the clansmen of the Jia family consist of Jia Zheng, Jia Pardon, Jia Lian, Jia Zhen, Wang Xifeng, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Qin Keqing, Jia Yingchun, Jia Tanchun, and so on .......

The four great families in Dream of Red Mansions are a network of clan relationships.

The clan of Jiafu is a huge network of relationships represented by Jia Pi, Jia Effect, Jia Dun, and so on downwards.

05 Summary

In short, the clan, a characteristic form of social organization in China's history, has survived thousands of years of history to the present day.

What is a clan and what is a zong? Simply summarize:

"Clan" is a kind of patriarchal bloodline as the bond of the community settlement; "Zong" is the basis of "clan", the organization and management of the clan. On top of the "clan", the organization and management of the clan; clan, in short, is a patriarchal blood relations of various families, in the patriarchal concept of norms such as the composition of a group.

Usually, the terms "clan" and "sect" are not spoken of separately.

Also, there are expressions such as ancestor and townsman, which are also various names extended from the concept of clan.

Influenced by the concept of clan, Chinese people have a tradition of helping each other, resources **** enjoy. It is also affected by the concept of clan, since ancient times, China has "recognize the ancestor to return to the clan", a person, no matter where they go, to achieve how much life achievement, can not forget the "root", forget the "ancestors! "

For this reason, since ancient times, many Chinese people who have traveled across oceans and left their homes to seek development in foreign countries, even if they have been living abroad for many years, often come back from foreign countries to recognize their ancestors and look for their relatives.

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