ABSTRACT
In Huadong, Huizhou, and the Lower Yangtze River region in particular, a local clan in the late Qing and the Republic Era was run as a highly autonomous community with a strong religious focus. As a combination of natural existence and social unit, a local clan could live and grow anywhere under any pattern of production. Rice-oriented agricultural production was unnecessarily seen as the economic basis for clan development in the south. This chapter analyzes the role of democracy and its distinctive mechanism in managing a traditional clan and discusses traditional clan communities and organizations in the investigated areas.
