questions on Taiwanese hoklo & hakka
 

Hello. As you may know I have a keen interest in Taiwan, as its my "homeland". I am going to be making a drawing, depicting a typical street fight in Taiwan, around the time period of 1670-1700... so around the time period of Koxinga and the beginnings of Qing/Manchu rule. I am trying to show a feud between a gang of Hoklos and a gang of Hakkas. Hoklo (in Taiwan) = Fujianese (in China), Hokkien (in Indonesia), or Min-nan (language). The Hakka are one and the same as the kujia people, or the "gypsies" of the Chinese. I don't know how many Chinese history and weaponry gurus there are here, but I need help... and if ya'll can help me out, that'd be great. I want to know what are the historically accurate styles of clothing, hairstyle, and weapons for these two ethnic groups. Other comments and suggestions are definitely welcome.

Thus far I have some ideas of the weapons involved in this fight scene... Jian, Butterfly swords, Double Sabers, Ox-tail Saber & Rattan Shield, Da Dao, axes, spear, serpent spear, tiger fork, & guan dao. I am not sure how common the jian and guan dao were in southern Chinese communities... The idea is not only to show a typical street fight in 1700 Taiwan, but also it's brutality, and the efficacy of the fighting skill... I'll be showing trapping, footwork, posture, disarms, etc. I'm not sure exactly how this will turn out, but I've been making sketches for some time.


I appreciate any and all help and advice.
Thanks, and I hope ya'll appreciate the picture when it's done...

I will NOT disappoint! :)

Also, how common were firearms amongst these colonizers? I know they had long matchlocks.. .what about flintlocks? What about European-style pistols of the time-period?

How common were street-fights? Did Hoklos and Hakkas end up fighting over city-turf, or did their separate villages wage war in the countryside? I understand that staffs, swords, and swords were the most common weapons.

Thanks, again.

The oxtail saber was not developed until the nineteenth century.

I associate the "tiger fork" with the military. Perhaps that is a mistaken impression. But while perhaps useful in a pitched battle---or as an imposing weapon for guards---it seems an impractical weapon to carry around. Picturesque 'though.

ok, thanks, so the willow-leaf would've still been the common saber of this time, yes?

The tiger fork was a military weapon? I thought it was an individually used weapon by southern Chinese?You sure that it wasn't used by Hoklo nor Hakka fighters?

Thanks for pitching in... anyone else who has knowledge in this area, please feel free to share! :)

I can't recall where I saw it, but I did see tiger forks associated with a magistrate's militia, and they also have religious aspects, as I recall.

Sticks and staves of all shapes and sizes would be very appropriate. As for swords, one way to think about it is to look at what the Chinese military was using at the time, because weapons tend to disperse. Also look at the village jians and daos posted by Josh Stout. I don't think they're necessarily old enough, but they give a flavor of what the level of workmanship on an indigenous weapon would be.

Best,

F

That's for the pointer... I'll continue to do searching...

if anyone else has anything to offer, I'm all ears (eyes)! :D

I don't know how helpful this will be, but I'll throw out a few conjectures. As it turns out, I hope to see a friend who I went over to Taiwan with back in 1987. I came back after a year, but he's stayed. The last time I saw him was in Taiwan 15 years ago; he's in the US to see his parents.

I've always thought Koxinga was an extremely interesting historical figure. When I was living in Taiwan I went to a Koxinga museum in Tainan and the reconstruction of the Dutch fort he took with a Taiwanese friend whose family came over to Taiwan during his rule.

As for weapons, I believe I read the tiger fork really was for tiger hunting. The three points functioned something like the flanges on a boar spear and prevented the tiger from running up the pole and getting you I suspect if I had to face down a marauding tiger that was killing the villages livestock, I'd need at least three points since I'd be shaking so bad I'd likely miss if I only had one!

I'd say Fearn is on the right track regarding military weapons being dispersed. Koxinga had a large army, over 100,000 men at one point. A lot of these men ended up as being part of the Hoklo population, and probably Hakka as well, and undoubtedly took their weapons with them. Also, at that time the indeginous tribes still controlled most of the island, so the Chinese, both Hoklo and Hakka, were very much a "frontier" population and had much better reason to be armed than was standard on the mainland.

Koxinga's father was a pirate/merchant (those two occupations have frequently been merged throughout history) with connections in Japan (Koxinga's mother was Japanese) and probably SE Asia as well. Koxinga relied on trade as well for revenue for his force, so it is possible that there were some unorthodox weapons from SE Asia, Japan and Europe as well in Taiwan, especially since Koxinga's troops were basically insurgents, and therefore had to get their weapons where they could.

Thanks, actually this could be a helpful pointer, along the same lines as fearn's suggestion.

And as the tiger fork was really more of a hunting spear, I think I'll that one out. It's just that it is a common feature in Guangdong and Hakka martial arts, which is why I was led to believe it may have been used semi-regularly for fighting.

So I would expect the remnants of Koxinga's force and the local frontier Chinese to be armed with Ming dynasty weapons, southern local styles, and also stuff that Koxinga's troops would have used...

you bring up a good point with the piracy and trade...

It seems Koxinga derived a lot of his foreign influence from Japanese, and his mainstay was based on the Fujian and Guangdong folks and their maritime culture.

Does anyone have anything conclusive on what weapons Chinese pirates used? I know this was discussed in an old thread, of which i was a participant, but there weren't any specific pieces and pictures we could base upon, only references from a book.

For those interested in my progress...


I've drawn animals for about the first 15 years of my life... around 15 I became more interested in history, and also began drawing people.... normally I don't draw too many sketches of a particular drawing-to-be because I doodle and sketch so much that the animals and people are already ingrained. However this is a bigger piece so I'm gonna have to conceptualize a bit more. Here's some concepts that I drew before I decided I needed to figure out what weapons were really from the right time period...

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/3214/concept1.jpg

I was trying to "feel" the body motions and dynamic. Trying to work in strikes and movements I know from the fighting arts, and that I know happen in a brutal street fight. See... I always like to create mini-stories with my art. When I began drawing as a little kid, I drew to mentally capture the thing and also remember it's story. I didn't draw to express feelings, or symbolize anything, or show something abstract. It was to capture the essence and story... so here it is... the "story"...

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4286/concept2d.jpg


I still need to draw all 19 characters... get them down on paper... how do they dress? What are their mannerisms? How well do they handle their weapon? Will they die in the street? Will they kill and live? Do they fight like a counter-fighter or an aggressive fighter? Do they fight in a rage or calmly... or out of fear? You can see their weapons betray their backgrounds... some coming from Koxinga's army... local martial artists... some milita... and just simple farmers fighting for their own protection. :D

I don't want this to be a big messy brawl where you don't care about anyone and it's just a bunch of 2-D drawn men killing each other... I want people to see the stories behind these men. Why they fight. How they fight. I hope I will succeed in that. :shrug: You guys can be the judge when I am done. Hope you will all enjoy viewing it as it progresses.

Just a shout-out to anyone who might happen to know...

Does anyone have suggestions as to where to look for Hoklo and Hakka clothing of the Ming dynasty period? Hairstyles? Layouts of their villages? I understand this is a weaponry forum, just wondering.

Is the current popular farmer's hat the same style as 300 yrs. ago?

I know Hakka traditionally have a (blue?) coat with a fold-over to the right-side.

:shrug: