从宗族到联宗:闽西石壁村落联盟的形成

Towards Coalition Clan:The Formation of Village Alliances of Shibi in Western Fujian Province

闽西石壁乡民以张姓居多,聚族而居。明中叶以来,在士大夫家族的示范下,石壁张氏的宗族组织发育出聚居宗族、散居宗族、同姓联宗等多种形态,所承担的社会功能各不相同,且有明显的地缘性特征,同姓联宗俨然是颇具规模的村落联盟。闽西石壁村落联盟的形成,揭示了不同宗族形态之间的内在联系:聚居宗族是王朝国家文化制度的具体实践;散居宗族是聚居宗族发展到一定阶段的产物,实是乡族内部竞争社会经济资源的结果;同姓联宗与散居宗族在世系建构上相近,由虚体性组织实体化则是为了应对超血缘、跨村落的区域性事务。这表明,为适应不同的实际需求,宗族的组织形态可在文化性虚体组织和功能性实体组织间灵活切换,它们之间没有不可逾越的鸿沟。

Most villagers with the surname of Zhang in Shibi,western Fujian Province,are of different lineages and have long inhabited here in respective lineage communities.Since the middle Ming Dynasty,different lineages with the same surname of Zhang in Shibi had,following the common practice of literati families,developed a variety of forms of inhabitation:clustered settlement,scattered settlement and coalesced settlement;these forms of inhabitation have their respective social functions and bear obvious regional characteristics,and the coalition clan was even tantamount to a village alliance with considerable scale.The formation of village alliance in Shibi reveals the internal relationship between different forms of clan organizations.The clan in clustered settlement is the concrete practice of the cultural institution on part of the dynastic empire;the clan in scattered settlement,coming from the former certain stage,is actually the outcome of the internal competition for socio-economic resources within the clan;the coalesced clan and the clan in scattered settlement have similar lineage constructions,but in order to deal with supra-blood tie and inter-regional businesses.This fact indicates that there is no absolute gap between different organizational forms of a clan or a lineage,since in reality they could switch back and forth between each other whenever the pragmatic situation calls for the shift.