FAMILY TREE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22052, 7 September 1933, Page 10

FAMILY TREE

5000 DESCENDANTS QUAINT WILL CASE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY. August 31. A baby boy Is born! Across land and ocean the glad news flies, and in a temple in a little Chinese village a careful record tells posterity that another descendant of Nem Bat Tsu has come into the world. Strange are the customs of the devout Chinese, and strange the story of the great family tree of Nem Bat Tsu, the flowering branches of which, accord, ing to evidence in the Equity Court in Sydney, reach out into the four corners of the earth. Nem Bat Tsu is dead. Many centuries ago, in the village of Sarte, he yielded to the last human weakness, and in so doing achieved immortality. He became an honourable ancestor. The result —countless thousands of descendants, and a ticklish legal problem that has been perplexing Mr Justice Davidson for more than a week. All because Wong Wah Gee, a Chinese, died at Blaekheath, near_ Sydney, last year, and bequeathed in his will, among other bequests, “£IOOO in memory of the Nem Bat Tsu, to be distributed _ for the benefit of Nem’s descendants in such manner as the Chinese Commercial Association of Sydney might think fit.” One of the troubles confronting the judge is the fact that no such association exists. In order to throw light on the problem of Nem’e descendants Albert Hing was called. There were in the world to-day probably 5000 descendants of the one ancestor. Hing said that he could not say how many hundreds of years ago Nem Bat Tsu died, but despite the fact that in the course of centuries his descendants had moved to different parts of China—-in fact, to different parts of the world —there would be a complete record of them preserved in the temple erected in Nem’a honour. Even the names of the uneducated people, and even the names of those who had become the ancestors of other descendants —they also, he said gravely, would be reported. Counsel asked: “When you say they would be reported you believe that tho descendants, the birth of further descendants even, would be reported. The reply was “Yes.” There would be few cases where no records had been kept. They would be very rare. “I would like to give you an example, * said Hing to tne court. "Take my children. I have 00 many children born here, and I was born here, and yet when my children are born I must report. I did report when a boy was born —reported back to the village. The reason why I reported, and the reason why everybody reports—even though I do not report, someone _ else reports over here or over ’there —is a sort of belief. They have a cemetery day—two days a year. The descendants on these days are supposed to go and visit thetr ancestor’s graves. They go and worship with pork instead, of with flowers. Then, when they have finished the ceremony they go back and share the bit of porfc among themselves. Take Nem Bat Tsu, for instance. On those two days a year they go and visit his grave and share the P °The court is still struggling with the ways of the East, and may be so engaged for some time.