清至民国时期,贵州清水江流域天柱地区所保存至今的大量文书,以其突出的归户性、系统性特征成为研究当地民间社会生活的重要史料。其中不少择嗣立继的契约文书,反映了当地承续宗祧的习俗文化特点。既有收养同宗之次子为后嗣,或过继同宗之孙承祧者,也有以长子出继,或以易子而教之名出继者,均反映了宗族内部义与利结合的秩序特征,体现了族众亲疏远近调整自治的风规礼俗,代表了利益协商机制存在的社会活力,揭示了家庭人格形态继承权获得的程序方式。对这类生活意志产物的文书内容研究,有裨于加深对乡土中国社会的认知。
From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China,numbers of documents that were kept in Qing-shuijiang River Basin,Tianzhu,Guizhou become important historical materials for the study of local civil socie-ty,because of their outstanding features about households and systematization.Quite a few of them are about the selection of inheritors for family line,which reflects the continuation of local customs and cultural characteristics. And particularly noteworthy is the diversity of the way for making inheritors:it can adopt the second son of the same clan as the heir,or adopt the grandson of the same clan as the heir,or let the eldest son be adopted as a heir,or exchange the son with others and make him change the name to become the heir.All these practices re-flect the accepted customary features for justice and benefits of the families within the clans.They also reflect the customs and rituals for adjustment and autonomy of the close and distant relatives within the ethnic groups them-selves,which shows the social vitality for the existing interest of the consultative mechanisms,and reveals the procedure of obtaining inheritance within a family.It is the product of the will to continue the family line,and is beneficial to enhance our awareness of the life in the local Chinese community.