A collection of vermillion stamps printed on paper. These stamps belonged to the Chinese secret societies in Singapore and the Hong stamp in the middle was used for the validation of membership certificates that had to be carried around for identification purposes. Other stamps such as the 'shun tian xing dao' (obey heaven and follow the way) tell of the beliefs of the societies while 'fan qing fu ming' allude to the founding of the organisations. Secret societies in Singapore were set up in the 19th century with increased Chinese migration to the British colony to provide mutual aid and support for the migrants. These societies had originated from the Tiandihui, which in turn was a local version of the secret society in China that was a sworn fraternity of men with the common aim of overthrowing the Qing dynasty and restoring the Ming. Various splinter groups (hui or kongsi) subsequently emerged among the main dialect groups.
