Donald Harper (2012-2013) - The Cultural History of The Giant Panda in Early China PDF

THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE GIANT PANDA ("AILUROPODA MELANOLEUCA") IN
EARLY CHINA
Author(s): Donald Harper
Source: Early China , 2012–2013, Vol. 35/36 (2012–2013), pp. 185-224
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/24392405
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THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE
GIANT PANDA (AILUROPODA MELANOLEUCA)

IN EARLY CHINA
Donald Harper
Would I had seen a white bear? (for how can I imagine it?) If
I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never
see a white bear, what then? If I never have, can, must or shall
see a white bear alive; have I ever seen the skin of one? Did I
ever see one painted? - described? Have I ever dreamed of one?
Sterne, Tristram Shandy (vol. V, chap. XLIII)
Xu Shen 許慎(ca. 55-ca. 149) defined the word and graph mo/*mak 貘 in
his Shuowen jiezi 說文解子 in three concise phrases: "resembles the bear,
yellow and black in color, comes from りhu 蜀〃 (the region of presen
day Sichuan). The graph combined the signific component 遂"predatory
beast" and the phonetic component mo/^mak 莫，1 Earlier—let us say
third century b.c.e.—the same graph was listed in the Erya 爾雅 lexicon
with the gloss baibao 白豹"white leopard." Guo Pu 郭撲(276~324) in hi
Erya commentary began similarly to Xu Shen: "resembles the bear, smal
head, short legs, mixed black and white"; and Guo Pu gave new details,
such as the solidness of its bones and the mo's ability to consume copper
and iron.2 When Guo Pu wrote his commentary to the Shanhai jing 山海
經 passage on Lai Mountain 崃山，which he identified as the Qiongla
Mountains 邓來山（in present day Sichuan), he added the information
that the Qionglai Mountains were the wzc/s habitat (reconfirming X
Shen on Shu).3 Writing about the same time as Guo Pu, Wei Wan 魏完
noted specifically that the mo's fur was "black with white breast" an
1. Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字注,ed. Duan Yucai 段玉裁（Shanghai: Shanghai guj

[reproduction of 1872 woodblock ed.]), 96.41b. Old Chinese reconstruction is from
Axel Schuessler, Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammat
Serica Recensa (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009).
2. Erya yishu 爾雅義疏，ed. Hao Yixing 郝聽行(Shanghai: Shanghai guji [repro
duction of 1865 woodblock ed.]), 3~6.5a-b. See Michael Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A
Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and Institute o
East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993), 96, on the probable third
century b.c.e. compilation date for Erya.
3. Shanhai jing 山海經(Siku quanshu 四庫全書 ed.), 5.22b.
Early China 35-36, 2012-13

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186 CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE GIANT PANDA
named two administrative regions further to the so

Fifteen hundred years later, Duan Yucai 段玉裁(1
his commentary to Xu Shen's dictionary entry with
the animal named mo still inhabited the eastern par
its metal eating was well known to locals.5
Since the 1970s scholars conducting research on th
ropoda melanoleuca) agree that mo was one of the pa
and was the name by which the panda was known in
the nineteenth century. However, they are hard-pre
fact with the already established modern identificat
Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus).6 The history of how
name was forgotten in modern times and the word m
has not yet been fully examined, nor have scholar
the textual and zoological basis for the latter identif
with the undemonstrated presumption that the tapi
where in China in historical times. How did it happe
history of the giant panda focuses on 1869 when Fat
(1826-1900) acquired specimens from hunters in
shipped to Paris for study; and that in China no one
name, with the result that in the twentieth century
given the new Chinese name da xiongmao 大育_ 猫"l
on modern zoological classification alongside the
(Ailurus fulgens) or xiao xiongmao 小熊貓"small bear
To preview the modern history first, my examina
leads to the conclusion that the tapir did not inhabi
times, nor was the name mo applied to the tapir bef
century when the identification was first proposed
Remusat (1788-1832). In Paris sometime after 181
note of English and French reports of finding a new
Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, the first discovery
4. See the reconstruction of Wei Wan's lost Nanzhong bajun

Shuwu 王叔武，Ywnwfln guvi shuchao 雲南古佚書鈔（Kunmin
9-10, for relevant passages.
5. Shuowen, 9B.4ib.
6. Gao Yaoting 高耀亭,"Wo guo guji zhong dui da xiongm
對大熊貓的記載,Dongwu liyongyu fangzhi動物利用與防治
publication to identify mo with giant panda and to aiscuss the
identification with tapir.
7. Father David examined a giant panda for the first time
hunters brought him a young specimen captured alive but the
M. l'Abbe Armand David, "Journal d'un voyage dans le cent
Thibet oriental/' Bulletin des nouvelles archives du Museum d'h
ser. 1,10 (1874), 17-18. See nn. 70-72 below on the name da x

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DONALD HARPER 187
that Europeans had encounte

century. Then he noticed Chi
which depicted the mo as a cre
cow tail, and tiger paws. Abel
poet Bo Juyi 白居易(772-846) f
the quadripartite form, which
tion on the mo that was paint
harm during sleep. For Abel-R
mo and illustrations were decisive. He concluded that mo was the name
of the "Chinese tapir" which he presumed still "inhabited the western
provinces of China and must be fairly common/'8 By 1822 the preeminent
zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) accepted Abel-Remusat's identifi
cation, and it was repeated in later zoological literature.9
Abel-Remusat was wrong about the "Chinese tapir" and the conse
quences of his error are far reaching. By the mid-nineteenth century Euro
pean zoological literature and bilingual Chinese dictionaries concurred
that mo was the Chinese word for tapir.10 By the end of the century it was
accepted as a fact of modern science first in Japan and then in China. One
man's speculation led to an event of modern cultural amnesia and the
giant panda was erased from the record of pre-modern Chinese civiliza
tion until the 1970s. In literature, medicine, and other cultural knowledge
of wildlife, when centuries of Chinese understood panda, tapir appears
in modern minds. The deed is done and can be corrected but not forgot
ten. Thoughts of tapirs will continue to occupy modern minds in ways
that did not occur to earlier Chinese, who only knew the panda. In the
present article I use much the same philological and historical toolkit as
Abel-Remusat to disprove his identification. My purpose is to restore the
giant panda's name and image in early China, but there is also a lesson
in scholarly practice for all of us who use texts and allied materials to
speculate about China's past and try to present the facts.
Zoology, Bo Juyi's panda, and Abel-Remusat's tapir
Abel-Remusat published "Sur le tapir de la Chine’’ in 1824 in Journal

asiatique. Parisian by birth and since 1814 the inaugural holder of the
"chair of Chinese and Tartar-Manchu languages and literatures" at the
8. Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat, "Sur le tapir de la Chine,'’ Journal asiatique, ser. i, 4

(1824), 164. Abel-Remusat had already communicated with Georges Cuvier before the
1824 publication of this article.
9. Georges Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles, oil Von retablit les caracteres de
plusieurs animaux dont les revolutions du globe ont detruit les especes, nouvelle edition (Paris:
G. Dufour and E. D'Ocagne, 1822), vol. 2,144.
10. See nn. 59-60 below for references to bilingual dictionaries.

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College de France, Abel-Remusat's early trainin

him to study the Chinese language. Throughout h
to address the literature of medicine and the natural sciences in China
using his personal library and the Chinese collection of the Bibliotheque
royale.11 His argument regarding the identification of mo as tapir was a
brief nine paragraphs from beginning to end with a lithograph of the mo!
tapir by Charles de Lasteyrie (1759-1849) based on Chinese and Japanese
woodblock illustrations. He had already communicated the argument
to his colleague at the College de France, Georges Cuvier, two of whose
students had sent reports to Paris from India about the discovery of the
Malayan tapir in 1816. When Cuvier published his revised account of
the "osteology of tapirs" in 1822, he included the Malayan tapir and
acknowledged Abel-Remusat for showing him illustrations in Chinese
and Japanese books that depicted the tapir. In addition to the trunk, both
scholars thought that the markings on the mo's coat in the illustrations
suggested the characteristic markings of the young tapir (Fig. 1).12
Abel-Remusat combined textual sources without distinguishing time
period in regard to the physical description, habits, and uses of the mo.
He relied in the first place on the Kangxi zidian 康熙字典(published in
1716) which brought together passages from the Erya, Shuozven jiezi, and
Zhang Zilie's 張自烈（1597-1673) Zhengzi 纟 0% 正字通.In Abel-Remusat's
view the Kangxi zidian entry contained fantastic, unreliable details. While
the dictionary cited Su Song 蘇頌(1020-1101) on the Tang custom of
painting the mo on screens and cited the phrase "drawing its form repels
evil" from Bo Juyi's mo composition as corroboration, the Kangxi zidian
definition did not include the mo's quadripartite form, for which Bo Juyi's
composition was also the earliest source, and which had been recorded
in materia medica compiled by Su Song. Abel-Remusat turned to Li Shi
zhen's 李時珍（1518-1593) Bencao gangmu 本草綱目 entry on mo as his
preferred source, where Li Shizhen cited bu Song on the mo's "elephant
trunk, rhinoceros eyes, cow tail, and tiger paws." Between illustrations
and text, Abel-Remusat concluded that despite some implausible details,
the Chinese mo was obviously the tapir. Looking beyond the single
instance of the mo he argued:13
11. I thank Jean-Pierre Drege and Marc Kalinowski for information on the name of the
national French library during Abel-Rさmusat:、academic career, as well as on Chinese
books available to Abel-Remusat in Paris (email from Marc Kalinowski, April 15,2012).
12. Abel-Remusat, "Sur le tapir de la Chine"; Cuvier, Recherches sur les ossemens
fossiles, vol. 2,143-44. Abel-Remusat and de Lasteyrie were founding members of the
Societe asiatique in Paris in 1822. The Societe asiatique published Journal asiatique and
scholarly works for which de Lasteyrie provided important financial support. See
Societe asiatique, Le Livre du centenaire (1822-1922) (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1922), 13-14.
13. Abel-Remusat, "Sur le tapir de la Chine,'’ 164.

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DONALD HARPER 189
S/s Ax C/ts?/.
ど^^
^/irr^Krra^- îrrr^rデJP. /6l. m.
”//fya £t&yt^SjCfft^, LUk.JkrO.df

PuM&/'arZ}0f*aiZyTîj0e4jl£€*e6/t&,//njC>. LajUytw
j£t&stfS5£iHMj. LUk.JjvC-tU LajUyu*
AS ° Arxxu-供a^t似,i/ノ tct^ /T
&>jtuc -maXix.&>, a/' /leaifdcsu /^co4z■ムw
a,vts/Z&&/& らルta ム凡d
Figure
Figure1:1:
Lithograph
Lithograph
of the
ofmo
the
bymo
Charles
by Charles
de Lasteyrie
de Lasteyrie
published inpublished in
Journal
Journal asiatique,
asiatique,
ser. ser.
i, 4 (1824).
i, 4 (1824).
Chinese books are filled with observations on natural histor

great interest and in general tairly accurate. It suffices to know
to distinguish them from the fables which are mixed together
them, and this is usually not so difficult.
The notion that modern research can separate fact from fable i
tional accounts to reach a scientific conclusion has not lost its allur
Fields such as zooarchaeology, ethnobiology, and archaeoastr
acknowledge the relevance of transmitted texts, visual materi
cultural objects to examining the interface between culture and n
history and prehistory. In the case of the mo, however, Abel-Rem
examination of the textual and visual evidence was inadequate.
matters that he might have considered at the time he wrote but
are: differences between ancient descriptions and the medieva
partite description, which was connected to apotropaic uses of
that are not attested to before the medieval period; given the infor

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
that the mo still inhabited Sichuan in the nineteenth ce

that the tapir had been observed there or anywhere i
any other animal could have been the referent of the
Father David reported on the giant panda fifty years
the Chinese knew of the tapir in its Southeast Asian
below, in the fifteenth century they observed the ta
did not associate it with the mo in China).
Writing in 2012 I have greater access to texts an
logical evidence than Abel-Remusat had, and I wr
the modern history of the giant panda or da xiong
to memory its old name mo. I also write more than t
first encountered the matter of the panda's name mo
Chinese texts, and realized the error of Abel-Remusat
hindsight, had I published my findings in the 1990s I
them today.14 In the interval the project has expande
of the factual error: there was no tapir in China in his
fore the word mo did not denote tapir. Mo did denote
However, modern identification of one word for one
one point of departure for the study of animals in cu
and its signifiers—we have encountered mo and bai
for the giant panda—need to be situated in time and
together with related cultural motifs expressed textu
Moreover, we must be alert to how modern under
on the historical record. Take Abel-Remusat's error: his identification of
mo and tapir occurred against the background of early nineteenth century
zoology and sinology among colleagues at the College de France, and his
expectations influenced his interpretation of textual and visual evidence
for the mo. Looking at the Chinese and Japanese woodblock illustra
tions, he was predisposed to see the image of a tapir. Once formed, this
predisposition found meaning in the depiction of the mo's coat, which in
Abel-Remusat's mind was the distinctive spotted and striped coat of the
young tapir. The lozenge design on the coat in de Lasteyrie's lithograph
differs from the Chinese and Japanese illustrations and reinforced Abel
Remusat's idea.15 It was not the idea of the original makers and users
of the illustrations, who responded differently to the conventions of the
mo's depiction.
None of the illustrations is earlier than the Song 宋.Looking at them in
the light of current evidence for mo, they must be related to the mo drawn
14. In 1990 I gave lectures on "The Panda and Pandaemonium in the Tang,’' in
Munich and Heidelberg.
15. As friends and colleagues in the Societe asiatique, the two men surely discussed
the mo/tapir when de Lasteyrie made his lithograph.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 191
on Bo Juyi's bedside screen fo

tions of Bo Juyi's textual de
can be the giant panda is d
paleographic, visual, and textu
were no tapirs in China for a
Juyi's description of the mo
the tapir in Southeast Asia. Th
to ground its inventions, an
imagination has the same real
the simultaneous existence i
its quadripartite double is th
Juyi's textual description an
illustrations were not the im
whose identity the modern vi
Further, the medieval mo/pan
did not yet exist in pre-Han
I turn to zoology and prehist
the word mo and its original
耀爭 recognized the fundame
affirm that mo was historicall
between ancient sources in which the animal named mo was bear-like
and the quadripartite novelty introduced in Bo Juyi's mo composition:
Gao described the latter as medieval literary invention whereas the
former was the basis for identifying mo/panda in materia medica (he
explicitly contrasted literary and scientific usages). Gao did not know
Abel-Rるmusat's 1824 article. He conjectured that mid-nineteenth century
Western zoological literature knew the giant panda by local Sichuan
names (huaxiong 花熊"flowery bear" and baixiong 白熊"white bear")
but failed to examine Chinese literature for the one word that properly
denoted the panda in transmitted texts, mo. Simultaneously in the nine
teenth and early twentieth century unnamed people were misled by Bo
Juyi's quadripartite mo and applied the word to the Malayan tapir, an
event that had already occurred when Du Yaquan's 杜亞泉 Dongwu xue
da cidian 動物學大辭典一the first modern Chinese zoological diction
ary—was published in 1922. According to Gao, before these modern
events no Chinese associated the word mo with tapir and after them no
one recalled the giant panda-mo connection. Gao knew what happened,
but not how it happened.16
Gao presumed—correctly in my view—that in historical times as
i6. Gao Yaoting, "Woguo guji zhong dui da xiongmao de jizai," 31-33. Father
David referred to the giant panda as "ours blanc" based on the local name baixiong
(see n. 7 above).

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
recorded in transmitted texts there was no tapir in

no word for it, a circumstance that changed in the
when mo was reassigned to the Malayan tapir. Th
of the twentieth century occurrences of mo in prem
were routinely identified as tapir on the presumpti
have once inhabited China even if none had been seen in the nineteenth
and twentieth century. Among scientists this impression was enhanced
by fossil bones of prehistoric tapirs discovered in China beginning in
the second half of the nineteenth century, which lent plausibility to the
existence of a word for tapir in historical times.17 As a field of knowl
edge, however, modern zoology addresses creatures in nature not the
plausibility or implausibility of traditional written records. In the case
of mo/tapir it was not for zoology to judge the connection between word
and referent and to search for modern evidence of tapirs in China. All
the while in popular culture the modern image of the tapir fused neatly
with Bo Juyi's quadripartite mo, and reading the word mo in premodern
and modern texts signified tapir.
Zoology and zooarchaeology give theoretical perspective to human
contact with and awareness of wildlife in early cultures, but their use in
the present case of panda and tapir continues to be conflated with the
question of the original referent of the word and graph mo 貘，which
most scholars of early China still presume to be tapir because of Abel
Rdmusat's error and its acceptance in nineteenth century zoology; that is,
Bo Juyi's ninth century textual description (elephant trunk in particular)
influences what modern scholars think and the tapir still comes to mind.
We must allow zoology to speak first and then address the vocabulary
problem. Fossil bones of Ailuropoda (giant panda) and Tapirus (tapir)
occur in Pleistocene animal remains in Southern China, defined as the
region between 20-33•ダ N latitude, ioo~i22° E longitude (rougnly, south
of a line eastward from the Qinling Mountains 秦嶺山 in Shaanxi and
north of a line eastward from Yunnan). The name "Ailuropoda-Stegodon
fauna" for the typical Pleistocene fauna of Southern China derives from
the common occurrence of Ailuropoda with Stegodon in fossil assemblages.
In the transitional region between Southern and Northern しhina some
fossil assemblages include Tapirus with Ailuropoda and Stegodon, such
as Gongwangling 公王嶺 on the north slope of the Qinling Mountains;
they are absent in the Northern China region.18
ly. See Jin Changzhu 金昌柱 and Liu Jinyi 劉金毅,eds.，Anhui Fanchang Renzidong:
Zaoqi renleihuodongyizhi安徽繁昌人字洞——早期人類活動遺址(Beijing: Kexue, 2009),
425, for a summary of nineteenth and twentieth century classification of tapir rossil
bones in China.
18. See Spencer Lucas, Chinese Fossil Vertebrates (New York: Columbia University

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DONALD HARPER 193
Homo erectus is present at th

Paleolithic cultures. Climate s
on either side of the Pleistoce
years before the present—the
lowlands and river valleys n
lithic man in China had the c
situation at the end of the N
is less well documented in t
excavated at Anyang 安陽，
yet the evidence is difficult t
1920s and 1930s and incomp
Magnus Fiskesjo details flaw
Young's analysis of Anyang an
examples of bones removed fr
Ailuropoda does not occur at
fragments (one from an adult
instance of Pleistocene or Hol
known sites of the Ailuropod
Young treated the tapir bon
south. Fiskesjo suspects that
notes that "there have been n
dated to the Shang or later pe
the last zoological evidence of
in a zoogeographic region nev
late Neolithic occurrence is is
Press, 2001), 265, for description o

the Southern China region.
19. Kwang-chih Chang, "China on
History of Ancient China, ed. Mic
Cambridge University Press, 1999)
the Pleistocene cave at Renzidong
summary of Ailuropoda and Tapirus
Anhui Fanchang Renzidong, 417 and
20. Magnus Fiskesjo, "Rising from
Formation in Shang China," Bulletin
88-101, reviews the history and cur
21. Fiskesjo, "Rising from Blood-s
reports on animal bones excavated
Sicnuan, where tapir remains were
He Kunyu 何錕宇 et al., "Chengdu
guge yanjiu"成都市商業街船棺墓
20o6.b, 42-50 い Warring States sit
guge ji qi xiangguan wenti yan
Sichuan wenwu 2007.4, 41-4^ (a Sh

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the Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna with Tapirus present

be at the Anyang site and their economic or cultura
I presume that at a time about 3,500 years before
was rare in the transitional region and even in So
assume that even if the Anyang bones pre-date t
Shang people were not ignorant of the tapir's existe
that they knew from actual encounter or imagined fr
visual communication. Yet nothing in the fossil reco
and transmitted texts corroborates its continued existence in China down
the centuries. Having exposed modern misinformation concerning mo

and tapir to scrutiny, I wonder not whether but how rapidly the tapir
disappeared from the Southern China zoogeographic region; and I won
der what knowledge of it remained in Shang and early Zhou cultures,
north and south? Was a word for tapir written on Shang oracle bones and
bronze vessels or on paleographic materials from the first millennium
b.c.e.? Was the tapir depicted?
I pose the questions because claims have been made and must be
addressed. Identification of graphs in Shang and early Zhou 周 pale
ography with the word for tapir is suspect because the identification is
based on the occurrence of the phonetic component mo/*mak 莫 or other
phonetic components that are said to designate the same wora. iTie
graphs are no less problematic if applied to the giant panda. Does, for
instance, the late Shang bronze vessel graph 獏(in conventional modern
transcription) signify panda as wild animal when used as the insignia
for a group in the Shang community? The number of wild animal names
recorded in Shang and early Zhou paleography—pictographs and com
pound graphs—is small and many remain unidentified. On balance, the
absence of graphs naming the uncommon Southern China panda or tapir
would be the more likely situation than their occurrence, especially a
graph that served as the insignia linking a Shang social group to either
animal. Lacking additional evidence I do not assume that m Shang
and Zhou paleography denotes the animal named mo 貘 and defined
as "white leopard" in the Erya.22 Further, mo/^mak 莫 combined with
several signific components (including 鼠 and 毛）and alternating with
similar phonetic components (such as mo/^mrak and mo/^mrak
22. See Chen Weiwu 陳偉武,"Shuo 'mo’ ji qi xiangguan zhuzi"說貘及其相關諸字，

Guwenzi yanjiu 古文字研究 25 (2004), 251. Chen conjectures that mo 貘 first denoted
tapir and after the disappearance of the tapir was reassigned to giant panda by the
time of the Erya ("Shuo mo," 254). On animal insignia associated with Shang groups,
see David Keightley, The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang
China (ca. 1200-104^ b.c.) (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Cali
fornia, Berkeley, 2000), 110-11. Fiskesjo, "Rising from Blood-stained Fields/' 122-28,
discusses graphs for animals that were hunted as prey in bhang oracle bone inscriptions.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 195
貉）occurs in sets of words th

animal pelt. The last meaning
b.c.e. Chu 楚 manuscripts ex
is sometimes simply written
Fiskesjo suggests that Shan
used the pictograph xiang 象
distinguishing feature—to also
conjecture that the pictogra
used to write another anima
graphic evidence; it does raise
knowledge of wildlife and its
think of elephants and tapirs
the Erya definition "white l
(bao 豹）have for knowledge o
Regarding elephant and tapir
of animal-shaped bronze as
Zhou vessel previously classi
The argument suffers from t
that mo did not denote tapir
its similarity to Abel-Remusa
old image or object sufficient
nature it must be the creature
to apply the label "tapir" to a
sculpture in the British Mus
bronzes looted in Shanxi in th
in the Freer Gallery of Art (Fi
this type of sculpture were d
foundry at Houma 侯馬，Shan
of the capital of Jin 晉 during
23. For the sets of related words s

Old Chinese (Honolulu: University
393 (entry for "m{i3"). Chen Weiw
graphic evidence including graphs
The Tale of One man's Journey (Le
transcription of the original Chu g
"pelt" and the compound should b
24. Fiskesjo, "Rising from Blood-
25. Leopard bones were found at
Fields," 93-94.
26. William Watson, Ancient Chine
Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the
Institution, 1982), 77. Lawton desc
27. Institute of Archaeology of Shan
Princeton University Press, 1996),

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Figure 2: Animal-shaped bronze in the Freer Gallery of A

Drawing by Lai Shu-li.
Figure 3: Fragment of clay mold from the Houma found

Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Art of the
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pi. 832. Draw

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DONALD HARPER 197
There are more examples of th

(late Spring and Autumn to ea
was the likely center of prod
as Houma foundry animal br
patterns an on the surface the
the British Museum bronze
for his identification; others
Hayashi Minao 林已奈夫 in 19
examined similar animal desig
men agreed that the vessel fo
elephant-shaped but tapir-sha
difference between its snout a
shaped vessels, and appealed
for other details of the vesse
vessel as less realistic but nev
was discovered in the mid-1
Shaanxi, the site of a Western
強.It was found in Rujiazhua
Zhou. The full excavation repo
in 1988 followed the 1976 pre
28. Lawton, Chinese Art of the Wa

belonging to this type as quadruped,
to identify the animal precisely, a
Eleanor von Erdberg Consten, "Th
(1963), 206, notes that Watson's 1962
occurred after her article was written. Consten thinks that the British Museum bronze
and related bronzes are deer, but identifies another Zhou bronze as tapir (identified
by Watson and others as elephant; see n.30 below).
29. Hayashi Minao, "In Sei-Shu jidai no dobutsu isho ni torareta yasei dobutsu
rokushu"殷西周時代の動物意匠に採られた野生動物六種,in TembdAjia no kokogaku:
Higuchi Takayasu kyoju taikan kinen ronshu展望アジアの考古學：樋口隆康教授退官記
念論集(Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1983), 549~52. Sun Ji, "Gu wenwu zhong suojian zhi mo"
古文物士所臭之摸,in Sun Ji and Yang Hong 楊f弘,Wenwu congtan 文物_談(Beijing:
Wenwu, 1991), 292-98 (reprinted from Wenwu tiandi 文物天地 1986.5,17-18).
30. Hayashi，"In Sei-Shu jidai no dobutsu/' 549-51; Sun Ji, "Gu wenwu zhong suojian
zhi mo," 293. In 1963 Consten, "The Deer in Early Chinese Art," 201, already described
the Oeder bronze as tapir-shaped rather than elephant-shaped, followed by Thomas
Lawton, "A Group of Early Western Chou Period Bronze Vessels," Ars Orientalis 10
(1975), 115. Herbert Butz, "Early Chinese Bronzes in the Collection of the Museum of
Hast Asian Art," Orientations 31.8 (2000), 73-74, relates the modern history of the Oeder
bronze, which Butz describes as elephant-shaped. Until the beginning of World War II
it was displayed in the East Asian Art Collection of the Berlin State Museums. Put into
storage with the entire collection, at the end of the war the Oeder bronze was among
artifacts taken to the Soviet Union under the supervision of a trophy commission.
Information that the Oeder bronze is currently at the State Hermitage Museum in St.
Petersburg remains unconfirmed.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
_Q_
ぐ ®適)® ■■赃
i®■僅)®通働適)!^
屬邏邏通邏)®遞
®麗廻遍3通)画！}■適g
_■■働通 JD_
®S)S)画 ® ®®避)励；
r>, ,K 一®®Â ぺ〒丨-,v
Figure 4: Animal-shaped bronze formerly in the H.G. Oeder collection (height 26 cm).
describing the vessel as sheep-shaped with long snout serving as the ves
sel's spout, and noted the sheep's curled horns projecting back from the
top of its head (Fig. 5; height 18.6 cm). Sun Ji ignored this detail. Rather
than horns Hayashi treated them as whorl-shaped ears which for the
vessel's Zhou makers and users signified the tapir's power of hearing
and gave the vessel spiritual efficacy (an unverifiable conjecture on the
animal's and the design's cultural significance).31
Like Abel-Remusat's mo/tapir, the so-called tapir-shaped bronze type
arose from the presumption of identity with one animal as defined in
modern zoology along with the expectation that the modern viewer could
readily recognize the animal despite distracting design details. Hayashi
speculated that the head of the Rujiazhuang vessel had whorled ears not
31. Hayashi, "In Sei-Shu jidai no dobutsu/' 551-52; Sun Ji, "Gu wenwu zhong suojian
zhi mo," 293. For the excavation report see Lu Liancheng 盧連成 and Hu Zhisheng
胡智生，Baoji Yuguo mudi 寶鷄強國墓地（Beijing: Wenwu, 1988), 270 (information on
Rujiazhuang tomb 2) and 372 (information on the vessel). The preliminary report in
Baoji Rujiazhuang Xi-Zhou mu fajue dui, "Shaanxi sheng Baoji shi Rujiazhuang Xi-Zhou
mu fajue jianbao’’陝西省寶鷄市茹家莊西周墓發掘簡報,Wenwu文物1976.4,42, gives
the height measurement of the vessel as 20.1 cm.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 199
Figure
Figure5: Animal-shaped
5: bronze
Animal-shaped
from Rujiazhuang tomb 2, Shaanxi
bronze
(height 18.6 cm).f
Drawing
Drawing by Lai Shu-li. by Lai Shu-li.
curled horns, which he asso

and which addressed the impo
mention the matter of the anc
Oeder and Rujiazhuang vessels
named mo resembled Bo Juyi
was the Malayan tapir; and he
with giant panda. However, S
the mo as bear-like by Xu Sh
ninth century testimony of t
testimony, Sun Ji repeated A
The problem for modern sch
the bronzes without linguis
the animal can be identified, ihe makers and users of the Oeder and
Rujiazhuang vessels knew what it was. A Western Zhou vessel in the

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery resembles the Rujiazhuang vessel but is
larger with prominent ears projecting back and no horns (Fig. 6; height
30.3 cm). The provenance of the Sackler vessel is unknown, but it was
32. Sun Ji, "Gu wenwu zhong suojian zhi mo, 296-98. According to Sun Ji the tapir
is depicted in other pre-Han, Han, and post-Han artifacts, but the argument is faulty
for its reliance on a long snout as proof of tapir (depending on the artifact sheep, pig,
deer, and bear are all possible as is elephant).

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
Figure 6: Animal-shaped bronze in the Arthur M. Sackler Ga

probably taken from Shaanxi.33 The Oeder vessel

from Shanxi, as demonstrated by the discovery in
at the site of a Western Zhou cemetery for people of
at Hengshui 橫水，Shanxi. They were found as a pair
2158, dated middle to late Western Zhou. The animal
including the same surface decorative pattern as the
Hengshui vessels are half its size (Fig. 7; height 11 cm
raises the question of their functionality as vessels
regarded as models and were appreciated for their
like the similarly-sized Houma foundry animal bro
The animal is recognizaDle half a millennium la
foundry animal bronzes. The snout is different—short
33. Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur
(Washington, D.C., and Cambridge: Arthur M. Sackler Foun
Sackler Museum, 1990), vol. 2B, 708-11.
34. An excavation report for Hengshui tomb 2158 is not yet p
kaogu yanjiusuo 山西邊考古研究所，"Shanxi Jiangxian Heng
jianbao"山西絳縣橫水西周墓發掘簡報,Wenwu 2006.8,4-18, is t
on earlier excavations at the Peng state cemetery. The Hengshui
exhibited at the Shanxi Museum in 2007 and published in the
tion, where they are identified as mo "tapir" vessels. I thank
bringing the Hengshui vessels to my attention.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 201
Figure 7: Animal-shaped bronze fro

in appearance (perhaps because k

other details the similarities ind
Shaanxi area. The survival of an
Houma foundry artisans is an im
for over five hundred years p
ined —represented in their art
exact zoological counterpart in n
way in the Houma foundry an
neck and midsection that have th
in the example from Fenshuilin
ure stands on the animal's back
receptacle (Fig. 8; height 15 cm)
35. Art of the Houma Foundry, 73

Houma bronzes that revive Shang el
Shang bronzes. Consten, "The Deer in
ence in snout distinguishes the later a
the Oeder bronze (which she identifi
know the Rujiazhuang and Hengshu
between the Houma foundry animal
36. Bian Chengxiu 邊成磁，''Shanxi C
山西長治分水嶺126號i發掘簡報,Wen

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
Figure 8: Animal-shaped bronze with human figure from F

(height 15 cm). Drawing by Lai Shu-li.
in the Western Zhou vessels might have been t

the Houma foundry animal bronzes show a doc
The visual and archaeological evidence does not
one animal, and we should consider the possibility
in bronze depicted several related animals accordin
unknown to us. Nevertheless, I doubt that people
area in the early centuries of the first millenn
when they looked at the Rujiazhuang vessel with
Hengshui vessels; and the improbability is even
foundry animal bronzes. No zoological evidence
tion. Except for the long snout—shorter on the H
bronzes—details of the animal design recurred in
not unique to a particular animal in nature.37 At t
37- For discussion of common features in animal designs

Ritual Bronzes, 709-10; and Chen Libi 陳麗碧,"Dongwu xin
shehui wenhuayiyi: congBaoji Rujiazhuang chutu 'yucu

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER
Figure 9: Wooden bridle decorations from Pazyryk, Siberia, in

antelope heads: left, female (hornless); right, male (horned). Aft
Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen
of California Press, 1970), pis. 103(d) and 115(a). Drawing by Lai S
of docility in the Houma foundry animal bronzes sugges

of human community and animal, either in the geograph
Shanxi/Shaanxi area or in an imagined projection of other
animals. A southern space is not impossible, but archaeol
from Shanxi and Shaanxi of cultural interaction with peop
and west suggests that we look for the animal in other di
For reasons just mentioned, I think that the animal
the bronzes occurred in nature and was not an imagin
speculate without the expectation of certain identificatio
saiga antelope (Saiga tataricus). The saiga's head and l
depicted in profile on bridles, saddles, and other artifact
of the Inner Asian steppes extending east to Siberia in the
b.c.e.; and its habitat included Inner Mongolia and Gan
horns; the female is hornless (Fig. 9).39 Did the saiga's sn
makers of the Rujiazhuang and Hengshui vessels, and
to make a realistic likeness of the whole animal? I do not
I know the basis for the continued interest in the animal in the Houma
foundry animal bronzes. I do not propose to call them all saiga-shaped;

yet in the light of zoological and archaeological evidence of the saiga
周社會文化意義:從寶鶴药家莊出土盂鍇說起,inZ/iow Qin wenmingluncong(dier ji)周

秦文明論叢（第二輯),ed. Baoji shi qingtong qi bowuguan (Xi'an: San Qin, 2009), 159-62.
38. The most recent study to examine cultural interaction between China and Inner
Asia in the first millenium b.c.e. is Jessica Rawson, "Carnelian beads, animal figures and
exotic vessels: traces of contact between the Chinese States and Inner Asia, ca. 1000-650
bc," in Bridging Eurasia, ed. Mayke Wagner and Wang Wei (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von
Zabern, 2010), 1-42; see 22-24 on connections between the state of Yu in Shaanxi and
the peoples of Inner Asia as demonstrated by the Rujiazhuang tomb 2 artifacts.
39. For the saiga depicted in Inner Asian artifacts, see Sergei Rudenko, Frozen Tombs
of Siberia: The Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1970), 59,155,170, 253; and pis. 103,115 (a-b), 140 (a), 157 (c), 164 (c). For zoo
logical information and historical distribution, see Vladimir Sokolov, "Saiga tatarica,"
Mammalian Species 38 (May 1974), 1-4; and Wu Jia-yan, "The Ungulates of Northern
しhina/7 Rangifer 14.2 (1994), 57-64.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
and considering the aspect of cultural interaction

the Oeder, Sackler, and Hengshui vessels as tap
of the Rujiazhuang vessel as horned tapir are diff
appearances to the modern eye, I suggest that we
label "tapir" for any ancient Chinese object.
My review of modern claims regarding Chinese
in historical times is incomplete without presenti
Chinese tapir sighting by Ma Huan 馬歡 in the ear
Palembang (on Sumatra), which he included am
creatures in his Yingyai shenglan 瀛涯勝覽:40
Also, the mountains produce a kind of spirit

shenlu 神鹿"spirit deer."41 It resemoles a large p
feet high.42 The front half is entirely black and
is white; the hair is fine and uniformly short; a
attractive. The snout resembles the pig snout wi
The four hoofs also resemble pig hoofs but with
eats plants or woody stuff; it does not eat strong-
Palembang was already an important center on

half of the first millennium and there had long b
living there by the time Ma Huan visited. His
description of the Malayan tapir indicated no
animal inhabiting China or of earlier Chinese
tapir in its Southeast Asian habitat.
Let us leave the tapir. The giant panda and its
problem in Chinese cultural history with an intri
ment: the quadripartite mo described by Bo Juyi.
in the preface to the "Moping zan"鎮辟贊(Mo s
Juyi explained that an artist's drawing of the mo
his paean:44
The mo has elephant trunk, rhinoceros eyes,

paws. It inhabits the mountains and valleys of
40. Yingyai shenglan jiaozhu 濃涯勝覽校注，ed. Feng Che

Shangwu, 1935), 18; Ma Huan Ying-yai sheng-lan 'The Overall
(14.33), trans. J.V.G. Mills (Cambridge: Cambridge Universit
was probably in Palembang with Zheng He's 鄭禾口 exped
41. I suspect that "spirit deer" was a Chinese caique of
42. The Ming foot (chi 尺）was 32 cm.; see Qiu Guangmi
kexuejishu shi: dulianghengjuan 中國科學技術史:度量衡卷（
The measurement is accurate for the mature tapir, which a
and two meters in length.
43. The tapir's rear hoofs have three toes, but the front h
44. Quart Tangwen 全唐文，ed. Dong Hao 董浩（Beijing:

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 205
on its pelt repels contagion. To

I suffered from wind-ailment
always protected my head wi
painter and had him draw (the
this beast eats iron and copper,
me and now I have composed
Before the ninth century and

agreed on its bear-like appearan
gion and evil. We must assume t
animal in nature, the giant pand
mentioned use of the mo/pand
animal's solid bones and metal
ruler presented mo/panda pelts
of officials.46 The mo/panda wa
the source of products with e
draw a creature in order to repe
shaping the image to the use.
cumstances of the mo/panda's
unusual animal and efficacious
Bo Juyi. The latter identity d
creatures without changing the
the elephant-trunked mo was
better fulfilled its magical funct
Clues to the mo/panda's zool
texts and artifacts help to exp
incorporated real and fantasti
the facts for Tang people—and
exist. Giant panda pelts were cle
式(d. 863) described another pa
俎 near the end of a list of unu
The moze 貂澤 is as large as the

persing and smoothing. When
45- Bo Juyi was referring to Guo Pu'

text of the classic (see n.3 above).
46. See n.2 above for Guo Pu's Erya
(r. 627-649); see ]iu Tang shu 舊唐書（
47. Chapter three of my book in pr
edge in China in the Age of Manuscri
studies the medieval image of the m
48. Duan Chengshi, Youyang zazu (C
49. I disagree with Imamura Yoshio
Heibonsha, 1980), v. 3,169-70, who in

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
in copper, iron, or pottery vessels it entirely permeates

contained in bone it does not leak.
The compound moze only occurs in the Youyang zazu and the dog
comparison concerns relative size not appearance. The animal was the
metal-eating mo/panda whose metal-penetrating fat was stored in bone
containers to prevent it from leaking. Bear fat was one Tang skin lubricant
and, although rarer, giant panda fat was no doubt also used in cosmetics.50
Was the name moze colloquial? I explain the compound as a pun in Tang
speech between moze/rmk d^k and the medieval spirit protector named
Baize/bek dek 白澤(White Marsh),51 the marvelous creature whose perfect
knowledge of spirits, demons, and marvels was collected in the Baize tu
tj 澤圖(White Marsh diagrams); and whose iconography was a popular
drawing used to protect the home from harm. However the pun originated,
it illuminates the ninth century world in which Duan Chengshi and Bo
Juyi both knew of attributes that the mo/panda shared with Baize and that
encouraged people to re-imagine the mo/panda known from nature.52
Association with Baize was one of the circumstances of the mo/panda's
dual identity, but to identify the pun is not to tie the significance of the
mo/panda to ideas and practices related to Baize. The pun is a sign of
alignments among things in popular culture that did not have a reason,
yet we can see that its occurrence makes sense of the quadripartite mo
in the ninth century. I can identify two more signs, both of which sug
gest how the mo got its elephant trunk even though neither is directly
related to the mo/panda or to Baize. In the eighth and ninth centuries the
Indian elephant-headed deity Ganesa was the Buddhist counterpart to
the popular spirit-protector Baize. Also known as Vinayaka—meaning
"obstacle, hindrance"—the deity who caused obstacles became the deity
who aided people by eliminating obstacles. Chinese Buddhist Vinayaka
scriptures were a storehouse of occult knowledge for everyday use.
Vinayaka’s trunk was the focal point of the deity's iconography, and it
was the trunk that worked magic.53
without explanation. The immediately preceding entry in Youyang zazu states that the
lang さ良"wolf" is as large as the dog, indicating that in terms of meaning and syntax
moze is a compound naming the animal mo/panda followed by the predicate; the moze's
fat (gao 膏）is described in the next sentence.
50. For bear fat as ingredient in medieval Chinese cosmetics, see Catherine Despeux,
ed., Medicine, religion et societe dans la Chine medievale: Etude de manuscrits cninois de
Dunhuang et de Turfan (Paris: Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 2010), vol. 1,395-96
and 555.
51. Middle Chinese reconstruction is from Schuessler, Minimal Old Chinese.
52. Baize in Tang popular culture is discussed in my "Occult lexts and Everyday
Knowledge,’’ chapter three, which includes a study of the Dunhuang 敦煌 manuscript,
Baize jingguai tu 白澤精怪圖（P2682), the only extant example of the Baize tu.
53. On Vinayaka in medieval China, see Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 207
Figure 10: Tang period polychrom

Tenri University. Drawing by Lai
Although associated with V

elephant trunk can be seen in
once guarded a Tang tomb but
Sankokan Museum (Fig. 10)
grotesque, horned head. Mod
with the addition of the trunk
reclining cow position recur
that depicts a composite beast
body; and that I identify as a
home protection.55 These obje
ing described by Bo Juyi—ma
fitted the function of the obje
The mo/panda's metal eating
rhinoceros eyes and tiger paw
uted equally to the making
(Stanford: Stanford University Pres

mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantriqu
54. For reproduction and identifi
(Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1976), 232 (p
55. Identification of the Dunhuan
and Everyday Knowledge/' chapte

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
beasts were common among medieval tomb guard

lowed established conventions of representation. Wi
and lions were efficacious apotropaic emblems i
Why Tang people made similar use of the mo/pan
occasioned its quadripartite form are unknown. We
ancient and medieval animal called mo was not the t
cally exclude the possibility that the tapir influence
form? Could news of the tapir in its Southeast Asian
China? It was black and white, and its snout was
knowledge of the tapir seems unlikely in the light o
tapir account by Ma Huan centuries later; and the in
best have appeared coincidental at a time when othe
were providing the mo/panda with new functions a
ate for a marvelous creature. The unknown story of
got its elephant trunk involved the convergence
practices in an animal both real and imagined.
In the eleventh century Su Song included mo/
leopard" in materia medica as a subcategory of bao 豹
repeated Bo Juyi's quadripartite description without
of many who treated ancient and medieval source
Juyi's quadripartite mo as textual relics to be transm
ering the reality of the giant panda's appearance in
combined arbitrarily or applied selectively, as wh
were mixed with elephant trunk or when Bo Juyi's
reproduced in woodblock illustrations that Abel-Rem
post-Tang world use of screens with the drawing of
no longer current—what Su Song meant when he
popular Tang practice (but no longer). The name mo
animal in nature that we know as the giant panda, b
panda as an active cultural presence diminished
ficient reason to examine the variance between textua
animal. Classified and ignored describes the situat
In the centuries after the Tang, people's awareness
sion of the mo/panda were mostly obtained from old
illustrations in woodblock printed books, not from n
illustrations are variations on Bo Juyi's quadripartite
elephant trunk but not all the same. Whether Tang d
56. Su Song's Tujing bencao 圖經本草 is lost but the inform

quoted in Chongxiu zhenghe jingshi zhenglei beiyong bencao
(Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1957), 17.387.
57. For instance, Lu Dian 陸佃（1042-1102), Piya 婢雅(Cong
described the mo/panda as "resembling the bear with elephant
lion head, dhole fur.’'

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 209
partite mo were still available to So

is uncertain. The oldest mo/panda
in the Erya yintu 爾雅音圖，the 1
Yuan facsimile manuscript copy of
Zeng Yu 曾燠（i76o~i83i) wrote the
陶士立 reproduced the calligraphy
the illustrations, and Peng Wan
We do not have the Yuan manuscr
facsimile was made and must take t
authenticity. The mo/panda illustr
depictions (Fig. 11). The conventio
the Erya yintu folio pages with an
to a page. The pair of animals on the
the pair on the left by a tree to thei
line. The mo/panda illustration is
All four animals on the page ha
and we should regard the mo's m
the illustration. The head with ear
than the Chinese and Japanese illu
he recognized the tapir in them. T
is depicted with white midsection
the quadripartite mo to the gian
front and rear and white in the m
only example of this depiction.
illustrations looks feline, drawing
tiger paws of the quadripartite
Sancai tuhui 三才圖會（in print b
tuhui illustration was known to Ab
de Lasteyrie lithograph that accom
(the raised left front paw is def
feline look of the coat as the mar
by the lozenge designs in the lith
58. Wang Qi, Sancai tuhui (reprint of 1

2242 ("Niaoshou"鳥獣，4.5b). Details of
influence of the mo illustration in
三才圖會(reprint of 1713 woodblock ed.
438, which copied the Sancai tuhui illus
tapir in 1824 he gave no indication that h
he later referred to the illustrations of
presented in 1828, "Observations sur Ye
l'Asie orientale," and published in Memoi
inscriptions et belles-lettres 10 (1833), 15
ies in the Bibliotheque royale; see Mauric
japonais, etc. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901),

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
vrvHMixjjj リ v，”，二’ニ
((CrUーノ
■妙
Figure 11: Woodblock illustration of the mo from the Erya yintu.
If Abel-Remusat had not discovered the Chinese tapir in woodblock

illustrations of the mo/panda around 1820, the transition from trad
tional Chinese knowledge of wildlife to modern zoological knowledg
would have been different. Here is what did happen. Abel-Remusat's
misidentification entered zoological literature by way of Georges Cuvier
Within two decades the identification of mo as tapir entered bilingu
Chinese dictionaries. For English, Morrison's A Dictionary of the Chinese
Language, published in 1819 in Macao, still relied on older Chinese lexical
information: "An animal said to resemble a wild boar; to have the trunk

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 211
Figure 12: The folio page from the Er
of an elephant, the eye of a rh

a tiger."59 However, Medhurst'
ing all the Words in the Chinese
59. Robert Morrison, A Dictionary

pany Press, 1819), vol. i, part 2, 588

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
Q /
^ v\\\vf
ロマ、ゴ.、丨
m ^ nn \vv\l ぃ
ぐ‘パメ5
觀、，急
*v :p
Figure
Figure 13: Woodblock
1 ス：Woodblock illustration
illustration of the mo from the of the mo from
Sancai tuhui.
the Radicals, published in Batavia in 1842-1843, summarized the Kangxi

zidian entry for mo and concluded with the statement: "Notwithstanding
all these fabulous descriptions, it appears that the animal intended is the
tapir." Later dictionaries concur.60
The zoological literature reached Japan before China. In 1885 in Tokyo
Iwakawa Tomotaro岩川友太郎and Sasaki Chujiro佐佐木忠次郎
published Dobutsu tsiikai 動物通解，which was based mainly on Henry
Nicholson's A Manual of Zoology for the Use of Students with a General
Introduction on the Principles of Zoology from the early 1870s. In Dobutsu
tsukai the tapir's proper name for Japanese readers was baku (mo)貘.61
In China in 1915 the first edition of Ciyuan 簡辛源 gave two definitions for
mo. The first quoted Erya with Guo Pu commentary and concluded with
Hao Yixing's 郝諮イ丁 (1757-1825) opinion that mo had the meaning bao
"leopard." The second was modern Japanese usage: "in Japan tapir is
60. Walter Medhurst, Chinese and English Dictionary, Containing all the Words in the
Chinese Imperial Dictionary, Arranged According to the Radicals (Batavia: 1842-1843), 1085.
S. Wells Williams, A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, Arranged According to
the Wu-Fang Yiian Yin (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1889; preface
dated June 1874), 583, begins with identification of mo as "the Malacca tapir (Tapirus
malayanus)."
61. Iwakawa Tomotaro and Sasaki Chujiro, Dobutsu tsukai (Tokyo: Monbusho
henshukyoku, 1885), 146-48; compare Henry Nicholson, A Manual of Zoology for the
Use of Students with a General Introduction on the Principles of Zoology, second ed. (New
York: D. Appleton and Company, 1872), 554-55.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 213
translated mo’’ (tapir 日本■睪為

xue da cidian in 1922 reconf
nomenclature for tapir.63
The giant panda was not incl
da cidian (neither was the les
in a Japanese or Chinese zoolo
Dobutsugaku seigi 動物學精義
irowakeguma いろわけぐま to tr
two English common names f
his 1913 account of animals in
was giant panda, which was gai
twentieth century.64 The Chin
both names in English transcri
tioned by Wilson: pi 罷 and bai
seigi the most remarkable de
without explanation that in C
name mo 貘.The 1939 Chinese
was on record in Japan and Ch
62. Ciyuan (Shanghai: Shangwu, 191

the identification).
63. Du Yaquan 杜亞泉，xue da c
1922), 2281-83.
64. Eri Megumi, Dobutsugaku seigi
gave English and Latin: "Parti-colou
use the name giant panda. Ernest Wils
Camera, and Gun: Being Some Accoun
tion in the More Remote Parts of the
Company, 1913), vol. 2,182-84, descr
the giant panda (Ailuropus melanole
name huaxiong 花熊，a local Sichuan
guji zhong dui da xiongmao de jizai,
Oka in Tokyo for sending me the pag
American libraries.
65. "Xi Kang Sichuan de niaoshou"西康四川的鳥獣，trans. Li Kaishi 李慨士，in
Zhongguo xibu dongwu zhi 中國西部動物誌,ed. Li Kaishi (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1934),
71-72 (first published in 1929 in the journal Ziran jie 自然界).According to Wilson
baixiong ("Peh Hsiung" in his romanization) was the giant panda's local name (see
Gao Yaoting, "Wo guo guji zhong dui da xiongmao de jizai," 33, and n.16 above); pi
was used in literature. Wilson did not provide the Chinese graph 罷 for pi, which first
occurred in Li Kaishi7s translation. Pi 罷 was listed in Erya, 3~6.ioa, and described as
"like the bear with yellow and white patterning." It is not clear who informed Wilson
that pi was the name for the giant panda used in literature, nor did Li Kaishi explain
his choice of graph (see nn. 82-83 below for a different word pi 貔，which some recent
scholars argue was an ancient name for the giant panda).
66. Dongwu xue jingyi 動物學精義，trans. Du Yaquan et al. (Shanghai: Shangwu,
1939), vol. 3,1784-85.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
still treated mo as the proper name for tapir, wh

premodern Japanese ideas and practices related
tapir not the giant panda.67
Eri's suspicion about mo and giant panda did n
the mistake about mo and tapir that had enter
of Chinese wildlife. No one made the argument
panda to its longtime name mo, the name unde
mulated several thousand years of cultural histor
of nineteenth and twentieth century zoology the
or traditional names for the giant panda was inci
Father David's mid-nineteenth century discovery
attention that followed. Interest in the giant pan
efforts to hunt or capture it alive for study and
tion in relation to bears and to the lesser panda.
Before Father David's giant panda discovery
animal named panda and it inhabited the Him
Frederic Cuvier proposed the common name "p
Ailurus fulgens (shining cat), the former suppose
name.68 A distinct Chinese panda with habitat in
northern Burma was identified later.69 The first d
modern Chinese compound xiongmao 賁_貓 was in
zidian 中華大字典，which was the Chinese caiqu
name for panda, "cat bear’' or "bear cat." The illus
fulgens.70 Ernest Wilson described the panda in h
of the giant panda. The 1929 Chinese translation u
Chinese maoxiong 貓熊(in contrast, Wilson's us
not translated into Chinese but rendered by the w
Much has been written in Chinese about which
ity, xiongmao or maoxiong, an argument that sho
rences of "cat bear" or "bear cat" in English and r
European languages. I do not have an opinion on t
based on two 1930s dictionaries is that xiongma
67. Eri Megumi, Dobutsugaku seigi, vol. 3,692, refers to the

(eliminate the harm of nightmares), a Japanese practice c
of the mo/panda in medieval China.
68. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Frederic Cuvier,
miferes, avec des figures originales, coloriees, dessinees d'apr
(Paris: A. Belin, 1825), "Panda" (unpaginated).
69. G.H.H. Tate, Mammals of Eastern Asia (New York:
1947), 164.
70. Zhonghua da zidian (Shanghai: Zhonghua, 1915), 934 (si 巳，24).
71. See nn. 64-65 above.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 215
among readers, while some sc

edition of Cihai 阌竿海 defined
but the animal we call giant
giant panda's intriguing mo
foreigners, and mistakenly id
Sichuan:72
Xiongmao: Name of an unusual creature. It inhabits Xinjiang. Its

body is very large. It is one of the rarest of unusual creatures
surviving today. It was discovered sixty years ago by the French
scientist Father David. In 1929 certain younger brothers of General
Roosevelt of America captured it for the first time for exhibition at
the Field Museum in Chicago. This animal's proper classification
is not yet determined.
The entry with its errors was never revised in later printings of Cihai
(in addition to Xinjiang, the 1929 American hunters were President Theo
dore Roosevelt's sons, Kermit and Theodore, not his brothers). The brief
definition of xiongmao in the 1937 Guoyu cidian 國語廣半典 repeated the
Cihai's Xinjiang error, but it was corrected in the 1947 revised edition to
read, "it inhabits the western part of Sichuan." In addition, the revised
edition distinguished the two kinds of panda, da xiongmao "large bear
cat" (giant panda) and xiao xiongmao "small bear cat" (lesser panda).73
Popular Chinese publications between the 1920s and 1940s covered events
related to the giant panda such as recounted in the Cihai definition.74
By the 1940s, the giant panda's modern identity in China was fixed
in the zoologically determined name da xiongmao. In zoology or general
usage the local or traditional names were obsolete. Would the outcome
have been different if mo had not been reassigned to tapir in the first
half of the nineteenth century? Perhaps not. The consequence of the
nineteenth and twentieth century history of how mo became tapir is the
false intrusion of the tapir where it did not belong, the loss of the giant
panda's premodern cultural history, and the formation of the giant
panda's modern cultural history divorced from its past.
72. Cihai (Shanghai: Zhonghua, 1936), siji 已集，215.

73. Guoyu cidian (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1937), 2553.1 have not been able to consult
the 1947 four-volume revised edition, but rather the abbreviated 1957 edition based
on it: Hanyu cidian 漢語辭典（Shanghai: Shangwu, 1957), 712.
74. I thank Hou Jiang 侯江 of the Chongqing Museum of Natural History for provid
ing me with many printed materials from this period. The museum was established in
1944 as the Zhongguo Xibu Bowuguan 中國西—博物館,and one of the original perma
nent exhibitions recreated the natural habitat of the baixiong '"white bear'’ (giant panda).

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
Cultural uses of the giant panda in early C
Awareness of the giant panda beyond its habitat

a cultural identity occurred during the first millen
result that the Erya included mo in the section shou
definition baibao "white leopard." Words for two an
趣,defined as baihu 白虎"white tiger"; and shu 鱺,
"black tiger."75 Neither word has a history of use ou
for several conventional references in medieval works of literature that
seem to recall their occurrence in the Erya.76 Read together with Guo
Pu's commentary the words meant white-colored and black-colored
tigers, not zoologically different animals. If, like mo, they were ancient
animal proper names, knowledge of the referents did not survive into
the Han and post-Han periods. Unlike mo, the animals and words lacked
the giant panda's cultural identity and history. Even it tew people saw
the mo/panda in nature or in captivity, its appearance, habits, primarily
southwest habitat, and useful products (especially the pelt) were well
known from written records. After Erya, details that confirm the denota
tion giant panda occurred in Xu Shen's Shuowen jiezi definition in the
second century, recurred in Guo Pu's Erya and Shanhai jing commentar
ies, and were recorded in other sources contemporary with Guo Pu in
the third to fourth centuries.
Guo Pu was, however, a thorough scholiast and concluded his Erya
commentary on mo—after he described it as bear-like, black and white,
and metal-eating—with an alternative explanation similar to han and
shu: "some say that a white-colored leopard has the separate name mo."77
People's knowledge of wildlife in ancient and medieval China combined
individual experience, expectation based on cultural conventions, and
dependence on the idealized world created by written texts, the sum
of which corresponds imperfectly to our understanding of nature and
wildlife. We can translate Guo Pu's description of the mo into modern
zoological information about the giant panda without fully comprehend
ing how the alternative explanation based on classification by category
(tiger, leopard, and so forth) and color (mainly white, black, red, and
yellow) affected Guo Pu's awareness of wildlife. On balance I think that
Guo Pu would have agreed with me that the identification giant panda
75. Erya, 3~6.6a.

76. In two medieval occurrences han and shu form a pair, evidently because they
occur in sequence in the Erya. See Zuo Si 左思，"Wudu hi"吳都賦，Wenxuan 文選
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1986), 5.224, "violate the han and shu (赚離趣;note the choice
of graph bao 蹏"violate" to match the composition of the two animal names); and
Zhang Xie 張協，"Qiming"七命，Wenxuan, 35.1604, "yank the han and shu"(拉如鐘).
77. Erya, 3-6.53-0.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 217
was preferable to treating m

but I do not know how he knew
did he see it?)
Modern scholars must decid
identification of animals named in ancient and medieval Chinese texts
while not losing sight of their cultural identity and acknowledging that
referents of many names are unknown. My research on mo and giant
panda has made me more cautious than other recent scholars who find
the panda in texts where I do not. In my judgment Erya was the only
pre-Han occurrence of mo that reliably denoted giant panda, and I have
not found other words for it. For instance, a medieval quotation of the
lost Shizi 广千(fourth century b.c.e.?) identified mo 貘 as the word used
by the people of Yue 越(the southeast coastal region) for the animal that
people of the middle states (zhongguo 中國)called bao 豹,and both words
corresponded to the animal name cheng 程 in Shizi. Cheng as animal name
was attested to in Zhuangzi 另士子 and Liezi 歹lj 子 in the phrases "cjingning
generates cheng, cheng generates horse, horse generates humankind"
(青寧生程程生馬馬生人）in a passage on cyclical processes. Among
commentators who discussed its meaning, Shen Gua 沈括(1031-1095)
surmised that the ancient meaning was the same as the contemporary
meaning in Yanzhou 延少|、| (in present day Shaanxi), where cheng was
the local word for chong 蟲，referring to tiger or leopard.78 bhen Gua's
speculation bears consideration. However, even if we assume that the
Shizi quotation is authentic fourth century b.c.e. testimony, the informa
tion that cheng, bao, and mo were ancient synonyms in regional languages
is not evidence that mo was precisely the giant panda's proper name.
Xuanmo 玄獲"dark mo" was one of the regional products submitted
to the Zhou court in the royal convocation described in the Yi Zhou shu
逸周書 in "Wanghui"王會.The account was idealized and included
marvelous products reminiscent of the bhanhai jing. I assume a pre-Han
date. Geography is the chief problem with xuanmo and giant panda:
xuanmo came from the Yi 吳 people of Lingzhi 令支 in the northeast and
represented a regional product. The third century commentator Kong
Chao 孑L 晃 referred to the Erya precedent baibao "white leopard" for mo
(baihu 白狐"white fox" is a variant text reading for the commentary)
and defined xuanmo as heibao 黑豹"black leopard" (or heihu 黑狐"black
fox").79 No matter the explanation, the northeast was not the expected
yS. The Shizi quotation is found in Yin Jingshun's 殷敬III頁(ninth century) shiwen 釋
文 to Liezi. For the Liezi text with Yin Jingshun's shiwen quotation of Shizi, Shen Gua's
commentary, and reference to the Zhuangzi parallel, see Liezi jishi 歹1J 子集釋，ed. Yang
Bojun 楊伯峻（Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 1.17 ("Tianrui"天瑞).
79. Yi Zhou shu huijiao jizhu 逸周書棄校_注，ed. Huang Huaixin 黃懷信 et al.

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habitat of the giant panda in the first millennium b.c

giant panda for xuanmo cannot be confirmed from t
say whether the image of the giant panda was involv
Then there is the matter of the graph 獲 in xuanmo
common variants of mo 摸 in the meaning "giant pan
texts. I do not find them used for giant panda in pre-
some uses of these and related graphs above, in partic
猿 in Shang inscriptions that in my judgment were no
panda. Our idea of stability in the early forms of grap
in the light of current knowledge of scribal convention
in Warring States, Qin, and Han excavated manusc
the Erya graph 鎮 was the pre-Han form that Xu Shen
centuries later in his analysis of the giant panda's nam
jiezi. From the standpoint of early lexicography and d
mo 縝 to be standard. I refrain from etymologizing t
for cultural signs of the giant panda contained in the
components. The word probably originated in the spe
who knew the animal in nature. Inclusion in the Erya
panda's place in cultural knowledge across regions.
Han-time use of mo ■百 m the first place had to be d
its earlier use for a northeast region and inhabitants
millennium b.c.e., which meaning was not yet obs
and the related graph ！白 replaced 莫 with a simpler
component. Confusion was obviously not an issue: n
or southwestern animal were easily distinguished fro
"whiteness" (bai 白）as an attribute of the giant pa
the adoption of the Han variants, either because of it
coat or because of special qualities attached to whi
such as "white leopard" and "white fox" (auspicio
frequently white).81 Once adopted, the graphs had late
meaning, such as punning between moze ！百澤 and
speech described above.
Among other premodern names for the giant panda p
scholars and attested to in pre-Han texts, pi |鹿 ha
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2007), 7.878-79 ("Wanghui"). Mo is w

cited, but collation notes indicate other editions that write 獲.
80. Chen Pan 陳槃，"Chunqiu shidai zhi moguo"春秋時代
Xianglin jiaoshou lunwen ji 壽羅奢:林教授論文集（Hong Kong:
Department of Chinese, 1970), 33-3(3. Mo was more commonly w
81. The connotation "auspicious" for "white" is clear in the
onfurui 符瑞.iTie treatise lists auspicious signs by date and lo
notable for long sections on sightings of white creatures; see Son
1974), 28.802-12 and 29.837-47.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 219
attention. The Erya definition

by Guo Pu's commentary gro
long entry for pi in the Shuow
its old cultural significance:83
Belongs to the group leopar

Signific component 君，phone
"offer as gift that pi pelt." Zh
is a ferocious beast.
Mo 貉 was the more common Han writing of the northeast region

Mo 組.Xu Shen's concluding phrase "pi is a ferocious beast"(貔猛獣）
repeated the Mao 毛 commentary to the line that Xu Shen quoted trom the
Shijing 詩經 song, "Hanyi"韓突.84 The Zhoushu line was from King Wu's
武王 call to battle at Muye 牧野 when Zhou defeated Shang as recorded
in Shujing 書經，"Mushi"牧誓.85 Both quotations evoked the cultural
identity of the pi in early Zhou records of wildlife and hunting. Near
the end of the first millennium b.c.e. the Mao commentary to "Hanyi"
identified pi as an animal trom Mo in the northeast, information that Xu
Shen included in nis Shuowen jiezi entry. Three entries after pi Xu ^hen
stated that the mo/panda came from Shu in the southwest. The modern
reader cannot mistake the specificity of the entries: in pre-Han and Han
texts the words mo and pi did not denote the same animal and pi cannot
be the giant panda. Research on the cultural history and identity of pi
that combines philology with zoology has not been done and may not
be possible.
Modern scholars who claim that pi was one of the giant panda's pre
modern names tend to also share the idea that the giant panda was the
single animal behind numerous ancient and medieval references to beasts
that were white, black, and fierce, and that beginning in the Han were
classified in omenology. Despite Xu Shen's statement on the expected
southwest habitat of the mo/panda they presume that the giant panda
was everywhere and called by many names over the centuries. The claim
that references to the third century sighting of a white-colored tiger in
present day Gansu, to the sixth century sighting of a white-colored tiger
in present day Shandong, and to sightings in Shandong of the marvelous
creature zouyu in the seventh and fifteenth centuries are evidence
for the giant panda is a variation on the application of modern zoological
82. Erya, 3~6.i8b- 19a.

83. Shuowen, 9641a.
84. Shijing zhushu 詩經注疏(Shisan jing zhushu 十三經注疏,reprint of 1815 wood
block ed.; Taibei: Yiwen), i8D.iob ("Hanyi"; Mao 261).
85. Shangshu zhushu 尚青注疏(Shisan jing zhushu ed.), 11.18a.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
knowledge to premodern sources that led Abel-Rem

from mo, baibao "white leopard," and the epithet th
metal eating (see below), no modern argument for o
giant panda in premodern texts is convincing.87
I save for last the occurrence of mengbao 猛豹"f
the ^hanhai jing.88 If the reference to the abundance
that inhabited South Mountain 南山 belonged to the
parts of the Shanhai ]ing text and if the name "fer
synonymous with Erya "white leopard," we might s
alongside the Erya as early attestation of mo/pan
not support the speculation, yet when we add Guo P
the Shanhai jing textual mixture we can see how me
have regarded the Shanhai jing as the locus classicus f
Bo Juyi did when he cited the bnanhai jing for the
mo/panda "eats iron and copper, and eats nothin
Guo Pu's commentary on Lai Mountain and not t
described Lai Mountain as the habitat of the mo/
in nis commentary on the "ferocious leopard" of
similar to nis Lai Mountain commentary:
Ferocious leopard resembles the bear but is smaller

and brightly glossy; it can eat snakes and eat co
comes from Shu. Alternatively the graph bao 豹 is
86. For the four examples given see Wen Rongsheng 文榕生,Z
dongwufenbu bianqian 中國珍稀野生動物分佈變遷(Jinan: Shan
224-25 and 235. They are selected from the presentation of t
of the giant panda by modern province down to the mid-tw
references in texts, including local gazetteers and documen
distribution of the giant panda based on scientific observati
are proolems with the use made or historical textual materi
between lists of animal names in texts and the actual prese
tifiable animals at specific times and places is impossible to
reduplicate older lists without regard to the actual situation)
between names in texts and animals in nature is frequently u
animal names over time are difficult to ascertain (we must a
an animal name occurring in an early text such as the Shijin
and unchanging zoological referent throughout historical tim
texts as quasi-zoological data ignores historical and cultural
premodern knowledge of wildlife.
87. Names for giant panda as enumerated in Wen Rongs
yesheng dongwu, 222-35, are mentioned uncritically in many m
of the giant panda.
88. Shanhai jing, 2.4b.
89. See n. 45 above.

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 221
Perhaps Guo Pu the scholia

described "ferocious leopard"—
the bear and ate metal—but he
panda of Lai Mountain with t
Mountain, and he concluded
"ferocious tiger" in place of "
Shanhai jing with Guo Pu com
indefinite when he wrote the
panda became the same meta
medieval readers of the Sha
without Guo Pu's commentary
unproven the notion that pre
panda by any name in the Sha
Shuowen jiezi indicates that
panda by the name mo, wni
the same time to belong to th
The mo/panda made its first
century b.c.e. in the verse of
the poet's account of the wor
Grove of the Son of Heaven (天
the real and the marvelous, en
where "at the height of winte
makes waves leap"—were tw
second, fourth, and fifth wer
the eighth, ninth, and tenth
the twelfth was rhinoceros.
indulge myself in thinking th
panda.
The giant panda as object of spectacle in the capital Chang'an 長安
(in present day Shaanxi) in the same century was proved by the 1975
excavation of the tomb of Thearch Wen's 文帝 mother Grand Dowager
Bo 薄太后（d. 155 b.c.e.) southeast of Chang'an. Dowager Bo was buried
with a menagerie. Twenty pits with animal remains on the northwest side
of her burial mound were arranged in three north-south rows. Bones in
90. Hao Yixing's 郝諮行(1757-1825) commentary in Erya, 3-6.5^ proposes that

meng 猛 and mo 摸 were interchangeable sounds, hence mengbao 猛豹 in the Shanhai
jing stood for mobao 摸豹.I do not accept this conjecture as explanation of the original
form of the compound mengbao; it does suggest one rationalization for the medieval
reading of the Shanhai jing compound.
91. Han shu 漢書(Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 57A.2556; Wenxuan, 8.366. David Knech
tges, Wen xuan or Selection of Refined Literature, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1982), 89, translates mo as "tapir,'

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
five pits have been identified, and the pits con

the following: giant panda (pit 3); rhinoceros (pit
(pit 5); dog (pit 19).92 Many pits had brick walls f
all five animals were buried with head to the sout
placed in a wood coffin. The implications of h
how we understand the keeping of animals in
elite's conception of wildlife are obvious. In ad
animal performances (including staged combat
elite observing the giant panda and other wil
enclosures.93
After Sima Xiangru, another Shu native, Yang Xiong 揚雄(53 b.c.e.-i8
c.e.), wrote his verse account of the Shu capital and named mo/panda
among the wildlife of Min Mountain 岷山 north of the city.94 As with
Sima Xiangru, I suspect that Yang Xiong knew the giant panda from
personal experience. Their verses together with Xu Shen's Shuowen jiezi
constitute the textual attestation of mo/panda in the writings of men who
lived during the centuries of Han rule. The next poet to name the mo/
panda in verse was Zuo Si 左思、(ca. 250-ca. 305) in his compositions on
the southern capitals of Shu and Wu 吳(there was no giant panda in
his third composition on the northern capital of Wei 魏).Both vividly
described hunting scenes with verbs of the hunters' attack preceding
animal names. In the Wu capital hunt the hunters "kicked dhole and
giant panda"(職犲獲);95 in the Shu capital hunt they "spiked the iron
eating beast’’（戟食鐡之獸）and "shot the poison-chewing deer"(射職
毒之鹿).96
The mo/panda's metal eating reputation was well known in the third
century and many people probably read Zuo Si's "iron-eating beast"
as an epithet for the giant panda as identified in Liu Kui's 蓥lj 逵(fl. ca.
295) commentary. Liu Kui repeated the common knowledge that the
mo/panda consumed large amounts of iron in no time simply by licking
with its tongue.97 The motif of metal eating remained the identirymg
92. Wang Xueli 王學理，"Han 'Nanling' da xiongmao he xiniu tanyuan"漢南陵大

熊貓和犀牛探源,Kaogu yu wenwu考古與文物1983.1,89-91.
Q3- Wang Xueli, "Han 'Nanling’ da xiongmao," 91-92, discusses Han evidence ror
keeping wild animals in captivity.
94. Yang Xiong, "Shu du fu"蜀都賦，in Quart shanggu sandai Qin Han sanguo liuchao
wen全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文,comp. YanKejun嚴可均(Beijing: Zhonghua, 1958), ••
Quan Han wen"全漢文，51.1b. The passage with mo is in the Guwen yuan 古文苑 text of
Yang Xiong's "Shu du fu," but does not occur in the Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 quotation of it.
95. Zuo Si, "Wu du hi"吳都賦，Wenxuan, 5.225. Knechtges, Wen xuan, 413, translates
mo as "tapir." On chai 材"dhole," see Edward H. Schafer, "Brief Note: The Chinese
Dhole," Asia Major, ser. 3,4.1 (1991), 5.
96. Zuo Si, "Shu du fu"蜀^5賦，Wenxuan, 4.188.
97. Liu Kui's source was Wei Wan's Nanzhong bajun zhi (see n.4 above).

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
DONALD HARPER 223
characteristic of the mo/pand

Yucai noted that people in Sic
sance. The motif was probably
century and so I include it wi
Over the centuries people obs
of the giant panda does not c
panda's southwest habitat m
think of the mo/panda as an
were correlated with the west
The motif of metal eating, ho
ideas about wildlife that were
By the third and fourth cent
diet transformed the substa
from the Mediterranean to C
and metalworking. In China t
named nietie 齧鐡"iron-chew
In the south quarter there

size is like the water buffalo.
and drinks water. Its feces
sharpness is like steel. Its nam
The Shenyi ]ing collected in

places in a spatial arrangemen
bibliography ascribed the tex
from the second century b.c.
c.e. is reasonable because Zuo
all read the Shenyi jing.100 Ge
quotation not found in the tr
"iron-chewer" in the phras
swallowing beast"(東方生識啖
98. There are no texts that attest to

eating motif, but it was unlikely
secondary literature to the occurr
iron"(走i百美鐡）in the Xinlun 新論
譚(ca. 43 b.c.e.-28 c.e.), but a med
462-522) or Liu Zhou 劉晝(514-565
to the number assigned to the text in
des ouvrages [Paris: Ecole frangais
Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, ed
Daozang (Chicago: University of C
99. WangGuoliang王國 Shenyij
109.
100. Wang Guoliang, Shenyi jing
101. Tailing yulan 太平御覽（Taib

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC
Zuo Si's "iron-eating beast" as mo/panda, Zuo Si m

epithet with more than one referent in mind. When
eating motif arose in a Chinese cultural setting rem
but I propose that the Shenyi jing "iron-chewer"
of the motif and defined the cultural use of metal
mo/panda already associated with whiteness and
"iron-chewer" added to its cultural identity and use
Medieval developments in the cultural history o
outside the scope of this study. By way of conclusio
Abel-Remusat's error which prompted my resea
error highlights issues that remain current in how
addresses premodern knowledge. In the early nin
Remusat understood a principle that is still valid: si
alliance of theoretical and methodological tools to bri
culture, philology, and natural science. Abel-Rem
faulty, but it was a falsifiable argument that could
before the end of the nineteenth century if only som
to the task. What happened instead was a form o
cence in which premodern textual and visual eviden
investigated nor was the effort made to relate this
to the world of nature and wildlife. In the twenty-fi
remind ourselves that the study of early China
assessing textual and visual evidence with dictiona
hand. The challenge is to develop flexible and compr
to think about early China with the benefit of all mo
scientific disciplines.
102. Herbert Franke, "Indogermanische Mythenparallelen

Text der Han-Zeit/‘ in Marchen, Mythos, Dichtung: Festschrift zu
von der Leyens am 19. August 196^, ed. Hugo Kuhn and Kurt S
1963), 248-49, provides a comparative perspective on the しh
in connection with the Shenyi jing "iron-chewer."

211.25.237.3 on Thu, 27 Aug 2020 12:14:39 UTC

Donald Harper (2012-2013) - The Cultural History of The Giant Panda in Early China PDF

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THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE GIANT PANDA ("AILUROPODA MELANOLEUCA") IN

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/24392405

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GIANT PANDA (AILUROPODA MELANOLEUCA)

1. Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字注,ed. Duan Yucai 段玉裁（Shanghai: Shanghai guj

Early China 35-36, 2012-13

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named two administrative regions further to the so

4. See the reconstruction of Wei Wan's lost Nanzhong bajun

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that Europeans had encounte

Zoology, Bo Juyi's panda, and Abel-Remusat's tapir

Abel-Remusat published "Sur le tapir de la Chine’’ in 1824 in Journal

8. Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat, "Sur le tapir de la Chine,'’ Journal asiatique, ser. i, 4

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College de France, Abel-Remusat's early trainin

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”//fya £t&yt^SjCfft^, LUk.JkrO.df

Chinese books are filled with observations on natural histor

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that the mo still inhabited Sichuan in the nineteenth ce

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on Bo Juyi's bedside screen fo

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recorded in transmitted texts there was no tapir in

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Homo erectus is present at th

Press, 2001), 265, for description o

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the Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna with Tapirus present

the centuries. Having exposed modern misinformation concerning mo

22. See Chen Weiwu 陳偉武,"Shuo 'mo’ ji qi xiangguan zhuzi"說貘及其相關諸字，

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貉）occurs in sets of words th

23. For the sets of related words s

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Figure 2: Animal-shaped bronze in the Freer Gallery of A

Figure 3: Fragment of clay mold from the Houma found

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There are more examples of th

28. Lawton, Chinese Art of the Wa

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curled horns, which he asso

Rujiazhuang vessels knew what it was. A Western Zhou vessel in the

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Figure 6: Animal-shaped bronze in the Arthur M. Sackler Ga

probably taken from Shaanxi.33 The Oeder vessel

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Figure 7: Animal-shaped bronze fro

in appearance (perhaps because k

35. Art of the Houma Foundry, 73

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Figure 8: Animal-shaped bronze with human figure from F

in the Western Zhou vessels might have been t

37- For discussion of common features in animal designs

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Figure 9: Wooden bridle decorations from Pazyryk, Siberia, in

of docility in the Houma foundry animal bronzes sugges

foundry animal bronzes. I do not propose to call them all saiga-shaped;

周社會文化意義:從寶鶴药家莊出土盂鍇說起,inZ/iow Qin wenmingluncong(dier ji)周

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and considering the aspect of cultural interaction