Bestiary of Early Bac Bo

From mike.high@earthlink.net Sun Jun 12 10:35:34 2005

Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 13:35:09 -0400

From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] Bestiary of Early Bac Bo

Are there any good sources of information on the species that were prevalent in North Vietnam and South China from 2600-220 BC?

I recently came across a very interesting version of the myth of Lac Long Quan, which describes how "wild and fierce beasts" roamed the land at the time, but Lac Long Quan made the land safe. The beasts that he subdues in the tale are mythical: the Ghost Fish, the Nine-Tailed Fox, and the Ghost Tree. These are mythical, but they allude to the existence of predators dangerous to man. I assume that the tiger was one of these, but were there others? Could the "ghost fish" have been a crocodile?

There are also some interesting references in historical sources. According to Keith Weller Taylor and Leonard Aurousseau's translations of Chinese sources, the Ch'in emperor's interest in the "rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks, the feathers of the kingfisher, and the pearls of the Yueh" was a major reason for sending the empire's armies south of the Nan-Ling mountains. Were the rhinoceros and the elephant at large in Xi Jiang or Hong River watersheds at the time, or were the horns and tusks simply traded in those regions?

:: Mike High

From thompsonc2@southernct.edu Sun Jun 12 11:16:09 2005

Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 14:13:34 -0400

From: Michele Thompson <thompsonc2@southernct.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Bestiary of early Bac Bo

Dear Mike, Probably the best general overview of flora and fauna in the area you ask about is Edward H. Schafer The Vermilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South. It discusses real, potentially real, and mythological beasts of the area and also how the Chinese knew about them and which ones were major trade/tax items of various sort. It also has a great bibliography. Another work which doesn't focus just on the area you mention but certainly discusses it and which in terms of bibliography is much more up to date than Schafer is Mark Elvin, Retreat of the Elephants: an Environmental History of China.

cheers

Michele

Michele Thompson

Dept. of History

Southern Connecticut State University