Divining Turtles in Vietnam

From thompsonc2@southernct.edu Sun Jan 30 09:04:48 2005

Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:02:54 -0500

From: Michele Thompson <thompsonc2@southernct.edu

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

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

Subject: Divining turtles in Vietnam

Dear Everyone,

Mention of Vietnam is kind of buried in here but the subject is a turtle found in vietnam and I think this is pretty interesting,

cheers

Michele

Michele Thompson

Dept. of History

Southern Connecticut State University

Begin forwarded message:

Dear All:

I am happy to inform you that, with the indispensable and very kind help of Ian Dunn and Chris Dorneich, I believe I finally solved the mystery of the shengui or "divine turtle," mentioned in the Weilue as a product of Da Qin (the Roman Empire).

Chris Dorneich very kindly sent me the full Chinese text of Chapter 128 of the Shiji which deals with turtles and divination, which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been translated into a European language. Ian Dunn sent me articles and scans that have also helped greatly with the identification.

I have made a rough draft translation of the key sections of the main reference to shengui in Chapter 128 of the Shiji: "The Shengui (turtle) comes from river waters in Lujiang sub-prefecture [of Anhui - in Central China] normally one year old turtles are one (Chinese ) foot two inches long [= 27.7 cm or 10.9 inches] which are all brought to the Official Grand Diviner (Taibuguan). The Official Grand Diviner on an auspicious day picks and takes out its plastron [lit. 'under-abdomen-shell']. . . . and uses it to decide auspiciousness or inauspiciousness. Now, the Central Temple has a Turtle Room. It is believed that the Sacred Canon is kept inside."

Further on in the chapter is a passage stating: "Shengui (turtle) is in Jianguan [the regions to the south of the Yangtse] in the middle of splendid forests. . . . "

From these descriptions it is seems most likely that it refers to the Chinese Stripe-necked Turtle (Ocadia sinensis) which is recorded from southern China (south of the Yangtse), Taiwan, Hainan to central Vietnam and, apparently, Laos. It is a freshwater turtle, with the female larger than male (according to one website I checked the maximum carapace length of the female is 27 cm. [which is quite close to the 27.7 cm mentioned in the Shiji - and would be just about exact if the Shiji account included the length of the head and neck] and the male up to 20 cm. There doesn't seem to be any other freshwater turtles of this range and size and so I think the identification can be taken as probable (although I am open to other suggestions).Ocadia sinensis is a very pretty turtle and is commonly caught for food and medicinal purposes and is now being raised commercially in several countries.

Interestingly, this turtle is one of the two most commonly found species used for divination that have been recovered from Shang sites according to James F. Berry in his Appendix I: "Identification of the Inscribed Turtle Shells of Shang." In: Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. David N. Keightley. University of California Press. 1979 (see especially pp. 160, 189-194).

I am having a little trouble with some of the Chinese text - particularly because I have never dealt before with subjects such as turtles and the various kinds of divination. If any of you have the time, and might be able to help, I would greatly appreciate some assistance with the wording of a couple of passages. Maybe you could contact me off-line at: wynhill@bigpond.com ?

Thanks again to Ian Dunn and Chris Dorneich,

Cheers,

John Hill