RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 60 K. M. A. BARNETT NOTES 1 "Amah Rock” — A more decent title would be the Mother and Child Rock. The Chinese name for this and many similar rocks is mong fhuuh sreak, ★❶. 2 Baat Xheong, ★❴. 3 Boo-ghonn, ❵. 4 Boo-shaann, ❷. 5 Braak-gok, ★❸. 6 Braak-mrong, ❹. 7 Braak-shaah-qou, ❻★. 8 Braak-xrok-dheonn, ❼. 9 Brok, ❽. C 10 Ceak-traap-gok, ★❾★. 11 Chaah-xhang, ★➀. also Taai-xhaang, ★ṃ. 12 Cheng-criw, ★☆ (+1644—+1911). 13 Cheng-jhih, ❵, name of a local fish. 14 Cheng-shaann, ❶☛. 15 Now called Cheng-shaann-whaann, ❶ which formerly applied to a smaller bay at the foot of Castle Peak itself. Cirn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 16 Corgwok, approximately +927-+951, but it is doubtful whether a nienhao was adopted. 楚剧 17 Crann, ★. 18 Crann Gwor, ❸. 19 Creah, ❹, Hakka eria. 20 All the other words now pronounced creah having formerly had initial ts, not ch. 21 Creah-drou, ❺, which however in this territory is always called xrorn-wroh, ★. 22 Creoy-criw, ★☆ +581 (locally from +589) to +618. 23 Creoy Crung-sreak, ★❶. 24 Crih-jrynn, ★❷. 25 Crih-xoe, ★❸. Crinn-whaann, ★★ see 26. 26 Crynn-whaann, (Crinn-whaann) and ★ also written , ★ (Zin-whaann), ★★ (Cirn-whaann), ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 37 officials in Shanghai stopped Sulin from sailing to America because Mrs. Harkness had neglected to obtain the necessary permit to export live animals. After much discussion and wrangling, Mrs. Harkness was able to leave Shanghai for San Francisco with Sulin on the President McKinley, carrying with her a "passenger voucher" for "one dog". Two years later, in 1938, Floyd Smith succeeded in bringing five live giant pandas to England, creating a general sensation around the world. Research into Chinese records for records on the giant panda With all the hoopla around the world starring one of China's very own, faces were red indeed back in the Central Kingdom. Nobody had even suspected the existence of such a delightful treasure in China's own backwoods. Researchers were challenged to dig into Chinese historical records and ancient writings to find proof that, after all, the Chinese had known all about the giant panda since antiquity. The Synthesis of Books and Illustrations of Ancient and Modern Times, a work compiled during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) but not printed until 1722, is a wonderful source for quick reference of Chinese scholarship throughout the ages. Thumbing through the chapters on animals, scholars of the 1930s came up with a plethora of animal names that they fitted into physical descriptions of the modern giant panda in one way or another. Some of these choices could be traced to the classics, the Book of Odes, an anthology of poetry mostly dating from the early Zhou era (1122-722 B.C.), and Erya, a dictionary thought to date from the third century B.C. Antiquity indeed. That giant pandas had existed in China since geological times was never a point in dispute. Studies of fossil remains have proved beyond any doubt that pandas had lived in China during the Pleistocene. Furthermore, their geographical distribution had been much more extensive than today's. They had lived in areas outside the southwestern mountains, and had roamed the provinces of the north and the east, including Liaoning, Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangsu. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 38 Research scholars in pursuit of the giant panda through Chinese writings were divided into three major schools, each calling their find by a different name. Although exponents of each school were convinced that they had arrived at the correct conclusion, citing all sorts of more than respectable authorities, it is fairly clear that none of them was absolutely certain that these sources were unimpeachable. Pivin The most courageous, or the most desperate, among these anxious scholars came up with an animal called pixiu. Now this was, at best, a controversial choice, since no one was certain what this animal looked like, or indeed if it had existed at all. Erya had identified the pixiu as "an animal resembling either a tiger or a bear", a statement of confusion in itself. An illustration of this animal in the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Advanced Chinese shows it more like a rabbit. The pixiu depicted here boasted of a spotted coat (like a leopard) and a set of sharp teeth, giving an impression of great malevolence. All sources agreed, moreover, that this was, without any doubt, a carnivorous animal. The modern giant panda, on the other hand, subsists on bamboo. In the Book of History, Sima Qian (163-85 B.C.) stated that the legendary emperors of antiquity had adopted a pixiu as an emblem to arouse soldiers to heroic deeds, by infusing them with the ferociousness characteristic of the animal. Furthermore, modern medical practitioners in certain regions of China today still hang fabulous likenesses of this animal in clinics and sickrooms to frighten away the evil spirits that cause illnesses by dwelling in the sick persons. Mo Other scholars offered an animal named mo as the giant panda of yore. This was a more comfortable choice since evidence offered by exponents was no longer purely legendary. Still, acceptance of their conclusions cannot be made without difficulty. For, in actuality, there were two distinctly different and separate animals which were referred to as mo in Chinese writings. The more scientific among the exponents of the mo as giant pandas. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 39 of the past showed that mo was a grey and white mammal with black limbs, thick hide and short hair. It ate leaves and fruit, was said to be tame, slept by day and roamed about by night. Unfortunately, however, this animal turned out to be a native of Malaya, Java and South America, but was unknown in China. Further investigations found it to be a member of the tapir family, Tapirus indicus, thus not a panda at all. The other version of the animal called mo offered more possibilities. A monumental work compiled by Li Shizhen (1518-1593) during the sixteenth century, Studies of Animals, Minerals and Plants, a compendium that was a great deal more than a mere pharmacopoeia, had included all information on the world of nature Li had found in ancient Chinese texts as well as data he had gathered on his own. This work and its contents had been known through the scholarly world in Asia and Europe since its publication. A copy had been brought to Japan and made available to scholars there. Several editions in Japanese were subsequently published. The contents were included in Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza's Historia, which was printed in Rome in 1585. (This work, incidentally, was brought back into China by Portuguese missionaries in a later century). Further, the Historia was translated into English in 1588 as Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdom of China, Part I, Book III, Chapter XII. Even better for scholars in search of an ancestor of the modern giant panda, the mo in Li's work was a native of Sichuan. It subsisted on a diet of bamboo and plantain. Only, alas, its colouring was said to be yellow and black. Of more comfort, on the other hand, were Erya and the Book of Odes. Both proclaimed the mo to be a "white and black leopard, resembling a white bear with a small head and large body, which licks plantain plants but eats exclusively bamboo". Despite several contradictions in this definition, it was possible to think of the mo as the giant panda, with certain reservations, of course. Problems arose when an illustration in the Synthesis of Books and Illustrations showed the mo to be a rather fantastic being with spotted body, long limbs, wolf's ears and a trunk like an elephant. This version ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q 42 The search for the giant panda through Chinese historical records and ancient writings represented an interesting exercise. Nevertheless, no positive statement can be made that the Chinese had known about the giant panda before the pelt was brought to western attention. Père David, it is safe to say, may continue to bask in glory as the discoverer of the giant panda for the whole world, including China. baixiong 白熊 Bishan 璧山 Bishi 壁溪 GLOSSARY Erya 爾雅 Li Shizhen 李時珍 Liaodong 遼東 Lolo 玀羅 Ming 明 mo 貘 Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 pixiu 貔貅 Sima Qian 司馬遷 Sichuan 四川 Shandong 山東 Xuande 宣德 Wuding 武定 Yunglo 永樂 Yunnan 雲南 Zhou 周 zhouyu 州圉 Zhu Su 朱橚 BIBLIOGRAPHY Brightwell, L. R., "The Giant Panda, Its History in Ancient China and Modern Europe”, Field 187:497-498 (London, 1946) David, Armand, "Journal d'un Voyage dans le centre de la Chine et dans le Thibet Oriental", Nouvelle Archives Musée Naturelle de Paris (Bulletins) 10:3-82 (Paris, 1874) Fox, Helen (editor and translator), Abbé David's Diary, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949. Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976. Essay on Li Shih-chen (1518-1593) by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, I:859-865. ================================================================================