by Ying-shih Yü
observation.
However, it seems somewhat odd, to say the least, that the meaning of the
myth has to be grasped by way of folklore of a much later date. In fact, the clas-
sical Chinese expression jishengba (“ after the birth of the crescent”) has already
provided us with the most impor tant key to understanding the myth. According
to Wang Guowei’s four- quarter theory of the lunar month,7 in early Zhou times,
jishengba prob ably stood for the second quarter from the eighth or ninth to the
fourteenth or fi fteenth. Wang’s theory ties in extremely well with the fact that the
two annual meetings actually took place at midnight of the seventh day.8 There
can be little doubt that in the minds of the ancient Chinese, midnight of the sev-
enth day marked the beginning of the jishengba quarter of the month. It is also
signifi cant that in referring to the birth of the po- soul in man, the passage in
the Zuozhuan (Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals), dated 534
b.c.e., actually uses the expression jishengpo
.9 This proves conclusively
that the primitive Chinese conception of the soul was derived analogously from
the birth of the crescent.
In conclusion, it may be noted that the recent anthropological analyses of
death rituals also bear importantly on our understanding of the subjects with
which the Ways to Paradise is centrally concerned, for death as transition con-
cerns not only the dead but the living as well. “During the burial ritual itself,” as
Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf point out, “the deceased, the living, and
even the cosmos go through a period of transition.”10 As a result, the themes of
rebirth and sexuality often dominate the symbolism of funerals. Only by bear-
ing this in mind can we then grasp more fully the symbolic meanings of the
silk painting from Mawangdui, the designs of TLV mirrors, and the myth of
t h e e a r l y c h ine s e c once p t ion of a f t er l ife 89
the Queen Mother of the West, as these are all burial- related objects found in
Han tombs.
With regard to the woman’s fi gure with a serpentine tail in the upper part of
the silk painting, Loewe has made the in ter est ing suggestion that it may have
been the artist’s intention to represent the fi nal stage of Lady Dai’s journey to
Heaven when she has reached her destination sloughing off her mortal coil
(59). This interpretation particularly makes sense when death is viewed as “the
transition of the deceased from the world of the living to the realm of the dead.”
It seems permissible to take the fi nal scene of the painting as a symbolization
of the fact that the diffi
cult and risky pro cess of transition is at last completed.11
The cosmic signifi cance of the TLV mirrors is also worth noticing, because they
were intended, as Loewe says, “to set a man permanently in his correct relation
with the cosmos and to escort him to a life in the hereafter” (83). I am inclined
to think that one of the symbolic meanings of the mirrors may have been to as-
sure the restoration of a cosmic order that has been upset by death.
Fi nally, in the myth of the Queen Mother many layers of symbolic meaning
can be readily discerned. To begin with, the Queen Mother was conceived as pos-
sessing the power to renew the cosmic cycle as well as life. In the second place,
the pairing of the Queen Mother of the West with the King Father of the
East, which often appears in stone reliefs and bronze mirrors found in Han
tombs, clearly symbolizes sexuality and rebirth. The same may also be said of the
symbolic repre sen ta tion of Fu Xi
and Nü Gua
with interlaced tails,
which has an equally wide archaeological distribution in Han tombs.12 Last, but
not least, the story of the meeting of Emperor Wu of Han and the Queen Mother
of the West also suggests something more than meets the eye. On the basis of
archaeological evidence, Kominami has off ered the in ter est ing interpretation
that in the original myth, the Queen Mother may have been an androgynous
fi gure representing primordial cosmic unity and order.13 I am not quite con-
vinced of the Queen Mother’s hermaphroditism. There is reason to believe,
however, that the myth of the Queen Mother may indeed have had something
to do with unity and order. In view of the Han frame of mind, which stressed
the harmony between the two cosmic forces of yin and yang and the intimate
relationship between Heaven and Man, the meeting of Emperor Wu of Han
with the Queen Mother seems to suggest the symbolic balancing of yin with
yang, Heaven with Man, and life with order. According to the Han Wu gushi
(Stories of Emperor Han Wudi), in their meeting, the Queen Mother
only discussed matters pertaining to the human world with Emperor Wu of
Han and refused to talk about aff airs concerning the super natu ral world (see
117–118). This may well be taken as evidence that the emperor stands for the
human order.
On the other hand, the symbolic repre sen ta tion of the Queen Mother in this
story is unmistakably that of life and immortality. In this connection, the pair-
ing of Fu Xi with Nü Gua also helps us to grasp the meaning of this symbolic
90 t h e e a r l y c h ine s e c once p t ion of a f t er l ife
meeting. In Han popu lar culture, Nü Gua was conceived as a female creator of
man and therefore symbolized life, whereas Fu Xi was described as possessing
the power to maintain cosmic unity and order.14 It is clear that in both cases, a
fundamental balance between life and order is maintained. Thus, the vari ous
death- related myths of pre- Buddhist origins not only reveal early Chinese be-
liefs about the hereafter but also express basic Chinese values regarding the
nature and meaning of life, as does the symbolism of funeral rituals in practi-
cally all cultures.
not e s
1. Hu Shih, “The Indianization of China: A Case Study in Cultural Borrowing,” in In de-
pen dence, Convergence and Borrowing in Institutions, Thought, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937), 224–225.
2. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
1974), 2:98.
3. The Hunan Provincial Museum and IAAS, No. 7, “Excavation of Han Tombs Nos. 2
and 3 at Ma- wang- tui, Changsha” [in Chinese], WW 7 (1974): 43.
4. Archeological Team of Han Tomb 168, No. 9, “Excavation of Han Tomb No. 168 at Feng-
huangshan in Jiangling County, Hubei Province” [in Chinese], WW 9 (1975): 4; “Guanyu
Fenghuangshan yiliubahao Hanmu zuotan jiyao,” WW 9 (1975); and The Hunan Provin-
cial Museum and IAAS, “Excavation of Han Tombs Nos. 2 and 3 at Mawangdui, Chang-
sha” [in Chinese], WW 7 (1974): 39–48, 63, 95–111.
5. Liji zhushu, in Shisan jing zhushu (Nanchang edition, 1815), chap. 10, 19b.
6. Hu Shih, “The Concept of Immortality in Chinese Thought,” Harvard Divinity School
Bulletin, no. 122 (1945–1946): 30.
7. Wang Guowei, “Shengba siba kao,” in Guantang jilin (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 1:
19–26.
8. See the vari ous versions of the myth quoted in Kominami Ichirō, “Seiōbo to shichi seki
de
nsho,” Tōhō gakuhō 46 (March 1974): 36–40.
9. See the Chinese text in James Legge, The Ch’ un Ts’ ew with the Tso Chuen (Hong Kong:
HKU Press, 1960), 613.
10. Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf, Cele brations of Death: The Anthropology of Mor-
tuary Ritual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 117.
11. Ibid., 116.
12. See Wen Yiduo, “Fu Xi kao,” in Wen Yiduo quanji (Shanghai: Kaiming, 1948), 1:3–68;
Zhong Jingwen, “Mawangdui Hanmu bohua di shenhua shi yiyi,” Zhonghua wenshi
luncong 2 (1979): 78–80.
13. Kominami Ichirō, “Seiōbo to shichi seki densho,” 62–74.
14. See Zhong Jingwen, “Mawangdui Hanmu bohua di shenhua shi yiyi,” 30, quoting a
fragment of a lost Han work, Yi qiankun cuodu.
5. Food in Chinese Culture
The Han Period (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.)
In 558 b.c.e., a nobleman of the Rong people told a Chinese statesman, “Our
drink, our food, and our clothes are all diff er ent from those of the Chinese
states” ( Zuozhuan [Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals],
fourteenth year of Duke Xiang). Thus, in one simple sentence, this Rong noble-
man of the Spring and Autumn Period (771–481 b.c.e.) aptly distinguished the
Chinese from the non- Chinese. Culture may sometimes be defi ned as a way of
life. If so, can we think of anything more fundamental to a culture than eating
and drinking? It is on this assumption that I shall attempt, in what follows, to
understand Han culture through a study of food and eating in Han China.1
Recently, some very distinguished anthropologists have embarked on the
ambitious undertaking of fi nding universal food meanings common to all hu-
mankind. Being a historian by training, I am far from qualifi ed to play this
new anthropologist’s game. The central task I set for myself in this study is
therefore confi ned primarily to fi nding out what sorts of food and drink were
available to the Han Chinese and how they ate and drank them. Fortunately, in
the last three or four years, Chinese archaeology has shed tremendous light on
Han culinary history. Im por tant and in ter est ing as they are, however, archaeo-
logical fi nds are not easy to use fruitfully. For one thing, they are extremely
scattered. For another, they require a historical context to make them meaning-
ful to us, for we are some twenty centuries too late to eat and drink together
with the Han Chinese. I shall not consider it a complete failure if my eff orts in
92 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e
the pages that follow can provide no more than the beginnings of such a his-
torical context. I reserve the intriguing and fascinating question of why the
Han Chinese ate and drank in the way they did for those who are wiser and
more learned.
F O O D A N D F O O D S T U F F S F O U N D I N
H A N T O M B N O . 1 AT M AW A N G D U I
In 1972, China made a spectacular archaeological discovery on the eastern out-
skirts of Changsha, Hunan, uncovering what is now known as “Han Tomb No.
1 at Mawangdui.” The worldwide renown of this discovery was earned initially
on the basis of the owner of the tomb, whose body had been so remarkably pre-
served that her skin, muscles, and internal organs still retained a certain elastic-
ity when the coffi
n was opened. Originally, this tomb was dated from between
175 and 145 b.c.e. Thanks to the excavation of Tombs No. 2 and No. 3 in 1973,
however, the identity of the woman in this tomb can be more positively deter-
mined. She was most likely the wife of Licang, the fi rst Marquis of Dai
(reigned 193–186 b.c.e.), and died a few years after 168 b.c.e. at about the age of
fi fty.2 It has been rightly claimed that the preservation of the corpse in such an
excellent condition over the long span of some twenty- one centuries must be
regarded as a miracle in medical history, but what particularly interests us here
is the extreme importance of the entire discovery for our knowledge of food and
eating in Han China.
In the woman’s esophagus, stomach, and intestines 1381/2 yellowish- brown
musk melon seeds were found, clearly indicating that she had eaten musk mel-
ons not too long before she joined her husband, who was buried in Tomb No. 2,
which borders hers on the west side. Musk melon turned out to be only one of
the many foodstuff s that she had enjoyed in life. Among the rich burial re-
mains unearthed from Tomb No. 1 are forty- eight bamboo cases and fi fty- one
pottery vessels of vari ous types. Most of them contained foodstuff s. In addition,
several hemp bags of agricultural products were also uncovered from the side
compartments of the tomb chamber. All of these food remains have been iden-
tifi ed and the whole list is as follows:3
Grains:
rice (Oryza sativa L.)
wheat (Triticum turgidum L.)
barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)
glutinous millet (Panicum miliaceum Linn.)
millet (Setaria italica [L.] Beauv.)
soybean (Glycine max [L.] Men.)
red lentil (Phaseolus angularis Wight)
f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 93
Seeds:
hemp (Cannabis sativa L.)
malva (Malva verticillata L.)
mustard (Brassica cernua Hemsl.)
Fruits:
pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai)
jujube (Zizyphus jujuba Mill. var. inermis [Bunge] Rehd.)
plum (Prunus mume [Sieb.] Sieb. et Zucc.)
strawberry (Myrica rubra Sieb. et Zucc.)
Roots:
ginger (Zingiber offi
cinale Roscoe)
lotus root
Animal Meats:
sheep (Ovis aries Linn.)4
Bird Meats:
wild goose (Anser sp.)
mandarin duck (Aix galericulata L.)
duck (Anatidae)
bamboo chicken (Bambusicola thoracica Temminck)
chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus Brisson)
pheasant (Phasianus colchicus L.)
crane (Grus sp.)
pigeon (Streptopelia sp.)
turtledove (Oenopopelia tranquebarica Temminck)
owl (Strigidae)
magpie (Pica pica L.)
sparrow (Passer montanus L.)
Fish:
carp (Cyprinus carpio L.)
crucian carp (Carassius auratus L.)
bream (Acanthobrama simoni Bleeker)
two other kinds of carp (Xenocypris argeuteus Gunther and Elopichthys
bamausa Richardson)
perch (Spiniperca sp.)
Spices:
cinnamon bark (Cinnamomum chekiangense Nakai)
huajiao [“fagara”] (Zanthoxylum armatum D.C. and Z. planispinum Sieb.
et Zucc.)
xingyi (buds of the Magnolia denudata Desr.), galangal (Alpinia offi
cinal-
rum Hance)
94 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e
Apart from food remains, there are also 312 inscribed bamboo slips that give
additional information not only on food but on cooking as well. The slips item-
ize a number of foodstuff s that are not found among the remains, such as
melon, bamboo shoots, taro, wild ginger, and goosefoot in the vegetable cate-
gory, together with quail, wild duck, and eggs within the bird group. Altogether,
these make a good supplementary list. More
impor tant, the slips tell us a lot
about seasonings and methods used in Han- period cooking. The seasonings
included salt, sugar, honey, soy sauce ( jiangyou
), shi
(salted darkened
beans), and leaven ( qu ). Cooking and preserving methods consisted of roast-
ing, scalding, shallow frying, steaming, deep frying, stewing, salting, sun drying,
and pickling.
A variety of dishes mentioned in these bamboo slips also merit attention. The
fi rst kind of dish to be noted is geng
(stew), a thick liquid dish with chunks of
meat or vegetables or both. The list of dishes begins with nine ding
(tripod
cauldrons) of “ Grand [meat] Stew” ( Yugeng or Dageng).5 Geng, it may be pointed
out, was the most common kind of Chinese main dish from antiquity through
the Han Period. As will be shown below, while geng was characteristically made
of mixed ingredients, the Dageng, or Grand Stew, alone was not. Han Confu-
cianists, like the author of Liji (Classic of Rites) and Zheng Zhong (fi rst century
c.e.), were all in agreement that the Dageng, whether as a sacrifi cial off ering or
as a dish for guests, should always be unseasoned to honor its simplicity.6 Wang
Chong (27–100? c.e.) also said, “The Grand Stew must of necessity be fl avor-
less.”7 The nine Dageng listed on the bamboo slips are respectively made of ox,
sheep, deer, pig, suckling pig, dog, wild duck, pheasant, and chicken.
The mixed geng was normally a seasoned combination of meat with grain or
vegetables. Bamboo slip number 11 names niubaigeng
, which has been cor-
rectly identifi ed as “beef- rice stew.” 8 It is impor tant to note that meat- grain stew
was a very common type of geng in Han times. Other geng mixtures recorded
on the bamboo slips include the following: deer meat– salted fi sh– bamboo
shoots, deer meat– taro, deer meat– small beans, chicken– gourd, crucian carp–
rice, fresh sturgeon– salted fi sh– lotus root, dog meat– celery, crucian carp– lotus
root, beef– turnip, lamb– turnip, pork– turnip, beef– sonchus (a wild grass), and
dog meat– sonchus.
The bamboo slips also reveal how discriminating Chinese taste had become
in terms of the use of the vari ous parts of diff er ent animals by the Han Chinese.
The slips mentioned, among other things, deer fl ank, beef fl ank, dog fl ank,
