Klassen und Hierarchien, Kontrastpaare und Toposgruppen: Formen struktureller Eroberung und literarischer Vereinnahmung der Tierwelt im alten China. (original) (raw)

Knowing Animals in China’s History

Animals through Chinese History, 2018

In the year 1864 William Alexander Parson Martin (1827–1916), English teacher and professor of international law at the Beijing School of Combined Learning (Tongwen guan 同文館) proposed that, etymologically, it would be more correct to use the (by then) customary terms for animals (dongwu動物) and plants (zhiwu 植物) to refer to two types of property, namely, goods and objects that are movable and non-movable. Indeed, animals by then went by many terms. Whereas classical literature had used morphological groupings such as ‘birds-beasts-insects-fish’ (niao-shou-chong-yu 鳥獸蟲魚), contemporaries of Martin also addressed animals as the ‘hundred beasts’ (bai chong 百蟲 or bai shou 百獸). For one short-lived moment, lexical debates laid bare the ambiguous role of ‘animals’ in human knowledge debates. Animals hold a vulnerable place in historical human practices and thought, not only in terms of name or meaning. As research in the field of animal studies since 1990 has shown, historically, individuals...

Animals through Chinese History

Animals through Chinese History, 2018

Grain-mill powered by two mules. Illustration from [Wang Zhen] Nongshu, 'Nongqi tupu' 9, 284. 6.2 Grand ancestral sacrifice, with a pig and a chicken as offerings. Nakagawa Shundai (ed.), Shinzoku kibun [Recorded Accounts of Qing Customs], Tōto [Edo], Nishimiya Tasuke, Kansei 11 [1799] shinsen, 12.2a-3b. Online resource, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-PK, http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de /SBB0000B38700000000 6.3 Gengzhi tu ploughing scene. 7.1 'Buddha-head pearl' (Jinyu tupu, 626). 7.2 Description of a 'Buddha-head pearl' (Zhuyu pu, 588). 8.1 Herdsman on the back of an ox, Mu niu tu juan 牧牛圖卷, by Mao Yi 毛益 (12th century). Photo by Hu Chui 胡錘. Courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing.

(Book) Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives

Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Steve Rosen, Michal Biran, Ianir Milevski, Noa Grass, ran barkai, Timothy May, Nadin Heé, Thomas David DuBois 杜博思, Rotem KOWNER, Reuven Amitai

London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of human-animal interactions in Asia throughout history. With twelve thematically-arranged chapters, it examines the diverse roles that beasts, livestock, and fish ― real and metaphorical--have played in Asian history, society, and culture. Ranging from prehistory to the present day, the authors address a wealth of topics including the domestication of animals, dietary practices and sacrifice, hunting, the use of animals in war, and the representation of animals in literature and art. Providing a unique perspective on human interaction with the environment, this volume is cross-disciplinary in its reach, offering enriching insights to the fields of animal ethics, Asian studies, world history and more. CONTENT 1. Animals and Human Society in Asia: An Overview and Premises PART I: HUNTING AND DOMESTICATION 2. When Elephants Roamed Asia: The Significance of Proboscideans in Diet, Culture and Cosmology in Paleolithic Asia (by Ran Barkai) 3. Hunting to Herding to Trading to Warfare: A Chronology of Animal Exploitation in the Negev (by Steven A. Rosen) 4. Domestication of the Donkey (Equus asinus) in the Southern Levant: Archaeozoology, Iconography and Economy (by Ianir Milevski and Liora Kolska Horwitz) PART II: ANIMALS AS FOOD 5. Spilling Blood: Conflict and Culture over Animal Slaughter in Mongol Eurasia (by Timothy May) 6. China’s Dairy Century: Making, Drinking and Dreaming of Milk (by Thomas David DuBois) 7. Tuna as Economic Resource and Symbolic Capital in Japan’s “Imperialism of the Sea” (by Nadin Heé) PART III: ANIMALS AT WAR 8. Elephants in Mongol History: From Military Obstacles to Symbols of Buddhist Power (by William G. Clarence-Smith) 9. The Mamluk's Best Friend: The Mounts of the Military Elite of Egypt and Eurasian Steppe in the Late Middle-Ages (by Reuven Amitai and Gila Kahila Bar-Gal) 10. A Million Horses: Raising Government Horses in Early Ming China (by Noa Grass) PART IV: ANIMALS IN CULTURE AND RELIGION 11. From Lion to Tiger: The Changing Buddhist Images of Apex Predators in Trans-Asian Contexts (by Xing Zhang and Huaiyu Chen) 12. The Chinese Cult of the Horse King, Divine Protector of Equines (by Meir Shahar) 13. Animal Signs: Theriomorphic Intercession between Heaven and Imperial Mongolian History (by Brian Baumann) Contributors Bibliography Index ENDORSEMENT (BACK COVER) "Animal studies is a vibrant field that renews humanities by breaking many barriers. This intense and beautiful volume exemplifies such breaking and renewing, as it connects Far-eastern and Near-eastern areas and the steppe world in between, and develops an engaged dialogue between archeology, history, religion, visual studies, economics, law, and more." ―Vincent Goossaert, Professor of Daoism and Chinese religions, EPHE, PSL, Paris "An ambitious volume, as broad, diverse, and interconnected as Asia. A significant interdisciplinary contribution to the history of human-animal relations." ―Aaron Skabelund, Associate Professor of History, Brigham Young University, USA, author of Empire of Dogs: Canines, Japan, and the Making of the Modern Imperial World PALGRAVE MACMILLAN https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-24363-0#toc AMAZON https://www.amazon.com/Animals-Human-Society-Asia-Perspectives/dp/3030243621/ref=sr\_1\_1?keywords=animals+and+human+society+in+asia&link\_code=qs&qid=1564222263&s=gateway&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-1

Roderich Ptak (ed.), Tiere im alten China: Studien zur Kulturgeschichte

East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2015

This volume brings together nine essays that originated in a workshop held at the University of Munich in 2008. All papers deal with aspects of the cultural history of a particular animal species across a wide source base ranging from antiquity through to the Qing period. The focus, its editor notes in the introduction, is not so much on human-animal relationships but the animal "of itself" (an sich). The result is a series of essays rich in detail, annotation and description, illustrated with sixteen plates. Thomas Kaiser ('Unsterblich problematisch: Grus japonensis') examines the morphology, taxonomy, and ecology of the bird referred to today as the dandinghe 丹頂鶴, also known as the Manchurian, Japanese or red-crowned crane, and one among four other crane species present in China. His survey reviews a number of names for the crane that appear in historical sources and that, each in their own way, associate the crane with the themes of longevity and immortality. Chronology does not lie at the heart of the analysis. The essay moves from the eleventh century reconstructed Xianghejing 相鸖經 ("Classic on the Physiognomy of the Crane"), to (W. Han) Huainanzi 淮南子, to the Shang tomb of Lady Fuhao 婦好, the famous Mawangdui 馬王堆 banner, to examples of fifteenth and nineteenth century paintings figuring cranes. Yet, throughout Kaiser shows that proving correspondence between Grus japonensis and names of crane-type avians in texts or their representations in art remains highly problematic. Indeed the identification of biological species with nomenclature and the absence of neat correspondences between biological creatures and the animal lexicon run as a red thread through all essays in this volume. Mathias Röder ('Vom kopfüber Hängenden oder daoguaniao') examines textual references to a bird of the parrot family referred to as the daoguaniao 倒掛鳥 "hanging bird". He traces the earliest references to hanging birds to Song times, reviews possible variant terms, and discusses its curiously attributed habit of "collecting fragrance" (shou xiang 收香). At the core of the analysis again

Born in the Body of Beasts. Animals and the Social Order in Didactic Buddhist Literature of Buryat-Mongols (XIX- beg. XX century)

Ethnologia Polona, vol. 41: 2020, 163 –181, 2020

This paper engages with current discussions concerning the ways in which human cultures construct the sphere labeled as “social” against that of the broadly defined environment. I contribute to these discussions with an analysis of the didactic Buddhist literature of Buryat-Mongols (19th –beg. 20th century), focusing on the image of non-human animals and their position in the social/universal order. With the emergence of environmentalist trends in the humanities, pre-modern/“non-Western” inter-species relationships have often served as counter-alternatives to the problematic “Western” nature-culture dichotomy. While expecting to see the human being described as a part of “nature” in the analyzed texts, I found a different picture: the anthropocentric social sphere is clearly distinguished from animals, and in some fragments the idioms used with regard to animals are reminiscent of European evolutionist discourse. Though an exhaustive analysis of Buryat attitudes towards animals is beyond the scope of this study, this literature gives insight into a particular cultural discourse as represented in reputed sources of the period.