Man and tree, tumour and burl: Complicating the ecology of illness in early and medieval China
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1-2021
Abstract
In early and medieval China, the natural world was understood, to an extent, to mirror human conduct and action. Because human events were often ap-prehended as poetic and metaphoric extensions of larger elemental processes, people in early and medieval China tended to see tumours as moral punishment meted out by all-seeing Heaven (tian) or karmic retribution in Buddhism. One would think, then, that burls, the grotesque, malformed intumescences bulg-ing from trunks of trees would be relegated to the realm of the wicked and inauspicious. Surprisingly, this is not the case. Examining a series of passages involving burls in a wide range of early and medieval Chinese texts, this essay seeks to complicate this rather facile moral schema. The anomalous tumes-cent growth, whether on tree or man, did not simply betoken evil. At different times, the polysemous tumour-burl might augur future greatness, serve as a mi-raculous womb chamber, help one assume a twisted guise assumed to survive tumultuous times, impress with its remarkable aesthetic asymmetry, or merely provide a moment of levity.
Publication Title
Environment and History
Volume
27
Issue
1
First Page
155
Last Page
173
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.3197/096734019X15463432086928
ISSN
09673407
E-ISSN
17527023
Citation Information
Rothschild, N.H. (2021) Man and tree, tumour and burl: Complicating the ecology of illness in early and medieval China. Environment and History, 27(1), 155-173.