Animality, Humanity, and Divine Power: Exploring Implicit Cannibalism in Medieval Weretiger Stories

AbstractThis paper examines representations of implicit cannibalism, in terms of a man in tiger form preying on human(s), in three stories from medieval China. The descriptions of the circumstances of the protagonist’s transformations into a tiger and back, and what he faces after his return to human society, show overlaps and divergences in the visions of the relationships among weretigers, human victims, and divine forces. Each story in its own way explores the fluid boundaries between animality and humanity and the limits of human agency and power vis-à-vis divine forces. Such thematizations reveal the development of a communal discourse on the place of humans in a cosmos imagined as hierarchical. The social identities of the featured characters and other details further reveal ways in which the stories convey the interests and concerns of low-level scholar-officials in medieval China.Keywords: human-tiger transformationimplicit cannibalismanimalityhumanitydivine power AcknowledgmentsThis essay has benefited from insightful comments and suggestions from Heather Blair, Robert F. Campany, Robert E. Hegel, Michelle Moyd, Anya Peterson Royce, Lynn Struve, Xiaofei Tian, and Sarah Van der Laan, as well as an anonymous reviewer. I presented different versions at the symposium on “Margins of the Human in Medieval China” organized by Lucas Bender and Xiaofei Tian, the Global Medieval Studies colloquium at Rutgers University hosted by Jessey Choo and Sarah Novacich, and at an Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference panel organized by Xiaofei Tian. I thank the organizers and participants for their valuable feedback.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For overviews, see Cary Wolfe, “Human, All Too Human: ‘Animal Studies’ and the Humanities,” PMLA 124.2 (2009): 564–75; Anna Peterson, “Review: Religious Studies and the Animal Turn,” History of Religions 56.2 (2016): 232–45.2 For a few examples, see Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert, and Dagmar Schäfer eds., Animals through Chinese History: Earliest Times to 1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Huaiyu Chen, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes: Living with Animals in Medieval Chinese Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023); Madeline K. Spring, Animal Allegories in T’ang China (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1993).3 Fox is a good example. See Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003); Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).4 K. C. Chang, “The Animal in Shang and Chou Bronze Art,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41.2 (1981): 527–54; Hou-mei Sung, Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 137–70; Charles E. Hammond, “An Excursion in Tiger Lore,” Asia Major 4.1 (1991): 87–100; idem, “The Righteous Tiger and the Grateful Lion,” Monumenta Serica 44 (1996): 191–211.5 Vibeke Børdahl, “The Man-Hunting Tiger: From ‘Wu Song Fights the Tiger’ in Chinese Traditions,” Asian Folklore Studies 66 (2007): 141–63.6 Chen, In the Land, 35–124.7 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China: Its Ancient Forms, Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions Connected Therewith, 6 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1901), 4:163–81; Huaiyu Chen, “Yazhou hu ren chuanshuo zhi wenhuashi bijiao yanjiu” 亞洲虎人傳說之文化史比較研究, Chengda lishi xuebao 成大曆史學報 58 (2020): 21–55.8 For the theories, see A. C. Graham, Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986).9 For example, Hong Ruiying 洪瑞英, Zhongguo ren hu bianxing gushi yanjiu 中國人虎變形故事研究 (Taipei: Hua Mulan chubanshe, 2011); Charles E. Hammond, “Sacred Metamorphosis: The Weretiger and the Shaman,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 46 (1992–93): 235–55; idem, “The Demonization of the Other: Women and Minorities as Weretigers,” Journal of Chinese Religions 23.1 (1995): 59–80; Ao Wang, “The Affective Monster: A Reading of ‘Li Zheng’ as Exilic Literature,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 9.1 (2015): 1–16.10 Ren Fang is better known than the other two compilers. For his biography, see Yao Cha 姚察 (533–606) and Yao Silian 姚思廉 (557–637), Liang shu 梁書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973), 14.251–58. For discussions of the collections, see Erin L. Brightwell, “Discursive Flights: Structuring Stories in the Shuyi ji,” Early Medieval China 18 (2012): 48–68; Li Jianguo 李劍國, Tang Wudai zhiguai chuanqi xulu 唐五代志怪傳奇敍錄 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2017), 911–40.11 Manling Luo, Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 12–15.12 Mark P. Donnelly and Daniel Diehl, Eat Thy Neighbour: A History of Cannibalism (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006). For case studies, see Francis B. Nyamnjoh, ed., Eating and Being Eaten: Cannibalism as Food for Thought (Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research & Publishing CIG, 2018); Gannath Obeyesekere, Cannibal Talk: The Man-Eating Myth and Human Sacrifice in the South Seas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).13 Key Ray Chong, Cannibalism in China (Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic, 1990); Keith N. Knapp, “Chinese Filial Cannibalism: A Silk Road Import?” in China and Beyond in the Mediaeval Period: Cultural Crossings and Inter-Regional Connections, ed. Dorothy C. Wong and Gustav Heldt (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2014), 135–49; Tina Lu, Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, and Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 135–74.14 My textual analysis here is based on the version preserved in Taiping guangji 太平廣記. See Li Fang 李昉 (925–996) et al., Taiping guangji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 296.2354–55. All translations in this essay are my own.15 Robert F. Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 70.16 Li Liu and Xingcan Chen, The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 76–82. Also see Alison Ruth Weisskopf, Millets, Rice and Farmers: Phytoliths as Indicators of Agricultural, Social and Ecological Change in Neolithic and Bronze Age Central China (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014); You Xiuling 遊修齡 and Zeng Xiongsheng 曾雄生, Zhongguo daozuo wenhua shi 中國稻作文化史 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2010).17 From the chapter “Li yun” 禮運. Li ji zhushu 禮記注疏, 21.417, in Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849), ed. Chongkan Songben Shisanjing zhushu fu jiaokanji 重刊宋本十三經注疏附校勘記 (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1965 rpt.).18 From the chapter “Wang zhi” 王制. Li ji zhushu, 12.247–48.19 Li Liu and Xingcan Chen, The Archaeology of China, 217–18. Rowan K. Flad, Salt Production and Social Hierarchy in Ancient China: An Archaeological Investigation of Specialization in China’s Three Gorges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 2–4, 37–40.20 For discussions of human technologies and social developments, see Li Liu and Xingcan Chen, The Archaeology of China, 75–168, 284–85; Minna Wu, “On the Periphery of a Great ‘Empire’: Secondary Formation of States and Their Material Basis in the Shandong Peninsula during the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1000–500 B.C.E.” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2013).21 Taiping guangji, 296.2355.22 Ibid.23 “The Story of Huang Miao” refers to the location of the temple in variants, as Gongting Lake 宮亭湖 and Guanting 官亭. The deity is also said to be the god of Mount Lu 廬山. For discussions, see Miyakawa Hisayuki, “Local Cults around Mount Lu at the Time of Sun En’s Rebellion,” in Facets of Taoism, ed. Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 83–101. Wei Bin 魏斌, “Gongting miao chuanshuo: Zhonggu zaoqi Lushan de xinyang kongjian” 宮亭廟傳說: 中古早期廬山的信仰空間, Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 2010.2: 46–64; Bian Dongbo 卞東波, “Gongting hu miaoshen jiqi zai gudian wenxue zhong de liubian” 宮亭湖廟神及其在古典文學中的流變, Gudian wenxue zhishi 古典文學知識 2008.4: 113–19.24 See Li Liu and Xingcan Chen, The Archaeology of China, 98–104; Roel Sterckx, Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 16–17, 83–121; Michael J. Puett, “The Offering of Food and the Creation of Order: The Practice of Sacrifice in Early China,” in Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China, ed. Roel Sterckx (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 75–95.25 Local gods could be deceased humans, animal spirits, and so forth. See Robert F. Campany, “Popular Religion,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 2, ed. Albert E. Dien and Keith Knapp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 582–86.26 Taiping guangji, 296.2354.27 Ibid., 296.2355.28 Ibid.29 According to Campany, such reciprocity was typical. See Campany, “Popular Religion,” 582.30 Taiping guangji, 296.2355.31 Ibid.32 The ant story is identified as from the Qixie ji 齊諧記. See Taiping guangji, 473.3894–95. For an analysis of the story, see Robert F. Campany, The Chinese Dreamscape, 300 BCE–800 CE (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020), 132–35, 146–48.33 My analysis is based on the most recent collated version. See Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai biji 全唐五代筆記, ed. Tao Min 陶敏 et al., 4 vols. (Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2012), 2:1319–20.34 Li ji zhushu, 21.417.35 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1319.36 Ibid. The phrase 若獸蹍然 can also mean “[he] curled up like an animal.”37 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1320.38 Ibid.39 Ibid.40 Ibid., 2:1319.41 Ibid., 2:1320.42 Ibid.43 Ibid.44 In the chapter “Quli shang” 曲禮上. Li ji zhushu, 3.57.45 T’ung-tsu Ch’ü, Law and Society in Traditional China (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1961), 78–90, 226–47; Anne Cheng, “Filial Piety with a Vengeance: The Tension between Rites and Law in the Han,” in Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History, ed. Alan K. L. Chan and Sor-hoon Tan (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2004), 29–43; Manling Luo, “Gender, Genre, and Discourse: The Woman Avenger in Medieval Chinese Texts,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 134.4 (2014): 579–99.46 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1320.47 Ibid.48 Ibid.49 Ibid., 2:1319.50 For a few examples, see the story of Cui Shao 崔紹 from Xue Yusi’s 薛漁思 Hedong ji 河東記 and that of Wei Gao 韋皋 from Li Fuyan’s Xu Xuanguai lu. Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1084–88, 2:1309–10.51 For the examination culture, see Oliver Moore, Rituals of Recruitment in Tang China: Reading an Annual Programme in the Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao (870–940) (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Yang Bo 楊波, Chang’an de chuntian: Tangdai keju yu jinshi shenghuo 長安的春天: 唐代科舉與進士生活 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007).52 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1320.53 Wang Jincheng 王金成, “Tangdai lüyou yanjiu” 唐代旅遊研究 (PhD diss., Hebei daxue, 2009), 115–25; Ding Qingyong 丁慶勇, “Tangdai youji wenxue yanjiu” 唐代遊記文學研究 (PhD diss., Wuhan daxue, 2014), 58–74.54 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1319.55 Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 323.56 Li Fuyan, Xu Xuanguai lu, in Quan Tang Wudai, 2:1320.57 Ibid.58 In this sense, the story is parallel to late medieval stories on non-marital bonds, which present the literati sexual adventurer as a youth who temporarily challenges power hierarchy but returns to his life trajectory to embrace the status quo. Luo, Literati Storytelling, 99–102, 134–35.59 The version in the Quan Tang Wudai biji is the same as that in the Taiping guangji but drops the title of the story. My analysis here is based on the latter. See Taiping guangji, 432.3504–6.60 Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles, 387.61 Taiping guangji, 432.3505.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 Ibid.65 Ibid.66 Ibid., 432.3506.67 Ibid.68 Liu An 劉安 (ca. 179–122 BCE) et al., Huainanzi 淮南子, annot. Gao You 高誘 (Taibei: Hualian chubanshe, 1963), 2.20.69 Taiping guangji, 432.3505.70 Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles, 240.71 Taiping guangji, 432.3505.72 See Michael J. Puett, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002), 31–79. For the making of ancestors, see David N. Keightley, These Bones Shall Rise Again: Selected Writings on Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), 155–206.73 Campany, “Popular Religion,” 579–96.74 For examples, see Robert F. Campany, “Return-From-Death Narratives in Early Medieval China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 18 (1990): 91–125; Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994); Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Daoist Pantheons,” in Early Chinese Religion, Part Two: The Period of Division (220–589 AD), ed. John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 2:1169–206.75 Regarding the transformation of the medieval elite, see Patricia B. Ebrey, The Aristocratic Families of Early Imperial China: A Case Study of the Po-ling Ts’ui Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Nicolas Tackett, The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014); Qiu Tiansheng 邱添生, Tang Song biange qi de zhengjing yu shehui 唐宋變革期的政經與社會 (Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1999); Zhang Guangda 張廣達, “Naitō Konan de Tang Song biange shuo jiqi yingxiang” 內藤湖南的唐宋變革說及其影響, Tang yanjiu 唐研究 11 (2005): 5–71.76 Luo, Literati Storytelling, passim.Additional informationNotes on contributorsManling LuoManling Luo is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Indiana University. Her research interests include premodern Chinese narratives, Chinese literati literature, and gender and cultural studies. She is the author of Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China (2015).