Gu (poison)

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Gu (simplified Chinese: ?; traditional Chinese: ?; pinyin: gu; Wade�Giles: ku3) or
jincan (simplified Chinese: ??; traditional Chinese: ??; pinyin: jinc�n;
Wade�Giles: chin1-ts'an2; lit. "gold silkworm") was a venom-based poison associated
with cultures of south China, particularly Nanyue. The traditional preparation of
gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures (e.g., centipede, snake,
scorpion) inside a closed container, where they devoured one another and allegedly
concentrated their toxins into a single survivor. Gu was used in black magic
practices such as manipulating sexual partners, creating malignant diseases, and
causing death. According to Chinese folklore, a gu spirit could transform into
various animals, typically a worm, caterpillar, snake, frog, dog, or pig.

Contents
1 Names
1.1 Gu
1.2 Jincan
2 Gu meanings
2.1 Abdominal wug poisoning
2.2 Cultivated poisonous wug
2.3 Dismembered sorcerer's ghost
2.4 Heat miasma
2.5 Wug pest
2.6 Sorcery
2.7 Seduce
2.8 Affair
2.9 Hexagram 18
3 Gu techniques
4 Gu remedies
5 References
Names
Circa 14th-century BCE Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions recorded the name gu,
while 7th-century CE Tang Dynasty texts first used jincan "gold silkworm".

Gu
The term gu ?, says Loewe (1990, p. 191), "can be traced from the oracle bones
until modern times, and has acquired a large number of meanings or connotations".
Before discussing gu, it is necessary to introduce the related word chong ? "wug".

Chong ? or ? (originally a "snake; worm" pictogram) "insect; bug; pest; worm;

spider; amphibian; reptile; dragon; etc." denotes a Chinese folk taxonomy lacking
an adequate English translation equivalent. Carr (1983, p. 7) proposes translating
chong as "wug" � Brown (1979)'s portmanteau word (from worm + bug) bridging the
lexical gap for the linguistically widespread "class of miscellaneous animals
including insects, spiders, and small reptiles and amphibians". Contrast the Wug
test for investigating language acquisition of plurals in English morphology. Note
that "wug" will translate chong below.

Oracle script for gu ? "poison; bewitch"

Seal script for gu ? "poison; bewitch"

The Traditional Chinese character ? and the Simplified ? for gu "demonic poison"
are "wugs inside in a container" ideograms that combine chong ? or ? "wug" and
min ? "jar; cup; dish; utensil". Early written forms of gu ? range from (ca. 14th-
11th centuries BCE) Oracle bone script to (ca. 3rd century BCE) Seal script
characters. The Oracle characters had two or one ? "wug" elements inside a
container, while the Seal characters had three. Shima (1958, p. 386)'s concordance
of oracle bone inscriptions lists 23 occurrences of gu written with two wugs and 4
with one; many contexts are divinations about sickness. Marshall (2001, p. 129)
concludes, "The oracle-bone character of gu is used to refer to the evil power of
the ancestors to cause illness in the living."

Jincan
Jincan ?? "gold silkworm/caterpillar" is a gu synonym first recorded in the Tang
Dynasty. Li Xian's (7th century) commentary to the Hou Han Shu uses jincan as the
name of a funerary decoration cast from gold, and the (9th century) author Su E ??
describes it as a legendary golden-color caterpillar from Kashmir.

Eberhard (1968, p. 149�150) (cf. 153) connects gu, jincan, and other love charms
with the Duanwu Festival that occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month in the
Chinese calendar, which is "the theoretical apogee of summer heat" (Groot 1910,
vol. 5, p. 851).

Among the Miao on the fifth of the fifth month poisonous animals were put into a
pot and allowed to devour each other, and they were called 'gold-silkworms'. The
more people were killed by the ku, the richer the kus owner became. In our time the
normal term for ku has been 'gold-silkworm'. These animals can make gold. It was
typical for the gold-silkworm that people continued to feed this animal in the pot,
that humans had to be sacrificed to it, that the animal kept the house clean and
worked for its master like a brownie, but that it caused harm to its master if he
did not provide proper sacrifices.

"For centuries, the Miao, particularly Miao women", writes Schein (2000, p. 50-51),
"have been feared for their mastery of the so-called gu poison, which is said to
inflict death from a distance with excruciating slowness."

Groot (1910, vol. 5, p. 854) quotes a Song Dynasty description.

a gold caterpillar is a caterpillar with a gold colour, which is fed with silk from
Shuh (Sze-ch�wen). Its ordure, put in food or drink, poisons those who take it,
causing certain death. It can draw towards a man the possessions of such victims,
and thus make him enormously rich. It is extremely difficult to get rid of it, for
even water, fire, weapons or swords can do it no harm. Usually the owner for this
purpose puts some gold or silver into a basket, places the caterpillar also
therein, and throws the basket away in a corner of the street, where someone may
pick it up and take it with him. He is then said to have given his gold caterpillar
in marriage.

The Bencao Gangmu (Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 850-851) quotes Cai Dao ??'s (12th
century) Tieweishan congtan ????? that "gold caterpillars first existed" in the Shu
region (present-day Sichuan), and "only in recent times did they find their way
into" Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guanxi. It also quotes Groot (1910, vol.
5, p. 853-854) the Tang Dynasty pharmacologist Chen Cangqi (713-741 CE) that:

ashes of old flowered silk are a cure for poison of ku of insects or reptiles which
eat such silk. His commentator adds, that those insects are coiled up like a
finger-ring, and eat old red silk and flowered silk, just as caterpillars eat
leaves; hence, considered in the light of the present day, those insects are gold
caterpillars.

Gu meanings
The Hanyu Da Zidian dictionary defines 9 gu ? meanings, plus the rare reading ye ?
"bewitchingly pretty; seductive; coquettish" [??].

(1) Poisoning from an abdominal wug [???????]

(2) In ancient books, a type of artificially cultured poisonous wug [????????????]
(3) Ghost of a person [convicted of gu-magic] whose severed head was impaled on a
stake [?????]
(4) Evil heat and noxious qi that harms humans [????????]
(5) Wug pest that eats grain. [??]
(6) Sorcery that harms humans [?????]
(7) Seduce; tempt; confuse; mislead [??, ??, ??]
(8) Affair; assignment [?]
(9) One of the 64 hexagrams. It is formed from [the trigrams] Gen ? [? Mountain])
over Xun ? [? Wind) [??????. ???�????]
The (early 4th century BCE) Zuozhuan commentary to the (ca. 6th-5th centuries BCE)
Chunqiu history provides an ancient example of ?'s polysemy. It records four gu
meanings � 2.5 "grain which (molders and) flies away", 2.6 "insanity", 2.7
"delusion and disorder", and 2.9 "same [hexagram] name" � in a 541 BCE story (??1,
Legge 1872, p. 580-581) about a physician named He ? "Harmony" from Qin explaining
gu to the ruler of Jin.

The marquis of [Jin] asked the help of a physician from [Qin], and the earl sent
one [He] to see him, who said, "The disease cannot be cured, according to the
saying that when women are approached, the chamber disease becomes like insanity.
It is not caused by Spirits nor by food; it is that delusion which has destroyed
the mind. Your good minister will [also] die; it is not the will of Heaven to
preserve him." The marquis said, "May women (then) not be approached?" The
physician replied, "Intercourse with them must be regulated." � [Zhao Meng]
(further) asked what he meant by �insanity�; and (the physician) replied, �I mean
that which is produced by the delusion and disorder of excessive sensual
indulgence. Look at the character; � it is formed by the characters for a vessel
and for insects (? = ? and ?). It is also used of grain which (molders and) flies
away. In the [Yijing], (the symbols of) a woman deluding a young man, (of) wind
throwing down (the trees of) a mountain, go by the same name (?; ? under ?): all
these point to the same signification." [Zhao Meng] pronounced him a good
physician, gave him large gifts, and sent him back to [Qin].

Abdominal wug poisoning

The "poisoning from abdominal wugs" or "abdominal parasites" meaning 2.1 first
appears in the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi dictionary, cf. 2.3 below. It defines gu ? as
????, literally "stomach middle wug", Loewe (1970, p. 192) "insects within the
stomach". However, Duan Yucai's (1815 CE) commentary construes this definition as
"afflicted by abdominal wugs"; and explains that instead of the usual readings
zhong ? "middle; center; interior" and ch�ng ? "wug", both terms should be read in
entering tone, namely zh�ng ? "hit (a target); be hit by" and zh�ng ? "wug bites".

Cultivated poisonous wug

The second gu meaning "anciently recorded type of artificially cultured poisonous
wug" names the survivor of several venomous creatures enclosed in a container, and
transformed into a type of demon or spirit.

The Zhouli ritual text (????, Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 826) describes a Shushi ??
official who, "was charged with the duty of exterminating poisonous ku, attacking
this with spells and thus exorcising it, as also with the duty of attacking it with
efficacious herbs; all persons able to fight ku he was to employ according to their
capacities." Zheng Xuan's commentary explains dugu ?? "poisonous gu" as "wugs that
cause sickness in people".

Dismembered sorcerer's ghost

Gu meaning 2.3 "ghost of a person whose severed head was impaled on a stake" refers
to the severe Han Dynasty "dismemberment (as tortuous capital punishment)" for
criminals convicted of practicing gu-sorcery (see 2.6). Groot (1910, vol. 5, p.
840) "Plate VI, Punishment of Cutting Asunder" provides a gruesome illustration.
The Zhouli commentary of Zheng Xuan (cf. 2.2, Loewe 1970, p. 195) notes, "Those who
dare to poison people with ku or teach others to do it will be publicly executed".

Eberhard (1968, p. 152) says gu, "was also the soul of a dead person whose head had
been pitted on a pole. This, too, fits later reports, in so far as the souls of ku
victims often are mentioned as servants of the master of ku, if not ku itself
served the master."

The Shuowen Jiezi (cf. 2.1 above Loewe 1970, p. 195) also defines gu as "the
spirits of convicted criminals whose heads had been exposed on stakes." This
specialized torture term niejie ?? combines nie "target" (which pictures a person's
? "nose" on a ? "tree; wooden stand") and jie ? "dismemberment". Compare the
character for xian ? "county; district" that originated as a "place where
dismembered criminals were publicly displayed" pictograph of an upside-down ?
"head" hanging on a ? "rope" tied to a ? "tree".

Groot (1910, vol. 5, p. 828) suggests this meaning of gu, "seems to reveal to us a
belief that such a soul, roaming restlessly about because of its corpse being
mutilated, must be avenging itself on the living by settling in their intestines in
the shape of the same maggots and grubs which gnaw away its decaying head."

Unschuld (1985, p. 49-50) provides historical perspective.

As the legal measures of individual dynasties demonstrate, administrative officials

viewed ku as a reality, as late as the nineteenth century. The primary host was
considered a criminal; a person guilty of the despicable act of preparing and
administering ku poison was executed, occasionally with his entire family, in a
gruesome manner. In addition to the obvious desire to punish severely criminal
practices that could result in the death of the victim, it is possible that
Confucian distaste for the accumulation of material goods, and above all for the
resulting social mobility, contributed to this attitude. Indeed, the penalties of
the use of ku poison appear to have been more severe than those for other forms of
murder.

Heat miasma
The fourth meaning of "evil heat and noxious qi that harms humans" refers to
allegedly sickness-causing emanations of tropical miasma. "There was also an
ancient belief that ku diseases were induced by some sort of noxious mist or
exhalation", writes Schafer (1967, p. 102), "just as it was also believed that
certain airs and winds could generate worms".

The Shiji (???, Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 827) records that in 675 BCE, Duke De ?? of
Qin "suppressed ku at the commencement of the hottest summer-period by means of
dogs. According to commentators, these animals were for the purpose butchered and
affixed to the four gates of the capital." The Tang Dynasty commentary of Zhang
Shoujie ??? explains gu as "hot, poisonous, evil, noxious qi that harms people".
Displaying gu dogs at city gates reflects meaning 2.3 above.

Besides shapeshifting gu spirits usually appearing as wugs, classical texts record

other animal forms. The (ca. 350 CE) Soushenji "In Search of the Supernatural"
(Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 846-847) says,

In P�o-yang (in the north of the present Kiangsi pr.) one Chao Shen kept canine ku.
Once, when he was called on by Ch�en Ch�en, six or seven big yellow dogs rushed out
at this man, all at once barking at him. And when my paternal uncle, on coming
home, had a meal with Chao Sheu�s wife, he spit blood, and was saved from death in
the nick of time by a drink prepared from minced stalks of an orange-tree. Ku
contains spectral beings or spectres, which change their spectral shapes into those
of beings of various kinds, such as dogs or swine, insects or snakes, their victims
thus never being able to know what are their real forms. When they are put into
operation against people, those whom they hit or touch all perish. Tsiang Shi, the
husband of my wife�s sister, had a hired work-man in employ, who fell sick and
passed blood. The physician opined that he was stricken by ku, and secretly,
without informing him of it, strewed some jang-ho root under his sleeping-mat. The
patient then madly exclaimed: "The ku which devours me is ceasing to spread"; and
then he cried: "It vanishes little by little." The present generations often make
use of jang-ho root to conquer ku, and now and then it has a good effect. Some
think it is �the efficacious herb�, mentioned in the Cheu li

This ranghe ?? "myoga ginger" is a renowned antidote to gu poisoning, see below.

The Shanhaijing (??? Birrell 2000, p. 4) says the meat of a mythical creature on
Mount Greenmound prevents miasmic gu poisoning, "There is an animal on this
mountain that looks like a fox, but has nine tails. It makes a noise like a baby.
It can devour humans. Whoever eats it will not be affected by malign forces." The
commentary of Guo Pu notes this creature's meat will make a person immune to the
effects of supernatural qi.

A Tang Dynasty account of Nanyue people (Schafer 1967, p. 102) describes gu miasma:

The majority are diseased, and ku forms in their bloated bellies. There is a vulgar
tradition of making ku from a concentration of the hundred kinds of crawling
creatures, for the purpose of poisoning men. But probably it is the poisonous
crawlers of that hot and humid land which produce it � not just the cruel and
baleful nature of the householders beyond the mountain passes.

Wug pest
The "wug pest that eats grain" or "grain that transforms into wugs" meaning 2.5 is
seen above in the Zuozhuan explanation of gu as "grain which (molders and) flies
away". The (ca. 3rd century BCE) Erya dictionary (6/21) defines gu ? as pests in
kang ? "chaff", written with the phonetic loan character kang ? "healthy". The (ca.
543 CE) Yupian dictionary defines gu as "longstanding grain that transforms into
flying insects".

Groot (1910, vol. 5, p. 827) connects this gu "grain pest" meaning with 2.1
"internal parasites" and 2.7 "debauchery".

Thus the term ku also included the use of philtre-maggots by women desirous of
exciting the lusts of men and attracting them into debauchery. And, evidently, ku
was also used to destroy crops or food-stores, or, as the learned physician
expressed it, to make the corn fly away, perhaps in the form of winged insects born
therein; indeed, the character for ku is regularly used in literature to denote
devastating grubs and insects, including internal parasites of the human body,
which exercise a destructive influence like poison.

Sorcery
Gu meaning 2.6 "sorcery that harms humans" or "cast damaging spells" is exemplified
in the Modern Standard Chinese words wugu ?? (with "shaman") "sorcery; art of
casting spells" and gudu ?? (with "poison") "a venomous poison (used in Traditional
Chinese medicine); enchant and injure; cast a harmful spell over".

Gu-sorcery allegedly resulted in a debilitating psychological condition, often

involving hallucinations. The Zuozhuan (??8, Legge 1872, p. 302) records that in
601 BCE, Xu Ke ?? of Jin was discharged from office because he had gu, "an illness
which unsettled his mind". The Qing Dynasty philologist Yu Yue ?? etymologically
connects this meaning of gu ? with gu ? "chronic, protracted (illness)". Guji ??
"insanity; derangement; condition caused by excessive sexual activities" is a
comparable word.
The Hanshu provides details of wugu-sorcery scandals and dynastic rivalries in the
court of Emperor Wu (r. 141-87 BCE), which Schafer (1967, p. 103) calls "notorious
dramas of love and death".

This early Chinese history (Loewe 1970, p. 169) records that in 130 BCE, a daughter
of Empress Chen Jiao (who was unable to bear a son) was accused of practicing wugu
and maigu ?? "bury a witchcraft charm [under a victim's path or dwelling]" (cf.
voodoo doll). The "empress was dismissed from her position and a total of 300
persons who were involved in the case were executed"; specifically (Groot 1910,
vol. 5, p. 828) "their heads were all exposed on stakes" (cf. 2.3). This history
claims wu ? "shamans" from Yue conducted the gu magic, which Eberhard (1968, p.
152) notes, "seems to have consisted, at least in part, of magic human figures
buried under the road which the emperor, the intended victim, was supposed to
take".

Accusations of practicing wugu-magic were central to the 91 BCE (Wugu zhi huo ????)
attempted coup against crown prince Liu Ju by Jiang Chong ?? and Su Wen ??. The
Hanshu (Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 836) claims that, "no less than nine long months of
bloody terrorism, ending in a tremendous slaughter, cost some tens of thousands
their lives!"

Traditional Chinese law strictly prohibited practicing gu-sorcery. For instance,

during the reign of Tang Empress Wu Zetian, Schafer (1967, p. 103) says,

the possession of ku poison, like the casting of horoscopes, was cause for official
suspicion and action: At that time many tyrannical office holders would orders
robbers to bury ku or to leave prophecies in a man's household by night. Then,
after the passage of a month, they would secretly confiscate it.

Seduce
This gu meaning 2.7 of "seduce; bewitch; attract; confuse; mislead; bewilder" is
evident in the Standard Chinese words yaogu ?? "bewitch by seductive charms", gumei
?? "bewitch/charm by sensual appeal", and guhuo ?? "confuse by magic; enchant;
seduce into wrongdoing". "Ku-poisoning was also associated with demoniac sexual
appetite � an idea traceable back to Chou times", says Schafer (1967, p. 103),
"This notion evidently had its origins in stories of ambiguous love potions
prepared by the aboriginal women of the south.

The Zuozhuan (??28, Legge 1872, p. 115) uses gu in a story that in the 7th century
BCE, Ziyuan ??, the chief minister of Chu, "wished to seduce the widow" of his
brother King Wen of Zhou. The Mozi (???, Mei 1929, p. 208) uses gu to criticize
Confucius, who "dresses elaborately and puts on adornments to mislead the people."
The Erya (1B/49, cf. 2.5 above) defines gu ?, chan ? "doubt; flatter", and er ?
"double-hearted; doubtful" as yi ? "doubt; suspect; fear; hesitate". Guo Pu's
commentary suggests this refers to gu meaning "deceive; seduce".

Many later accounts specify women as gu-magic practitioners. Eberhard (1968, p.

149) explains,

We know that among many aborigines of the south women know how to prepare love
charms which were effective even at a distance. In these reports it was almost
invariably stated that the love charm had a fatal effect if the man, to whom the
charm was directed, did not return to the woman at a specified time.

Affair
The least-attested gu ? meaning 2.8 of "affair; event" first appears in the (3rd
century CE) Guangya dictionary, which defines gu as shi ? "assignment; affair;
event; thing; matter; trouble".
The Yijing Gu hexagram (see 2.9) "Line Variations" repeatedly refer to parental gu
with the enigmatic phrases ???? "gan-father's gu" and ???? "gan-mother's gu". Wang
Niansun quotes an Yijing commentary that gu means shi, and proposes gu ? is a
phonetic loan character for gu ? "reason; cause; event; incident". Commentarial
tradition takes gan ? "trunk; framework; do; work" to mean chi ? "put in order",
and Richard Wilhelm translates "Setting right what has been spoiled by the father"
and "Setting right what has been spoiled by the mother" (Wilhelm & Baynes 1967, p.
75). Arthur Waley follows an ancient interpretation that gan ? is a variant Chinese
character for gan ? "stem; Celestial stem; day of the (10-day) week; involve",
translating "stem-father's maggots" and "stem-mother's maggots", explaining

it is surely obvious that the maggots referred to are those which appeared in the
flesh of animals sacrificed to the spirits of dead parents, who after their death
were, for reasons of taboo, only known by the name of the day upon which they were
born, being merely a fuller way of writing 'stem', 'day of the week'. (Waley 1933,
p. 132)

Hexagram 18

Hexagram 18
Gu ? names the Y�-Jing Hexagram 18, which is translated as "Destruction" (Z.D. Sung
1935), "Work on What Has Been Spoiled [Decay]" (Richard Wilhelm 1967), "Decay"
(John Blofeld 1965), "Degeneration" (Thomas Cleary 1986), "Poison, Destruction" (Wu
Jing-Nuan 1991), and "Ills to Be Cured" (Richard John Lynn 1994). Wilhelm (1967, p.
75) explains translating "decay" for ?.

The Chinese character ku represents a bowl in whose contents worms are breeding.
This means decay. It has come about because the gentle indifference in the lower
trigram has come together with the rigid inertia of the upper, and the result is
stagnation. Since this implies guilt, the conditions embody a demand for removal of
the cause. Hence the meaning of the hexagram is not simply "what has been spoiled"
but "work on what has been spoiled."

"The Judgment" (Wilhelm 1967, p. 75): "WORK ON WHAT HAS BEEN SPOILED Has supreme
success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Before the starting point, three
days. After the starting point, three days." "The Image" (Wilhelm 1967, p. 76)
reads: "The wind blows low on the mountain: The image of DECAY. Thus the superior
man stirs up the people, And strengthens their spirit."

In the Zuozhuan (??15, Legge 1872, p. 167), divination of this Gu hexagram

foretells Qin conquering Jin, "A lucky response; cross the Ho; the prince's
chariots are defeated."

Gu techniques
According to ancient gu traditions, explain Joseph Needham and Wang Ling, "the
poison was prepared by placing many toxic insects in a closed vessel and allowing
them to remain there until one had eaten all the rest � the toxin was then
extracted from the survivor." (Needham & Wang 1956, p. 136) They note, "It is
strange to think that this same method has been successfully employed in our own
times for the isolation of strains of soil bacteria capable of attacking the
tuberculosis bacillus".

Feng & Shryock (1935, p. 1) describe contemporary practices of gu.

At present, ku is used primarily as a means of acquiring wealth; secondarily as a

means of revenge. The method is to place poisonous snakes and insects together in a
vessel until there is but one survivor, which is called the ku. The poison secured
from this ku is administered to the victim, who becomes sick and dies. The ideas
associated with ku vary, but the ku is generally regarded as a spirit, which
secures the wealth of the victim for the sorcerer.

Eberhard (1968, p. 152) summarizes gu practices.

The essence of ku, then, was the magic charm that could be prepared out of the
surviving animal in the pot. It could be used as a love charm with the object of
forcing the loved male to come back to the woman. The ku could be used also as an
evil magic with the object of obtaining subservient spirits. This was done by
feeding it to unrelated persons who would either spit blood or whose stomachs would
swell because of the food they had taken would become alive in their insides, and
who would die as a result; similar to the gold-silkworms, their souls had to be
servants of the owner of the ku.

The 4th-century Soushenji (cf. 2.4 Feng & Shryock 1935, p. 7) records that gu
breeding was a profitable but dangerous profession in the Henan region.

In the province of Yung-yang, there was a family by the name of Liao. For several
generations they manufactured ku, becoming rich from it. Later one of the family
married, but they kept the secret from the bride. On one occasion, everyone went
out except the bride, who was left in charge of the house. Suddenly she noticed a
large cauldron in the house, and on opening it, perceived a big snake inside. She
poured boiling water into the cauldron and killed the snake. When the rest of the
family returned she told them what she had done, to their great alarm. Not long
after, the entire family died of the plague.

Feng & Shryock (1935, p. 11-12) describe how 20th-century Zhuang women in Guangxi
elaborately produced gu during the Duanwu Festival (see jincan above).

Ku poison is not found generally among the people (i.e., the Chinese), but is used
by the T'ung women. It is said that on the fifth day of the fifth month, they go to
a mountain stream and spread new clothes and headgear on the ground, with a bowl of
water beside them. The women dance and sing naked, inviting a visit from the King
of Medicine (a tutelary spirit). They wait until snakes, lizards, and poisonous
insects come to bathe in the bowl. They pour the water out in a shadowy, dark
place. Then they gather the fungus which grows there, which they make into a paste.
They put this into goose-feather tubes and hide them in their hair. The heat of
their bodies causes worms to generate, which resemble newly-hatched silk-worms.
Thus ku is produced. It is often concealed in a warm, dark place in the kitchen.
The newly made ku is not yet poisonous. It is used as a love potion, administered
in food and drink and called "love-medicine." Gradually the ku becomes poisonous.
As the poison develops, the woman's body itches until she has poisoned someone. If
there is no other opportunity, she will poison even her husband or her sons. But
she possesses antidotes. It is believed that those who produce ku themselves become
ku after death. The ghosts of those who have died from the poison become their
servants.

Gu remedies
Groot (1910, vol. 5, pp. 861-869) and Eberhard (1968, p. 152-3) detail numerous
Chinese antidotes and cures for gu poison-magic. For instance (see 2.4), the
Shanhaijing claimed eating a legendary creature's meat would prevent gu and the
Soushenji prescribed ranghe ?? "myoga ginger". Unschuld (1985, p. 47) says

Prescription literature was filled with antidotes. All known Chinese conceptual
systems of healing dealt with the ku phenomenon and developed therapeutic
strategies that were in accord with their basic principles. The Buddhists
recommended prayers and conjurations, thus utilizing the same methods as
practitioners of demonic medicine. In pharmaceutical literature, drugs of a plant,
animal, or mineral origin were described as effective against ku poisoning.
Adherents of homeopathic magic recommended the taking of centipedes, since it was
known that centipedes consume worms.

The Zhou houbei jifang ????? (Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 862), which is attributed to
Ge Hong, describes gu diagnosis and cure with ranghe:

A patient hurt by ku gets cutting pains at his heart and belly as if some living
thing is gnawing there; sometimes he has a discharge of blood through the mouth or
the anus. If he is not forthwith medically treated, it devours his five viscera,
which entails his death. To discover whether it is ku or not, let the patient spit
into water; if the spittle sinks, it is ku; if it floats, it is not. The recipe for
discovering the name of the owner of the ku poison is as follows: take the skin of
a drum, burn it, a small piece at a time, pulverize the ashes, and let the patient
drink them with water; he will then forthwith mention the name; then bid this owner
forthwith to remove the ku, and the patient will recover immediately. Again place
some jang-ho leaves secretly under the mattress of the patient; he will then of his
own accord immediately mention the name of the owner of the ku

Many gu-poison antidotes are homeopathic, in Western terms. The 8th-century

pharmacologist Chen Cangqi (Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 866) explains using venomous
creatures both to produce and cure gu-poison.

In general reptiles and insects, which are used to make ku, are cures for ku;
therefore, if we know what ku is at work, we may remedy its effects. Against ku of
snakes that of centipedes should be used, against ku of centipedes that of frogs,
against ku of frogs that of snakes, and so on. Those varieties of ku, having the
power of subduing each other, may also have a curative effect .

Needham & Wang (1956, p. 136) say prescribing gu poison as a cure or preventive
suggests "that someone had stumbled on an immunisation process", and suggest
scorpion-venom and centipede-venom as possible toxins.

Chen (Schafer 1967, p. 102, cf. Groot 1910, vol. 5, p. 847) further describes
catching and preparing medicine from the shapeshifting gu creature that,

� can conceal its form, and seem to be a ghost or spirit, and make misfortune for
men. But after all it is only a reptile ghost. If one of them has bitten a person
to death, it will sometimes emerge from one of that man's apertures. Watch and wait
to catch it and dry it in the warmth of the sun; then, when someone is afflicted by
the ku, burn it to ashes and give him a dose of it. Being akin, to it, the one
quite naturally subdues the other.

Besides such homeopathic remedies, Schafer (1967, p. 103) says one could,

give ku derived from particularly venomous creatures to overcome that taken from
less lethal creatures. Thus centipede ku could be overcome by frog ku; serpent ku
would prevail over frog ku, and so on. There were also soberer, though almost as
powerful remedies: asafetida, python bile, civet, and a white substance taken from
cock's dung were all used. It is not certain what real maladies these repellent
drugs, cured, or seemed to cure. Probably they ranged from the psychosomatic to the
virus-born. Many oedematous conditions were called ku, and it has been plausibly
suggested that some cases were caused by intestinal parasites (hence the constant
worm motif). Others are attributable to fish poisons and arrow poisons concocted by
the forest dwellers.

Chinese folklore claims the definitive cure for gu-magic is passing it on to a

greedy person. Eberhard (1968, p. 153) says,

The most common way to get rid of the ku (just as of brownies and the golden-
silkworm) was to give it away as a present. The actions of a man in Chang-chou
(Fukien) are rather uncommon. He found on the ground a package containing three
large silver bars wrapped in silk and in addition a ku which looked like a frog
(ha-ma); in spite of the danger he took it; at night two large frogs appeared which
he cooked and ate; on the next night more than ten smaller frogs appeared which he
also ate up; and he continued consuming all frogs that kept appearing until the
magic was cast off; in this fashion the man suffered no ill effects from the ku
poison.

From descriptions of gu poisoning such involving "swollen abdomen, emaciation, and

the presence of worms in the body orifices of the dead or living", Unschuld (1985,
p. 48) reasons, "Such symptoms allow a great number of possible explanations and
interpretations". He suggests attitudes toward gu were based upon fear of others,
envy, and greed. "But the concept of ku is unknown outside of China. Instead, one
finds what may be its conceptual equivalent, the 'evil eye', present in all 'envy
societies'." Its Mythical folktale.

References
The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Translated by Birrell, Anne. Penguin. 2000.
Brown, Cecil. H. (1979). "Folk Zoological Life-Forms: Their Universality and
Growth". American Anthropologist. 813 (4): 791�812.
Carr, Michael (1983). "Why Did ? *D'i�ng Change from 'Animal' to 'Wug'?".
Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages. 21: 7�13.
Groot, Jan Jakob Maria (1892). The Religious System of China: Its Ancient Forms,
Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions
Connected Therewith. 6 volumes. Brill.
Eberhard, Wolfram (1968). The Local Cultures of South and East China. E. J. Brill.
Feng, H. Y.; Shryock, J. K. (1935). "The Black Magic in China Known as Ku". Journal
of the American Oriental Society. 553 (1): 1�30.
The Chinese Classics, Vol. V, The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen. Translated by
Legge, James. Oxford University Press. 1872.
Loewe, Michael (1970). "The Case of Witchcraft in 91 B.C.: Its Historical Setting
and Effect on Han Dynastic History". Asia Major. 153 (2): 159�196.
Marshall, S. J. (2001). The Mandate of Heaven. Columbia University Press.
The Ethical and Political Works of Motse. Translated by Mei, Yi-Pao. Arthur
Probsthain. 1929.
Needham, Joseph; Wang, Ling (1956). Science and Civilization in China: History of
Scientific Thought.
Schafer, Edward H. (1967). The Vermillion Bird: T'ang Images of the South.
University of California Press.
Schein, Louisa (2000). Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China's
Cultural Politics. Duke University Press.
Shima, Kunio ??? (1958). Inkyo bokuji sorui ?????? (in Japanese). Hirosaki.
Unschuld, Paul U. (1985). Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of
California Press.
Waley, Arthur (1933). "The Book of Changes". Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern
Antiquities. 5: 121�142.
Wilhelm, Richard; Baynes, Cary F.l (1967). The I Ching or Book of Changes.
Bollingen. Princeton University Press.
Categories: Chinese folklorePoisonsShamanism in China
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