What Exactly is a Sum Xu?

Abstract

This article aims to resolve the academic debate over the identity of the mysterious animal Sum Xu described in Michał Boym’s Flora sinensis. Through examining various Chinese sources published in the seventeenth century and the vocabulary they used to characterize creatures belonging to the Rodentia and Carnivora orders, the essay demonstrates that the animal at stake was most likely a weasel (Mustela), either Siberian (M. sibirica) or Japanese (M. itatsi), and that it was commonly known under the name song shu, even though in modern Mandarin this term is reserved for the squirrel. Additionally, the article investigates methodological problems arising from studying the import of Chinese terminology into the European context and suggests that scholars should consider the unstable linguistic diversity of Ming China when discussing the transfer of knowledge from the East to the West in the early modern period.

此文章的首要目的是識別波蘭在華傳教士卜彌格 (Michał Boym) 的「中國動植物誌」(Flora sinensis) 中所描述的神秘動物「Sum Xu」（松鼠）身份，進而解決與其相關的持久的科學爭議。通過對中國十六、十七世紀出版的歷史文獻以及其所用的語言和術語的詳細研究和分析，可以確定該動物不是現代普通話中所指的松鼠 (Sciurus)，而是鼬鼠 (Mustela) 的一種，可能是黃鼬 (M. sibirica) 或者日本鼬 (M. itatsi)。除此之外，此文章旨在研究與從中國傳入歐洲的術語有關的某些方法論難題，並建議有關近世知識傳播的歷史研究應該考慮到中國明朝時期不穩定的語言多元性。

Keywords:

• Michał Boym
• Chen Haozi
• Flora sinensis
• Sum Xu
• natural history
• knowledge transmission
• Jesuit studies
• Hua jing

關鍵詞:

• 卜彌格
• 陳淏子
• 「中國動植物誌」
• 松鼠
• 自然歷史
• 近世知識傳播
• 耶穌會傳教士
• 花鏡

Notes

1 Boym 1656.

2 Mungello 1989, p. 139; Bocci – Ptak 2011, p. 356.

3 Studies on both Boym and his Flora sinensis are abundant. The most recent publications, apart from the ones discussed at length later in this article, include: Rule 2011; Golvers 2011; Walravens 2011; Kajdański 2009; Duc Ha Nguyen 2006, pp. 82–98, 212–247.

4 Bocci – Ptak 2011, pp. 355–381.

5 Grusiecki 2019, pp. 296–324.

6 Bocci – Ptak 2011, pp. 363–364.

7 Grusiecki 2019, pp. 306, 319–322, 324.

8 Throughout the article, I will give Chinese characters in both simplified and traditional forms, depending on the source cited. Since all historical texts referred in this article used traditional characters, I have not converted them into simplified characters for the sake of clarity. I quote the titles of secondary sources according to their original spelling to ease identification.

9 Boym 1656, f. Mr.

10 Boym 1656, f. L2v; Bocci – Ptak 2011, p. 356.

11 Miazek 2005, pp. 77–102.

12 The Oxford Chinese Dictionary 2010, p. 704.

13 Miazek 2005, p. 33.

14 Bocci – Ptak 2011, p. 363.

15 VanNess Simmons 2017, p. 65.

16 For more information on specific dialects of Ming China, see for instance: Tian Zhijun 2009a; Tian Zhijun 2009b; Huang Zhiqing 2014.

17 For a discussion of the problems resulting from the quest to find proper names for animal species in early modern China, see Nappi 2009, pp. 84–86.

18 “Sum Xu animal apud Sinas reperitur, flavi et nigri coloris est, pulcherrimi aspectus. Cicurant illiud Sinenses et collum argento exornant, mures egregie venatur. Saepe venit septem et novem scudis.” Boym 1656, f. L2v. Unless stated otherwise, all translations appearing throughout the article come from the author.

19 “Primus, qui hoc animalculum Sciurum vocavit, Oppianus est, qui Antonini Caesaris temporibus vixit. Nomen videtur a σκιά, id est, umbra, et οὐρά cauda, quod sibi cauda umbram faciat, sortitum. […] Ex murium est genere.” Jonston 1657, p. 113.

20 Grusiecki 2019, p. 304.

21 Grusiecki 2019, pp. 303–304.

22 Grusiecki 2019, p. 305.

23 Grusiecki 2019, p. 324.

24 Sterckx 2005, pp. 35–36.

25 Yin – Long – Zhao 2016, pp. 92–125, 132–136.

26 竹鼠。嶺南所珍。其狀類松鼠，大如兔。亦曰竹䶉。重可二三斤。此鼠食筍，故腴美得之最難. Qian que ju lei shu, juan 110.

27 Wang Haiyan et al. 2019, p. 113.

28 Ben cao gang mu.

29 Hua jing.

30 Shen Yuwu 2010, p. 49.

31 松鼠。一名鼪鼠。隨地有之。居土穴,或樹孔中。形似鼠而有青黃長毛，頭嘴似兔。而尾毛更長。善鳴。能如人立，交前兩足而舞。好食栗豆, 亦能食鼠。人多取以為玩弄之物。初時性劣，宜以銅索擊之。豢養既久可不用索，亦不去矣。喜投人懷袖中。恐其爪尖傷人肌膚常於砂石上拖其爪，令不尖銳。則無傷也. Hua jing, juan 6, p. 34.

32 Wu Jianshe 2011, pp. 77, 80, 88–93.

33 For more information on Mustela sibirica, see Law 2018.

34 鼬鼠捷於補鼠。俗呼黃鼠狼。一名鼪鼠. Qian que ju lei shu, juan 110.

35 Law 2018, p. 114.

36 Honchō shokkan, kan 11.

37 On the differences between the two mustelid species see Suzuki – Abe – Motokawa, 2011.

38 Shi Xiaohong 2002; Li Dexia 2008.

39 Gessner 1560, p. 100.

40 Gessner 1560, pp. 110–111.

41 Miazek 2008, p. 92.

42 Wasilewska-Dobkowska 2006, p. 150; Bocci – Ptak 2011, p. 356.

43 Grusiecki 2019, pp. 300–309.

44 開圖若有聞鼠啣松子落. Gu shi hua pu, juan 3, 26.

45 For the practice of unrolling scrolls in order to appreciate them, see Clunas 2016, p. 41.

46 Law 2018, p. 114.

47 On the importance of the relationship between the visual and the textual in the early modern production of knowledge, see the excellent study Hanß – Rublack 2021.

48 See also excellent methodological remarks in Clunas 1997 (p. 102) on problems with mapping historical Chinese vocabulary onto the meanings of modern English words and vice versa.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Albert Kozik

Albert Kozik (Kong Xiaowen 孔孝文) is a research assistant at the Department of Sinology of the University of Warsaw where he is currently reading for a Ph.D. in Art History. He has graduated from the University of Oxford (M.St. in History of Art and Visual Culture) and the University of Warsaw (M.A. in History of Art; M.A. in Polish Studies; M.A. in Chinese Studies). He is the principal investigator for the research grant “King of Engineers: The Stanisław Leszczyński’s Theatre of Automata in the Lunéville Gardens” (financed by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science). Previously, he was a collaborator of the Religious Toleration and Peace (RETOPEA) project (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme) and co-creator of the Offence module at King’s College London. He was also a 2023 Doctoral Fellow of the Boston College Ricci Institute. His research interests center on the history of automatic sculptures as well as on the role of science in Sino–Western relations in the early modern period.