瞿如

The Classic of Southern Mountains: three hundred li east is Mount Daoguo, metal and jade above, rhinos and wild bulls and many elephants below. A bird lives there shaped like a pond heron, white-headed, three-legged, with a human face. Its name is Quru, and its cry is its own name. The Yin River rises there and flows south into the sea. Start with the mountain. Mount Daoguo: metal and jade on top, rhinoceros, wild bull, and elephant below. Rhino, wild bull, elephant — none of the three survives in the Chinese wild today. Three thousand years ago all three were ordinary in the south. Elephant bones have come out of the Yinxu site at Anyang, and oracle bones record captured elephants; rhino and elephant remains are known from Hemudu in Zhejiang. The Central Plain of the Shang was warmer and wetter than now, and the northern limit of elephants ran along the Yellow River. Then they retreated south, and by the time the Shanhaijing was compiled they were in Lingnan. So Mount Daoguo is somewhere in modern Guangdong or Guangxi. The fauna at its foot is real: a tropical assemblage. The bird on top is another matter. "Shaped like a jiao." The jiao is a water bird, the pond heron or Chinese pond heron. Heron build, long bill, long neck, long legs. "White head." "Human face." "Three legs." Taken one at a time, each can be matched. White head: in breeding plumage, egrets and pond herons grow long filamentous plumes over the head and neck, and the whole head reads white. Human face: a heron's face is bare skin. No feathers around the eye, just a patch of yellow, green, or red. From the front, a small face with eyes and a bill. The Egyptian god Thoth has the same head. Three legs: this is the hard one. A bird has two. Where does a third come from? Possibility one: miscounting. Herons rest on one leg, the other tucked into the belly feathers. In profile, one leg. If there is a reflection in the water, one up and one down, that is two. If two birds stand one behind the other and overlap, that is three. Possibility two: "three toes" written as "three legs." Buttonquails and kittiwakes have only three toes, no hallux. On wet sand their tracks are three dots. Possibility three: iconography. The three-legged crow. The crow in the sun has had three legs since the Han. Three legs is not biology; it is a divine marker — the extra limb means "this does not belong to the world." I lean toward the third, because "human face" and "three legs" turn up on the same object: the three-legged crow in Han reliefs very often has a human face. So Quru may not be a bird at all. It may be a picture: a white-headed heron standing inside the sun, with three legs and a human face. Then the name. "Its cry is its own name." Quru. Say it: qú rú. What does a heron sound like? A night heron crossing overhead at night gives a hoarse "kwak—" or "gwok—". A pond heron startled gives a run of short "gak-gak". An egret is drier, like two sticks rubbed together. "Kwak" and qu are close in Old Chinese. The recorder heard a "kwak—" and wrote two characters: Quru. This is how most Shanhaijing names work. The name does not come first and the animal second. The sound comes first, and characters are fitted to the sound. The rhinos and elephants below Mount Daoguo are gone from the wild. The last wild rhinoceros in China was killed in Yunnan in 1922. The wild Asian elephant population in China is down to about three hundred, in Xishuangbanna. And the three-legged white-headed bird is still here. It has simply been taken apart into three things: a heron, a sun, and a human face.

เขาต้าวกั้ว ด้านบนมีทองและหยก ด้านล่างมีแรด วัวป่า และช้างมาก มีนก "คล้ายนกยาง หัวขาว สามขา หน้าเป็นคน ชื่อฉวีหรู ร้องเป็นชื่อตัวเอง" แรด วัวป่า ช้าง ทั้งสามชนิดนี้เคยมีทั่วไปในจีนตอนใต้เมื่อสามพันปีก่อน ศิลปวัตถุและกระดูกสัตว์จากแหล่งโบราณคดีอันหยางและเหอหมู่ตู้ยืนยันได้ ต่อมาถอยลงใต้เรื่อย ๆ จนถึงยุคที่เขียนซานไห่จิงก็อยู่แค่หลิงหนาน "หัวขาว" = นกยางในฤดูผสมพันธุ์มีขนยาวสีขาวรอบหัว "หน้าเป็นคน" = หน้านกยางเป็นหนังเปลือยรอบดวงตา เห็นเป็น "หน้า" เล็ก ๆ "สามขา" = ยากที่สุด สามคำอธิบาย: (1) นกยางยืนขาเดียว อีกขาซ่อนในขนท้อง บวกเงาในน้ำหรือนกสองตัวซ้อนกันก็เป็นสาม (2) "สามนิ้ว" อาจถูกเขียนเป็น "สามขา" นกบางชนิดมีสามนิ้ว (3) เป็นภาพสัญลักษณ์ "อีกาสามขา" ในสุริยะ ซึ่งตั้งแต่ราชวงศ์ฮั่นวาดสามขาและบางทีก็มีหน้าเป็นคน ชื่อ "ฉวีหรู" เป็นการเลียนเสียง นกยางร้อง "กวัก—" เสียงใกล้กับ "ฉวี" วันนี้แรดป่าตัวสุดท้ายของจีนถูกฆ่าที่ยูนนานปี 1922 ช้างป่าเอเชียในจีนเหลือราวสามร้อยตัวที่สิบสองปันนา

Gunung Daoguo: logam dan jed di atas, badak, lembu liar dan banyak gajah di bawah. Ada burung "seperti bangau, kepala putih, tiga kaki, muka manusia, namanya Quru, bunyinya namanya sendiri." Badak, lembu liar dan gajah pernah lazim di selatan China tiga ribu tahun lalu; tulang gajah dari tapak Yinxu di Anyang dan tinggalan badak serta gajah dari Hemudu di Zhejiang membuktikannya. Kemudian mereka berundur ke selatan, dan pada zaman kitab ini disusun sudah berada di Lingnan. "Kepala putih": bulu hias panjang putih pada musim membiak. "Muka manusia": muka bangau ialah kulit bogel di sekeliling mata, nampak seperti "muka" kecil. "Tiga kaki": paling sukar. Tiga tafsiran: (1) bangau berehat dengan satu kaki, kaki lain tersorok dalam bulu perut; dengan bayang di air atau dua burung bertindih, jadi tiga (2) "tiga jari" mungkin ditulis "tiga kaki"; ada burung hanya tiga jari (3) lambang "gagak tiga kaki" dalam matahari, yang sejak dinasti Han dilukis tiga kaki dan kadang bermuka manusia. Nama "Quru" ialah tiruan bunyi: bangau berbunyi "kwak—", dekat dengan "qu". Hari ini badak liar terakhir China dibunuh di Yunnan pada 1922; gajah Asia liar di China tinggal kira-kira tiga ratus di Xishuangbanna.

Núi Đảo Quá: trên có vàng ngọc, dưới có tê giác, bò rừng và nhiều voi. Có chim "như cò, đầu trắng, ba chân, mặt người, tên Cồ Như, kêu ra tên mình." Tê giác, bò rừng, voi từng phổ biến ở nam Trung Quốc ba nghìn năm trước; xương voi khai quật ở Ân Khư (An Dương) và di chỉ Hà Mỗ Độ (Chiết Giang) chứng minh điều đó. Sau đó chúng lùi dần về nam, đến thời Sơn Hải Kinh thì đã ở Lĩnh Nam. "Đầu trắng": lông trang trí dài trắng vào mùa sinh sản. "Mặt người": mặt cò là da trần quanh mắt, trông như "mặt" nhỏ. "Ba chân": khó nhất. Ba cách lý giải: (1) cò nghỉ đứng một chân, chân kia giấu trong lông bụng; thêm bóng nước hoặc hai con chồng nhau thành ba (2) "ba ngón" có thể bị viết thành "ba chân"; có loài chim chỉ ba ngón (3) biểu tượng "quạ ba chân" trong mặt trời, từ đời Hán vẽ ba chân và đôi khi có mặt người. Tên "Cồ Như" là mô phỏng âm: cò kêu "quạc—", gần với "cồ". Ngày nay tê giác hoang cuối cùng của Trung Quốc bị giết ở Vân Nam năm 1922; voi châu Á hoang ở Trung Quốc còn khoảng ba trăm con ở Tây Song Bản Nạp.

Gunung Daoguo: logam dan giok di atas, badak, banteng dan banyak gajah di bawah. Ada burung "seperti bangau, kepala putih, tiga kaki, wajah manusia, namanya Quru, bunyinya namanya sendiri." Badak, banteng dan gajah pernah lazim di selatan Tiongkok tiga ribu tahun lalu; tulang gajah dari situs Yinxu di Anyang dan sisa badak serta gajah dari Hemudu di Zhejiang membuktikannya. Lalu mereka mundur ke selatan, dan pada masa kitab ini disusun sudah berada di Lingnan. "Kepala putih": bulu hias panjang putih pada musim kawin. "Wajah manusia": wajah bangau adalah kulit telanjang di sekitar mata, tampak seperti "wajah" kecil. "Tiga kaki": paling sulit. Tiga tafsir: (1) bangau beristirahat dengan satu kaki, kaki lain tersembunyi di bulu perut; dengan bayangan di air atau dua burung bertumpuk, jadi tiga (2) "tiga jari" mungkin ditulis "tiga kaki"; ada burung hanya tiga jari (3) lambang "gagak tiga kaki" di dalam matahari, yang sejak dinasti Han dilukis tiga kaki dan kadang berwajah manusia. Nama "Quru" adalah tiruan bunyi: bangau berbunyi "kwak—", dekat dengan "qu". Kini badak liar terakhir Tiongkok dibunuh di Yunnan pada 1922; gajah Asia liar di Tiongkok tinggal sekitar tiga ratus di Xishuangbanna.