彘

The Classic of Southern Mountains: five hundred li east is Mount Fuyu, facing north on Juqu and east on Zhu Pi. A beast lives there, shaped like a tiger with an ox's tail, its cry like a barking dog. Its name is Zhi, and it eats people. The Tiao River rises on its shady side and flows north into Juqu. Zhi means pig. But the zhi in this entry is shaped like a tiger, has an ox's tail, barks like a dog, and eats people. Four animals in one line: a pig's name, a tiger's body, an ox's tail, a dog's voice. Not one character matches "pig." Start with the geography. Mount Fuyu looks north on Juqu — the ancient name of Lake Tai — and east on Zhu Pi. The Tiao River leaves its northern face and runs into the lake. The Tiao is the modern Tiaoxi, coming down from the north slope of the Tianmu Mountains in Zhejiang, through Huzhou, into Lake Tai. So Mount Fuyu is the Tianmu range. The geography in the entry is exact: from the summit you see Lake Tai to the north, and the headwaters of the Tiaoxi at your feet. Does the Tianmu range hold an animal that is tiger-shaped, ox-tailed, dog-voiced, and man-eating? Yes. The South China tiger. "Shaped like a tiger" needs no explanation. "Ox tail." A tiger's tail is about a metre long, thick at the base, without a tuft. But when a tiger is agitated or about to spring, the tip curls upward and the whole tail reads as a whip. The South China tiger's tail is longer and thinner than the Amur tiger's, with shorter hair; seen thrashing through scrub, with only the tail visible, it does look like an ox's. "Its cry is like a barking dog." Tigers bark. This is not a metaphor. Startled, warning, or calling cubs, a tiger produces a short, low, explosive "wuff" that is almost indistinguishable from a large dog's bark. Bioacoustics calls it the alarm bark. Tigers have no special roaring structure; their long call is low-frequency, but the short warning is a bark. "And it eats people." In the Tianmu country, records of tiger attacks run right up into the twentieth century. Now the name. Why call a tiger a pig? Because zhi was not only a pig. It was also a place name — Zhi County, established under the Han, in modern Huozhou, Shanxi — and a character used in personal names. In early Chinese writing, a single graph was often borrowed for its sound: the recorder heard what the locals called the thing and wrote down a character that sounded close. The Old Chinese pronunciation of zhi was not the modern word for pig. One possibility: the locals had some syllable for this man-eater, the recorder had the graph zhi to hand, and wrote it. After which, for two thousand years, everyone assumed it was a pig. This is not an isolated case. Many of the naming characters in the Shanhaijing had fallen out of use by later centuries, and commentators could only gloss the sound, not the meaning. Names are fossils of sound. There is another possibility: not error, but taboo. Mountain people did not say "tiger." They said great worm, lord of the mountain, old uncle. Because if you say its name, it hears you. Using a completely unrelated character — pig — to point at it is a form of verbal evasion. Both explanations point the same way: the name is wrong, the animal is real. Finally, the Tiao. The Tiaoxi runs north from Tianmu through Yuhang, Deqing, and Huzhou into Lake Tai. The river is still there, with bamboo, tea, and rice on both banks. In the 1950s there were still tigers in the Zhejiang hills. After that, no confirmed sighting in the wild. The scholarly consensus now is that the South China tiger is functionally extinct in the wild. Fewer than two hundred survive in captivity worldwide, all descended from six animals caught in the 1950s. The Shanhaijing says: it eats people. Today we are more likely to say: we left it nowhere to go. A mountain that sees Lake Tai, a river still running, a name written as "pig." The record is true. We are the ones who read the name wrong.

เขาฝูอวี้ มองเห็นทะเลสาบไท่หู มีแม่น้ำเถียวไหลลงทะเลสาบ มีสัตว์ "รูปร่างเหมือนเสือ หางเหมือนวัว เห่าเหมือนหมา ชื่อจื้อ มันกินคน" ชื่อ "จื้อ" แปลว่าหมู แต่ตัวที่บรรยายไม่ใช่หมูเลย "หางเหมือนวัว" คือหางเสือที่ปลายม้วนขึ้นเวลาเตรียมกระโจน "เห่าเหมือนหมา" จริง เสือส่งเสียงสั้น ๆ ทุ้ม ๆ เหมือนหมาใหญ่เวลาเตือนภัย "กินคน" — ภูเขาหมิ่นมู่ (เทียนมู่) เคยมีเสือโคร่งจีนใต้ชุกชุม เหตุที่เรียกเสือว่าหมู: ในภาษาจีนโบราณ "จื้อ" เป็นทั้งชื่อเมืองและอักษรที่ยืมเสียงมาใช้ คนบันทึกได้ยินเสียงเรียกจากคนท้องถิ่น แล้วหยิบอักษรที่เสียงใกล้มาเขียน หรืออาจเป็นความเชื่อเรื่องห้ามเอ่ยชื่อ — ชาวเขาจะไม่เรียก "เสือ" ตรง ๆ เพราะกลัวเสือได้ยิน จึงใช้คำอื่นแทน วันนี้เสือโคร่งจีนใต้ในป่าถือว่าสูญพันธุ์เชิงหน้าที่แล้ว เหลือในกรงทั่วโลกไม่ถึงสองร้อยตัว

Gunung Fuyu menghadap Tasik Tai, dan Sungai Tiao mengalir ke tasik itu. Ada binatang "seperti harimau, ekor lembu, menyalak seperti anjing, namanya Zhi, ia makan orang." Nama "Zhi" bermakna babi, tetapi yang digambarkan sama sekali bukan babi. "Ekor lembu": hujung ekor harimau melengkung ke atas ketika hendak menerkam. "Menyalak seperti anjing": benar — harimau mengeluarkan bunyi pendek dan rendah seperti anjing besar ketika memberi amaran. "Makan orang": kawasan Gunung Tianmu memang pernah padat dengan harimau China selatan. Mengapa harimau dipanggil babi? Dalam bahasa Cina kuno, "zhi" juga nama tempat dan aksara pinjaman bunyi. Pencatat mendengar sebutan tempatan lalu menulis aksara yang bunyinya dekat. Atau kerana pantang menyebut nama: orang gunung tidak menyebut "harimau" terus, takut harimau mendengarnya. Hari ini harimau China selatan di alam liar dianggap pupus secara fungsi; di dalam kurungan seluruh dunia kurang dua ratus ekor.

Núi Phù Ngọc nhìn ra Thái Hồ, sông Thiều từ sườn bắc chảy vào hồ. Có thú "như hổ, đuôi trâu, sủa như chó, tên Trệ, nó ăn thịt người." "Trệ" nghĩa là lợn, nhưng con được miêu tả hoàn toàn không phải lợn. "Đuôi trâu": chóp đuôi hổ cong lên khi sắp vồ. "Sủa như chó": đúng — hổ phát ra tiếng ngắn, trầm như chó lớn khi cảnh báo. "Ăn thịt người": vùng núi Thiên Mục xưa vốn nhiều hổ Hoa Nam. Vì sao gọi hổ là lợn? Trong Hán ngữ cổ, "trệ" còn là tên đất và là chữ mượn âm. Người ghi chép nghe cách gọi địa phương rồi chọn chữ gần âm. Hoặc vì kiêng tên: người miền núi không gọi thẳng "hổ", sợ hổ nghe thấy. Ngày nay hổ Hoa Nam ngoài tự nhiên được coi là tuyệt chủng về chức năng; trong điều kiện nuôi nhốt toàn cầu chưa tới hai trăm con.

Gunung Fuyu menghadap Danau Tai, dan Sungai Tiao mengalir ke danau itu. Ada binatang "seperti harimau, ekor sapi, menyalak seperti anjing, namanya Zhi, ia makan orang." Nama "Zhi" berarti babi, tetapi yang digambarkan sama sekali bukan babi. "Ekor sapi": ujung ekor harimau melengkung ke atas saat hendak menerkam. "Menyalak seperti anjing": benar — harimau mengeluarkan bunyi pendek dan rendah seperti anjing besar saat memberi peringatan. "Makan orang": kawasan Gunung Tianmu memang pernah padat harimau China selatan. Mengapa harimau disebut babi? Dalam bahasa Cina kuno, "zhi" juga nama tempat dan aksara pinjaman bunyi. Pencatat mendengar sebutan setempat lalu menulis aksara yang bunyinya dekat. Atau karena pantang menyebut nama: orang gunung tidak menyebut "harimau" langsung, takut harimau mendengarnya. Kini harimau China selatan di alam liar dianggap punah secara fungsi; di penangkaran seluruh dunia kurang dari dua ratus ekor.