A Survey of Tujia and Miao Medicine in West Hunan
Zhu Guoben
(10 November 2000)
The Xiangxi Tujia-and-Miao Autonomous Prefecture lies in northwest Hunan. To southwest and northwest it borders Guizhou, Chongqing, Hubei; to northeast and southeast, Zhangjiajie, Yuanling, Chenxi, Mayang of Hunan. Total area: 15,400 km². It administers Jishou (the prefectural capital) and seven counties: Longshan, Yongshun, Baojing, Guzhang, Luxi, Fenghuang, Huayuan. In the past, "water-routes had many rapids and dangers, land-routes were narrow bird-paths"; "the wild did not go out of the valleys, the guest did not enter the territory" — a closed area, but a "world where birds and beasts are unafraid of people, mountain flowers bloom and fall of themselves." All has now changed. From 2 to 6 November, I traveled Jishou, Fenghuang, Huayuan, and Yongshun — surveying the Xiangxi Prefectural Hospital of Ethnic Medicine and the Prefectural Ethnic Medicine Research Institute, the Fenghuang County Ethnic Hospital and Ethnic Medicine Research Institute, and the Huayuan County TCM Hospital.
Tujia population in the prefecture: 806,000, 35% of the total. Mainly in Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing, Jishou, Guzhang. From the mid-1980s, the relevant Xiangxi authorities have conducted extensive social and resource surveys on Tujia, Miao, and other ethnic medicines as well as TCM. The prefecture has over 1,400 ethnic-medical workers, of whom 70% are Miao or Tujia. There are over 1,800 herbs.
Some findings and reflections:
I. On Tujia medicine
Since 1985 Tian Huayong and others have done systematic excavation and organization on Tujia medicine, surveying 27 counties of Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou border where Tujia live, gathering folk Tujia medical material. They focused on the 12 most Tujia-dominant counties of the Youshui and Qingjiang river basins; consulted Tujia historical records and medical relics; discovered Tujia hand-copied medical manuscripts such as Seventy-Two Patterns, Thirty-Six Frights, Old-Ancestor Secret Formulas, etc. They have compiled and published Studies on Tujia Diagnosis and Treatment, Survey of Common Folk-Medicine Processing in Xiangxi, Studies on Tujia Formula-Theory, summarizing Tujia clinical experience in pain, bone-injury, fistula, liver disease, and more.
II. On Miao medicine
The Miao are one of our oldest peoples. A Miao folk-song: "One king of herbs, body in the four directions; three thousand Miao herbs, eight hundred single-formulas." — the abundance of Miao medicine. According to Fenghuang Miao-medicine specialist Ou Zhi'an, of the 360+ herbs in the Shennong Bencao, more than 100 share name and meaning with Miao herbs — close ties.
From primitive society to early Qing, in Xiangxi Miao areas only Miao medicine prevailed. After the Yongzheng-era replacement of native rule by appointed officials, a small amount of TCM began to come in. Republican-era Western medicine also arrived; it became widespread only from the 1950s. "TCM entered Xiangxi as early as 1391 — the Zhejiang native Jin Bin came with the imperial troops to Yongding, bringing TCM, after which it spread." The Huayuan County Health Bureau records: "TCM came in the Yongzheng era as Han people moved in. In 1947 a TCM Society was set up with 23 members and 3 TCM physicians approved by the Nationalist government health-office." So before the 1940s in Xiangxi, people's health was largely served by Miao, Tujia, and other ethnic medicines.
III. Miao medicine in Huayuan
Huayuan's Miao medicine is representative for Miao areas. The county's TCM-section officer Tian Xingxiu, on the oral teachings of the Miao doctor Long Yuliu of Mao'er Township, organized Miao birth-doctrine, the Miao one-into-three philosophy, anatomy, diagnostics, disease classification, treatment, and herb use, and made studies. Miao diagnosis uses look, take (pulse), ask, palpate: "Begin with spirit, then color; distinguish male and female; the four seasons by age; the wrist for pulse; ask and touch finely — every difficult illness has its mystery." Miao classifies illness into 36 patterns and 72 ailments, corresponding to 108 constellations — similar to TCM's 108 ailment-categories of Qin-Han, but different. Miao disease-names are vivid, e.g., crane embracing the egg (axillary lymph swelling), Heaven-through-Earth-leak (anal fistula). Miao medicine excels in trauma; one disease may match one formula, or many ways and many formulas.
IV. The transmission of Tujia and Miao medicine
Tujia and Miao have spoken language but no writing; the way they accumulated and inherited medical knowledge deserves serious summary. Twenty years ago, when I spoke of ethnic medicine, I greatly stressed scholarly systems and classical works. Then it seemed very reasonable. But after broader contact with ethnic and folk medicine, I found: to over-stress written-transmission, to acknowledge only it and to neglect, slight, or even reject oral-transmission medicine is also one-sided; and we will lose much medical wealth — clearly not the seek-truth-from-facts scientific attitude, and shows insufficient knowledge and respect for some minorities' medical creation.
After this on-the-ground survey of Tujia and Miao medicine, I sum up their transmission to three conditions:
(One) Broad mass base. In broad Tujia-and-Miao areas — green-mountain green-water, lush vegetation — Miao say "Every grass is medicine if used well." In these areas, everyone knows herbs, every family learns medicine, generation after generation.
(Two) Periodic herb markets — medicine-and-herb traded, supply-and-demand met, ethnic medicine exchanged and developed. "Herbs and mountain-goods, traded on market days." Country folk on market days bring loads of herbs; some sell only herbs, some also practice; the rolling group-knowledge advances exchange and accumulation.
(Three) Family transmission, specialist inheritance. The Xiangxi Local Gazetteer: "The Tujia have language but no writing. From of old their medical secrets are mouth-to-ear, often single-line." That single-line marks high specialization and professionalism. Such oral transmission does not stay shallow, and is not as easily blown away as wind on water.
Excerpted from China Ethnic Medicine Bulletin, Issue 11.