Talking Animals with Roderich Ptak

Hi Roderich! Thank you for joining us on Talking Animals. To start, what first inspired you to include animals in your research?

Earlier, I wrote several articles on “exotic” commodities used in Asian maritime trade. References to such trade goods appear in Chinese sources, especially in the context of “tribute missions.” This includes birds and other animals as well as animal products sent to Chinese ports and / or the Imperial Court. Simply put, my interest in knowing more about animals, whence they came, what they were used for in China, how they were described or instrumentalized in literary and other works – all this goes back to my dealing with the history of cross-oceanic exchange.

This interest in maritime trade ended up in your writing quite a number of animal publications! Your research has covered animals as far-ranging as the mongoose and cassowary, with every shade of horse, parrot, and turtle in between! Could you summarise your impressions and findings from this body of work?

Honestly speaking, I am not certain what the most important findings are (if there are any at all!). When dealing with animals in China’s imperial past, the first thing to consider is names and terms, what they might stand for and how one may relate them to modern taxonomy. This involves such complicated dimensions as editorial history, traditional commentaries, modern phonetics, etc. Normally, trying to identify species should be the first step; saying something about their role in religious, culinary, medical or other sources, or relating them to environmental history, agriculture, hunting, transport, etc. can only come in secundo loco. Very often one gets stuck right at the beginning! Generic terms are easier to deal with. Horses are a case in point – early on, I found that they are the most frequently mentioned tribute item in maritime trade under the Ming. Perhaps this was a significant finding, but I may be wrong!

What’s something surprising you’ve come across while researching animal terminology and trade?

The horse being the most frequently mentioned animal maritime import was a surprising result. Another unexpected case is the term huoji 火鷄, then probably mostly used for cassowaries (but also for other creatures). Presumably, most cassowaries came from east of the Wallace line. Why were they sent to China?

Avian creatures acquired from abroad also included various kinds of yingwu 鸚鵡, i.e., lories, parakeets, cockatoes, and even New World parrots. Such birds appear in many literary records, but rarely in amusing contexts, which is quite different from Europe, where they often assumed an entertaining function. How can we explain that difference?

Is there a resource or theory you’ve found particularly helpful in your research? 

No, currently I prefer to look at the texts, and not at far-flung models and theories. Collecting information, understanding the written material, and identifying facts is more important. To give just two examples: the received versions of early sources suggest that educated persons tried to view the fauna in its own light, but so far we know very little about that. Much later, one encounters fresh information in local chronicles and other texts. Again, much of this has remained terra incognita and still needs to be unveiled before one can embark on some methodological tour de force.

How has research on the topic of animals in China changed during your career? What new questions are we asking now that we didn’t before?