Gu () or jincan () was a venom-based poison associated with cultures of south China, particularly Nanyue. The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures (e.g., centipedes, snakes, scorpions) inside a closed container, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single survivor, whose body would be fed upon by larvae until consumed. The last surviving larva held the complex poison. Gu was used in black magic practices such as manipulating sexual partners, creating malignant diseases, and causing death. According to Chinese folklore, a gu spirit could transform into various animals, typically a worm, caterpillar, snake, frog, dog, or pig.
Names Circa 14th-century BCE Shang dynasty oracle inscriptions recorded the name gu, while 7th-century CE Tang dynasty texts first used jincan "gold silkworm".
Gu The term , says Loewe, "can be traced from the oracle bones until modern times, and has acquired a large number of meanings or connotations". Before discussing gu, it is necessary to introduce the related word "wug".
Chong or (originally a "snake; worm" pictogram) "insect; bug; pest; worm; spider; amphibian; reptile; dragon; etc." denotes a Chinese folk taxonomy lacking an adequate English translation equivalent. Carr proposes translating chong as "wug" – Brown's portmanteau word (from worm + bug) bridging the lexical gap for the linguistically widespread "class of miscellaneous animals including insects, spiders, and small reptiles and amphibians". (Unrelated to the wug test.)
The Traditional Chinese character and the Simplified for gu "demonic poison" are "wugs inside a container" ideograms that combine chong or "wug" and min "jar; cup; dish; utensil". Early written forms of gu range from (c. 14th–11th centuries BCE) Oracle bone script to (c. 3rd century BCE) Seal script characters. The Oracle characters had two or one "wug" elements inside a container, while the Seal characters had three. Shima's concordance of oracle bone inscriptions lists 23 occurrences of gu written with two wugs and 4 with one; many contexts are divinations about sickness. Marshall concludes, "The oracle-bone character of gu is used to refer to the evil power of the ancestors to cause illness in the living."
Jincan Jincan "gold silkworm/caterpillar" is a gu synonym first recorded in the Tang dynasty. Li Xian's (7th century) commentary to the Hou Han Shu uses jincan as the name of a funerary decoration cast from gold, and the (9th century) author Su E describes it as a legendary golden-color caterpillar from Kashmir.
Eberhard (cf. 153) connects gu, jincan, and other love charms with the Duanwu Festival that occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese calendar, which is "the theoretical apogee of summer heat". Among the Miao on the fifth of the fifth month poisonous animals were put into a pot and allowed to devour each other, and they were called 'gold-silkworms'. The more people were killed by the ku, the richer the kus owner became. In our time the normal term for ku has been 'gold-silkworm'. These animals can make gold. It was typical for the gold-silkworm that people continued to feed this animal in the pot, that humans had to be sacrificed to it, that the animal kept the house clean and worked for its master like a brownie, but that it caused harm to its master if he did not provide proper sacrifices. "For centuries, the Miao, particularly Miao women," writes Schein, "have been feared for their mastery of the so-called gu poison, which is said to inflict death from a distance with excruciating slowness."
Groot quotes a Song dynasty description. a gold caterpillar is a caterpillar with a gold colour, which is fed with silk from Shuh (Szĕ-ch‘wen). Its ordure, put in food or drink, poisons those who take it, causing certain death. It can draw towards a man the possessions of such victims, and thus make him enormously rich. It is extremely difficult to get rid of it, for even water, fire, weapons or swords can do it no harm. Usually the owner for this purpose puts some gold or silver into a basket, places the caterpillar also therein, and throws the basket away in a corner of the street, where someone may pick it up and take it with him. He is then said to have given his gold caterpillar in marriage.
The Bencao Gangmu quotes Cai Dao 's (12th century) Tieweishan congtan that "gold caterpillars first existed" in the Shu region (present-day Sichuan), and "only in recent times did they find their way into" Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guanxi, Hsinchu. Groot also quotes the Tang dynasty pharmacologist Chen Cangqi (713–741 CE) that: ashes of old flowered silk are a cure for poison of ku of insects or reptiles which eat such silk. His commentator adds, that those insects are coiled up like a finger-ring, and eat old red silk and flowered silk, just as caterpillars eat leaves; hence, considered in the light of the present day, those insects are gold caterpillars.
Gu meanings The Hanyu Da Zidian dictionary defines 9 meanings, plus the rare reading ye "bewitchingly pretty; seductive; coquettish" []. (1) Poisoning from an abdominal wug [] (2) In ancient books, a type of artificially cultured poisonous wug [] (3) Ghost of a person [convicted of gu-magic] whose severed head was impaled on a stake [] (4) Evil heat and noxious qi that harms humans [] (5) Wug pest that eats grain. [] (6) Sorcery that harms humans [] (7) Seduce; tempt; confuse; mislead [] (8) Affair; assignment [] (9) One of the 64 hexagrams. It is formed from [the trigrams[ [☶ Mountain]) over [☴ Wind]) []
The (early 4th century BCE) Zuozhuan commentary to the (c. 6th–5th centuries BCE) Chunqiu history provides an ancient example of 's polysemy. It records four gu meanings – 2.5 "grain which (molders and) flies away", 2.6 "insanity", 2.7 "delusion and disorder", and 2.9 "same [hexagram] name" – in a 541 BCE story about a physician named from Qin explaining gu to the ruler of Jin.
The marquis of [Jin] asked the help of a physician from [Qin], and the earl sent one [He] to see him, who said, "The disease cannot be cured, according to the saying that when women are approached, the chamber disease becomes like insanity. It is not caused by Spirits nor by food; it is that delusion which has destroyed the mind. Your good minister will [also] die; it is not the will of Heaven to preserve him." The marquis said, "May women (then) not be approached?" The physician replied, "Intercourse with them must be regulated." ... [Zhao Meng] (further) asked what he meant by 'insanity'; and (the physician) replied, "I mean that which is produced by the delusion and disorder of excessive sensual indulgence. Look at the character; – it is formed by the characters for a vessel and for insects ( = and ). It is also used of grain which (molders and) flies away. In the [Yijing], (the symbols of) a woman deluding a young man, (of) wind throwing down (the trees of) a mountain, go by the same name (; ☶ under ☴): all these point to the same signification." [Zhao Meng] pronounced him a good physician, gave him large gifts, and sent him back to [Qin].,
Abdominal wug poisoning The "poisoning from abdominal wugs" or "abdominal parasites" meaning 2.1 first appears in the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi dictionary, cf. 2.3 below. It defines as . However, Duan Yucai's (1815 CE) commentary construes this definition as "afflicted by abdominal wugs"; and explains that instead of the usual readings and , both terms should be read in entering tone, namely and .
Cultivated poisonous wug The second gu meaning "anciently recorded type of artificially cultured poisonous wug" names the survivor of several venomous creatures enclosed in a container, and transformed into a type of demon or spirit.
The Zhouli ritual text () describes a official who, "was charged with the duty of exterminating poisonous ku, attacking this with spells and thus exorcising it, as also with the duty of attacking it with efficacious herbs; all persons able to fight ku he was to employ according to their capacities." Zheng Xuan's commentary explains "poisonous gu" as "wugs that cause sickness in people".
Dismembered sorcerer's ghost Gu meaning 2.3 "ghost of a person whose severed head was impaled on a stake" refers to the severe Han dynasty "dismemberment (as tortuous capital punishment)" for criminals convicted of practicing gu-sorcery (see 2.6). Groot "Plate VI, Punishment of Cutting Asunder" provides a gruesome illustration. The Zhouli commentary of Zheng Xuan (cf. 2.2) notes, "Those who dare to poison people with ku or teach others to do it will be publicly executed".
Eberhard says gu, "was also the soul of a dead person whose head had been pitted on a pole. This, too, fits later reports, in so far as the souls of ku victims often are mentioned as servants of the master of ku, if not ku itself served the master."
The Shuowen Jiezi (cf. 2.1 above) also defines gu as "the spirits of convicted criminals whose heads had been exposed on stakes." This specialized torture term combines (which pictures a person's on a ) and . Compare the character for that originated as a "place where dismembered criminals were publicly displayed" pictograph of an upside-down hanging on a tied to a .
Groot suggests this meaning of gu, "seems to reveal to us a belief that such a soul, roaming restlessly about because of its corpse being mutilated, must be avenging itself on the living by settling in their intestines in the shape of the same maggots and grubs which gnaw away its decaying head."
Unschuld provides historical perspective. As the legal measures of individual dynasties demonstrate, administrative officials viewed ku as a reality, as late as the nineteenth century. The primary host was considered a criminal; a person guilty of the despicable act of preparing and administering ku poison was executed, occasionally with his entire family, in a gruesome manner. In addition to the obvious desire to punish severely criminal practices that could result in the death of the victim, it is possible that Confucian distaste for the accumulation of material goods, and above all for the resulting social mobility, contributed to this attitude. Indeed, the penalties of the use of ku poison appear to have been more severe than those for other forms of murder.
Heat miasma The fourth meaning of "evil heat and noxious qi that harms humans" refers to allegedly sickness-causing emanations of tropical miasma. "There was also an ancient belief that ku diseases were induced by some sort of noxious mist or exhalation", writes Schafer, "just as it was also believed that certain airs and winds could generate worms".
The records that in 675 BCE, Duke De of Qin "suppressed ku at the commencement of the hottest summer-period by means of dogs. According to commentators, these animals were for the purpose butchered and affixed to the four gates of the capital." The Tang dynasty commentary of explains gu as "hot, poisonous, evil, noxious qi that harms people". Displaying gu dogs at city gates reflects meaning 2.3 above.
Besides shapeshifting gu spirits usually appearing as wugs, classical texts record other animal forms. The (c. 350 CE) Soushenji "In Search of the Supernatural" Groot says,