Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

11,19-20 OAK-GALLS. 215
Note.
The whole of this section, except the last phrase, is quoted from Ling-wai-tai-ta, 8,4.
De Candolle, op. cit., 345—350 discusses the question of the original habitat of the cocoanut.
He is disposed to place it in the Indian Archipelago. It appears to have been already known in
5 China in the second century before our era. Nan-fang-ts'au-mu-chuang, 3,2, refers to the toddy
made from it in Indo-China (Lin-i and Nan-ytt6) and to its intoxicating property. The cocoanut,
it adds, is commonly called YUe-wang-t'ou (;^ ^ ^ ahead of the king of Yue»), because in
olden times there was a feud between the king of Lin-i and the king of Nan-yli§, and the former
sent an assassin who killed the king and cut off his head, which the king of Lin-i had hung on
10 a tree. After a while it changed into a cocoanut, when the king in anger had it cut down and
made into a slop-bowl "^^^ ('^ people of the South, the author adds to clinch the story,
^r)'
still follow this custom of making slop-bowls, out of cocoanuts. See also Ling-piau-l(l-i, 2,6^' (T'ang
dynasty). On the subject of liquors used in southern Asia, the Pon-ts'au, 31,20, refers to a number,
among them to one made in Tun-sun (in the Malay Peninsula probably) with the juice of the
15 flowers of a tree like a pomegranate. In a previous passage (supra, p. 89) our author says that
20
in Ku-lin (Quilon) athey made a liquor with a mixture of honey (or syrup) with cocoanuts and
the juice of a flower, which they let ferment;» perhaps it was similar to that mentioned in the
Pon-ts'au.
20.
OAK-GALLS H^ :^ ^).
Mo-slii-tzi come from Wu-ssi-li {^MW- Mosul) in the Ta-sM country.
The tree resembles the camphor-tree, it blossoms once a year and bears a fruit
similar to the Chinese acorn (^ |^), and called sha-mo-lu (fp j^ ^), or
p'u-lu (>j^ ^), and which is edible. The following year it grows what is
25 called ma-ch^a (^ ^),
which is the same as mo-sM-td. The year following
appear again sha-mo-lu, and the mo-sM-tz'i grow in alternate years, so it
is a valuable article. What a wonderful thing to see one root produce diffe-
rent fruits
!
Note.
30 The Yu-yang-tsa-tsu, 18,8% appears to be the earliest Chinese work to describe in some detail
oak-galls. It says: « Wu-sU-U% (fife ^ ^,) come from Po-ssi (Persia), and in Persian they are
called mo-ts6 (^ tt)- The 'tree is sixty to seventy feet high, and eight or nine feet in cir-
cumference. Theteaves are like peach leaves but larger. In the third moon its flowers open, they
are white and reddish in the center. The seed is round like a pill, at first green, but when ripe
35 a yellowish white. Those with holes in them have been pierced by insects, the perfect nuts are
without holes in the skin; these are used to make medicine. One year the tree produces wu-sM-tei,
the following it produces po-lu-tei (^ Jp ^) of the size of thefingqr tip and three inches
long. On the upper end there is a cup in which is the kernel, like a chestnut, of brown
(^)
colour and which is' edible.»
40 Our author derives most of his information from Ling-wai-tai-ta, 3,4», only adding the
Persian names of the oak, Mut, (p'u-ltt) and shdh-lalut or royal oak, m^Chinese sha-mo-lu. Wu-
sM-tsi, mo-sM-m, mo-tso and ma-ch'a, all represent the Persian »!«««, the word for oak-galls.