Notes III

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Old Medicine and New Therapies:

 

Yellow Leader*

 

 

'While we were at Hulan, an incident occured which

proved how close we were to barbarism. A few weeks

before, a party of twelve men went into the hills to

dig a medicinal root called huang-chi. While so

employed, they were attacked by a party of wild

Solons, who killed them all except three and took away

all of their property. The three survivors owed their

escape to being absent from the camp at the same time.

They heard the firing, and, advancing cautiously

behind the

brushwood, were witnesses of the massacre of their

companions, so they turned and fled for their lives. "

 

This excerpt from The Long White Mountain, by H.E.M.

James, tells of life on the Manchurian frontier of

1885-1887. Making its way to markets elsewhere,

pack-mules crossed the rugged terrain loaded with such

things as deer horns, seaweed, and ginseng. Huang-chi

was also revered as a medicinal plant, and, as we

shall see, for substantial reasons. Yet as marvelous

as ginseng or huang chi were as medicines, they could

also cause untold hardship and suffering. In his

treatise on ginseng, Hsu Ta-Chun (1693-1771) explains

that even though ginseng was remarkable in restoring

vigor to the human, he had seen the cost of it rise

ten-fold in just a few generations, making paupers of

those who sought it as well as engendering treachery,

thievery and other debaucheries (Forgotten Traditions

of Ancient ,' trans. by Paul U.

Unschuld, Brookline, Mass., Paradigm Publications,

1990).

 

Huang-chi was first recorded in the Shen nung pen tsao

ching as a superior herb. According to the Pen tsao

kang mu, chi means 'leader,' huang means 'yellow.' It

is one of the most important tonic herbs and that is

why it was given this name. It is the dried rhizome of

the following members of the Leguminosae family:

Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bunge, A. mongholicus

Bunge, A. adsurgens Pallas subsp. fujiensis Kitagawa,

and Hedysarum polybotrys Hand.-Mazz. It supplements

ch'i, increases yang, consolidates surface, controls

diaphoresis, delivers water, disperses swelling,

discharges pus('Oriental Materia Medica: A Concise

Guide,' by Hong-yen Hsu, Keats Publishing, Inc., New

Canaan, Connecticut, Oriental Healing Arts Institute,

Long Beach, California, 1986, pp. 521-3). It is an

important ch'i tonic, and was one of the four

Traditional Chinese medicines used in the

seroconversion of HIV/AIDS ('A Report of 8 Sero-

converted HIV/AIDS Patients with Traditional Chinese

Medicine,' Chinese Medical Journal, Aug., 1995,

108(8): pp. 634-46). In this report, four males, four

females, average age 26.5 years, serocnverted to

completely immunosilent as detected by PCR(polymerase

chain reaction)tests. In another report by the same

team,

....'After medication for 87-463 days, seronegative

conversion occured, PCR assay revealed that 5 cases

were PCR(+), 2 of them (-), one turned seropositive

again in the early stage. Observed continuously for

11-49 months, the 'serum negative and intranuclear

positive' state maintained.

 

These patients belonged to immunosilent HIV-infection.

The immunological function of all seronegative

converted were good. CONCLUSIONS: AIDS is a reversible

disease. Using medicinal herbs to enhance the immune

function will facilitate the appearance of

seronegative conversion, which has not been reported

before. If it could be further confirmed, its

mechanism elucidated, this may greatly strengthen the

confidence of the patients. " ( " A Report of 8

Seronegative converted HIV/AIDS Patients with

Traditional , " Chung Kuo Chung Hsi I

Chieh Ho Tsa Chih, no date given)

 

Plants Mentioned in the recently discovered Manchu

epic tale, Wubuxiben Mama:

 

There are two plants mentioned in the epic Wubuxiben

Mama, the first being Meihua:

 

'Wumulin Bila is a jade belt of Heaven Maiden,

It spreads to the white clouds and red sunset at the

edge of the sky. Tents of sable are like thousands of

Meihua flowers on the river's banks. Tents of deer are

like hundreds of silver flowers scattered in the

forest.'

(Tatjiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary, 'On the

Discovery of a Manchu Epic,' Central Asiatic Journal,

1994, 38(1), pp.58-70)

 

There are at least two possibilities for the positive

identification of Meihua. One is that it is Prunus

mume. The other is La-mei hwa. As Wilson states...'The

Mei hwa (Prunus mume), owing to the beauty and perfume

of its flowers, which are produced in winter when few

plants are in blossom, is very highly prized and

regarded as a flower of refinement. Around Peking the

same vernacuular name and attributes are attached to

P. triloba and its double-flowered form. The

Winter-sweet, La-mei hwa (Meratia praecox =

Chimonanthus praecox), is similarly esteemed (Ernest

H. Wilson, 'China: Mother of Gardens,' New York,

Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1971, p. 323). However,

Chimonanthus praecox only occurs naturally as far

north as extreme southern Korea (See China Provincial

distribution maps, Missouri Botanical Gardens [www]).

 

'qiqicao'

 

Also mentioned in the Wubuxiben Mama is qiqicao. 'In

conclusion, we should like to add a brief 'coda' to

our article by including a linguistic note that deals

with the word hasuri ~ hasure, very often found at the

beginning of many Manchu shaman invocations:

hasuri hala, tere hala....this term, which in the past

has been considered as a reference to the clan of the

same name or interpreted as the 'mother-clan' finds

quite another meaning for Fu Yuguang. In a personal

communication he has said that 'hasuri' is nothing

other than the local name for a grass that grows,

luxuriant and thick, in central-north Manchuria and

whose Chinese name is qiqicao. Thus, a clan which

refers to itself as 'hasuri' is referring quite simply

to how numerous its members are. So, this term can

well be translated as [our] numerous clan.'

 

It is highly probable that 'qiqicao' is none other

than 'Kiao Grass,'or 'Kiao shoots,' Manchurian Wild

Rice (Zizania latifolia). It is interesting to note

that Kiao shoots were used as food in Manchuria, and a

parallel use is also found among the Lakhota of North

America. An important staple, in the modern Lakhota

language, wild rice = 'Psin,' and tame rice =

psinska.' The word 'psin-cin-ca,' is a bulbous

esculent root much used by the Dakotas of the lower

Minnesota. It is about as large as a hen's egg, and

grows on the margins of rivers and lakes. Also of note

is the phrase 'psin ati,' 'to pitch a tent at the

rice.' ('A Dakota-English Dictionary,' Stephen Return

Riggs, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul,

1992, pp. 425-6)(See The World's Grasses, J.W.Bews,

Longmans, Green & Co., London, New York, and Toronto,

1929, p. 222).

 

(*Originally published in the Manchu Studies Journal,

Saksaha[Magpie]as 'Notes on Manchu Ethnobotany.')

 

 

 

 

 

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