more Chinese-to-English translation fail(ure)

[Joel S. Berson]

Fascinating, Randy.  And the Manchus seem to have been as fearful of
smallpox as the American colonials (whom I've read about), as well as
the British and continentals (whom I haven't) of the same period.

Joel

At 8/19/2009 01:50 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>Continuing on, off topic:
>
>On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Douglas G. Wilson<douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> >>> (1) Why is smallpox called "sky-flower" or so?
> > As for smallpox, I found this --
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/lm5c43
> >
> > -- apparently an excerpt  from an early-modern-Chinese-medicine text
> > from 1830 with commentary (text on p. 177, footnotes on p. 181). The
> > name "tian-hua" for smallpox is said to refer to the lesions like "red
> > flowers" as one might expect. As for the "tian", note "tian-xing", here
> > glossed "heaven current" and equated to "epidemic", I guess based on a
> > belief that such diseases appear secondary to some disturbance in the
> > sky or heaven (or maybe depending on the season, i.e. the positions of
> > the stars?). Conceivably this is the source of the "tian"? [Quick
> > Web-Google shows this "tian-xing" today mostly in the name of contagious
> > conjunctivitis.]
>
>As I was looking for something in some Manchu-related materials I
>serendipitously found the answer to this question.
>
>---
>Journal of the History of Medicine: Vol. 57, April 2002, p177-197
>Chia-feng Chang, Disease and Its Impact on Politics, Diplomacy, and
>the Military: The Case of Smallpox and the Manchus (1613-1795)
>p183:
>The Manchus were so afraid of smallpox that they used only auspicious
>words when referring to smallpox patients. They adopted terms such as
>_tianhua zhixi_ the auspicious heavenly flower) or _xidou_ (auspicious
>smallpox) to describe smallpox sufferers in the hope of avoiding bad
>luck. When the Shunzhi Emperor contracted small pox in 1661, any words
>pronounced like _dou_ (smallpox), such as bean (_dou_), were strictly
>prohibited; nor were frying beans or lighting
>candles allowed, because the flames of candles were shaped like beans.
>---
>p185:
>The idea that the Manchus considered smallpox a life-threatening force
>that could also mature the body was embodied in their worship of the
>smallpox goddess. The Manchus begged the _Zisun Niangniang_ (Offspring
>Goddess) for the protection of smallpox patients.... According to a
>folk collection about the Manchu legend of Nishan Shaman during the
>Ming dynasty, _Zisun Niangniang_ was surrounded by a number of women
>who were busy carrying or holding children and doing other things
>connected with child care. _Zisun Niangniang_ was also named..._Omosi
>Mama_. ..._Omosi_ means descendants, and _Omosi Mama_ therefore was
>regarded as symbolic of fertility. ...the Manchu deemed smallpox as a
>potentially fatal affliction but also as a turning point of life. Once
>they safely passed through the point, they were no longer bothered by
>smallpox and reached their maturity.
>
>(If anyone wants a PDF of this paper, email me.  It's 153k.)
>
>All of the words discussed here are Chinese words, which of course the
>Manchus used, but looking at the Manchu words is interesting as well.
>
>Via www.enenggi.com (Online Manchu-English dictionary)
>[x sounds like sh, everything else is more or less like you might guess]
>- erxembi  - 1. to serve, to wait on, to attend 2. to take care of
>(children) 3. to get smallpox
>- mama erxembi - for pocks to appear, to get smallpox
>- sure - 1. wise, intelligent 2. prajna, wisdom (Buddhism) 3.
>chilled (of fruit)
>- sure mama - the goddess of smallpox
>- surgi - a smallpox pustule
>
>"Mama" is the second element in many Manchu goddesses' appellations.
>Here we can see the Manchu phrase meaning "to get smallpox" also means
>"the goddess takes care of you".
>
>Some other important points: 1) "surgi" is not a Chinese import word.
>2) There is another Chinese word for pox (which until smallpox was
>eradicated I would guess usually referred to smallpox), dou4.
>Assuming this word was already around, this gives more credence to the
>idea that the Manchus invented the word tian1hua1 (pertaining to
>smallpox pustules, not ceilings). 3) "sure" means "wise" -- the
>Manchus certainly had a heck of a lot of respect for (or fear of)
>smallpox to name their goddess of smallpox "wise goddess", and even to
>have a goddess of smallpox in the first place.
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>My Manchu studies blog:
>http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
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