360 Sino-Iranica 



pie $wo about a.d. 1090, says, " A-wei is classed among trees. People 

 of Kian-su and Ce-kian have now planted it. The odor of the branches 

 and leaves is the same, but they are tasteless and yield no sap." The 

 above K'un-lun refers to the K'un-lun of the Southern Sea; 1 and Li 

 Si-cen comments that "this tree grows in Sumatra and Siam, and that 

 it is not very high. The natives take a bamboo tube and stick it into 

 the tree; the tube gradually becomes filled with the sap of the tree, and 

 during the winter months they smash the tube and obtain the sap." 

 Then he goes on to tell the curious tale of the sheep, in the same manner 

 as Cao Zu-kwa. 2 



Cao Zu-kwa's notice that the resin is gathered and packed in skin 

 bags is correct; for Garcia da Orta 3 reports that the gum, obtained 

 by making cuts in the tree, is kept in bullock's hides, first anointed with 

 blood, and then mixed with wheat flour. It is more difficult to account 

 for the tradition given by the Chinese author, that, in order to neutralize 

 the poison of the plant, a sheep is tied to the base of the tree and shot 

 with arrows, whereupon the poison filters into the sheep that is doomed 

 to death, and its carcass forms the asafcetida. This bit of folk-lore was 

 certainly transmitted by Indian, Persian, or Arabic navigators, but any 

 corresponding Western tradition has not yet been traced. Hobeich 

 Ibn el-Hacen, quoted by Ibn al-Baitar, 4 insists on the poisonous action 

 of the plant, and says that the harvests succeed in Sind only when asa 

 is packed in a cloth and suspended at the mouth of water-courses, where 

 the odor spread by the harvest will kill water-dogs and worms. Here 

 we likewise meet the notion that the poisonous properties of the plant 

 are capable of killing animals, and the sheep of the Chinese tradition 

 is obviously suggested by the simile of white sheep-fat and the white 

 vegetable fat of asa. In reality, sheep and goats are fond of the plant 

 and fatten on it. 5 The asa ascribed to the country Ts'en-t'an in the Sun 

 & 6 was surely an imported article. \ 



1 Not to the K'un-lun mountains, as assumed by Stuart (Chinese Materia 

 Medica, p. 173). 



2 Needless to say, this Malayan asafoetida can have been but a substitute; but 

 to what plant it refers, I am unable to say. The Tun si yah k'ao (Ch. 2, p. 18; 3, 

 p. 6 b), published in 1618, mentions a-wei as product of Siam and Java. T'an Ts'ui 

 U 2^, in his Tien hai yu hen U, written in 1799 (Ch. 3, p. 4, ed. of Wen yih lou yu 

 ti ts'uh Su), states that the a-wei of Yun-nan is produced in Siam, being imported 

 from Siam to Burma and brought from Burma up the Kin-sa kian. 



3 C. Markham, Colloquies, p. 47. 



4 Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, p. 447. 



5 E. Kaempfer, Amoenitates exoticae, p. 540; C. Joret, Plantes dans l'antiquite\ 

 Vol. II, p. 100. 



6 Ch. 490; cf. Hirth, Chao Ju-kua, p. 127. I am not convinced that Ts'eh-t'an 

 is identical with Ts'eh-pa or Zanguebar. 



