Species

The gibbon type of simian was widespread in Central and Southern China, until at least the Song Dynasty; later deforestation and other habitat reduction severely curtailed their range. The macaque has the greatest range of any primate other than humans. Scientifically, humans do fall under the category of simians, and sometimes humans may be the subject of a literary reference to "simians".

Vocabulary

猴, hóu, meaning "monkey, ape; monkey-like; simian".

Various vocabulary terms for simians are encountered in Chinese poetry. Besides a certain pre-modern lack of modern bioscientific taxonomic precision, records of Chinese language usage in references to various simian species show evidence of variability over the ages. The terms for simians used in Tang and Song poetry may vary from the way the same words or characters are defined today. And, the modern vocabulary is often not what is encountered in classical poetry, for example the modern term 長臂猿/chángbìyuán for "gibbon". Modern 猩/xīng is used for orangutans, which were relatively unknown in ancient China.

Chu Ci

One of the earliest collections of Chinese Poetry is the Chu Ci anthology, which contains poems from the Warring States period through the Han Dynasty. It is particularly associated with the Chu region, thus being both more toward the ranges of various simian species than Northern China but also chronologically from a time when certain simians ranged to a greater extent than in later times. The classical tradition of the poet-in-exile originates with the archetypal protagonist Qu Yuan singing sad stanzas of poetry while wandering in the wilderness of Chu, lamenting his fate. The motif of the chorus of monkeys and apes crying in the background to emphasize the poetic mood which appears several times in the Chu Ci was adopted by many other poets over the following ages, and the typical use as a poetic allusion to this theme of exile, loneliness, and under-appreciated virtue and talent developed into one of the major Classical Chinese poetic genres. However, many of the other Chu Ci references are very obscure. Even many of the great deities and other beings prominently mentioned were barely known or no longer remembered at the time of its first publication. Some of the poems date back an unknown number of thousands of years, originated outside of the central cultural area from which later Chinese culture for the most part developed, and in some cases little or nothing is known about them except for what is found about them in the various verses of the Chu Ci collection. In terms of geography, sometimes names have changed and it is unknown what specific geographical feature or area is being referred to by a proper name no longer in use; and, in other cases the proper name is still in use, but may erroneously be thought to still refer to what or where it did in the distant past, as name transfers between locations have occurred often, and sometimes repeatedly for the same name.

"Mountain Spirit"

The Nine Songs verse Mountain Spirit and commentary from the Chu Ci, 1645 annotated and illustrated edition, with the title changed to The Illustrated Li Sao (離騷圖), depicting the Mountain Spirit together with a simian companion.

Mountain Goddesses frequently appear in poetry, in the Classical Chinese tradition many of the best known ones being associated with certain specific well-known mountains. One of the poems of the Nine Songs section of the Chu Ci bearing the title "The Mountain Spirit" ("Shan Gui") describes such a being; but, one known only by means of this poem, although various scholarly research plausibly suggests a relationship with the modernly named Wushan, famous for its cloud and rain, and simian sounds (Hawkes 1985, 115). Wushan (巫山, Wū Shān) is a range of mountains through whose deep gorges the rapids of the Wu River and the Yangzi River flow. Travel between the Sichuan Basin and the rest of what were then the other more populated areas of China was most frequently done by boat trips during which the poets or other passengers experienced the difficulties of navigating dangerous waterways, above which soared the dramatically scenic heights of Wushan, while their ears were impressed by the loud sounds of the indigenous population of gibbons and/or other simians. Wushan is sometimes translated as "Witch Mountain": wu literally means "shaman", and the manifest spirit of its Goddess was commonly believed to persist there, although perhaps not exactly being the Mountain Spirit of the poem. Typical attributes of mountain goddesses include her transportation by riding a chariot pulled by large members of the cat family, as does the Mountain Spirit of the poem—simian accompaniment being one of the more particularly distinctive features of this specific spirit or deity. The poet invokes the sound and image of simians while singing to his muse, in the poem's concluding lines (Hawkes translation, 116):

     The thunder rumbles; rain darkens the sky:

     The monkeys chatter; apes scream in the night:

     The wind soughs sadly and the trees rustle.

     I think of my lady and stand alone in sadness.

From its time of first publication, this particular type of imagery from the Chu Ci would prove be an enduring one in Chinese literature through the ensuing ages.

Wang Wei and the sound of the night gibbon

Buddhist advanced adept Luohan (sometimes transcribed "lohan") with gibbons in background. Painting by Liu Songnian, Southern Song dynasty.

The sounds of gibbons, especially at night are often used to contrast uncontrolled wilderness with ordered, human-civilized areas. Wang Wei refers to this (using the character 猿, [yuán], for "gibbon"), in a poem describing his Lantian (藍田/蓝田, literally, Indigo Field) home to an imperial inspector in charge of royal acquisitions of parks and forests who had traveled out to Lantian, "Composed in reply to Secretary So of the Board of Concern who passed by the villa at Indigo Field but did not stay" (Stimson, 39). This is remarkable for a couple of reasons. For one, this poem deprecates (though in the tradition of polite Chinese humility) the quality of Wang's Lantian estate, describing it in this poem as a "poor dwelling", located so far from civilization that it is characterized by the occasional fire from camping hunters, the occasional fishing boat frozen to the icy shore, sparsely sounding temple bells, and the sounds of gibbons howling in the night (and thus, obviously unsuitable for inclusion into the royal domains): this is in marked contrast to the playful exaggerations of Wang's and Pei Di's lavish descriptions of the same Lantian estate in the Wangchuan ji collection, in which the pair of poets depict Wang's country home as being replete with a royal hunting park for deer, a gold dust spring, and various other fabulous establishments (Wangchuan was a poetic term used for Wang's abode in Lantian). As John C. Ferguson puts it, if Wang Wei's home in Lantian was other than a relatively humble one, "he would have attracted the attention of the rapacious myrmidons of the court, and the place would have been confiscated" (Ferguson, 73). Not that the place was not congenial enough or lacking in sufficient natural beauty for the poet, devout Buddhist, nature lover, and landscape painter Wang Wei, who had in fact erected a Buddhist chapel in memory to his mother there, and certainly had a studio sufficient for his writing and painting needs and comfortable enough dwelling quarters. What Secretary So of the Board of Concern had to say of the matter is not recorded. Wang did continue to possess his retirement home, to read, write, paint, and to receive his invited guests there. The poem reaches its conclusion with the sparse sounds of a local temple bell; and, from somewhere out in the night, the sound of a gibbon.

Another remarkable thing about this poem has to do with the location of Lantian itself. Lantian is quite the same as modern Lantian County, part of Xi'an (then the major metropolis of Chang'an), in Shǎnxī ("Shaanxi") province. Lantian is a bit south of the city, and getting into the Qinling mountain range. This is far to the north of the area in which range gibbons today, but it is evidence that the range of gibbons extended that far north into central China at least through the mid-Tang dynasty.

Li Bai: monkeys all around

Du Fu and the monkeys of the Xiaoxiang

A modern macaque monkey at the Gateway of Kuizhou (Kuimen). Kuizhou was a former political division during Du Fu's time, now more-or-less Chongqing. Kuimen (literally, "Kui gate") refers to the Qutang Gorge of the Yangzi River.

One common image of monkeys in poetry (as well as in painting) is of a chain of monkeys hanging from a tree. Du Fu (712–770) in his 200 line "Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture..." makes explicit reference to this. Du's actual term for the chain-forming monkeys (on line 22) is "獼猴" (míhóu), referring to macaque monkeys (Murck, 172 and 279). Du Fu was originally from northern China, and lived in the metropolis of Chang'an. However, this area was devastated in the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763) and following disturbances. Du Fu ended up dislocated far to the south, in what was then largely an undeveloped area of China. He felt himself essentially in exile, far from home, and in the role of a Xiaoxiang poet; and, he certainly was wandering about in the geographic area of Xiaoxiang, an area associated with the poetry of exile (Murck, 23–24). Du wrote his poem at one of his stops along the way in this area: Kui Prefecture was located in what is now Chongqing, in the Yangzi River basin. Many of the Chinese poems from the Tang and Song dynasty emphasize the presence of simian beings, in part, like Du Fu in "Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture", to emphasize the exotic and uncivilized nature which they perceived and associated with the Xiaoxiang area, including the local incomprehensible languages, unfamiliar Chinese dialects, and rural subsistence culture.

Hanging chains of monkeys in imagery

Du Fu uses the image of a hanging chain of monkeys in his poetry, but the image often appears in pictorial art. Painted or brushed in ink, the image of a hanging chain of monkeys linked together by use of their tails typically involves the monkeys (or other simians) hanging over a body of water, often at night, and often by the light of the full moon, shown reflected in the water below. Although encountered in Buddhist-influenced Chinese imagery, this motif is more often encountered in Japanese sources.

Gibbon blood (red)

During the Tang dynasty, "Gibbons blood red" was a term used for certain vivid red dye colorings. Several Tang poets used the term in poetic imagery, including a couple of poems by Zhang Ji of Jiangnan (See, Schafer, 208–210, 234, and note 12 page 328). The use of this imagery imparted an exotic dimension to the poetry in which it appeared, since it implied the importation of dyed textiles of rare and mysterious color from distant lands the fantastic qualities of which could only be imagined, including the dye source for the spectacular red color of unknown origin.