Gu (poison) - Gu Techniques

Gu Techniques

According to ancient gu traditions, explain Joseph Needham and Wang Ling (1956:136), "the poison was prepared by placing many toxic insects in a closed vessel and allowing them to remain there until one had eaten all the rest – the toxin was then extracted from the survivor." They note, "It is strange to think that this same method has been successfully employed in our own times for the isolation of strains of soil bacteria capable of attacking the tuberculosis bacillus".

Feng and Shryock (1935:1) describe contemporary practices of gu.

At present, ku is used primarily as a means of acquiring wealth; secondarily as a means of revenge. The method is to place poisonous snakes and insects together in a vessel until there is but one survivor, which is called the ku. The poison secured from this ku is administered to the victim, who becomes sick and dies. The ideas associated with ku vary, but the ku is generally regarded as a spirit, which secures the wealth of the victim for the sorcerer.

Eberhard (1968:152) summarizes gu practices.

The essence of ku, then, was the magic charm that could be prepared out of the surviving animal in the pot. It could be used as a love charm with the object of forcing the loved male to come back to the woman. The ku could be used also as an evil magic with the object of obtaining subservient spirits. This was done by feeding it to unrelated persons who would either spit blood or whose stomachs would swell because of the food they had taken would become alive in their insides, and who would die as a result; similar to the gold-silkworms, their souls had to be servants of the owner of the ku.

The 4th-century Soushenji (cf. 2.4, tr. Feng and Shryock 1935:7) records that gu breeding was a profitable but dangerous profession in the Honan region.

In the province of Yung-yang, there was a family by the name of Liao. For several generations they manufactured ku, becoming rich from it. Later one of the family married, but they kept the secret from the bride. On one occasion, everyone went out except the bride, who was left in charge of the house. Suddenly she noticed a large cauldron in the house, and on opening it, perceived a big snake inside. She poured boiling water into the cauldron and killed the snake. When the rest of the family returned she told them what she had done, to their great alarm. Not long after, the entire family died of the plague.

Feng and Shryock (1935:11-12) describe how 20th-century Zhuang women in Guangxi elaborately produced gu during the Duanwu Festival (see jincan above).

Ku poison is not found generally among the people (i.e., the Chinese), but is used by the T'ung women. It is said that on the fifth day of the fifth month, they go to a mountain stream and spread new clothes and headgear on the ground, with a bowl of water beside them. The women dance and sing naked, inviting a visit from the King of Medicine (a tutelary spirit). They wait until snakes, lizards, and poisonous insects come to bathe in the bowl. They pour the water out in a shadowy, dark place. Then they gather the fungus which grows there, which they make into a paste. They put this into goose-feather tubes and hide them in their hair. The heat of their bodies causes worms to generate, which resemble newly-hatched silk-worms. Thus ku is produced. It is often concealed in a warm, dark place in the kitchen. The newly made ku is not yet poisonous. It is used as a love potion, administered in food and drink and called "love-medicine." Gradually the ku becomes poisonous. As the poison develops, the woman's body itches until she has poisoned someone. If there is no other opportunity, she will poison even her husband or her sons. But she possesses antidotes. It is believed that those who produce ku themselves become ku after death. The ghosts of those who have died from the poison become their servants.