Abstract
Texts from pre-imperial and early imperial China are replete with dietary information, regimens for nourishing the body and instructions on how not to soil its inner purity. Sources have far less to say about the body’s effluvia and the waste and muck that is shed and excreted by human and non-human animals. This article studies references to excreta and excretion in early China. It shows how human and animal faeces as well as the locus of excretion connoted both negative and positive spheres. Excreta were deemed noxious yet also beneficial, they were to be discarded yet also reused. Latrines were liminal zones, operating at the intersection of social propriety and physical and moral rejection. The process of excretion made the body vulnerable to external influences such as demonic illness, yet faecal matter of itself also had medicinal healing powers. In agriculture, matter exuded was matter used to fecundate and fertilize crops. The waste and human nightsoil that accumulated in the concealed domestic space of the latrine and pigpen ended up as sought-after produce infusing life into seeds, fields, and public productivity. By bringing together evidence across a range of textual and material sources – from latrines, to pigs, to a line in the Laozi 老子 and its commentaries – this article traces excretory experience and matter through its cycle from defecation to regeneration.
1 Introduction
In 1992, during excavations at the site of Xuanquanzhi 懸泉置, a relay post near Dunhuang 敦煌 at the intersection between the Han empire and the far western regions, archaeologists uncovered a privy. Located in the northern quarter of the site, its receptacle contained some two-hundred wooden strips dated to the Eastern Han (first – second centuries ce).1 These were hygiene sticks made of wood and bamboo, some wrapped in cloth or cotton wool. They functioned as proto-toilet paper. Among them seven sticks had remnants of human faeces (Fig. 1).2 Similar strips were found at other sites in the region, including Maquanwan 馬圈灣, the site of a beacon fire tower and military station during the end of the reign of Han Xuandi 漢宣帝 (ca. 65–50 bce).3 That passing travellers or soldiers garrisoned at the north-western edge of the Han empire availed themselves of bamboo or wooden slats (cechou 廁籌 or cejian 廁簡) for a wipe after relieving themselves may seem a trivial addition to our knowledge of early Chinese sanitary habits. No mention is made of the practice in pre-Han transmitted texts, and it is tempting to think the custom came from elsewhere. The use of slats as wipes was known in India and may have become more widespread during the early medieval period as the Buddhist vinaya gradually entered China. For an unambiguous textual reference, we must wait for the Tang period Fayuan zhulin 法苑珠林 (Forest of Pearls in the Dharma Garden, completed in 668).4
Personal hygiene sticks with faecal remains, excavated from a latrine at Xuanquanzhi.
Citation: East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 55, 1-2 (2023) ; 10.1163/26669323-bja10005
courtesy of ivy hui-yuan yeh (nanyang technological university)A find of wooden debris in a latrine near Dunhuang however also gives pause for reflection. Texts from pre-imperial and early imperial China are replete with instructions on how to cultivate the body and preserve its vital energies through diet and abstentions. They are generous with advice on how not to soil its inner purity and balance. But sources have far less to say about the body’s effluvia and what happens to the waste, filth, dirt and muck human and non-human animals shed and excrete, or how to handle both the process and the product it leaves behind. The olfactory, tactile, and visual repugnance of what we excrete rarely invites comment.5 Miniature terracotta models of latrines found in tombs (so-called mingqi 明器) belong to the visual repertoire of the time, but scenes depicting the place where people relieved themselves or of humans and animals excreting are less common. Han murals depict banquets and feasts, and the kitchens that supply them, but not what happens to the physical needs of host and guests in between courses.
What happened to bodily matter out of place in a society where knowing one’s place mattered so much? This essay brings together some of the evidence. In what follows I show how the biophysical and symbolic power and utility of stercory matter in early China hinged on its dichotomous nature: faeces and the locus of excretion connoted both negative and positive spheres. Excreta were deemed noxious yet also beneficial, they were to be renounced yet also reused. Along its way, the cycle from defecation to regeneration was subject to material, ethical and religious challenges and taboos. During the process of excretion, the body was vulnerable to external influences such as demonic illness, yet faecal matter of itself also had a healing power as medicine. Matter exuded served as matter absorbed to fecundate. What accumulated in the concealed domestic space of the latrine and pigpen ended up as sought-after matter infusing life into seeds, fields, and public productivity.
2 Latrines
In the sixth month, on the bingwu day, the Marquis of Jin wanted to taste the new grain. He had the official in charge of sacrificial grains present it and the cook prepare it. He summoned the shaman of Sangtian, showed him the new grain, and had him killed. When he was about to eat, he became bloated (zhang 張=脹), went to the privy (ru ce 如厠), fell in, and died. A eunuch had dreamed in the morning of ascending to heaven with the lord on his back. By midday, he was carrying the Marquis of Jin out of the privy. And then he was killed to attend his lord after death.
六月丙午，晉侯欲麥，使甸人獻麥，饋人為之，召桑田巫，示而殺之，將食，張，如厠，陷而卒. 小臣有晨夢負公以登天，及日中，負晉侯出諸厠，遂以為殉。6
On the outer side of the road [on a wall] build a screening wall. Every 30 bu (ca. 41.4 m), create a surrounding wall structure [for a latrine] one zhang (2.31 m) high. Construct hun latrines for the people with walls of 12 chi (ca. 2.7 m) or higher.
於道之外為屏，三十步而為之圜，高丈。為民圂，垣高十二尺以上.8
Elsewhere, the Mozi notes that on top of defensive walls ce toilets should be built at intervals of 50 bu (69 m) with hun 圂 “pigsty-privies” below the wall (presumably to gather the excreta). Those entering a latrine should not be carrying anything.9 One apocryphal story featuring Liu An 劉安 (?179–122 bce) possibly refers to urban public toilets. After his death by suicide, Liu An allegedly rose up to the realm of the immortals with his entire household including his animals, and then was ordered by the afterworld authorities to tend to the capital’s toilets (duce 都廁) for three years.10
Ce is one among several terms for a privy or latrine. Hun 溷/圂 (oc *hwonH) denotes a pigsty-privy. The graph is explained in the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 as an associative compound (huiyi 會意) depicting a pig in an enclosure (象豕在口中).11 Replica earthenware toilets of pigsty-privies are common funerary objects in tombs of the late Western and Eastern Han period.12 More on these later. Another term for privy, yan 偃 (oc *’jonX) “the recliner”, appears in an analogy in the Zhuangzi 莊子: “When we inspect a house, we go around its sleeping quarters and ancestral shrines, but we also pay a visit to its toilet, all of which are mutable referents to the house as a whole.” Guo Xiang 郭象 (d. 312) glosses yan as pingce 屏廁 “screened-off, concealed toilet.”13 The Zhouli 周禮 uses the term jingyan 井匽 in its entry on the palace attendant (gong ren 宫人) who looks after the sleeping quarters of the king: he “maintains the (well and) latrine, removes what is unclean, and gets rid of its unpleasant odours” (為其井匽，除其不蠲，去其惡臭).14 Commentators have glossed jing yan 井匽 as a variant for 屏匽. Yet 井 could equally refer to the impluvium through which water is gathered in a household well. This would locate the privy close to the well.
Ce means “diverse”. This is to say that people have different (types) of latrines on top (on the floor above the pen?), it is not the case that they are of one and the same type.16 Some are called hun, which is to say that they are muddy and soiled; some are called qing, meaning that these are places where filth is gathered [or: places that are utterly filthy]. It is appropriate to maintain and service them regularly so that they are dirt-free and clean. Some [latrines] are called xuan “roofed”; at the front there is a railing to crouch/hold on to; they resemble a palace carriage/canopy.
廁，雜也。言人雜廁在上，非一也。或曰溷，言溷濁也。或曰圊，言至穢之處，宜常修治，使潔清也。或曰軒，前有伏，似殿軒也。17
Furthermore, it is universally the case that, among the things that humans loathe, nothing is worse than putrescence and stench; putrid and malodorous qi harms and damages the human heart. Therefore, when the nose smells stench, and the mouth eats something rotten, the heart will be impaired and the mouth will be put-off, and soon discomfort will set in and people start spitting and vomiting. Privies can be said to be malodorous; and the meat of fermented fish can be said to have a rotten stench, yet people willingly put up with privies, and do not consider them no-go areas, and for many rotten fish is a delicacy which they do not regard as a taboo. What the mind does not preserve is considered disgusting, and thus one does not take into account its good or bad qualities.
且凡人所惡，莫有腐臰。腐臰之氣，敗傷人心，故鼻聞臰，口食腐，心損口惡，霍亂嘔吐。夫更衣之室，可謂臰矣；鮑魚之肉，可謂腐矣。然而有甘之更衣之室，不以為忌；肴食腐魚之肉，不以為諱。意不存以為惡，故不計其可與不也。19
What little information on the privy that is preserved in early textual sources comes in the form of incidents and anecdotes set, mostly, among high society. The latrine forms the backdrop for some notable encounters, including an alleged romantic rendez-vous between Han Wudi 漢武帝 (r. 141–87 bce) and his consort lady Wei Zifu 衞子夫 during an imperial tour.20 In another episode Han Wudi receives general Wei Qing 衛青 in audience while squatting over a toilet.21 Although evidence is too patchy to reconfigure a general “faecal habitus” among elites,22 it is likely they had servants waiting upon them while emptying their bowels.
A rare image of a latrine in a mural from Yinan 沂南 (Eastern Han) shows a railed privy on a platform and sanitary utensils used to service it: a water container, a urinal jar and a servant who cleans up using a wooden board or spatula (Fig. 2).23 These sanitary implements, known as xie qi 亵器, are first mentioned in the Zhouli, where they are the responsibility of the yu fu 玉府 “storekeeper of treasures”, an official in charge of valeting the king’s clothing cabinet and sleeping quarters.24 Squatting over an opening seems to have been the most common physical posture.25 Squat toilets are preserved in Chu tombs in the Xuzhou 徐州 area, some of which had separate bathrooms and latrine compartments.26 Evidence also suggests that wooden proto-toilet seats may have been used.27
Privy and servant, Yinan, Shandong.
Citation: East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 55, 1-2 (2023) ; 10.1163/26669323-bja10005
Among the so-called qing qi 清器 “sanitary tools” (a variant term used by Zheng Sinong 鄭司農 in his Zhouli commentary), urinating jars have a tale to tell. Chunqiu period animal-shaped jars used for urinating have been preserved (archaeologists sometimes refer to these as shouzi 獸子 but there is no textual basis for the term).28 In Han times these jars were known as huzi 虎子 “tiger-urinals” (they are first mentioned by Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 in his Zhouli commentary). Duan Yucai’s 段玉裁 (1735–1815) Shuowen jiezi commentary notes: “A tiger jar is used to empty one’s bladder, a xingqing ‘clean-sweep’ is used when emptying one’s bowels” (虎子所以小便也, 行清所以大便).29 An apocryphal story traces the origin of the tiger jar back to the famous Han general Li Guang 李廣 (d. 119 bce), who, during a mountain hunt, allegedly shot a tiger with one arrow, sliced off its head and used its body as a pillow. To display his might and disdain for the tiger he had a bronze pot cast imitating the shape of a headless tiger.30 According to the same source, the Han court had luxury versions of the huzi made from jade, carried along by a servant whenever the emperor travelled.31 The term remained current until the Tang (618–907) when it became tabooed (the Tang founder’s ancestor, posthumously honoured as Emperor Jing 景, d. 551, was named Li Hu 李虎).32
3 Pig, Pens, and Privies
Model toilets (mingqi) are common in the Han archaeological record. They have been recovered from tombs across Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Hebei, Guizhou and even further afield.33 Some models show separate cabinets, perhaps for ladies and gents, or master and servants.34 Many models show a privy annexed to a pigsty. Archaeologically they appear to be a phenomenon starting in the late Western Han with most samples dating to the Eastern Han. Some models show a pen and privy linked-up at ground level, others are designed over two floors with the lavatory upstairs and the pig pen underneath. Some pens are large enough to hold up to four or five pigs. Pigsty-privy models have been found both in elite tombs and tombs of lower status,35 and continue to appear in tombs of (migrated Han) elites during the early Six Dynasties period, mostly in the middle and lower Yangzi region.36 Why were such models taken into a tomb, along with miniature granaries, millstones, animal pens, and wells? Were they simply part of the post-mortem household furniture, did they serve as representative objects of the deceased’s estate, or both? Armin Selbitschka has argued that burial figurines and models were not merely furnishings used to transform a tomb into a fortuitous afterlife dwelling but, instead, recreations of the deceased’s estate.37 Privy models would then represent one among many other domestic utility-mingqi.
Possibly the oldest mention in texts of a pigsty-privy occurs in the Guoyu 國語 which records that King Wen’s 文 mother, Tai Ren 大任, gave birth to the future king while passing water in the pig pen (少溲于豕牢). Both Jia Kui 賈逵 (30–101 ce) and Wei Zhao 韋昭 (201–273) gloss shi lao 豕牢 as 厠 (Wei Zhao glosses sou 溲 as bian 便).38 Pigsty-privies within residential compounds tended to be located at the back of the compound on the northern, yin-side of a dwelling.39 A Qin-period daybook (ri shu 日書) recovered from Shuihudi 睡虎地 (Yunmeng county, Hubei) notes that locating a hun 圂 privy to the north-west is beneficial for the pigs, but not for humans. The north is said to be most auspicious. Ping 屏 latrines ought to be located behind rather than in front of a building.40 A Han farming village excavated at Sanyuanzhuang 三元庄 (Henan, dated 140 bce–23 ce; excavated in 2003) includes several examples of (roofed) brick latrines located north of a courtyard compound.41 While difficult to generalize or test historically, we must assume that, as much as being inspired by geomancy (or hemerology), an important factor behind the choice of location of the latrine must have been the desire to prevent the stench from being blown into the living quarters.
The function of interlinked pig-pen privies has invited speculation. The most obvious hypothesis is that they were designed to produce, gather up and accumulate manure. The inference is that pigs were raised to produce manure.42 Alongside miniature granaries that contain the seeds for new life and a continuous harvest, privy models, as receptacles of life-giving fertiliser, may therefore have been part of a symbolic repertoire of objects and images that imparted a desire for perpetuity and continuous regeneration in the afterlife.43 Another theory, first put forward by Japanese scholars in the 1920s and adopted by the great historian of agriculture Amano Motonosuke 天野元之助 (1901–1980), held that these privies were designed to have pigs feed on human night soil among other domestic waste.44 There are both single- and double-floor models showing humanure dropping into the pen, and models with an inside railing or lower wall structure to contain droppings from the privy. Pigs would then feed on excreta as they would from a trough.45 In other examples, we see pigs simply roaming around in the pen.
Evidence suggesting that human excrements were routinely fed to pigs comes mostly from these figurines. Yet the feeding of human excreta and kitchen waste to pigs was not free from controversy. Some, albeit mostly later, sources corroborate that human waste was fed to animals, dogs and pigs in particular. The Liji 禮記 notes that animals raised in or near a privy were not favourite foodstuffs: “A gentleman does not eat the belly fat of a pen-fed pig” (junzi bu shi hunyu 君子不食圂腴). Hun 圂 here is often taken by commentators as a variant for huan 豢 “feeding”, both graphs having a distinct link with the pig. Zheng Xuan comments that hun includes pigs and dogs and adds that “some belly fat resembles human faeces” (yu you si renhui 腴有似人穢). Later commentators explain that the taboo in question concerns the eating of intestines.46 Either way, there is a suggestion of impurity or pollution here.47 Terms such as hui 穢 “filth, weed, faeces” and pigsty-related hun 溷 “foul, muddy” belong to an extensive vocabulary denoting forms of pollution in Warring States and Han texts.48
Wang Chong attempts to debunk a belief that humans who eat or drink soiled food will enrage Heaven and be struck down by lightening as a consequence. By contrast dogs and pigs who feed on waste (fu chou 腐臭) do not incur such wrath.49 It is not clear whether Wang refers to rotten food waste or human excrement (or both), but later sources confirm a belief that consuming excrement or drinking urine invites punishment in the form of lightening. The Taiping jing 太平經 states that humans who eat human faeces and drink urine rank beneath dogs and pigs (犬豬之精所下). There is evidence of similar ideas surviving into the Tang.50 Stories collated in later encyclopaedias also corroborate that pigs were fed human excrements. One tale, attributed to the (lost) Fuzi 符子 (Jin period?) but preserved in later collectanea, mentions a gift of a large pig to King Zhao 昭 of Yan 燕 (?–279 bce). This giant hog – a “swine immortal” (shi xian 豕仙) transformed from a human – was gifted with the instruction: “unless you have a large cesspit, it won’t keep in it; unless you feed it human excreta, it won’t value it” (非大圊不居，非人便不珍).51 While, as we will see below, excrement was also thought to contain medicinal powers, it is unclear whether those properties were a factor in using human nightsoil as pig feed.
4 A Liminal Space
Spatially, and mentally, the latrine was a transit zone between organized society and the ritually ordered household on the one hand, and forces that could threaten such stability on the other. As a liminal zone, the privy is fraught with danger, taboo, pollution and, in some cases, death. The architecture of the pigsty-privy provided an escape route out of a residential compound when danger lurked. Like pretending to be drunk, feigning illness, or staying away from a banquet, “going to the privy” (ru ce 入廁) could be a strategy to get out of a perilous situation. Liu Bang 劉邦 famously got up to go to the toilet during the banquet at Hongmen 鴻門 (in 206 bce) without parting officially from Xiang Yu 項羽 who stood ready to have him and his followers murdered on the spot.52 From the latrine above a pig pen one could access, climb over, or jump off the encircling wall, or, less clinically, sneak out through the sewage hole that connected the upstairs latrine to the pig pen, or the pig pen to the outside, or both to the outside. The so-called ce dou 廁竇 “latrine hole, cavity”, according to a commentary in Shiji by Xu Guang 徐廣 (352–425), was a hole through which dirty refuse was drained away (xiechu hui’e zhi xue 瀉除穢惡之穴)(Fig. 3).53 In Eastern Han mingqi it shows as a keyhole-shaped opening (round or oval at the top, square or triangular underneath) located at the bottom of the privy and/or pigpen.
“Latrine/pen holes”; Guangzhou, tomb 4007, Eastern Han.
Citation: East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 55, 1-2 (2023) ; 10.1163/26669323-bja10005
line drawing by john donegan-cross following zhao and lu 2018, 79Hai [12th Earthly Branch] is the Pig. Those who steal have a big nose and are slender, they have a horse [i.e. long] spine, and their face is not complete. They have a discoloured spot/ blemish on their waist. They hide in the pig pen beneath the wall. You can catch them early in the morning but not at sunset. The names [used by the thief] are tun gu xia gu … hai.
亥，豕也。盗者大鼻而票（剽）行（胻），馬脊，其面不全，疵在〈要〉。臧（藏）于圂中垣下，夙得莫（暮）不得。●名豚孤夏穀□亥.55
Similar descriptions occur in parallel texts from Fangmatan 放馬灘 (tomb 1; Tianshui, Gansu) and Kongjiapo 孔家坡 (tomb 8; Suizhou, Hubei) where pig-day robbers hide among the excreta in the pigpen, red-eyed with long hair and a large nose.56 Daybooks also identify avoidance days (hun ji ri 圂忌日) and good days for building a pigsty privy (pinghun liang ri 屏圂良日).57 Stories of folk entering or escaping from a residential compound via the dirt hole figure alongside other narratives where piercing or scaling walls is dismissed as untoward conduct. Mencius, most notably, disapproves of young people “boring holes” or scaling walls to meet each other clandestinely: “To go forward in a manner not following the Way belongs to the category of ‘boring holes’ (zuan xue xi 鑽穴隙).”58
The emperor signalled to Zhi Du 郅都 (an official) to do something, but he refused to move, whereupon the emperor himself seized a weapon and was about to go and rescue her in person. Zhi Du flung himself on the ground before the emperor and said, “If you lose one lady in waiting, we will bring you another! The empire is full of women like Madam Jia 賈. But what about Your Majesty? Though you think light of your own safety, what will become of the temples of your ancestors and of the empress dowager?” With this, the emperor turned back, and the boar also withdrew.62
As a perilous and marginal space, the privy was haunted by ghosts. As the body opened itself up while excreting, it was vulnerable to demonic forces. Fragments of a late Western Han daybook excavated at the same site of Xuanquanzhi confirm that latrines were hiding places for inauspicious forces. The text contains an incantation to be pronounced when entering a toilet accompanied by the performance of ritual steps known as the Pace of Yu (Yu bu 禹步).63 Later Buddhist sources make mention of ghosts feeding on excrement.64 Raimund Kolb has studied references to latrine demons from medieval to late imperial times, including the cult to a latrine goddess Zi Gu 紫(子)姑 and related deities.65 The latter is first attested, possibly in the Jin period (265–420) but certainly from Tang times onwards (one tradition holds that Zi Gu represents the spirit of the unfortunate lady Empress Lü threw to the pigs). The link between the pig and the toilet also survives in later lore where the latrine spirit sometimes appears in the shape of a pig.66 By Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) times this pig-shaped latrine spirit was well embedded in popular belief. Exposure to it is usually a bad omen that results in death.
The Gate of Heaven, the Door of Earth/ yield no admittance to the wise/ The lawless soil the seat of power/ the virtuous are not looked upon.
天門兮墜戶，孰由兮賢者？無正兮溷廁，懷德兮何睹?67
According to the opening passage of his biography in Shiji, Li Si 李斯, the later chancellor to the First Emperor, was so disgusted at the sight of rats eating the filth in the privy of the clerk’s quarters where he served during his youth, that it inspired him to become an able administrator and chief planner.68 A similar link between hygiene and moral dirt appears in descriptions of non-Han people. The Hou Hanshu describes the people in the land of Yilou 挹婁 as pig raisers, dressing in pig hides and coating their skin with pig suet to protect against the cold. In summer they are naked with only a small piece of cloth covering their front and behind: “Its inhabitants are filthy and smelly and do not have hygiene; they construct the toilet in the centre (of their settlement) and then live around it in a circle” (其人臭穢不絜，作廁於中，圜之而居).69 Again pigs are linked to human defecation.
In sum, the latrine appears as a sphere of moral alterity, a space that mandates to be visited, yet one that is also fraught with risk. It is a space where biological comfort can soon turn into distress, a place where the body momentarily dwells in private and is left unguarded, spied upon by demonic forces and left vulnerable to those intent on causing it harm.
5 Manure and Humanure
Every substance convertible to manure is diligently husbanded. The cakes that remain after the expression of their vegetable oils, horns and bones reduced to powder, together with sooth and ashes, and the contents of common sewers, are much used. […] All sorts of hair are used as manure, and barber’s shavings are carefully appropriated to that purpose. […] Dung of all animals, but especially night soil, is esteemed above all others; which appears from Columella to have been the case among the Romans.71 Being sometimes formed into cakes, it is dried in the sun, and in this state becomes an object of sale to farmers, who dilute it previous to use. They construct large cisterns or pits lined with lime-plaster, as well as earthen tubs sunk in the ground, with straw over them to prevent evaporation, in which all kinds of vegetable and animal refuse are collected. These, being diluted with a sufficient quantity of liquid, are left to undergo the putrefactive fermentation and then applied to the land.72
The American agricultural scientist Franklin H. King (1848–1911) made notes on the use of human excreta during a tour of East Asia in 1909. His photographs show manure boats in Suzhou ferrying human waste out of Shanghai destined for the fields and stone-baked receptacles and pits in which human waste was held.73 Human excrement was a sought-after agricultural commodity, as if “the productive value of excrement” was “inversely proportional to the animality of its origins.”74 Its collection and agricultural use only became a sanitary concern in the last few decades of the Qing (1644–1912) after the introduction of Western concepts of public health.75
While the nightsoil- and manure trade is well documented for late imperial China,76 evidence suggests that its history goes back to early times. Oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang period (1200–1045 bce) already mention human waste, dung or excrement, and include an early form of the graph for human excrement shi 屎 (showing a person squatting over droppings of excreta) (Fig. 4)77:
Oracle bone graph0 for 屎 (Jiaguwen heji 甲骨文合集; chant 0009).
Citation: East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 55, 1-2 (2023) ; 10.1163/26669323-bja10005
The Xunzi notes that the duties of the Director of the Marketplace (zhi shi 治市) included disposing of dung and nightsoil.78 Manure was traded, albeit perhaps not at official markets. The “Statutes on finance” (jin bu lü 金布律) among the Qin materials held at the Yuelu 嶽麓 Academy (dating to the late third century bce, post 221 bce) contain an entry that acknowledges and legalizes the trade of tiles, earthen bricks, and manure (fen 糞) from individual workshops or residences (rather than the official market). Qin authorities seem to have condoned local and small volume trade of manure, probably because of its relatively low-value or to avoid having to transport it in bulk to market over a distance.79 There is also evidence of sales of nightsoil among the Juyan 居延 slips.80 A mnemonic character sequence in the Han primer Ji jiu pian 急就篇 (attributed to Shi You 史游, ca. 48–33 bce) reads ping ce qing hun fen tu rang 屏廁清溷糞土壤 (“closet, privy, toilet, latrine, dung, soil, humus”) suggesting people made the link between the use of nightsoil and the treatment of soil.81 Although nightsoil collection and dung picking were nowhere as prevalent in early China as it would become in the urbanised centres of late imperial times, excreta were clearly viewed as an agricultural commodity early on.82
The generic character denoting fertilizer, fen 糞, as Hsu Cho-yun points out, was the same as that for dung.83 A passage in the Wu Yue Chunqiu 吳越春秋 notes how in ancient times fruits would sprout from nightsoil relieved by humans in the wilds. In the story the king of Wu is discouraged from eating roadside melons on the grounds that they are polluted. During the height of the legendary Xia dynasty, his advisors insist, people ate fresh melons and opened their bowels on the roadside where the melon seeds would sprout again.84 Fertilising the soil (fen tu 糞土) is listed alongside land reclamation, tillage, and planting among the merits of Houji 後稷 “Lord Millet”.85 Reference to the use of liquid or solid nightsoil and animal waste to improve soil quality is increasingly prevalent by mid-Warring States times, alongside the use of green waste, ash and river mud.86 In the Lüshi chunqiu’s “Shang nong” 上農 chapter, a rural prohibition stipulates not to “bring out manure” (chu fen 出糞) before the land is defrosted and ploughed.87 The “Monthly Ordinances” (yue ling 月令) note that in late summer burnt grass cuttings flooded with water are used to “manure the fields and pastures” (fen tian chou 糞田疇).88 According to Mencius one hundred mu 畝 tilled by an expert farmer using fertiliser would feed nine mouths but in years plagued by natural disasters no fertiliser would be sufficient.89 Xunzi ranks manuring among the tasks of farmers and the general masses (nongfu zhongshu 農夫眾庶) rather than those in leading positions.90
Where the water is deep, whirlpools and eddies form. When the plant sheds its leaves, they fertilize its roots. When disciples make profit (from office) they should remember their teachers.
水深而回，樹落則糞本，弟子通利則思師.95
Apart from its properties as fertilizer, animal excrement (shi 屎/矢) was known for its medicinal and apotropaic powers. The use of dog excreta to ward off demonic influences occurs in the Shuihudi daybooks. Faeces and/or urine of rats, sheep, dogs and pigs as well as chicken droppings are applied medicinally in the Mawangdui Wushier bingfang 五十二病方 (Recipes for Fifty-two Ailments).96 In a story in the Han Feizi (third century bce) a lady and her housemaids cover up an affair by making her lover storm out of the bedroom naked and dishevelled to simulate a demon. Next the poor husband is told to bathe in excrement to exorcise himself from this so-called demonic delusion.97 Medical formularies excavated at Wuwei 武威 (Gansu; excavated in 1972, dating to the early Eastern Han) contain a coldness remedy that involves fumigating or burning the excrement of white sheep (bai yang shi 白羊屎).98 There is also evidence of the use of children’s urine to treat the effects of poisonous plants, and of a belief that pigs and dogs do not perish from poisoned arrows because they feed on excrement, an idea that echoes Wang Chong’s observations mentioned earlier.99 Like sucking one’s master’s boil, or draining an abscess, tasting human excrement is invoked as a sign of overstated loyalty or filial piety. King Goujian 勾踐 of Yue 越 (r. 469–465) famously feigned allegiance to the king of Wu 吳 by sampling his excrement and urine to diagnose the king’s illness and forecast his recovery.100
More evidence for the medicinal use of excreta exists for medieval times. The Longmen recipes (Longmen fang 龍門方) carved (between 650 and 653 ce) on the northern wall of a cave in the Longmen grottoes near Luoyang contain seventeen recipes that use the faeces and urine of different animals: swallow droppings, horse and chicken manure, donkey, sheep and cow dung, pig excrements, dog droppings and black ox urine.101 Mogao 莫高 grotto no. 17 at Dunhuang contained over one hundred medicine-related manuscripts, with drugs containing animal excrements documented in thirty of them. Among Dunhuang manuscripts, Catherine Despeux has counted thirty-five recipes with faeces from seventeen, mostly domestic, animals. They appear more prominently in texts with a Buddhist influence, which suggests Buddhism played a role in their circulation.102
6 Laozi 46
When the Dao prevails in the world,
Swift horses are withdrawn to fertilize the fields.
When the Dao is absent in the world,
War horses are bred in the borderlands.
天下有道，卻走馬以糞。天下無道，戎馬生於郊.103
Laozi 46’s dung has bred commentarial fervour both among Laozi commentators and historians of agriculture who speculate at length about the technical implications of the second line. The earliest allusion to the verse appears in the late Western Han Yantie lun 鹽鐵論, which notes that in the time of Yu the Great “farmers used horses for ploughing and transport; among the people there were none who did not ride them; in those times war horses were retired and used for manuring” (農夫以馬耕載，而民莫不騎乘；當此之時，卻走馬以糞).104 This passage however offers little in the form of historical evidence, its purpose being to invoke a Golden Age inspired by the Laozi line. Although horse ploughing is attested at Juyan 居延 and in the Yuelu shuyuan statutes, archaeological or pictorial evidence dating to the pre-Qin period is scant.105 The gloss bo 播 (oc *paH) has been proposed for 糞 (oc *pjunH) implying that horses were used to help set out the seeds in the fields. Etymologically however this reading is open to doubt as the characters hardly ever occur as graphic loans or variants.106 While attested early on, as a term exclusively denoting fertiliser, fen is also not very common in pre-Qin texts. It is explained as qi chu 棄除 “to discard and remove” in Shuowen jiezi, and it occurs with this meaning in a Qin legal entry.107 Only by Eastern Han times, the period of the terracotta latrines, is fen regularly used for human excrement and urine.108 In short, the graph’s meaning must have evolved over time. Other hypotheses include that the Laozi verse refers to ploughing over the seeds or seeding a field or that we ought to imagine horses manuring the fields, either naturally or, by pulling cartloads of manure to distribute across the fields.109 This last interpretation goes back to Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) who recounts having observed a horse pulling a manure-cart (fen che 糞車) in Jiangxi.110 The problem of course is that there is no reference to a cart in the Laozi verse.111 The line in question therefore could simply be read as a metonym for agricultural work in general (in the spirit of the verse which is about retiring war horses for farm labour). Or perhaps the allusion is to letting horses stop and relieve themselves naturally, respecting the physical needs of horses deployed in labour, in which case 糞 can only be read verbally as “to excrete/defecate”.112
Dung collection behind horses is attested in the Zhuangzi: “He who loves horses catches their dung in baskets and receives their urine in giant clam shells (夫愛馬者，以筐盛矢，以蜄盛溺). But if a mosquito or a snipefly should alight upon one of his horses and he slaps it at the wrong moment, the horse will chomp through its bit, break his head, and smash his chest. … ”113 Scenes showing folk scooping up dung behind their horses and catching their urine also appear in Han murals.114 Yet, it is unlikely, or difficult to establish at best, whether those murals were intended in any way to refer to the Laozi. Later agricultural manuals mention the use of horse manure on fields.
A ruler [who possesses the Way] does not deploy horses to travel back and forth in warfare and the people do not use horses to transport extravagant luxuries to and from distant places. Instead, the horses’ strength is preserved exclusively for agricultural pursuits. If the horses’ strength is preserved for agricultural pursuits, they will invariably be used for manuring and irrigating the fields. Thus it is said: “When the Way prevails under Heaven, swift horses are withdrawn to fertilize [the fields].”
上不事馬於戰鬪逐北，而民不以馬遠淫通物，所積力唯田疇，積力於田疇必且糞灌，故曰：天下有道，卻走馬以糞也。115
Manuring means fertilizing the fields. Once weapons and armour are no longer used, one retreats war horses to cultivate the farming fields. One who cultivates the self withdraws essential yang energies in order to fertilize one’s self.
粪者，粪田也。兵甲不用，却走馬治農田，治身者却陽精以粪其身.117
When All Under Heaven has the Way, he [a Sage Ruler] “knows how to be satisfied [with what goods he has]” and “knows how to halt [the craving for ever greater fame],” and there is no striving for [things] outside but each and everyone just takes care of his internal matters. That is why [the Laozi says] “riding horses would be kept back for managing the dung on the fields!”
天下有道，知足知止，無求於外，各修其內而已.故卻走馬以治田糞也.118
7 In Conclusion
“Where is the so-called Way present?” “There is no place that it is not present,” said Master Zhuang. “Give me an example so that I can get an idea,” said Master Easturb. “It’s in the ants,” said Master Zhuang. “How can it be so low?” “It’s in panic grass.” “How can it be still lower?” “It’s in the tiles and shards.” “How can it be still lower?” “It’s in shit and piss.”
所謂道，惡乎在？」莊子曰：「無所不在。」東郭子曰：「期而後可。」莊子曰：「在螻蟻。」曰：「何其下邪？」曰：「在稊稗。」曰：「何其愈下邪？」曰：「在瓦甓。」曰：「何其愈甚邪？」曰：「在屎溺。」119
The subject of excretion has not been expelled from early China’s record, albeit that it is scattered across multiple types of sources. It tends to be matter out of place on the regular menu of sinologists. Yet being a basic daily need of all human and non-human animals in the societies we study, it is matter that mattered.120
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Armin Selbitschka, Jörg Henning Hüsemann, and Romain Graziani for extensive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Fu Yang (National Taiwan University) generously secured some materials that were difficult to access during lockdown. I am very grateful for critical input from zoom-audiences at Cambridge and Leipzig (eacs 2021), and corrections suggested by two anonymous reviewers and eastm editor Catherine Jami.
About the Author
Roel Sterckx is Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science and Civilization at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College. His books include The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2002), Food, Sacrifice and Sagehood in Early China (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding (Penguin, 2020).
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For an overview of the site and the excavations, see Gansu sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 2000; and Sanft 2008–2009, pp. 126–135. The postal station was functional ca. 111 bce to 109 ce.
These samples tested positive for several parasites. Most notable was the presence of Chinese liver fluke (Clonorchis sinensis), which cannot be endemic to Dunhuang as it requires a wet and marshy environment. Archaeologists suggest these infectious parasites were transmitted by traders, soldiers, or travellers on government business from as far away as the humid East Coast and Guangdong. See Yeh et al. 2016. See also Yeh and Mitchell 2016.
Gansu sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 1991, pp. 52–67; Hu 2000; Lao 2012. At Juyan 居延 slips with remnants of faeces were found at the Jiaqu houguan 甲渠候官 site (T50–T59).
Fayuan zhulin, chapter 13 (cbeta p0383b18), where its use is associated with Sun Hao 孫晧 (r. 64–280) of Wu 吳 during the Sanguo period. Pei Qi’s 裴啟 (fourth century ce) Yu lin 語林 (Forest of Words) contains, potentially, a slightly earlier mention of a hygiene stick (籌), but his text survives only through fragments quoted in later texts. See Yuhan shanfang ji yishu, 75.27/1.7b. An early (indirect) reference to the use of paper occurs in Yan Zhitui’s 顏之推 (sixth century ce) Yanshi jiaxun 顏氏家訓, V.18 (p. 49): “If an old piece of paper happens to contain phrases and principles of the Five Classics or the names of worthy men, I would not dare use it for irreverent purposes (不敢穢用也).” I am indebted to Enno Giele and David McMullen for alerting me to these two passages. From the Yuan period onward coarse paper gradually substituted the use of bamboo or wooden slips. See Wang 2010; and Zhou 2004, p. 245.
It is absent, e.g., in the discussion in Milburn 2016. Milburn comments (p. 450): “It is unfortunate that much of the research which has so far been carried out on scent and aroma in ancient China has focused exclusively on perfumes, since early osmological texts almost entirely describe unpleasant smells.” It is unclear to me on what basis this claim can be made. The examples Milburn adduces are merely taxonomies of the senses based on Five Phase models or origin narratives in systematising (ritual) texts that plot out idealized sensory histories.
Swollen ankles and calves, a diseased belly
Falling into the latrine pit, soiled and disgraced
Fate is short, my time has reached its end
An orphan mourns and wails.
腫脛病腹，陷廁污辱，命短時極，孤子哀哭.
See Jiao Shi Yilin xin zhu, p. 459.
Old Chinese (oc) phonetic reconstructions follow Baxter and Sagart 2014.
Mozi jiangu, 69.584–5; Sun Yirang emends 圜 to read 圂. Zhou Lianchun suggests the Mozi could be the earliest textual reference to a public toilet of some sort. See Zhou 2004, pp. 31–32, 34. The term min hun is not attested elsewhere.
Mozi jiangu, 52.521 (五十步一廁，與下同圂。之廁者，不得操).
Liu An bie zhuan 劉安別傳 (Supplementary Biography of Liu An), quoted in Qi dong ye yu, 10.124. There are several versions of the story. The Bao Puzi 抱朴子 notes that he was made to tend to the Heavenly kitchens (Tian chu 天廚). See Bao Puzi neipian jiaoshi, 20.350, and 20.356, note 54 (“Qu huo” 袪惑). Taiping guangji, 288.2290, speaks of the toilets of Heaven (Tian ce 天厠). See also Hu 2010.
Shuowen jiezi zhu, 6B.13a–b. See also Gong 1995a; and Li 1991.
Zhuangzi jishi, 23.805–7 (“Gengsang Chu” 庚桑楚)(觀室者周於寢廟，又適其偃焉，為是舉移是); tr. following Mair 1994, p. 233.
Zhouli zhengyi, 11.420 (“Gong ren”). Similar tasks are handled by the “domestic valet” (lipu 隸僕). See Zhouli zhengyi, 60.2518. Zheng Sinong 鄭司農 (first century ce) suggests that yan 匽 refers to a lu ce 路廁, a latrine concealed somewhere along a path or corridor in the palace (匽 being glossed ni 匿 in Shuowen jiezi zhu, 12B.47b). See also Zhu 2017. The term ping yan 屏偃 occurs in Zhanguo ce, 30.1114 (Yan 2).
Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908) speculates that since sanitary implements 清器 were kept “beside” the toilet, 清 came to be used interchangeably with 廁. See Zhouli zhengyi, 12.461.
I remain uncertain about this reading; parsed alternatively: 言人雜廁，在上非一也 “That is to say there are different types of latrine, at the top they are not all of the same type.”
Shi ming shu zheng bu, 17.193 (no. 75). 溷軒 is glossed as ce wu 廁屋 “roofed toilet” in Hou Hanshu, 67.2192. The resemblance between a walled toilet with roof and a curtained-off official chariot has led to speculation that high officials or indeed Emperor Han Wudi may have travelled with a mobile toilet or changing room. See Yan and Zhao 2019: 143–145.
Some of these are subject to debate. The daybook found in Qin tomb no. 30 at Zhoujiatai 周家臺 (Hubei, Shashi 沙市, Guanju 關沮 district, dated ca. 209–206 bce) mentions a zhu qiu 築囚 “walled enclosure”. See Guanju Qin Han mu jiandu, p. 125 (strip 299). Zhang Guoyan 2018 suggests this could be a spirit that presides over the latrine, linking it to 囚 in the Fangmatan 放馬灘 tomb 1 (Gansu, burial post 238 bce) strips (to mean a building containing a privy), or qiong 窮 in the Chu strips from Jiudian 九店 tomb 56. Cf. Jiudian Chu jian, p. 51 (slip 203), and note p. 116. Other scholars are critical of such conjunctures. Xing Hua and Zhang Xiancheng disagree on the grounds that it is hard to explain zhu adjectivally, the most recurrent terms for a privy in daybooks being ping 屏, hun 圂 or ce 厠. They speculate that the Zhoujiatai term may refer to avenging ghosts of convict labourers who perished during building construction. See Xing and Zhang 2019: 186–188.
Lunheng jiaoshi, 23.976 (“Si hui” 四諱). Alfred Forke (1867–1944) comments on 更衣之室: “a term strangely corresponding to the German word ‘toilet’”, adding, in another note, that (anno 1911) “most Chinese privies are so horrid, that even Chinese try to avoid them.” See Forke 1911, p. 382. For other occurrences of the term see Gong 1995b.
Shiji, 30.1978; Hanshu, 70.3949.
Hanshu, 50.2318. See also Wu za zu, 3.1:58–59. Some have suggested Han Wudi received the general from a toilet next to his guarded and curtained private chambers, others suggest it happened in a built privy. Even the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795) weighed in on what might have happened! A mural from an Eastern Han tomb at Anqiu 安丘 (Shandong), showing a raised dais surrounded by a screen or curtains could be the sort of arrangement the emperor found himself in while receiving his guest. See Sun 2008, p. 255 (plate 55–5). Whether or not Han Wudi was squatting over a hole or sitting on a raised toilet is also subject to debate. See Yan and Zhao 2019. In one story Mencius disapprovingly finds his wife in a “squatting” (踞) position on her own in the house and accuses her of a lack of propriety. One wonders whether she was relieving herself. See Han shi waizhuan jishi, 9: 7.322.
A term coined by David Inglis, who blends Douglas with Bourdieu in his study of excretion in modern capitalist societies. See Inglis 2001, pp. 42–54.
Shandong sheng Yinan Beizhai Han huaxiangshi mu bowuguan 2003; line drawing in Sun 2008, p. 248, plate 54–5. The Sancai tuhui 三才圖繪 (1609), 2.28a–b (“Gong shi” 2, p. 1018), contains a drawing of a similar toilet with description.
Zhouli zhengyi, 12.459–461. Another term for xie qi was weiyu 楲窬. See Jia Kui’s 賈逵 (30–101 ce) commentary to Zhouli zhengyi, 12.461; and Shuowen jiezi zhu, 6A.40b. See also Huang 1996.
For an example of a figurine squatting over a toilet in a model building, see Guangzhou shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui et al. 1981: 339 (plate 205).
Xuzhou bowuguan and Nanjing daxue lishi xi 1988; Zhou 2001, pp. 72–82. Another example of a squat-down lavatory inside a tomb was found at Bao’an shan 保安山 Tomb no. 2. See Henan sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 1996, p. 128. A large toilet compartment (4.3 m. x 3.8 m) with three privies with urinal/excrement troughs was found in 2005 in a Han tomb in Xi’an. See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo 2007. A good example of a pigsty privy showing a human figurine squatting down is kept at the Yulin Stone Mural Museum 榆林画像博物馆 in Yulin, Shaanxi. See Yan and Zhao 2019: 146 (plate 8). In February 2023 archaeologists at the Yueyang 櫟楊 site no. 3 in Xi’an reported to have uncovered the remains of a manual flush toilet (including a bent pipe) possibly dating back to the time of Duke Xiao 孝 of Qin and/or used by Liu Bang (https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202302/16/WS63ed04ada31057c47ebaf009.html).
A wooden, lacquered toilet seat from a Western Han grave in the Chu region is kept at the Anji County Museum 安吉县博物馆 (Zhejiang province). See Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo Anji xian bowuguan 2007: 71 (plate 33). This tomb also contained a black, lacquered tiger-shaped urinal jar (cf. below).
The oldest explanation for shouzi as a urinal bottle or pot is by Yan Shigu 顏師古 (581–645) in his commentary to Hanshu, 61.2687.
Shuowen jiezi zhu, 6A.40b. Another term for the 行清 was a yu 牏 “board”. See Meng Kang 孟康 (ca. 180–260 ce) and Xu Guang’s 徐廣 (352–425) commentaries to Shiji, 103.2765; Hanshu, 46.2195.
Xijing zaji, 5.123. A version of the story is also preserved in Wenchang zalu, 1.12b.
Xijing zaji, 5.104.
For examples of huzi see Yangzhou bowuguan 1988: 417–425, 405 (plate 3); Yuan 1990; Xing 2021; for an example in bronze see Jiangxi sheng bowuguan 1981: 426–428 (plate 5). From the Tang onwards another urinal jar was known as the mazi 馬子, which, according to some, was more suitable for female use. See Li 2003; and Feng 2006. Berthold Laufer shows an example of what he believes to be a male urinal bottle from the Han period. The piece is from the collection of Thomas B. Clarke, in a “sombre green” glaze, 15.6 cm high and 16 cm long; with a “small nozzle, globular below, and cylindrical above.” See Laufer 1909, pp. 117–118 (plate 26.1).
A large collection is held in the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou. See Henan bowuguan 2002, plates 62–72, 124–156. Laufer 1909, pp. 53–54, misidentifies a latrine as a grain-tower.
For an example of a replica separate-sex toilet see Henan sheng wenhuaju wenwu gongzuodui 1963: 134 (plate 22); with discussion and line drawing in Sun 2008, pp. 247–248. For other examples showing double toilet compartments see Qian 1983: 22; Su and Li 1990: 94–95; Guo 2010, pp. 125–137.
See Kieser 2017. Up until the 1980s, archaeologists and historians of agriculture would regularly point out that the pigsty-privy could still be seen in rural parts of China.
See Selbitschka 2015, especially pp. 38–40.
Guoyu, 10.387–88 (Jin yu, 4). See also Lienü zhuan, 1.5b. This is one of the earliest attestations of sou 溲 “urine”. In his commentary to the biography of Chunyu Yi 淳于意, Sima Zhen 司馬貞 (679–732) notes: “discharging from the front is called passing urine; from behind it is called passing stool” 前溲謂小便；后溲，大便也. This is a case of a patient unable to qian hou sou 前後溲, i.e. pass urine and stool. See Shiji, 105.3781. The Shi ming uses the term 小便 in an entry on a urinary disease. See Shi ming, 26.280 (no. 47). The Shuowen glosses niao 尿 as 人小便. See Shuowen jiezi zhu, 8B.3a.
Yang 2007, pp. 172–173; Peng and Yang 2018, pp. 275–281.
Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian, pp. 210–211 (slips 14–15 verso, 19–23 verso; plates p. 104).
Liang 1989, p. 199; Xiao 1986: 617–618.
On granary models as symbols for inexhaustible nourishment in the afterlife, see Selbitschka 2017.
Some pigsty-privy models have troughs. See e.g. Guangxi Zhuangzu zizhiqu wenwu gongzuodui et al. 2013: 59 (item no. M1:1). I am grateful to Armin Selbitschka for drawing this example to my attention.
Liji jijie, 35.947 (“Shao yi” 少儀).
Note too that tapeworm and blood fluke (schistosomiasis) transmit from pig to humans (eggs were found on the corpse at Fenghuangshan 鳳凰山 Tomb no. 168 and Mawangdui Tomb no. 1). Pig tapeworm, Taenia solium, like many tapeworms, requires both animals and humans to complete its life-cycle. People may have been aware that consuming meat from pigs raised in the privy carried risks. Perhaps the Liji instruction to avoid eating meat or fat from the belly of an animal is related to this. One of the reasons proper treatment of nightsoil was introduced in China in the 1950s was to control schistosomiasis, which was affecting the health of millions of peasants.
See Yates 1997.
Lunheng jiaoshi, 6.299 (“Lei xu” 雷虛).
Taiping jing hejiao, 117.655, 660.
Taiping yulan, 903.5a (p. 4007); a variant of the story appears at 931.5b–6a (p. 4139). See also Yiwen leiju, 96.1669.
Shiji, 7.313, 95.2654; Hanshu, 1A.26, 41.2068. For more examples see Zhao and Yan 2018. Another story surrounding Liu Bang, born a rustic, is that he would pull off the cap of Ru 儒 who presented themselves to him and then urinate in it (溲溺其中). See Shiji, 97.2692; Hanshu, 43.2105–6. In Modern Mandarin ni guan 溺冠 “pissing in a cap” still serves as an expression meaning to despise intellectuals. Urinating in public was met with disdain, see e.g. Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, p. 1529 (Lord Ding, year 2); Han Feizi jishi, 10.587 (“Nei chu shuo, xia” 內儲說下); Hanshu, 83.3392; Hou Hanshu, 65.2148.
See his commentary to Shiji, 103.2765.
For examples of pigs running loose or escaping from the privy, see Han Feizi jishi, 14.762 (“Wai chu shuo you, xia”); Hanshu, 27B.1436, 63.2757 (pigs escaping from the latrine and destroying the stove). Yan Shigu comments here that a 廁 is a pen in which pigs are fed.
Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian, p. 220 (slip 80 verso). For piaoxing “slender” I follow Liu Xinfang, 2019: 65. The heavy dot above the name section is unattested in parallel versions found at Kongjiapo and Fangmatan. Donald Harper (personal communication 6/1/2022) suggests these dots are meant to purposefully mark this information as a distinctive part in each of the twelve entries.
Tianshui Fangmatan Qin jian, p. 85 (slip 41), p. 91 (slip 77); Suizhou Kongjiapo Han mu jiandu, p. 175 (slip 378).
Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian, p. 248 (“Rishu” 乙, slips 188–190) for the former; Suizhou Kongjiapo Han mu jiandu, p. 160 (slip 232) for the latter.
Mengzi zhengyi, 12.426–27 (3B.3). An early occurrence of someone (the pregnant queen of Xia 夏) escaping “through a hole” 自竇 appears in the Zuozhuan. See Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, p. 1605 (Lord Ai, year 1). Commentators are silent though on whether this is a hole in the privy. See also Qianfu lun, 34.464.
For assassinations or threats taking place in the privy see Shiji, 9.410, 37.1600; Hanshu, 3.102; Lienü zhuan, 7.12. For suicides in the latrine see Hou Hanshu, 74A.2380. Cao Cao’s 曹操 (155–220 ce) father was killed in the privy; see Sanguo zhi, 1.11 (commentary quoting “Shi yu” 世語).
Shiji, 9.397; Hanshu 27B.1397, 97A.3938; see also Lunheng jiaoshi, 6.300–301 (“Lei xu”). Commentators suggest the privy here was most likely a cave or pit structure in which pigs were kept. Another pigpen incident is that of Dongming 東明, taken from his mother and thrown into a pig pen where he was kept alive by the breath of the pigs. See Lunheng jiaoshi, 9.88 (“Ji yan” 吉驗).
For a case where someone is killed and buried in horse dung, see Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu, p. 632 (Lord Wen, year 18). See also Fengsu tongyi jiaozhu, 9.423 (“Guai shen” 怪神), where the voice of a lost granddaughter is heard from underneath the privy waste.
Shiji, 122.3132; tr. Watson 1993, pp. 380–381.
Dunhuang Xuanquan Han jian shizui, p. 182 (no. 266).
One example occurs in the Chanyuan qing gui 禪苑清規 (Pure Rules for the Chan Monastery, 1103), where the monk is urged, before relieving himself, to snap his fingers three times to warn off these demons. See Heirmann and Torck 2017, p. 141.
See e.g. Taiping guangji, 333.2648 (“Diao Mian” 刁緬).
Chuci jin zhu, p. 314; tr. Hawkes 1985, p. 271.
Shiji, 87.2539.
Hou Hanshu, 85.2812 (“Dong Yi liezhuan” 東夷列傳).
One estimate puts the volume of nitrate produced from human waste in China in 1910 at 6800 metric tonnes daily (compared to 1360 in the United States). See Worster 2017, p. 17. Worster comments: “Excrement became the peasant’s savings account” (p. 25). See also Xue 2005.
De Re Rustica, Book ii.14; Columella (4–70 ce) comments that human excrement “should be mixed with other refuse of the farmstead, for by itself it is naturally rather hot and for that reason it burns the ground” (si et aliis villae purgamentis immisceatur, quoniam per se naturae est ferventioris et idcirco terram perurit). Chen Fu’s 陳旉 Nongshu 農書 (Writings on Agriculture; preface, 1149) makes a similar point: “Nor should you use night-soil, which rots the young shoots and damages human hands and feet, producing sores that are difficult to heal” 切勿用大糞，以其瓮腐芽蘖，又損人腳手，成瘡痍難療 (“Shan qi genmiao pian” 善其根苗篇 “Chapter on taking care of the roots and shoots”). See Bray 2012, p. 308. Many other nongshu however praise the use of nightsoil as manure.
Davis 1840, vol. 2, pp. 375–376. The Jezuit Adriano de las Cortes (1578–1629) notes that impoverished villagers in Chaozhou 潮州 (coastal Guangdong) rose very early to collect excrement before “pigs and dogs begin to come out and eat very solicitously”. See De las Cortes (1626), p. 258. The frantic gathering of dung also caught the eye of George Leonard Staunton during the Macartney mission to the Qianlong court (1793). See Staunton 1797, vol. 2, p. 474.
Laporte 2000, p. 120.
See Yu 2010. Conversely, European cities only developed systems to conserve human waste and use it as manure from the mid-eighteenth century onwards in response to perceived advantages in Asian agriculture. Chemically synthesized fertilizers, however, soon became the mainstay in European and North American farming. See Ferguson 2014.
Xue 2005. Nightsoil trade intensified with urbanisation. As Li Bozhong 李伯重 has shown, there is some Song evidence that Jiangnan peasants shifted nightsoil from urban areas to the countryside, but it is not until the late Ming that the nightsoil trade intensified. Hangzhou was known for its high-quality nightsoil since its residents had a diet rich in protein (meat and fish) producing a higher nitrogen content in their excreta. In Old Beijing nightsoil was graded depending on the wards it came from (rich versus poor). Nightsoil collection not only provided an agricultural commodity, it also fulfilled the same role as a sewage system for urban areas (large-scale urban sewage was only introduced in major cities in the 1980s). See also Xu 2005.
Hu 1955; Wang 1994, pp. 199–200; Kolb 1994, pp. 111–113. For further Shang references to manuring the fields see Yang and Ma 2010, pp. 153–155. The homophone 矢 (oc *syijX) appears commonly in texts from the late Chunqiu period onwards.
Xunzi jijie, 9.169–70 (“Wang zhi” 王制). The text states that this official is in charge of “keeping things clean” (xiu cai qing 脩採清), which need not necessarily refer to nightsoil; however, commentators have interpreted it as such on the basis of the Shuowen gloss 清 for 廁.
Yuelu shuyuan cang Qin jian, vol. 4, p. 109 (slips 124–126); translated in Korolkov 2020, pp. 570–571.
Juyan Han jian shiwen hejiao, slip 255.3 (p. 422; a sales receipt for nightsoil).
Ji Jiu pian, p. 50. Yan Shigu’s commentary articulates its value as compost.
Echoing the value of the nightsoil trade, turning waste into treasure, or faeces and urine into precious metals, becomes a topic in several stories from medieval times onwards. Ariel Fox discusses the equivalence between bodily excretions and notions of value and money. See Fox 2016.
Hsu 1980, pp. 6–7. Fertilizing practices from the Song onwards have been studied recently in Du 2018.
Wu Yue Chunqiu, 5.11b (“Fucha nei zhuan” 夫差內傳). Note that early Daoist precepts explicitly forbid relieving oneself at liberty. E.g. the Laojun yibai bashi jie 老君一百八十誡 (The 180 Precepts Spoken by Lord Lao; third–fourth century ce) note that one has to find an appropriate spot and should not defecate on “living grasses” or in water. See Rols 2021, p. 444 (precept no. 152).
Huainanzi honglie jijie, 18.596 (“Ren jian xun” 人間訓); 20.670 (“Tai zu xun” 泰族訓); Shuoyuan jiaozheng, 5.96 (“Gui de” 貴德). In a (late) Western Han chapter of the Guanzi 管子, fen tu appears as a near metonym for agriculture in general: “Hunger and cold, frost and starvation arise from agriculture 起於糞土 (i.e. the inadequate use of fertilizer).” See Guanzi jiaozhu, 78.1388 (“Kui du” 揆度).
Li 2009, pp. 115–117, 139. Dong and Fan 2000, pp. 130–132. Other methods to strengthen the soil included fallowing to allow soil to recover and ploughing greens into the soil as fertiliser.
Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi, 26.1711 (“Shang nong”).
Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi, 6.312 (“Ji xia ji” 季夏紀); Liji jijie, 16.459 (“Yue ling” 月令).
Mengzi zhengyi, 10.338–39 (3A.3).
Xunzi jijie, 10.183 (“Fu guo” 富國).
Zhouli zhengyi, 30.1181–1188 (“Cao ren” 草人). Similar treatments of seeds and seedlings with dung concoctions were known in ancient India. E.g. the Arthaśāstra (redacted between 150 bce and 300 ce) notes: “Cuttings for propagation are smeared at the cuts with honey, ghee, and pig’s fat mixed with cow dung; and bulbous roots with honey and ghee. Stony seeds are smeared with cow dung.” See Olivelle 2013, p. 154 (2.24.24).
Fan Shengzhi shu (cf. Hsu 1980, p. 290). See also Cao 1984, pp. 6–12; and Xiao 1987. Another entry in the Fan Shengzhi shu describes the use of silkworm manure on hemp: “When the plants grow to one Chinese foot high, manure with bombyxine excrement at the rate of three sheng per plant. Failing bombyxine excrement, use well ripened manure from the pits (i.e. privy; 溷中熟糞) instead. The rate is then one sheng per plant.” See Shi Shenghan 1959, p. 23 (4.8.2). Soil and seed manuring with goat and silkworm dung also appear in the Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術, with some references attributed to the Fan Shengzhi shu. Qimin yaoshu also mentions the use of well-aged manure (shu fen 熟糞) from the privy. See Qimin yaoshu jiaoshi, e.g. 1.38, 1.48, 2.55.
Lunheng jiaoshi, 16.716 (“Shang chong” 商蟲).
Transmitted in Shuoyuan jiaozheng, 3.66–67 (“Jian ben” 建本). The passage continues by stating that “fertilizing the heart” changes a person’s behaviour and enables one to fulfill one’s desires; it defines fen xin as “studying widely and consulting many” (bo xue duo wen 博學多聞).
Xunzi jijie, 14.264 (“Zhi shi” 致士); tr. Knoblock 1988, p. 209.
Relevant passages are collated in Lü 2010, pp. 349–353. See also Harper 1998, pp. 282, 286, 288, 294, 296; and Harper 1996 (entries 23, 33, 57, 67).
Han Feizi jishi, 10.579 (“Nei chu shuo xia” 內儲說,下).
The procedure, which involves digging a pit in which to burn sheep dung and having the patient sleep on top of it, is unattested and the text poses translation problems. See Yang and Brown 2017: 277.
Bowu zhi, 7.1a; tr. Greatrex 1987, p. 117; Pliny the Elder (24–79 ce) writes extensively on the medicinal powers of urine. See Naturalis Historia, xxviii.18–19.
Wu Yue Chunqiu, 7.6a–b.
Despeux 2017. On the use of faeces in tcm see Huan et al. 2019.
Laozi Daodejing zhu 老子道德經注, in Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, p. 125.
See Yantie lun jiaozhu, 15.190 (“Wei tong” 未通). Another passage states that in antiquity horses were under the yoke during travel and used to plough when stationary. See Yantie lun jiaozhu, 29.350 (“San bu zu” 散不足).
See Xiong 2019; and Bai 2012.
Shuowen jiezi zhu, 4B.1b; Shuihudi Qin mu zhujian, p. 41 (strip 89)(discarding cart wheels that are beyond repair).
Yang Yinchong (2008) points out that in oracle bone script and small seal script 粪 appears as 糞. One of its earlier meanings may have been to “sweep or keep clean” (e.g. stables). The graph then went into several semantic directions: the human and organic waste that is cleaned out, the only use for which is to fertilize fields; or a sticky mixture of straw and mud that serves as building material (as in Lunyu, V.10). From “waste” it also came to mean “to reject or discard”. Given that the graph may not have been known to refer to manure during the time when the Laozi came together, historians of agriculture may have overinterpreted it.
See Zhuzi yulei, 125.20a. Nightsoil and manure were transported to the fields with buckets (fentong 糞桶) and baskets (fenkuang 糞筐), carts, pushcarts, wheelbarrows, or by boat. See Hüsemann 2021.
The term 糞車 is unattested in pre-Qin and Han texts. It occurs in a rhapsody by Zhang Xie 張協 (third century ce). See Jin shu, 55.1523: “Withdrawing his horses to the harnass of the manure-cart; he engraves his virtue onto the tripod of Mt. Kunwu” 卻馬於糞車之轅，銘德於昆吾之鼎. I suspect this draws on (erroneously parsed?) lines in Huainanzi, 6.198 (“Lan ming xun” 覽冥訓)(“[the sage] therefore withdraws his horses to use them to manure the fields, and his chariot tracks do not reach beyond distant places” 故卻走馬以糞，而車軌不接于遠方之外) or a version of this line without the conjunction 而 in the Wenzi. See Wenzi shu yi, 2.67 (“Jing cheng” 精誠).
Lü Quanyi (2013) debunks attempts that seek to emend this line in order to read it in the context of agriculture (note that the text shows no variation in the Mawangdui, Guodian, Dunhuang, and Beida versions of the Laozi, as well as in most transmitted editions). Given its parallel with rong ma 戎馬, zou ma must refer to a type of horse here rather than the name of an official (attested as early as the Shang oracle bones and Zhou bronze inscriptions). A similar corrective not to overinterpret the passage as evidence for agricultural history over and above its philosophical message was aired earlier in You 2003.
Zhuangzi jishi, 4.168 (“Ren jian shi” 人間世); tr. Mair 1994, p. 37. The Qimin yaoshu contains a recipe against constipation for horses (大小便不通). See Qimin yaoshu jiaoshi, 6.412.
Examples in Shaanxi include the Suide 綏徳 and Mizhi 米脂 murals; in Shandong there are some in Tengxian 滕縣. See Xia and Lin 1996, p. 37 (A19), p. 38 (A20). Another expression for horse manure, ma tong 馬通, appears for the first time in Hou Hanshu, 81.4459.
Han Feizi jishi, 6.359 (“Jie Lao”); cf. 7.387 (“Yu Lao”).
Huainanzi honglie jijie, 6.198 (“Lan ming xun” 覽冥訓). Commentators have spilled ink on how to interpret que 卻 (却) (glosses include 退 or 止), but there can be little misunderstanding here of its verbal use “to return, to retreat, to withdraw”. Gao You 高誘 (second century ce) notes that halting horses to let them fertilize the fields proves how the sages put into practice “ultimate virtue” (行至德之效).
Dan Reid (2015, p. 127) translates, freely: “‘Fertilizing’, here, means fertilizing fields. Soldiers are not employed, and people go back to leading their horses on foot while managing and farming their fields. Those who govern the body lead yang essence to fertilize the body.”
Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, p. 125; tr. Wagner 2003, p. 275.
For the fate of the latrine in modern times see Zhou 2019. Studies of the latrine in other parts of the ancient world include Koloski-Ostrow 2015; Jansen, Koloski-Ostrow and Moormann 2011; Mitchell 2016; and Min and Dong 2016.
