On the eve of the Year of the Monkey, the earliest photographs of Chinese gibbons surfaced
Gregory de Cruz, author of the Peloponnesian War and The Class Struggle in Ancient Greek Society, e.m. de ste. croix) is one of the best historians at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As a leader in the industry, he regretted that he did not know much about his father's history, only that he was a British official who had worked in China's customs and died in Shanghai when He Jr. was four years old, and he did not even have a picture of his father.
Fortunately, the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom fulfilled his wish to some extent. The university released a number of old photographs, several of which were taken by chinese customs staff that year. In some photos of Haikou Customs, the image of the old Cruise appeared.
In this photo of the foreign employees and their families of Haikou Customs in China, the third-right man in the back row with two small mustaches is the old Cruise (e. h. de st. croix）。 Behind them can also be seen a profound Chinese couplet – "Loyalty leaves room for step, peace and infinite heavenly opportunity"
Judging the careers of others such as Cruise Sr. in China is a complex issue. Managing China's customs as a foreigner is undoubtedly an infringement on China's sovereignty. But even the most demanding historians cannot deny that customs was the only clean and efficient department of the Qing Empire. We can only say that history is not a simple straight line.
But even historians such as Cruise Jr. made a common-sense mistake when confronted with the photographs.
In this 1898 photograph, an ape named Jacko is apparently interested in old Cruise's beard, fiddling with his beard without looking at the camera.
The British called Jake a monkey when marking it, but this was a beautiful mistake.
I'm wrong because Jacques is not a monkey at all, and it's because it allows us to discover one of the most fascinating species of Chinese apes at the end of the Year of the Monkey – the earliest historical photograph of gibbons.
Biologically, monkeys are far from "apes" in terms of both evolution and intelligence. The biggest difference between the two is that monkeys have tails, while apes don't. Gibbons are the smallest and most primitive of the great ape family, and the only great ape species in China. It usually weighs less than ten kilograms and has significantly longer forelimbs than its hindlimbs. This allows it to jump freely on top of a fifteen-meter-high tree, known as an aerial acrobat. Although the average monkey is very agile in the tree, when encountering the magical arm behavior of gibbons, it is like a child. From this domineering point of view, among the Chinese apes, gibbons can be called monkey kings.
Looking at Jacques's outstretched arms in this photo, the features of gibbons are clear at a glance.
There is a historical basis for calling gibbons one of the most attractive animals in our country. Chinese noticed this amazing animal very early on. Male gibbons often make unique calls during courtship, which was called "ape crying" in ancient China. Li Bai's "The apes on both sides of the strait can't stop crying, and the light boat has passed through the ten thousand heavy mountains" is still a popular poem. In the middle school Chinese textbook, gibbons are also mentioned, that is, Li Daoyuan's "Three Gorges". Wen Yue: "Every sunny and early frost, the forest is cold and the stream is solemn, and there are often high apes roaring, which is miserably caused, and the empty valley is sounded, and the mourning is long gone." The fisherman's song said: "The Three Gorges of Padang is long, and the apes are crying three times." ’”
If I were a gibbon, I might scoff at my non-hairless relatives like humans. For gibbons, how can humans hear a miserable and miserable love song? It's really a cow playing the piano.
So, did the apes mentioned in ancient Chinese really refer to gibbons? Would humans think of some similar animal as a growing gibbon?
In the Song Dynasty Anon. "Spider Web Grabbing Ape Diagram" can be seen in the clear figure of the gibbon, its extra long arms, white hair around the face, let us basically conclude that this is a white-cheeked gibbon distributed in southern Yunnan and Vietnam.
The Song Dynasty Yi Yuanji's "Monkey Stealing Fruit Chart Axis" shows that China has begun to domesticate gibbons more than a thousand years ago.
With such ironclad evidence, the historical status of gibbons in Chinese culture can be confirmed.
However, ancient Chinese records of gibbons are through writing and painting. These two photos of the old Cruise were taken in September 1898, which should be the earliest gibbon photo found in China so far, and Jacques can be called the first Chinese gibbon on the camera.
There is also the question, could this gibbon have been brought from abroad by old Cruise? Since the Shang Zhou Dynasty, China's territory has always had a tendency to become colder and drier. Influenced by climate and disturbed by human development activities, gibbons continue to move south. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, gibbons in the Yangtze River Basin should have been extinct. They are found today only in the tropical forests of Southern Yunnan and are extremely rare.
Judging from the old Cruise's personal experience, it seems that he did not have the opportunity to get gibbons from abroad. Although he is a very standard foreigner in appearance, he was actually born in China. His father (c.w.de.ste.croix) moved from France to Jersey County, England, in 1863 as a customs officer in Fuzhou, China, where he died in 1885. The couple gave birth to Cruise the Elder in China, who also married the daughter of George Macgowan, a missionary who was also born in China, and until his death in 1914, the couple did not leave the eastern country.
From a biological point of view, the gibbon of the old Cruise is basically a female Hainan black-crowned gibbon, whose age is about five years old. The Hainan black-crowned gibbon is the most precious subspecies of the black gibbon, which is now only distributed in the 200,000 acres of tropical jungle in Bawangling, Hainan Province, and the total number of surviving animals in the world is less than 100.
Gibbons are a very distinctive animal that allows us to draw more accurate judgments about their species and age. There are seven species of gibbons in the world, four in China, and The Elder Cruise, who has been working in the customs office of southern China, still has the opportunity to contact foreign gibbons, such as those in Vietnam or Burma. However, the Vietnamese gibbons, like the gibbons in the "Monkey Stealing Fruit Scroll", belong to the white-cheeked gibbons, with white long hairs on the sides of the face, while the Burmese gibbons are mostly white-browed gibbons, with a pair of white "shou eyebrows" like old life stars, and in the photos found this time, the gibbon Jake has a pure black face, which is a unique feature of the Hainan black-crowned gibbon.
White-cheeked gibbon
White-browed gibbon
Hainan black-crowned gibbon
Interestingly, the Hainan black-crowned gibbon is divided into two forms, golden yellow and black, which look like two species. In fact, it's just a matter of gender and age. This strange ape is pure black at an early age, and the male ape is dark for life, but the female ape begins to turn gray by the age of five to seven years old, and eventually turns golden yellow, which is very cute. The hairs on Jake's abdomen have begun to turn gray, indicating that she is a female ape that is in the early stages of discoloration.
As for its origin, it is likely that the old Cruise bought it from a Chinese hunter, who appears to be an animal lover, and old photos left behind show that he also trained a peacock.
The unexpected discovery in the old photos makes us have to thank the beautiful misunderstanding that was once interpreted. At the beginning of the Year of the Monkey, the Monkey King was introduced. Such coincidences also seem to indicate that we will have a good start this year.
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Note: The black and white photos in this illustration are from the collection of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and the color illustrations are network reference images