Gourds are not used to eat, but to make amazing works of art.
Spherical gourd, date unknown, author unknown.
Written in the 8th century AD notebook novel "The Testament of Kaiyuan Tianbao", it is described that the concubines of the Tang court had a habit in autumn, and when the weather gradually cooled, they would catch some song insects (crickets or crickets) and put them in small cages made of gold, and then put them on the pillow, and at night they could hear the pleasant chirping of crickets, when the Tang Dynasty people competed to imitate.
The idea that the habit of raising song bugs began with concubines in the Tang Dynasty may be just a legend, but people raising crickets or grasshoppers to listen to their calls did begin in the Tang Dynasty. People have long liked to listen to the chirping of crickets or crickets, and many people still have the habit of raising songbirds. As a result, a form of artisanal art has been born since the Tang Dynasty, and craftsmen have begun to make containers that can make this songbird survive all year round. Before plastic products were available, the containers used to raise crickets were divided into summer use and winter use. In the hot summer, crickets are kept in cool clay pots, but in winter, in order to resist the cold weather, crickets need to be kept in a warm and comfortable place. So the gourd began to appear.
Gourds are the best utensils for songbirds to overwinter. In China, the gourd, which has an auspicious meaning, is pulled out of the inner gourd seeds after it matures, and after drying, it can be used as a warm and comfortable songbird container. Crickets or crickets can rest in gourd wool that resemble cotton wool, especially in the cold winter, which is more comfortable inside. When cleaning is needed, the insect keeper can rinse it with hot tea.
Left: Zi'er head gourd. Medium: Oil pot Lu gourd. Right: Grasshopper gourd. The date is unknown, the author is unknown. (See Wang Shixiang's "Speaking of Gourds")
In addition to storing insects, gourds have evolved into exquisite works of art. People sandwich gourds in pottery or wooden molds, and the gourds grown take on various shapes or present exquisite relief patterns, which range from geometric figures to landscape paintings, called fan gourds. Some gourds are heated with a special drawing needle and then burned on the surface to produce patterns or pictures, called fire painting gourds.
In 1923, an American named Berthold Laufer came to China, an anthropologist who became interested in chinese songbird gourds, and then began to learn to grow gourds and study gourds on his own. He later wrote a pamphlet called "Crickets and Songbirds in China," which was published and distributed by the Field Museum in Chicago. In the book he writes: "When the gourd blooms, the flowers are placed in a special mold, and when the fruit is borne, the gourd gradually grows into the shape of a mold." The molds come in a variety of forms, from slender and graceful, round and plump, to pen holders or small jars. ”
Laufer even found a place to cultivate this special gourd, and he wrote in the book that this special gourd was a special variety, and only one family in Beijing would grow this variety at that time.
Semicircular grasshopper cage. The date is unknown, the author is unknown.
As we all know, a well-grown gourd not only has a beautiful appearance, but also sounds beautiful when it is made into an appliance. Like the gourd silk, a musical instrument made of gourds, only after the gourd with good shape and texture is made into a worm storage device, the sound of insects chirping will be more pleasant. Many insect gourds are relatively small, which is convenient for insect feeders to put in their pockets or arms, and they can enjoy this beautiful music when walking.
After the gourd is mature and dried, it is necessary to cut the top and install a plug with a hole, the plug of the grasshopper gourd is called the "scoop cover", and the plug of the gourd is called "Mengxin", in order to facilitate the insertion of the song worms into the gourd and prevent the worms from escaping. Craftsmen also go to great lengths to make beautiful stoppers, usually made from tortoiseshell (turtle shell), coconut shell, mahogany or ivory.
The Minneapolis Museum of Art in the United States has a large collection of songbird gourds, all made in the Qing Dynasty. Each gourd has an elaborately designed stopper carved with flowers, dragon patterns, etc., and many are carved with auspicious patterns, similar to the patterns of many snuff bottles or jade carvings in the same period of the Qing Dynasty. Yang Liu, director of the museum's China Pavilion, said most of the motifs contain moral or religious symbolism, involving The three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in China.
Grasshopper cages sold in a park in Suzhou.
Gourds make up a large part of the museum's collection, which shows the history and habits of Chinese raising songbirds. The collection also includes many beautifully crafted small objects, including small bamboo cages and small wooden cages for grasshoppers, metal insect nets, and even patterned porcelain plates for feeding grasshoppers or grasshoppers, filled with cucumbers, lettuce, chestnuts and beans.
Other items include spies for fighting clams, usually made of rat whiskers, and altars, which are used to fight clams, are generally made of clay clay. In the Song Dynasty, the wind of fighting cockroaches prevailed, and the Southern Song Dynasty Prime Minister Jia Xiangdao was famous as the "Cockroach Prime Minister". The cockroach used for gambling is seen as the embodiment of the warrior, and the brave cockroach is considered to have heroic and martial qualities, so many players put the dead cockroach in the coffin of the cockroach and bury it in the grave like a human.
Whether it is fighting clams or listening to the song, Chinese still raise songbirds, although the current song insect feeding tools are already mass-produced. There are fewer and fewer beautifully crafted songbird gourds, replaced by many simple modern imitations. Vendors in the market also sell cockroaches or grasshoppers, but they are raised in simple bamboo cages, plastic cages, and some even in PVC pipes used for toilet pipes. The beautifully made songbird gourds are certainly much more beautiful than these utensils, but they can at least say one thing, and that is that these wonderful songbird calls are still preserved in modern Chinese culture.