Fusang is an account written by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Hoei-schin which tells about a Chinese voyage which took place in the late fifth century AD, to a country called Fusang, located far to the east, 20,000 li (Chinese miles) from China, which some believe was America, and specifically, Mexico. The Fusang account also mentions a previous visit that took place earlier, in 458 AD, involving some Buddhist monks who took their religion with them to Fusang.
You can find the account digitalized online (Fusang : or, The discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist priests in the fifth century. Leland, Charles Godfrey and Neumann, Karl Friedrich, 1875.
The name Fusang is that of a Chinese plant, said to resemble one they found in the country they visited, which the notes and comments by Friedrich, translated from German to English by Leland, identify with the maguey.
The book is well balanced because it includes points of view that support the notion that Fusang was America, and others that say it is fiction. See this criticism as an example:
"'Hui-shen appears to have been a consummate humbug.' (Cf. 'The People of Central Asia,' by F. Hyacinth.)
"I cannot, indeed, understand what ground we have for believing that Fusang is America..."
Earlier references about Fusang
There are older references on Fusang, as can be seen online here (1763), mentioning de Guignes, who is also mentioned here in 1761 (with a map showing Fusang), and earlier, in 1753.
There is also some disputed and controversial maps attributed to Marco Polo's travels to Asia that mention Fusang (See source) where it shows East Asia and Western North America, with "Focan = Fú Sāng (扶桑) [a mythical land to distant east of China and/or a mythical mulberry tree (桑) growing there]"
Fusang in the 18th-century cartography
A map published in 1776 by Zatta, A., Nuove scoperte de’Russi al Nord del Mare del Sud si nell’Asia, che nell America. Venice. Shows the Northern Pacific, on the coast at Cape Fortuna, you can see "Fou-Sang", this is NW USA, roughly 50° Lat. North and it reads "Colonia de Chinesi" (Chinese Colony). Next to it is the mythical strait of Anian, which was believed to be a link to the Northwest Passage (to the Atlantic Ocean), and also marked the boundary between Asia and America, like Bering Strait does nowadays. The location is roughly where Cape Flattery and Juan de Fuca Strait are located. It can also bee seen in another map from 1768 (online here) which reads "Four Sang according to yc. Chinese geogr." with Puerto Bravo and Cabo Fortunes along its coast, and the Juan de Fuca Strait on its southern side. It is probably Vancouver Island (map).
Juan de Fuca's voyage was published in
Hakluytus Posthumus, vol. XIV, p. 415, in 1825, as told by Michael Lok, who in 1596 met de Fuca in Venice.
Zatta's map 1776, and detail showing Fou-Sang. Online, can be enlarged
Now, let's look at the text by Charles G. Leland, Karl F. Neumann, published in 1875.
The 1875 Text on Fusang
This is the literal translation of the original text:
"During the reign of the dynasty Tsi, in the first year of the year-naming, ' Everlasting Origin ' (a.d. 499), came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister-name of Hoei-schin, i.e., Universal Compassion, to the -present district of Hukuang, and those surrounding it, who narrated that Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the Middle Kingdom. Many Fusang trees grow there, whose leaves resemble the Dryanda cordifolia, the sprouts, on the contrary, resemble those of the bamboo-tree, and are eaten by the inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen which they use for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff.
They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no wars ; but in the arrangements for the kingdom they have a northern and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the southern prison, but those confined for greater offences in the northern ; so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in the southern prison, and those who were not, in the northern. Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of eight years, sold as slaves ; the girls not until their ninth year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly was held ; it must be in an excavated place." {Gruhe^ Grer. "a pit;" possibly within an embankment or circle of earth. — C. Gr. L.) " There they strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell. If the offender was one of a lower class, he alone was punished ; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it attained to the seventh generation.
The name of the king is pronounced Ichi. The nobles of the first-class are termed Tuilu ; .of the second. Little Tuilu ; and of the third, Na-to-scha. "When the prince goes forth, he is accompanied by horns and trumpets. The colour of his clothes changes with the different years. In the two first of the ten-year cyclus they are blue ; in the two next, red ; in the two following, yellow ; in the two next, red ; and in the last two, black."
Oxen and Horses in Fusang (America?)
The text continues and mentions the locals have oxen, horses, and use the milk of deers. The notes mention that Humboldt had said there were two types of bovids in Mexico, and that some critics of the text had pointed out that there were no horses in America. The commentary argues the opposite: " "
" The horns of the oxen are so large that they hold ten bushels. They use them to contain all manner of things. Horses, oxen, and stags are harnessed to their waggons. Stags are used here as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and from the milk of the hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang-tree keep good throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds. From the latter they prepare mats. No iron is found in this land ; but copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market. "
The final part of the text is about marriage, and then it mentions a previous voyage of missionary Buddhist monks in 458 AD.
"Marriage is determined upon in the following manner : — The suitor builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not inclined to marry him, he departs ; should she be willing, it is completed; When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five days ; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourningclothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not busy himself for three years with State affairs.
In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming Great Light,' of Song (a.d. 458), five beggar-monks from the kingdom of Kipin went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their manners."
The final part of the text mentions a tribe of Amazons! which is not translated in this work: "This land," he writes, "lies ahout a thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Fusang, and is inhabited hy white people with very hairy bodies." The entire story is, however, intermixed with so. much fabulous matter, that it is not worth translating."
So if this has "fabulous" matter, why don't we consider other parts of the text as made up? It could all be false.
The domestic animals
On page 40, the book analyzes the deer, bovids, and horses:
"DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
The Aztecs had no beasts of draught or of burden. Horses were not found in the New World. The report of the Chinese missionary has, therefore, no connection with the later Mexican reigns. Two varieties of wild oxen with large horns ranged in herds on the plains of the Rio del Norte.3 These might have been tamed by the earlier inhabitants, and used as domestic animals. Stag's horns have been found in the ruins of Mexican buildings ; and Montezuma showed the Spaniards, as curiosities, immensely large horns of this description.
3 Humboldt : Neuhispanien, ii. 138.
[My comment (A. Whittall). This quote is correct, Humboldt wrote: "The Mexicans had not yet attempted to domesticate the two species of wild oxen (Bos americanus and B. moschatus) that roam in herds on the plains along the River del Norte. These are the American bison and the muskox.]
It is possible that the stags formerly ranged from New California, and other regions of North America, where they are still found in great numbers, to the interior of Mexico. To a native of China it must have seemed remarkable that the Mexicans should have prepared butter from hind's milk, since such a thing has seldom been done in China, either in ancient or modern times....
It is indeed possible that the Chinese have described an animal similar to the horse with the character Ma, or horse, for changes of this nature are of frequent occurrence.1 In such a manner many names of animals in the Old World have been applied to others of an entirely different nature in the New. The eastern limits of the' Asiatic Continent are also the limits of the native land of the horse, and it appears that it was first taken in the third century of our era from Korea into Japan. But let the error in regard to the American horses have come from what source it will, the unprejudiced, circumspect inquirer will not be etermined on account of it to declare the entire story of Fusang-Mexico an idle tale. It appears to me that this description of the western coast of America is at least as authentic as the discovery of the eastern coast, as narrated in Icelandic sagas.
1It is usual for all ignorant or unscientific people to give to animals for which they have no name that of some other creature with which they are familiar. Thus the gipsies speak of a fox as a weshni jucTcal, or wood-dog ; of an elephant as a loro naJckescro gry, or great-nosed horse ; of a monkey as a ionibaros, and a lion as a horo iomlaros, or big monkey, from their connection in menageries. Professor Neumann was probably ignorant of the fact, to which I allude more fully in another place, that the fossil remains of many horses found in America are of so recent a period, according to Professor Leidy, that they were probably coeval with man. — C. G. L."
The oxen are taken up again on p. 153 with an interesting explanation that equates them with bison:
"We may, perhaps, even dispense with supposing that the oxen seen by Hoei-shin were bison, if we admit that domestic cattle may have existed in America, and been exterminated. Thus, in the "Relation de Choses de Yucatan de Diego de Landa," the author tells us that an Indian chief named Cocom showed him one day an ancient book containing the picture of a common European cow, and told him it had been prophesied that when such beasts should come into the country, the worship of the gods would cease — " Cessario el culto de los Dioses, y que se avia cumplido, porque los espanoles truxeron vacas grandes." It is true that this may have been a mere trick of the Indian to flatter the Spaniard.
D'Eichthal has vindicated Deguignes as regards the statement that hinds (biches) were domesticated in Fusang, and that cheese was made from their milk, by citing from the "Popol-Vuh" (Introduction, p. xl.)" Milk was known to the Mexicans, who were accustomed to milk bison-cows and tame hinds, and make cheese." The statement appears to have been taken from Castaneda."
My comment: Hind is a mature female deer. The word "biches" used by Deguinges is French for "hind".
Regarding the quote from Popol-Vuh, I disagree; there is no refrence in the Popol-Vuh about cheese-making by the ancient Mayas using deer milk. In fact, the quote mentioned above and cited as "Popol-Vuh, Introduction p. xl" is a circular reference, because going to D'Eichthal's work (see it here, p. 151) we see that the quote originated in the work of M. l’Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his introduction to the Popol-Vuh, but, where he quotes the Fusang book; the text on p. xl says [in Fusang] "They raise deer like oxen, and make a drink from milk."
The mention of father Diego de Landa (1524-1579) and his Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan (p.14) is correct, but excluded some relevant text. The original says: "Don Juan Cocom... le contó muchas antigúedades y le mostró un libro que fue de su abuelo, hijo de Cocom que mataron en Mayapán, y en él estaba pintado un venado; y que aquel su abuelo le había dicho que cuando en aquella tierra entrasen venados grandes, que así llamaban a las vacas, cesaría el culto de los Dioses; y que se había cumplido porque los españoles trajeron vacas grandes" which in English is: "Juan Cocom... told him many ancient stories and showed him a book that had belonged to his grandfather, the son of Cocom who was killed in Mayapán, and in it was painted a deer; and that his grandfather had told him that when large deer, which is what they called cows, entered that land, the worship of the gods would cease; and that it had come to pass because the Spaniards brought large cows."
So, were they cows or deer (venados)? or did the natives use the word "deer" and applied it to some local bovid, probably American bison?
I have posted several times in the past about American cows and horses (See two examples Native Pre-Hispanic Cattle in Patagonia?, and the survival of native horses in the Americas, so I am not surprised at them being mentioned in Mesoamerica.
It is very likely that Chinese ships crossed the North Pacific Ocean and took advantage of its natural resources (forestry, salmons, seals, Steller sea cows) and visited Alaska, and the west coast of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
My next posts will look into Eastern Asia (China and Japan) and their possible pre-Columbian contacts with America.
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Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
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