Folk Belief, Medicinal Market, and Local Society: Qizhou in Late Imperial China

Abstract

Qizhou, despite of its location of no significance today and local god of little fame in medical history, served as the “northern capital” of materia medica and one of the major distribution centers for medicinal material in Qing China. In this paper, I explore its local history by collecting twenty-three original stele inscriptions and twenty-seven land contracts collected from my fieldwork, to overcome the dearth of details in the limited official records. The inscriptions provide not only essays commemorating the renovations of the Temple of the Medicine King, but also give us a wide range of information about the market, such as lists of donors and their contributions on the back of the steles. Two aspects of my findings are of special interest in understanding the historical making of Qizhou as a medicinal market. First, I track the distinct identities of the Medicine King as they had been recognized and interpreted in different historical context, under demands of local officials, elites, merchants, and commoners. Second, local records indicate that the fall and decline of an indigenous clan of literati and the rise of the merchant families, both local and migrant, testify to the transition of local society and the increasing influence of the medicinal market. The internal competition amongst the guilds of merchants, middlemen and other market participants can be seen from the reconstructions of the Temple of Medicine King, an occasion for actors to make their influence known by contributing to local public affairs. Lastly, I discuss the modern fate of the market in the twentieth century, and describe how Qizhou faced economical and political crises that turned into an existential one, and how Qizhou’s history has been subject to scholarly inquiry and “preservation” of tradition. The medicinal market no doubt still has tremendous impact on local society. We must continue to reconstruct Qizhou’s significant role in the medicinal trade during the Qing, and at the same time recognize how folk belief and tales of a prestigious past serve as supports for local identity today, although the old tradition itself had passed away inevitably