Darwin and Scarlet Cloth/ 达尔文与一块红布

Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993).

Take Darwin’s account of the following joyous exchanges, with each party delighted at the other’s delight, the other’s silliness:

Both parties laughing, wondering, gaping at each other; we pitying them, for giving us good fish and crabs for rags, etc.,; they grasping at the chance of finding people so foolish as to exchange such splendid ornaments for a good supper. It was most amusing to see the undisguised smile of satisfaction with which one young woman with her face painted black, tied several bits of scarlet cloth round her head with rushes. (227) [End Page 94]

That was 1832, by which time the European bourgeoisies, male versions, unlike the aristocracy and Middle Ages of time past, were deeply invested in grey to a degree that brilliant colors such as red took on a wild, primitive, not to mention even a revolutionary hue—obviously the perfect gift for the Fuegians (whom, we are later told, had the practice of daubing their naked bodies with black, white, and red). But from the beginning of European discovery and conquest, redness itself, first from a species of tree in India, called Brasilium on account of its fieriness, and later from Bahia (in what came to be called Brasil), and from Central and South America, fetched enormous prices in Europe into the eighteenth century. Indeed, after gold and silver and perhaps slaves, the commodity that seems to have most interested the buccaneers of Spanish Main, those same sailor-buccaneers with whom the Cuna Indians allied themselves in the famous Darien peninsula in the seventeenth century, was red dyewood.

The Guilty Desire to Appear Innocent: Colonial Imagination

Franco Moretti, Atlas of the European novel: 1800-1900 (London: Verso, 1998).

Penetrate; seize; leave (and if needed, destroy). It’s the spatial logic of colonialism; duplicated, and ‘naturalized’, by the spatial logic of the one-dimensional plot. And then, at the end of the journey (with the exception of Heart of Darkness), we don’t find raw materials, or ivory, or human beings to be enslaved. In lieu of these prosaic realities, a fairy-tale entity—a ‘treasure’—where the bloody profits of the colonial adventure are sublimated into an aesthetic, almost self-referential object: glittering, clean stones: diamonds, if possible (as in King Solomon’s Mines). Or else, an enigmatic lover: a sort of jungle Dracula, who in two very popular texts (She, Atlantide) is actually a supernatural being. Or again, and most typically, at the end of the journey lies the figure of the Lost European, who retrospectively justifies the entire story as a case of legitimate defense. The Congo, the Haggar, central Africa, the land of the Zulus, the Sahara outposts: in this continent teeming with white prisoners that long to be freed, Western conquest can be rewritten as a genuine liberation, with a reversal of roles (a ‘rhetoric of innocence’, I have called it in Modern Epic) this is possibly the greatest trick of the colonial imagination. [End Page 62]

And innocence—that is, the guilty desire to appear innocent—is what comes to mind in front of figure 29. I found it by chance, in an issue of the Journal of Geography for the year 1974 (nineteen-seventy-four), in an article entitled ‘A Game of European Colonization in Africa’. As you can see, it is a board game designed as a teaching aid, a sort of ‘Monopoly’, where the five players (‘England, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal’) throw the dice, move, buy the various territories (the most expensive one if the Cape of Good Hope), draw the ‘Fate’ and ‘Fortune’ cards (the worst, a ‘native [End Page 63, Figure 29 Omitted] uprising’; the luckiest one, a gift from an ‘American philanthropist’). And I will add only this: to win, you must build, not houses and hotels, but schools and hospitals.

丰子恺的画（十）

"女墙上黯黯的一抹斜阳，人在城外了。"

王小波：学院派（老妓女） vs. 自由派（小妓女）

王小波，长篇小说《万寿寺》。

……

妓女这种职业似乎谈不上贞节，这种看法只在一般情况下是对的。有些妓女最讲贞节，老妓女就是这种 妓女中的一个。她从来不看着男人的眼睛说话，总是看着他的脚说话；而且在他面前总是四肢着地的爬。据她自己说，干了这么多年，从来没见过男人的生殖器官。 当然，她也承认，有时免不了用手去拿。但她还说：用手拿和用眼看，就是贞节不贞节的区别。老妓女说，她有一位师姐，因为看到了那个东西，就上吊自杀了。上 吊之前还把自己的眼睛挖掉了。有眼睛的人在拿东西时总禁不住要看看，但拿这样东西时又要扼杀这种冲动。所以还不如戴个墨镜。顺便说一句，老妓女就有这么一 副墨镜，是烟水晶制成的，镶在银框子上。假如把镜片磨磨就好了，但是没有磨，因为水晶太硬，难以加工。所谓镜片，只是两块六棱的晶体。这墨镜戴在鼻子上， 整个人看上去像穿山甲。当然，她本人的修为很深，已经用不着这副眼睛，所以也不用再装成穿山甲了。

……

综上所述不难看出，在唐朝，妓女这个行业分为两派。老妓女所属的那一派是学院派，严谨、认真，有 很多清规戒律，努力追求着真善美。这不是什么坏事，人生在世，不管做着什么事，总该有所追求。另一派则是小妓女所属的自由派，主张自由奔放、回归自然，率 性而行。我觉得回归自然也不是坏事。身为作者，对笔下的人物应该做到不偏不倚。但我偏向自由派，假如有自由派的史学，一定会认为，《老佛爷性事考》、《历 史脐带考》都是史学成就。不管怎么说吧，这段说明总算解释了老妓女为什么要收拾小妓女──这是一种门派之争。……

……

不管怎么说吧，老妓女已经决定杀小妓女，而且决心不可动 摇。但小妓女还不甘心，她把反驳老妓女的话说了好几遍，还故意一字一字，鼓唇作势，想让她听不见也能看见。但老妓女只做没听见也没看见，心里却在想反驳的 道理，终于想好了，就把手从耳朵上放下来，说道：小婊子；你既是败类，就不是同行姐妹。我杀你也不是败类。说毕，把刀抢到手里，上前来杀小妓女。要不是小 妓女嘴快，就被她杀掉了。她马上想到一句反驳的话：不对，不对，我既不是同行姐妹，就和你不是一类，如何能算是败类。所以和你还是一类。老妓女一听话头不 对，赶紧丢下刀子，把耳朵又捂上了。我老婆后来评论道，这一段像金庸小说里的某种俗套，但我不这样想。学院派总是拘泥于俗套，这是他们的弱点，可供利用。 可惜自由派和学院派斗嘴，虽然可以占到一些口舌上的便宜，但无法改善自己的地位，因为刀把子捏在人家的手里。

……

Semiotic “Fishnet” and Sensuous Acquaintance/ 符号之“网”与感性之“鱼”

William M. Ivins, Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969), 53, 59, 63.

(Excerpted passages. Subtitles are my own.)

The Net

The only way that anyone can gain acquaintance which objects, as distinguished from knowledge of them, is through immediate sense awareness of them. It is thus necessary to keep clear the distinction between sensuous acquaintance on the one hand and knowledge by description on the other, for otherwise we are certain to fool ourselves on crucial occasions. We have many different ways of symbolizing both acquaintance and knowledge, but of them all the most important are words and visual images. Both words and visual images may very well be compared to fish nets. When a fisherman tells us that there are no fish in the bay today, what he really means is that he has been unable to catch any in his net—which is quite a different thing. The fish that are too big do not get into his net, and those that are too small simply swim through it and get away. So far as the fisherman is concerned fish are only such creatures as he can catch in his net. In the same way words and visual images catch only the things or qualities they are adequately meshed for. Among the things no word net can ever catch is the personality of objects which we know by acquaintance.

The Classification Problem

The actual object always has something about it that defies neat classification, unless you can manage always to stay in the middle of your definition and not get out towards its shadowy and slippery edges. In other words, our verbal definitions are only good so long as we do not have to think just what they mean. When we do have to think just what they mean we are more than apt to wind up with a very temperamental and wholly chance five to four decision.

The Syntax

Plato’s Ideas and Aristotle’s forms, essences, and definitions, are specimens of this transference of reality from the object to the exactly repeatable and therefore seemingly permanent verbal formula. An essence, in fact, is not part of the object but part of its definition. Also, I believe, the well-known notions of substance and attributable qualities can be derived from this operational dependence upon exactly repeatable verbal descriptions and definitions—for the very linear order in which words have to be used results in a syntactical time order analysis of qualities that actually are simultaneous and so intermingled and interrelated that no quality can be removed from one of the bundles of qualities we call objects without changing both it and all the other qualities. After all, a quality is only a quality of a group of other qualities, and if you change anyone of the group they all necessarily change. Whatever the situation may be from the point of view of a verbalist analysis, from the point of view of visual awarenesses of the kind that have to be used in an art museum the object is a unity that cannot be broken down into separate qualities without becoming merely a collection of abstractions that have only conceptual existence and no actuality. In a funny way words and their necessary linear syntactical order forbid us to describe objects and compel us to use very poor and inadequate lists of theoretical ingredients in the manner exemplified more concretely by the ordinary cook book recipes.

汴京往事/ Once upon a time in Capital Bianliang—circa 1100

駕回儀衛

駕回﹐則御裹小帽簪花乘馬﹐前後從駕 ﹑臣寮﹑百司﹑儀衛悉賜花。大觀初﹐乘驄馬。至太和宮前﹐忽宣小烏﹐其馬至御前﹐拒而不進﹐左右曰﹕“此願封官。”敕賜龍驤將軍﹐然後就轡。蓋小烏平日御愛之馬也。莫非錦繡盈都﹐花光滿目﹐御香拂路﹐廣樂喧空﹐寶騎交馳﹐綵棚夾路﹐綺羅珠翠﹐戶戶神仙﹐畫閣紅樓﹐家家洞 府﹐遊人士庶﹐車馬無數。妓女舊日乘驢﹐宣政間惟乘馬﹐披涼衫將蓋頭背繫冠子上。少年狎客﹐往往隨後。亦跨馬﹐輕衫小帽﹐有三五文身惡少年控馬﹐謂之﹐“花褪馬。”用短韁促馬頭﹐刺地而行﹐謂之﹐“鞅韁。”呵喝馳驟﹐競逞峻逸。遊人往往以竹竿挑掛終日關撲所得之物而歸。仍有貴家士女小轎﹐插花不垂簾縸。自三月一日至四月八日閉池﹐雖風雨亦有遊人﹐略無虛日矣。

根據孟元老《東京夢華錄》的記載﹐北宋末年的汴京是一個和諧社會。皇家的金明池定期向百姓開放﹐從道君皇帝到市民妓女小流氓﹐各得其樂﹐同一個大宋﹐同一個夢想。

以前上 Stephen West （奚如谷）教授的課的時候﹐念過這一段﹐覺得太酷了﹐所以記憶猶新。

下面是 Stephen West 教授的翻譯, quoted from his paper, “Spectacle, Ritual, and Social Relations: The Son of Heaven, Citizen, and Created Space in Imperial Gardens in the Northern Song.”

“Ceremonial Guard of the Return of the Auriga”

When the Auriga returns, his head is wrapped in a small cap, and he has flowers stuck in his hair as he rides his horse. His retinue, the high officials, and hundred officials, and his ceremonial guard all are given flowers. At the beginning of the Daguan era, he rode a bayard. He would come to the front of the Palace of Grand Harmony and then suddenly call for Reddy and the horse would come before the emperor. The horse would be held back and not allowed to go forward and the servants would say, “By this he desires to be enfeoffed.” The emperor granted the title of Dragon Courser General, and then Reddy would take the bit. Now Reddy was the horse that the emperor really loved.

It was all:

Damask and brocade filling the capital,
dowers’ radiance flooding the eyes,
imperial scents sweeping the road,
grand music ringing discordant in the air,
jeweled mounts racing hither and yon,
bunted boxes lining the road.
Gauze and silks, pearls and kingfisher feathers—
door after door of spiritual transcendents;
painted galleries and red lofts—
every house a grotto precinct.
Roamers both noble and common,
horses and carts numbered in the thousands.

Singsong girls mostly road asses in the old days, but during the Xuanhe and Zhenghe reigns they only rode horses, mantled in their “cool dusters” with their head coverings tied to the backs of their caps. Young brothel rats often followed behind them, also astride horses and dressed in light gowns and small caps. Three or four tattooed young toughs controlled the girls’ horses, and they were called “flowers falling from the horse.” They controlled the horses’ heads with short tethers, and struck at the ground as they went along, which was called “breast tether.” They shouted and yelled as they raced and ran, competing to show off their spirited elegance. Roamers often went home with the goods they had won gambling the day long, hanging from a bamboo pole. As before, there were the young girls of noble families, in small palanquins studded with flowers, who neither let their curtains nor screens down. From the first of the third month until the eighth of fourth month, when they closed the Reservoir, there were always roamers, not a single day was ever skipped.

關於對“小烏”的翻譯﹐Stephen West 教授有如下註解﹕

Wu is shortened from the horse’s full name, Uhulan 烏護蘭, which is an Altaic word for “red.” (private communication from James Bosson). See Zhang Zhifu 張知甫, Keshu 可書 (SKTY ed.) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991 photolith.) 2b; 1038.709.