snuff culture among late 18th century jesuits in china

while reading a record written by a late 18th cent. korean ambassador to china, i found the following piece. the ambassador visited a jesuit and had a conversation with him - in written classical chinese, as the two men did not know a shared language. of this convcersation he wrote a record which is in his collected works, which i currently read (ewven though in search not of snuff). anyway: apparently the jesuit missionary and his secretary took snuf during the conversation following my rather rough translation of the relevant part: "the two men took snuff tobacco. snuff tobacco (bi-yan) also is a western product. it is stored in (some kind of box). it is fine (ground) and light reddish in colour. one takes a pinch (“takes with the fingertips”), holds it to the nose and sniffs it. when the chinese sniff herbs (medicine) this is called “yan”. that is why this is called snuff tobacco (bi-yan). in Beijing there are stores who sell it. it is put in small jars. only the manju use it a lot. (二人皆吸鼻烟。鼻烟者亦洋產也。貯以玳瑁匣。細末色微赤。撮少許當鼻孔而吸之。華人吸艸號以烟。故此稱以鼻烟也。京城列肆以賣之。裝以小壺。獨滿人盛用之。) hope this is of interest to someone.

Thanks, very interesting. I especally like this part, “華人吸艸號以烟。故此稱以鼻烟也”. I think thats simply amazing too.

yes, if it is true. but since i know of no sources that explain it otherwise, i will believe it so far. (re-read my translation and noticed that part of the very sentence you were pointing out was mising. fixed that.)

Those pictograms (is that the term?) are beautiful. I once read that each one started as a visual representation of a certain subject, like a pig, then a pig with a roof on to symbolise ‘house’. Sounds like a very difficult art to master. As the Chinese was talking about snuffing herbs I suppose this pre-dates their own snuff use with their beautiful and chracteristic snuff bottles?

to think of chinese characters as pictograms is a misconception, but a very widespread one. they really are just another type of script, that you have to learn by heart, character by chartacter. about 3000 characters or so, to read decently fluid. the person who wrote the text is korean. the “small jars” he refers to probably are the snuff bottles you mentioned.

just curious but which characters mean snuff and do thy have one for snuff bottle?

灯花 = snuff…灯花瓶 = snuff bottle, but don’t take my word for it. Just wait for betonent. another try 鼻燈花 I don’t think it translates well, and I don’t want to offend!

snuff is “biyan”, the characters are: 鼻烟. in the text “xiaohu” 小壺 stands for snuff bottle. i do not now the normal term, i guess “biyanping” 鼻烟瓶 would be understood by most chinese. snuffhead: where did you get those characters?

betonente, from a on-line translator, and knowing that it would not be accurate because translating it back again I got some offencive words. 鼻烟瓶 the translator says Nose Smoke Bottle so I suppose it’s on the right track.

I assume from this that the Chinese have their own types of snuff. Has anyone tried these?

this needs to be understood as a historical source, as a statement of a era long bygone. the text refers to the snuffing habits among jesuit missionaries in china, and very briefly mentions, that there are snuff users among manchus too. the text is at least 200 years old. the situation is very different now and most urban chinese wioll think you are snuffing coke if you snuff something. as far as i know snuff-use today is largely among “ethnic minoritys” (there are at least 50 or so in china). the only snuffs i know something about are mongolian snuffs and tibetan snuffs. there should be a thread somewhere here.

But the presence of Chinese snuff bottles does indicate it was a popular at some point.