From Practice to Writing: The Case of Wild Silk in Early Qing China

Abstract The observation of ‘wild silkworms’ and the utilization of their cocoons emerged at the dawn of Chinese civilization, almost at the same time as the use of the cocoons of Bombyx, commonly known as the ‘domestic silkworm’ ( jiacan 家蠶). Belonging to different species of the Lepidoptera family which also includes the Saturniidae , the so-called ‘wild silkworms’ are very different from the Bombyx as they feed on the leaves of a variety of trees. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-seventeenth century that the first written description of wild silk cultivation appeared – the “Shancan shuo” 山蠶說 (On Mountain Silk Moths) by Sun Tingquan 孫廷銓 –, while technical works on the subject do not appear until the eighteenth century. This paper delves into the evolution of writings on wild silk before the mid-nineteenth century.