Traditional Chinese Medicine and Tiger Beliefs: Tracing an Animist-Analogist Transition in China and Vietnam

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is often considered the main driver of the declining number of increasingly rare animals (including tigers, rhinos and pangolins), although there is little biomedical evidence supporting the usage of animal products from these species. What, then, are the underlying cultural and ontological factors driving demand for them? Based on published sources on Chinese (Han) and Vietnamese (Kinh) tiger lore and culture as well as anthropological fieldwork among the Katu and related Katuic-speaking groups, this paper analyzes how the tiger has been viewed over time in Vietnam and China, two core demand areas for animal-based traditional medicines, and compares “high-culture” and rural perceptions in the Sino-Vietnamese region. Tentatively, the paper reveals a transition from a view of the tiger as a divinity or powerful spirit towards a more material and instrumental (magical) perception in more recent iterations of the TCM complex. Heuristically using Descola’s typology of ontologies, the paper attempts a holistic analysis of this perceptional and conceptual transformation, interpreting it as a movement along an animism-analogism continuum.