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| Location: |
Asia - South East Asia - Indonesia - Sumatra |
| Subject: |
Value - Related to Horn |
| Species: |
Asian Rhino Species |
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Sumatra. And what about our friend Rhino ? Well, he went the way of all Rhinos, i.e. to the chemist's of the Celestial Empire, with hide and hair, to give - with more or less results -Youth and Vitality, to old sinners and patriarchs, who still refused to renounce the Pleasures of Life. The Chinese gladly pay quite a lot of money for the hide of the One-Horned Rhino (up to Fl. 1500), and especially the Chula or horn, will fetch fancy prizes, even up to 4000 guilders.
The Two-Horned Rhinoceros Sumatrensis is, on the contrary, far less valuable, will fetch in fact only about one tenth of the above mentioned prize-limits. Hide, horn, blood and other parts of the body, pulverized or as an extract, provide the most essential ingredients for very potent and renowned medicines. According to the Chinese and the Natives those medicines should be able to give back lost strength, youth and vitality and cure various diseases. The horns are sometimes modelled into goblets. Water or some other liquid when left in such a vessel for some days, should then become a veritable panacea against all ailments and diseases, even tuberculosis and the plague.
Further on, poisoning the possessor of such a goblet would be impossible, because the poisonous mixture would immediately begin to effervesce, if poured into it. The belief attached to the magical curative and invigorating powers of those drugs, is a survival of animism. The Rhino is to those simple-minded people the symbol of exuberant male vigour, and accordingly that much coveted strength must adhere, more or less powerful, to every part of the body. In using those parts as a medicine, it would be possible to impart some of that strength to the consumer.
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A rhino-hunt in Sumatra
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