Chinese men seeking alms by threatening to kill themselves by self-mutilation: (left to right) a man hitting his head with a rock; a man with burning herbs on his head; a man with his head stuck in a block. Engraving after J. Nieuhof.

Description by Nieuhof: "When we had moored at the afore-said the town (Nanking), various beggars came aboard and indulged in some strange antics. Two of them butted each other’s heads to such an extraordinary degree that those who saw them were shocked. They did not stop until we gave them money; [if we had not done so] they would have battered each other to death, which had happened on various occasions. There was another one who was on his knees and seemed to be talking to himself and then he struck his forehead on a heavy rock. He knocked so hard that the earth trembled. Some of them had dry kindling on their heads which they set fire to and they let it burn down completely and it stank. They made so much noise with their shrieking and moaning that it was impossible not to give them something. Those who were blind went in groups. They hit so mercilessly to the rhythm some words on their bare chest and backs that blood spurted forth. Some of these beggars had been misshapen since childhood; their appearance was so ghastly they looked like devils."—Sun, op. cit. p. 229

Description by Du Halde, loc. cit.: "China swarms with strolling beggars, musicians and fortune tellers. These vagrants travel in companies, sometimes all blind folks; and they are as great impostors as the gypsies of Europe. They practise many austerities to extort alms, as scourging their bodies, laying burning coals on their heads, striking their foreheads against a stone, or one another, till huge lumps arise, or they fall down quite stunned. They will continue inflicting these severities on themselves till they die, unless the spectators give them something to desist. Many of them are cripples, having wry necks and mouths, broken backs, long hooked noses, eyes blind or squinting, and lame arms or legs. …"

[London?] : [publisher not identified]

1 print : engraving

Strolling beggars in China, laying burning coals on their heads and using other austerities.

Sun Jing, The illusion of verisimilitude: Johan Nieuhof’s images of China, dissertation, University of Leiden, 2013. pp. 228-231

Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, The general history of China, in John Green (ed.), A new general collection of voyages and travels; London: printed for Thomas Astley, 1747, vol. 4 p. 278

Wellcome Collection 37971i

After an engraving in the opposite direction published in J. Nieuhof, Het gezantschap der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, Amsterdam 1665, reproduced by Sun, op. cit. p. 276