「挑生」最初意指把人腹中的食物變成活物（或怪物）以害人之法。以「挑 生」之名稱呼中國嶺南所施行的妖術，是在兩宋之際才渐見諸記載。直到明 代，「挑生」仍是不少謫宦、士人與醫者時常論及的「南方」妖術與病症之一， 而且指涉的區域從兩廣延伸到滇黔，偶爾兼及閩地。 從宋代到明代，「挑生」的意義不僅逐渐轉為「挑生蠱」，而且與蠱術傳 統中隱含金錢誘惑的「金蠶蠱」、性愛意涵的「定年蠱」並稱，甚至被形塑成 西南少數民族擅長的伎俩。這個變化為傳統巫蠱與蠱毒的大論述賦予了新 貌，擴大成旅居、遷徙南方所影射的「水土不服」之集體意識。 研究宋元明「挑生」形象的流變有多重意義，除了可以探究當時人們如 何想像食物與妖術的關係，亦有助於考察嶺南的自然與人為疆域如何形塑疾 病的形象與個人的「病體感」。檢視「挑生」紀錄的不同文類及其書寫者，還 可看出此「地方知識」如何為不同時代與人群所傳遞與改寫；既呈現書寫者 與被觀察者的主觀感知與客觀經驗之交融，也凸顯「在地人」與「外來者」 之間視域與身分轉換之多重面向。

The Chinese term tiaosheng 挑生 (lit. “reanimating life”) originally referred to a form of magic used to harm people by “reviving” the food in their body. It was regarded as a form of black magic that must be exorcised, and/or an affliction that required treatment. From the twelfth century onwards, tiaosheng magic is widely recorded in different literary genres, ranging from lawsuit records, literary sketches, and collections of writings, to medical texts. In addition to local governors and physicians, their writers included demoted officials and travelling scholars from the north. Owing to these writers’ personal perceptions and conceptions, and the widespread dissemination of their works, an increasing number of people came to believe that tiaosheng magic was widely practiced in – though not restricted to – the Lingnan 嶺南 region in the far south of China. The imagery of tiaosheng magic and its association with the South continued to circulate during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But its geographical territory had expanded from Guangdong 廣東 and Guangxi 廣西 into Guizhou 貴州 and Yunnan 雲南, due to the rapid expansion of the Empire and migration of the Han 漢ethnic group to those frontier regions. Moreover, since the Song dynasty, tiaosheng magic had become gradually absorbed into the grand narratives of the form of witchcraft known as “gu poisoning 蠱毒.” As such, tiaosheng not only referred to a form of black magic that “reanimated” the food in the human body, but had also become closely related to these other types of magic and similarly connected with the allure of money and sexual control. It was even claimed that non-Han ethnic groups in these newly developed regions of the Ming Empire were skilled in these arts. In any case, examining tiaosheng magic’s changing imagery between the Song and Ming dynasties will help to reveal how people perceived the relationship between food and magic. It will also help us to rethink how tiaosheng as bodily experiences of a local illness/syndrome were shaped by both nature and culture in the Lingnan region. Furthermore, the variety of literary genres used to write about tiaosheng magic also show how local knowledge was shared, rewritten and transmitted, which necessarily involves interaction between the writer and the observed.