Why Do Asian Cultures Believe That the Horns of Rhinos Possess Medicinal and Magical Healing Power?

English Composition, English 123

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

As a young boy growing up in a town called Krugersdorp which was on the outskirts of Johannesburg, we lived near a rhino reserve.  I became very fascinated with the animal, seeing such a big animal was very exciting and intimidating.  So I started volunteering at the rhino reserve just outside of my town.  I got to learn a lot about the animal, like its eating habits, how vast their territories are and how short tempered and near sited, they are.  This makes for a very bad situation for any other animal, including humans who venture too close.  This made them very vulnerable as I come to find out after a couple of black rhinos were killed for their horns.  They will stand their ground rather than run away.  Now looking back at those days I started doing some research as to why they kill rhinos for their horns.  It turns out that they believe the horns have medicinal and magical healing power.  Thus my question is: Why do Asian cultures believe that the horns of rhinos possess medicinal and magical healing power?

        Then I began my inquiry to try and understand why Asian cultures believe that the horns of rhinos possess medicinal and magical healing ability.  After searching for a while on the belief of the Asian culture I have come across this “The Culture of Killing - A Historical Perspective” (Davies), the research dates back to the 1600’s and how poaching flourished hundreds of years between countries.   In the 1800’s, ivory was transported from Siam to China by the ship loads, these ships carried, unknown amounts’ of wildlife parts which included things like  rhino horns, elephant hides, buffalo skins, tiger skins and leopard pelts.

All these wildlife parts are believed to have some sort of mythical power.  The Chinese assume that the rhino horn enhances strength, life span and the tones of a human being.  So after reading all about the other wildlife parts on this website, I wanted to know, what other animals were being hunted for their parts in today’s day and age.  So I proceeded to search the Hunt Library and I found this article that states “The rhino and its horn are not alone...” (Graham-Rowe, 2011).    The other creatures that were found in the article are tigers, anteater-like Pangolin, and freshwater turtles; they are all believed to pose some sort of healing ability.  They move along to speak about the healing power of all these animal characters and nothing to back up the estimate.