Wu Lou / Gourd

The dried gourd — a health object in the practice, and one with a long classical association. The gourd (wu lou / hu lu) is read as a health object and is placed in the bedroom or near the bed. Its association with medicine is old: the gourd was the emblem of the itinerant physician.

This database documents placement principles, not outcomes. The dried gourd — a health object in the practice, and one with a long classical association. The gourd is the clearest case of an object whose meaning was borrowed complete from another part of the culture, rather than generated inside the practice.

The gourd's medical association is genuinely traditional and predates its use as a placement object. The feng shui-specific rules attached to it — material, placement relative to the bed — are later. It is grouped under Earth (土) in the five-element system.