Money Tree

Called “money trees” because of the coin-shaped foliage that sprouts from their branches, objects such as this are often found in Han and post-Han tombs in Sichuan province, in China’s southwest. Designed to symbolically meet the deceased’s needs for currency in the afterlife, the money tree features auspicious imagery from Chinese mythology. The small, seated figure that appears along the tops of the tree’s upper branches, surrounded by attendant immortals and other magical creatures, is Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West—a deity associated with longevity. Other depictions of roaming animals and hunters, as well as the tree’s towering form, suggest the wilderness setting of Xiwangmu’s palatial residence on Mount Kunlun (Kunlun Shan 崑崙山). The ram-shaped base of this money tree is also meant to bring good fortune. In Chinese, one word for “auspicious” (xiang 祥) is written using the character for the rhyming word “ram” (yang 羊) as one of its components.