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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
572 190. CUIUCCI
reasons why we must admit that the «Toloman» are the T'u-Iao-man, and that « Cuigiu » is the Hsü-chou of the Mongol period, Hsü-chou-fu (vulgo Sui-fu) of modern times. The equivalence of «Cuigiu» and Hsü-chou-fu had been suggested to YULE, with very good reasons, by RICHTHOFEN, and it is a pity that YULE did not adopt it outright (Y, II, 129-130). CORDIER'S note (Y, II, 131) and the map opposite still wrongly assume that Polo's route passed east of Hsüchou-fu. The result is that the traveller is supposed to go up to Ch'êng-tu by the To-chiang, while there can be no doubt that his twelve days of travel by river from «Cuigiu» to Ch'êng-tu are from Hsü-chou-fu (Sui-fu) up the Min river via Chia-ting. RICHTHOFEN was also right on this point.
190. CUIUCCI
cuiuci (? cuuici) F cunici FA cuuici L cuuti VA
canici P cimici (?) LT cinitil S ciuici R
The word is explained in meaning «signori della caccia ».
tanity FB tinucci TA3 tinuci TA' zentil VL
F as «ceiz que tienent le chien mastin », and in RAMUSIO as PAUTHIER and YULE could make nothing of this term, and
BENEDETTO (B', 143, 452) still adopts a reading cinuci. It seems that he has not been convinced by the note I had given in 1920 to CORDIER (Y, III, 70), unfortunately disfigured by a misprint «censeurs », instead of «coureurs » (to which I have already called attention in JA, 1927, II, 267). But if we take into account that, according to the Chinese texts, the ft 7 kuei-ch'ih (or . i
kuei-yu-ch'ih; cf. WANG Hui-tsu2, 50, 1 a), numbering more than 10,000 men, were established under the command of Mingyan (see «Mingan », that Rasidu-'d-Din names a Bayan güyükêi (see «Baian »), and that Polo speaks of two groups of cuiucci, each numbering 10,000 men, placed under the command of each of the two brothers «Mingan» and «Baian», no doubt can be entertained as to the identity of the cuiucci and the kuei-ch'ih or kuei-yu-ch'ih. The Mongol original of the Chinese form is clear. In a text I translate below, we read that kuei-yu-ch'ih means «to run quickly»; and the Mongol verb meaning «to run » is giiyü- and güi-. Moreover, gutturals ending a syllable are generally not reproduced in Chinese transcriptions of the Mongol period; we have thus güikcri and güyük5i, both meaning «runners », exactly represented by kueich'ih and kuei-yu-ch'ih.
The main text on the güyük5i is that of the Cho-kêng lu of 1366, which says (original edition, I, 24 a) : « Kuei-yu-ch'ih, that is [those who] run quickly. Every year, there is a competition, which is called ' letting run ' ( j fang-tsou); the one whose legs are the swiftest wins an Imperial reward. For that purpose, the supervising officials put all the candidates in line and hold them by a rope so that there should be no quarrel about a difference in the moment of their departure; afterwards they take off the rope and let them go. If [the compe-
tition] is in Ta-tu (Polo's «Taidu », i. e. Peking), the start is from r7 ff; Ho-hsi-wu (a well-
known ancient customs station between Tientsin and Peking). If in Shang-tu (see « Ciandu »),
the start is from ftÎpj Ni-ho-erh ('the Muddy River'). In three [double] hours, they run
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