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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
118 90. CACCIA MODUN
CHARIGNON, Ch, II, 99). It is remarkable that PAUTHIER, YULE and CHARIGNON, while accepting Polo's text which makes Qubilai start from «Cambaluc» (Peking) southwards, should have admitted that such a direction leads towards Shan-hai-kuan and Manchuria. CHARIGNON has said
that the spring hunts, from 1281 to 1285, took place in 1,911 4 Liu-lin, or « Willow Forest », which is, according to him, beyond the Great Wall; and that identification has duly embarrassed
BENEDETTO (B', 439, where he also attributes it to me quite gratuitously), who comes to doubt
the southern direction given in F and most mss., the more so as RAMUSIO has greco, «north-east ». He might have thought that if CHARIGNON was right, there was no reason for Qubilai to come back
from such a place every year to « Cambaluc » and leave immediately for Shang-tu; it would have
been simpler for him to have gone to Shang-tu direct. But the mss. are right. Qubilai travels in a southern direction (or rather south-eastern) for two days (this interpretation, supported by
the Court French text in Pa, 304 and 307, is adopted in Y, I, 402, 403, though not in RR, 142,
nor in B1, 144), and that would not lead him very far. We know from YS (II, 5 a; 12, la; 13, 5 b) that in 1281, 1282 and 1285, Qubilai went to Liu-lin, but this was much nearer than the
commentators have supposed. Liu-lin, the Willow Forest, was in the district of { JIj Kuo-chou,
a district abolished under the Manchu dynasty, the seat of which was 45 li to the south of T'ungchou (the well-known place of that name east of Peking). After the hunt of 1281, Qubilai
ordere a hsing-kung or temporary residence to be built there (cf. the Ti-ming to-tz'ic-tien, ed. 1931, 633). This is the residence of «Caccia modun» described by POLO. PALLADIUS'S identification with Ho-hsi-wu, which CORDIER rejected (Y, I, 408), is wrong phonetically, but very near the mark geographically, and moreover supported by YS, 14, 5 b.
I think that CHARIGNON is wrong again when he says that Ha-ch'a-mu-tun is out of the question here because it was, according to him, somewhere north of the Ordos. Most of the
names of the list in which Ha-ch'a-mu-tun appears are still unidentified, and, amongst
them, the Ca;. an-nôr might be supposed to be the Cagan-nôr of the Ordos just as well as the Cayan-nôr which lay west of Shang-tu (see « Ciagannor »). But the Gün-nôr, or Deep
Lake, is almost certainly the place where Mongka sometimes resided, and which is named
in YS (3, 2 b; 3, 3 b) under 1253 and 1257 (cf. also TP, 1904, 380; WALEY, Travels of an Alchemist, 31; Tôyô gaku hô, xII, 103; YANAI, 388-389, 676) ; it was situated in
Upper Mongolia. There have also been several Qara-mörän (see « Caramoran »). So we cannot say that all the names of the list refer to the Ordos region. As to Ha-tch'a-mu-tun, it comes
immediately after '{gip{ Hsi-ch'ê-t'u; I have not met this name elsewhere, but it is clearly
Hicätü, which means « the Place of Willows» (from hUäsün, written Mong. icräsün; on hiaisün, cf. JA, 1925, I, 217). It is very likely that we have here the Mongol name of Liu-lin or Willow Forest, and «Caccia modun » being in the Willow Forest, it is practically certain that Ha-ch'a-mutun, named along with Hicätü, is really identical with Polo's « Caccia modun ».
I cannot collect and discuss here all the mentions of Liu-lin in YS. Apart from the details of YS, 11, 5 a, there is a text of importance under 1282 in YS, 14, 5 b. At random, I have noted
that the Emperor went to Liu-lin in 1299 (20, 1 b), 1323 (28, 5 a; in that year, a gale destroyed the temporary residence; ibid. 28, 6 a), 1328 (32, 1 a), 1335 (38, 5 a). In 1358, Liu-lin was devastated by a rebel ( YS, 45, 4 a).
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