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0360 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 360 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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344   158. CINGHIS

his body was put on a cart that went north. But when the procession reached Muna-yin kögübür (Altan tob6, 40') or Muna-kögäbür («Sanang Setsen», 106 6 7), the car stuck up to its nave in the mud and could not be moved. It was on that occasion that a Sünit leader addressed the corpse with the song of which mention has already been made. SCHMIDT (p. 107) merely rendered Mona-kögäbür «the region of the Mona», which seems inadequate; GOMBOEV (p. 147) understood Muna-yin kögübür as meaning «the marshy place of the Muna», which is in agreement with the

Chinese translation (4, 6 b; f    z   f , «a muddy place of the Mu-na»). KOWALEWSKI,
on the strength of the present passage, tentatively read kügäbür and rendered it «promontory»; GOL'STUNSKIÏ, also in referring to «Sanang Setsen», gave «swollen» as the meaning of kügäbür. I think that we should read kögübür (kö'übür) and kögäbür (kö'äbür), both > kôbür, and that this is a noun derived from kögä-, Wei-, «to swell », «to rise» = Kalm. kJ- (RAMSTEDT, Kalm. Wörterbuch, 243'). It is not a place name, and we should probably translate it «a swollen place of the Muna» (in another passage, p. 249, SCHMIDT made of kögäbür a place name, «Köke-Bor»; there is no place name in the Chinese translation, 7, 10 b, but the sentence is puzzling). In an earlier passage, when Chinghiz-khan was marching from Mongolia against the Hsi-Hsia, he arrived at the Muna-ban, i. e. the Muna Mountain, and exclaimed (SCHMIDT, 99; I have retranslated the passage) : «For a dispersed nation, this is a fine place of refuge; and for a peaceful nation, this is good pasture-land. For deer and stags it is a fine hunting place, and for an old man a good resting place. » Incidentally, it may be noticed that the ordinary texts of the Chinese version give in this passage Na-mu instead of Mu-na, and this is the origin of the pseudo-Lake Na-mu in Ch, I, 206; but the Palace Ms. of the Chinese version correctly has Mu-na, as in the Mongol original. WANG Kuo-wei (cf. his note in the Mêng-ku yüan-liu chien-chêng, 4, 3 a)

has called attention to the fact that this Mu-na must be the -RI   Mu-na-shan («Mu-na Moun-
tain ») where, according to the Ming shih (327, 4 a; 328, 2 b), the Mongol leader A-lu-t'ai (Aruqtai) sought refuge when he fled from Toqto-buqa, and also the «land of -{k Ng Mu-na of the Huang-ho» mentioned in another passage of the Ming shih (328, 3 b). WANG concluded that the Mu-na Mountain of «Sanang Setsen» must be in the neighbourhood of the great bend of the Yellow River. I think we can go one step farther. WOLFF (Gesch. der Mongolen, 112; cf. also HOWORTH, I, 101) says that the Mona-ban, belonging to the system of the Yin-shan, was situated at the north-western end of the great bend of the Huang-ho, on the road from the Gobi to Ninghsia. Although this is not quite correct and WOLFF does not give any authority, he seems to have already noticed the text which, in my opinion, provides the true location. In 1697, GER-BILLON went from Peking to Ning-hsia in the train of the Emperor K'ang-hsi. On May 30, following the northern part of the great bend of the Huang-ho, but south of the river, he camped «in a great meadow which », he says, «extends to the Huang-ho, opposite a mountain which is on the other side of the river and is called Mona; as the river here makes some sort of an angle, it is called Mona hojo (_=_= Mona g:65 < Mona gogi'un, 'Mona promontory'). There was good fodder in that meadow, but it was marshy in many places. Many Mongols are camped here and there, on account of the convenience of the fodder» (DU HALDE, IV, 378). The «Mona hojo» is marked on DU HALDE'S maps. This marshy place must be the «swollen (= marshy) place of the Muna» mentioned in the account of the Altan tobei and of «Sanang Setsen». As to the Muna-khan, it