686 230. FEMELES (ISLAND OF WOMEN)
ad quamdam terrain super occeanum, might seemingly leave us in north-eastern Europe or northwestern Asia, it is probable that Plan Carpine heard the account at the Mongol Court near Qaraqorum, and, on the other hand, the Mongol armies had not advanced to Arctic lands. So there is already some reason to look for Plan Carpine's dog-faced people in the region of the lower Amur. One additional detail almost carries conviction, that of the ox-hoofs. In Hu Chiao's relation (c. 953), the 4 ~`
Niu-t'i T'u-chüeh, i. e. « Ox-hoofed Turks », appear in a very cold region north of the ,ra, ,* Hei-chü-tzû and far south-west of the Kingdom of Dogs (cf. JA, 1897, i, 407; Wu tai shill, 13,
3 b; Ch'i-tan-kuo chip, 25, 4b). It may be, moreover, that Plan Carpine's other talc of a campaign of the Mongols against people whose males were real dogs and females were women, a story which he expressly states that he heard at the Mongol Court, originally referred to the Kingdom of Dogs in north-eastern Manchuria (see « Darkness [province of] »; cf. ley, 60). A few years after Plan Carpine, King Hethum of Lesser Armenia came to Qaraqorum, and there he heard a like tale. Beyond « Khatai » (= Cathay, Northern China), there was « a land in which women have a human appearance and can speak, but men look like dogs, unable to speak, huge and hairy. These dogs do not let anybody enter the land. They catch wild beasts, on which they and their wives feed. Of the union of the dogs with the women, children are born, the male ones in the shape of dogs and the females in the shape of women » (cf. BROSSET, Deux historiens arméniens, i, 180; PATKANOV, Istoriya Mongolov, u, 85). As noticed by LAUFER (TP, 1916, 357-358), this passage must be read in connection with the next one, which mentions a « sandy island » on which a tree grows called «fish tooth », certainly due to a confusion with the walrus and narwhal tusks, imported from the shores of the northern Pacific. As a matter of fact, Hethum's text provides a very strict parallel to the Kingdom of Dogs of the Hei-Ta shih-lio, and I have no doubt that Plan Carpine's dog-faced people on the shore of the Ocean are but a third version of the same story.
Through undetermined channels, a very similar tradition survived in Mongolia down to the
19th cent. The Mongolian author of the 'Jigs-med nam-mkha, writing in 1819, says that Chinghizkhan subdued the nations of the five colours, to wit the blue Mongols, the red Chinese, the black Tibetans, the yellow Sartag'ol (= Sarta'ul, Mussulmans) and the white Coreans, and, moreover, four nations (sde-rigs) : the Cug-te Women (Bu-mo), the gYon-ru, the « One-eyed on the breast » (Bran-mig-Can) and the « Dog-head ones » (Khyi-mgo-Can; cf. HUTH, Gesch. des Buddhismus, i, 22; u, 33). In Tibetan, gyon means « left » and ru, « horn », is used as a designation of the « wing » of an army; gYon-ru is the « left wing », and, for people who take their bearings facing the south, the eastern « wing »; I do not doubt that people of the extreme East, i. e. of Manchuria, are meant in the present case. HUTH has rendered the first name as « Cug-te Amazons », and a Kingdom of Women is certainly intended. Although the text is written in Tibetan, it rests on Mongol originals, and has retained many Mongolian words. I think that Cug-te is the Mongol e'ugtai, « together », and that the Mongol original spoke of a nation of *c'ugtai ämäs, or c'ugtai ökit, that is to say in which women were « together », without men. However this may be, the interest of this passage is to show, still alive at such a late date, the old connection between the « Kingdom of Women » and the « Kingdom of Dogs ».
A « Kingdom of Dogs » even in the Eastern Sea is mentioned. A prefect of ßtt J+j Ling-chou in Ssû-ch'uan, ) J ig Chou Yü, narrated to fIJ .t'Aj Liu Hsün an adventure which Liu Hsün has
IIIF Color HighRes
