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Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 |
688 230. FEMELES (ISLAND OF WOMEN)
the Yen-tzû ch'un-ch'iu, cf. A. FORKE, in Asia Major, Hirth Anniversary Volume, 101-144, and my remarks in TP, 1923, 354-355. He was once sent as an envoy to the kingdom of Ch'u ; and because he was small of stature, the people of Ch'u opened in derision a small door at the side of the main door and invited Yen Ying to pass through it. Yen Ying refused and said : « An envoy to the Kingdom of Dogs (Kou-kuo) enters through the dogs door (kou-mên, the iûj -ri kou-tou, or «dog-hole », by which dogs enter when the real door of a house is closed) ; but I am now sent to Ch'u, and I must not enter through this door » (Tzû-shu po Chung ed., 6, 5 b; for a divergent version of the same story in a popular text of T'ang times, cf. _MARGOULIES in TP, 1929, 25-42).
In the Hai-nei pei-thing or « Book of the North inside the Seas » (i. e. not « beyond » the
Seas), mention is made (12, 1 a) of a kingdom of k Ch'üan-fêng, « Dog Apanage », which may
be the same as the k A Ch'üan Jung or « Dog Barbarians » beyond the north-eastern sea of the corresponding section in the Ta-huang pei-ching, «Book of the North of the Great Wilderness» (17, 2 b; these two sections are appended to the Shan hai Ching; cf. also ERKES, in Ostasiat. Zeitschr., y, 73). Kuo P'o's commentary on the name Ch'üan-fêng is as follows : «Anciently, P'an-hu (Kuo P'o does not say that he was a dog, but what follows implies it) had killed the king of the Jung (= Barbarians). Kao Hsin (the ancient mythical Emperor always associated with the legend of P'an-hu) married him to a beautiful girl, but could not so tame him (4 11 hsün, « to tame » as well as « to
instruct »). Then he made him swim (_ fu) in the sea east of K'uei-chi (in Chê-chiang),
where he (evidently with his wife) obtained a territory (an island ?) of 300 li as an apanage (fêng). When [his wife and her descendants] gave birth to males, they were dogs; when to females, they were beautiful women. This is the kingdom of the ' Dog Apanage ' . » This is a very divergent version of the well-known P'an-hu legend.
In the Liang ssû kung chi, Wang Yün mentions a « Kingdom of Women » which lay west of north-western Ssû-ch'uan and south of the « Kingdom of Dogs », and Wan Chieh's reply, while mentioning also the « Kingdom of Dogs », says that the name of that « Kingdom of Women » went back to the time of the Emperor Chang of the Han (76-88 A. D.). This seems to imply that there was, in T'ang times, a tradition concerning that « Kingdom of Dogs » to the north-east of Tibet; but I know of no text now extant in which such a tradition is recorded.
III. THE « KINGDOMS OF WOMEN » TO THE NORTH-EAST AND TO THE NORTH-WEST OF TIBET
A location to the north-east of Tibet would suit the « Kingdom of Women » going back to Tian times which lay, according to the words ascribed to Wang Yün, west of Ts'an-yai (in north-western Ssû-ch'uan) and south of the « Kingdom of Dogs ». If I hesitate to identify it with the « Kingdom of Women » occurring there in later texts, it is because the question of the « Kingdoms of Women » in or near Tibet is very intricate. Owing to polyandry, or matriarchate, or simply to the privileged status of women in lands of Tibetan culture, — rendered the more conspicuous by their inferior position in China and in India, — « Kingdoms of Women » have been often so called merely because they were ruled by women. Such was the case, according to Wan Chieh, for the « Kingdom of Women » to the north-west of Ssû-ch'uan in Han times. Down to our day, according to the Lazarist Armand DAVID (Voyage en Chine, 472), one of the Man-tzû tribes in western Ssû-ch'uan is always
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