IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XL. THE PROVINCE OF TANGUT
205
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for the astrologers, and told them the year, the day, and
the hour of the deceased person's birth, and when the
astrologers have ascertained under what constellation,
planet, and sign he was born, they declare the day on
which, by the rules of their art, he ought to be burnt].
And till that day arrive they keep the body, so that 'tis
sometimes a matter of six months, more or less, before it
comes to be burnt.5j
Now the way they keep the body in the house is
this : They make a coffin first of a good span in thick-
ness, very carefully joined and daintily painted. This
they fill up with camphor and spices, to keep off corrup-
tion [stopping the joints with pitch and lime], and then
they cover it with a fine cloth. Every day as long as
the body is kept, they set a table before the dead covered
with food ; and they will have it that the soul comes and
eats and drinks : wherefore they leave the food there as
long as would be necessary in order that one should
partake. Thus they do daily. And worse still ! Some-
times those soothsayers shall tell them that 'tis not good
luck to carry out the corpse by the door, so they have to
break a hole in the wall, and to draw it out that way
when it is taken to the burning.6 And these, I assure
you, are the practices of all the Idolaters of those
countries.
However, we will quit this subject, and I will tell you
of another city which lies towards the north-west at the
extremity of the desert.
NOTE I.—[The Natives of this country were called by the Chinese Tang Kiang, and by the Mongols T'angu or Tang-wu, and with the plural suffix Tangut. The kingdom of Tangut, or in Chinese, Si Ilia (Western Hia), or Ho si (West of the Yellow River), was declared independent in 982 by Li Chi Ch'ien, who had the dynastic title or Miao Ilao of Tai Tsu. " The rulers of Tangut," says Dr. Bushell, "were scions of the Toba race, who reigned over North China as the Wei Dynasty (A.D. 386-557), as well as in some of the minor dynasties which succeeded. Claiming descent from the ancient Chinese Hsia Dynasty of the second millennium B.C., they adopted the title of Ta Hsia (` Great Hsia'), and the dynasty
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