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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XLIX. CHINGHIS KAAN AND PRESTER JOHN
243
Visiting the Lady Kuktai, a Christian Queen of Mangu Kaan, who was ill, he says : " The Nestorians were repeating certain verses, I know not what (they said it was part of a Psalm), over two twigs which were brought into contact in the hands of two men. The monk stood by during the operation " (p. 326). * Pétis de la Croix quotes from Thévenot's travels, a similar mode of divination as much used, before a fight, among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the deck facing one another and each holding two arrows by the points, and hitching the notches of each pair of arrows into the other pair. Then the ship's writer reads a certain Arabic formula, and it is pretended that whilst this goes on, the two sets of arrows, of which one represents the Turk.ï and the other the Christians, struggle together in spite of the resistance of the holders, and finally one rises over the other. This is perhaps the divination by arrows which is prohibited in the Koran. (Sura, V. v. 92.) It is related by Abulfeda that Mahomed found in the Kaaba an image of Abraham with such arrows in his hand.
P. della Valle describes the same process, conducted by a Mahomedan conjuror of Aleppo : " By his incantations he made the four points of the arrows come together without any movement of the holders, and by the way the points spontaneously placed themselves, obtained answers to interrogatories."
And Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul : " There are many different ways of divination practised among the Buddhists ; and that also mentioned by Marco Polo is known to our Lanza, but in a slightly different way, making use of two arrows instead of a cane split up, wherefore this kind is called da-mo, ` Arrow-divination.' " Indeed the practice is not extinct in India, for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its application to detect the robber of a government chest at Lodiana.
As regards Chinghiz's respect for the Christians there are other stories. Abulfaragius has one about Chinghiz seeing in a dream a religious person who promised him success. He told the dream to his wife, Aung Khan's daughter, who said the description answered to that of the bishop who used to visit her father. Chinghiz then inquired for a bishop among the Uighúr Christians in his camp, and they indicated Mar Denha. Chinghiz thenceforward was milder towards the Christians, and showed them many distinctions (p. 285). Vincent of Beauvais also speaks of Rabbanta, a Nestorian monk, who lived in the confidence of Chinghiz's wife, daughter of " the Christian King David or Prester John," and who used by divination to make many revelations to the Tartars. We have already said that there seems no ground for assigning a daughter of Aung Khan as wife to Chinghiz. But there was a niece of the former, named Abika, among the wives of Chinghiz. And Rashiduddin does relate a dream of the Kaan's in relation to her. But it was to the effect that he was divinely commanded to give her away ; and this he did next morning !
(Rawlins. Herod. IV. 67 ; Anim. Marcell. XXXI. 2 ; Delvio, Disq. Magic. 558 ; Mendoza, Hak. Soc. I. 47 ; Doolittle, 435-436 ; .. ist. of Genghizcan, pp. 52-53; Preston's al-Hariri, p. 183 ; P. della V. II. 865-866 ; Vigne, I. 46 ; D' Olisson, I.
4i8-419).
.,
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* [With reference to this passage from Rubruck, Mr. Rockhill says (195, note) : " The mode of divining here referred to is apparently the same as that described by Polo. It must not however be confounded with rabdomancy, in which bundles of wands or arrows were used." Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI. 2. 350) says this mode of divination was practised by the Alans. " They have a singular way of divining : they take straight willow wands and make bundles of them, and on examining them at a certain time, with certain secret incantations, they know what is going to
happen."—H. C.1
VOL.
Q 2
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