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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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| CHAP. LII. TIIE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS | 251 | ||||
| Whilom Thou didst swoop like a Falcon : A rumbling waggon now trundles thee off: O My King ! Hast thou in truth then forsaken thy wife and thy children and the Diet of thy People? O My King ! Circling in pride like an Eagle whilom Thou didst lead us, O My King ! But now Thou hast stumbled and fallen, like an unbroken Colt, O My King ! ' " (p. '08.) [ " The burying of living men with the dead was a general custom with the tribes of Eastern Asia. Favourite servants and wives were usually buried in this way. In China, the chief wives and those concubines who had already borne children, were exempted from this lot. The Tunguz and other tribes were accustomed to kill the selected victims by strangulation. In China they used to be buried alive ; but the custom of burying living men ceased in A.D. 1464. [Hwang nzins ts'ung sin lu.] In the time of the present Manchu Dynasty, the burying of living men was prohibited by the Emperor Kang-hi, at the close of the 17th century, i.e. the forced burying ; but voluntary sepulture remained in force [ Yu chi wen]. Notwithstanding this prohibition, cases of forced burying occurred again in remote parts of Manchuria ; when a concubine refused to follow her deceased master, she was forcibly strangled with a bow-string [Ninguta chi]. I must observe, however, that there is no mention made in historical documents of the existence of this custom with the Mongols ; it is only an hypothesis based on the analogy between the religious ideas and customs of the Mongols and those of other tribes." (Palladius, p. 13.) In his Religious System of China, II., Dr. J. J. M. de Groot devotes a whole chapter (ix. 72 I segq. ), Concerning the Sacrifice of Hunan Beings at Burials, and Usages connected therewith. The oldest case on record in China dates as far back as B. C. 677, when sixty-six men were killed after the ruler Wu of the state of Ts'in died. The Official Annals of the Tartar Dynasty of Liao, quoted by Professor J. J. M. de Groot (Religious System of China, vol. ii. 698), state that " in the tenth year of the T'ung hwo period (A.D. 692) the killing of horses for funeral and burial rites was interdicted, as also the putting into the tombs of coats of mail, helmets, and articles and trinkets of gold and silver." Professor de Groot writes (l. e. 709) : "But, just as the placing of victuals in the graves was at an early date changed into sacrifices of food outside the graves, so burying horses with the dead was also modified under the Han Dynasty into presenting them to the dead without interring them, and valueless counterfeits were on such occasions substituted for the real animals." H. C.] | |||||
| CHAPTER LII. | |||||
| CONCERNING THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS. | |||||
| Now that we have begun to speak of the Tartars, I have plenty to tell you on that subject. The Tartar custom is to spend the winter in warm plains, where they find good pasture for their cattle, whilst in summer they betake themselves to a cool climate among the | |||||
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