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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XIV.
DISTRIBUTION OF DRESSES
389
solemnity to each of the thirteen moons of the year." * It is possible, however, that this latter sentence is an interpolated gloss ; for, besides the improbability of munificence so frequent, Pauthier has shown some good reasons why thirteen should be regarded as an error for three. The official History of the Mongol Dynasty, which he quotes, gives a detail of raiment distributed in presents on great state occasions three times a year. Such a mistake might easily have originated in the first dictation, treize substituted for trois, or rather for the old form tres ; but we must note that the number 13 is repeated and corroborated in ch. xvi. Odoric speaks of four great yearly festivals, but there are obvious errors in what he says on this subject. Hammer says the great Mongol Feasts were three, viz. New Year's Day, the Kaan's Birthday, and the Feast of the Herds.
Something like the changes of costume here spoken of is mentioned by Rubruquis at a great festival of four days' duratiòn at the court of Mangku Kaan : " Each day of the four they appeared in different raiment, suits of which were given them for each day of a different colour, but everything on the same day of one colour, from the boots to the turban." So also Carpini says regarding the assemblies of the Mongol nobles at the inauguration of Kuyuk Kaan : " The first day they were all clad in white pourpre (? albis j5urpuris, see Bk. I. eh. vi. note 4), the second day in ruby pourpre, the third day in blue pourpre, the fourth day in the finest baudekins." (Cathay, 141 ; Rubr. 368 ; Pl. Car. 755. )
[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 247, note) makes the following remarks : " Ocloric, however, says that the colours differed according to the rank. The custom of presenting khilats is still observed in Central Asia and Persia. I cannot learn from any other authority that the Mongols ever wore turbans. Odoric says the Mongols of the imperial feasts wore ` coronets ' (in capite coronali)."—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—[" The accounts given by Marco Polo regarding the feasts of the Khan and the festival dresses at his Court, agree perfectly with the statements on the same subject of contemporary Chinese writers. Banquets were called in the common Mongol language chama, and festival dresses chisun. General festivals used to be held at the New Year and at the Birthday of the Khan. In the Mongol-Chinese Code, the ceremonies performed in the provinces on the Khan's Birthday are described. One month before that day the civil and military officers repaired to a temple, where a service was performed to the Khan's health. On the morning of the Birthday a sumptuously adorned table was placed in the open air, and the representatives of all classes and all confessions were obliged to approach the table, to prostrate themselves and exclaim three times : Wan-sui (i.e. ` Teri thousand years ' life to the Khan). After that the banquet took place. In the same code (in the article on the Ye li ke un [Christians, Erke-un]) it is stated, that in the year 1304,—owing to a dispute, which had arisen in the province of Kiang-nan between the ho-shang (Buddhist priests) and the Christian missionaries, as to precedence in the above-mentioned ceremony,—a special edict was published, in which it was decided that in the rite of supplication,
Christians should follow the Buddhist and Taouist priests." (Palladius,
•
PP. 44-45.)
—H. C.]
* There are thirteen months to the Chinese year in seven out of every nineteen.
[" This interval of io years comprises 235 lunar months, generally 125 long months of 3o days no short months of 29 days, (but sometimes 124 long and i i i short months), and 7 into calary months. The year of twelve months is called a common year, that of thirteen months, an intercalary year."
(P. Hoang-, Chinese Calendar, p. 12.—H. C.)]
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