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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
90
BOOK II.
MARCO POLO
Salwen Rivers, was the place through which the P'u and the Piao entered
China.
The Chinese geographical work Fang yu-ki yao mentions the name of Kin-Chi
Ch'eng, or city of Kin-Chi, as the ancient denomination of Yung-ch'ang. A Chinese Pa-y vocabulary, belonging to Professor Devéria, translates Kin-Chi by Wan-Chang (Yung-ch'ang). (Devéria, Front. p. 128.)—H. C.
It has not been determined who are the representatives of these Gold-Teeth, who were evidently distinct from the Shans, not Buddhist, and without literature. I should think it probable that they were Kakhyens or Singphos, who, excluding Shans, appear to form the greatest body in that quarter, and are closely akin to each other, indeed essentially identical in race.` The Singphos have now extended widely to the west of the Upper Irawadi and northward into Assam, but their traditions bring them from the borders of Yunnan. The original and still most populous seat of the Kakhyen or Singpho race is pointed out by Colonel Hannay in the Gulansigung Mountains and the valley of the eastern source of the Irawadi. This agrees with Martini's indication of the seat of the Kin-Chi as north of Yung-
ch'ang. One of Hannay's notices of Singpho
customs should also be compared with the
interpolation from Ramusio about tattooing
~ p'
" The men tattoo their limbs slightly, and all
married females are tattooed on both legs from the ankle to the knee, in broad horizontal circular bands. Both sexes also wear rings below the knee of fine shreds cf rattan varnished black " (p. 18). These rings appear on the Kakhyen woman in our cut.
The only other wild tribe spoken of by Major Sladen as attending the markets on the frontier is that of the Lissus, already mentioned by Lieutenant Garnier (supra, eh. xlvii. note 6), and who are said to be the most savage and indomitable of the tribes in that quarter. Garnier also mentions the Mossos, who are alleged once to have formed an independent kingdom about Li - kiang fu.
Possibly, however, the Gold-Teeth may have
become entirely absorbed in the Chinese and
Shan population.
The characteristic of casing the teeth in
g
gold should identify the tribe did it still exist.
leak. But I can learn nothing of the continued
_'•;,, ,?. ,:~, _ existence of such a custom among any tribe of
nnTOE: ä'1 "` the Indo-Chinese
°''~ ~~ : ~=- continent. The insertion cf
gold studs or spots, which Biirck confounds s"z ..... > with it, is common enough among Indo-
Chinese races, but that is quite a different
thing. The actual practice of the Zardandan
Kakhyens. (From a Photograph.) is, however, followed by some of the people
of Sumatra, as both Marsden and Raffles testify : " The great men sometimes set their teeth in gold, by casing with a plate of
* "Singpho," says Colonel Hannay, " signifies in the Kakhyen language ` a man,' and all of this race who have settled in Hookong or Assam are thus designated ; the reason of their change of name I could not ascertain, but so much importance seems to be attached to it, that the Singphos, in talking of their eastern and southern neighbours, call them Kakhyens or Kakoos, and consider it an insult to be called so themselves." (Sketch of the Sin'fihos, or the Kakhyens of Burma, Calcutta, 1847, Pp. 3-4.) If, however, the Kakhyens, or h achyens (as Major Sladen calls them), are represented
by the Go-tchang of Pauthier's Chinese extracts, these seem to be distinguished from the Kin-Chi, though associated with them. (See pp. 397, 411. )
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