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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. LVIII. THE PROVINCE OF COLOMAN
123
These are carried high up the mountains, and placed in
great caverns, where they are hung up in such wise that
neither man nor beast can come at them.
A good deal of gold is found in the country, and for
petty traffic they use porcelain shells such as I have told
you of before. All these provinces that I have been
speaking of, to wit Bangala and Caugigu and Anin,
employ for currency porcelain shells and gold. There
are merchants in this country who are very rich and
dispose of large quantities of goods. The people live
on flesh and rice and milk, and brew their wine from rice
and excellent spices.
NOTE i.—The only MSS. that afford the reading Colonzan or Choloman instead of Toloman or Tbolonzan, are the Bern MS., which has Coloman in the initial word of the chapter, Paris MS. 5649 (Pauthier's C) which has Coloman in the Table of Chapters, but not in the text, the Bodleian, and the Brandenburg MS. quoted in the last note. These variations in themselves have little weight. But the confusion between c and t in medieval MSS., when dealing with strange names, is so constant that I have ventured to make the correction, in strong conviction that it is the right reading. M. Pauthier indeed, after speaking of tribes called Lo on the south-west of China, adds, "on les nommait To-lo-man (` les nombreux Barbares Lo ')." Were this latter statement founded on actual evidence we might retain that form which is the usual reading. But I apprehend from the manner in which M. Pauthier produces it, without corroborative quotation, that he is rather hazarding a conjecture than speaking with authority. Be that as it may, it is impossible that Polo's Toloman or Coloman should have been in the south of Kwangsi, where Pauthier locates it.
On the other hand, we find tribes of both Kolo and Filzlau Barbarians (i.e. Mán, whence KOLO-MÁN or Kihlau-nzán) very numerous on the frontier of Kweichau. (See Bridgnzan's transi. of Tract on Meautsze, pp. 265, 269, 27o, 272, 273, 274, 275, 278, 279, 280.) Among these the Kolo, described as No. 38 in that Tract, appear to me from various particulars to be the most probable representatives of the Coloman of Polo, notwithstanding the sentence with which the description opens : " Kolo originally called Lzclulz ; the modern designation Kolo is incorrect."* They are at present found in the prefecture of Tating (one of the departments of Kweichau towards the Yun-nan side). " They are tall, of a dark complexion, with sunken eyes, aquiline nose, wear long whiskers, and have the beard shaved off above the mouth. They pay great deference to demons, and on that account are sometimes called ` Dragons of Lo.' . . . At the present time these Kolo are divided into 48 clans, the elders of which are called Chieftains (lit. ` Head-and-Eyes ') and are of nine grades. . . . The men bind their hair into a tuft with blue cloth and make it fast on the forehead like a horn. Their upper dresses are short, with large sleeves, and their lower garments are fine blue. When one of the chieftains dies, all that were under him are assembled together clad in armour and on horseback. Having dressed his corpse in silk and woollen robes, they burn it in the open country ; then, invoking the departed spirit, they inter the
* On the other hand, M. Garnier writes : " I do not know any name at all like Kolo, except Lolo, the generic name given by the Chinese to the wild tribes of Yun-nan." Does not this look as if Kolo were really the old name, Luluh or Lolo the later ?
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