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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

IIO

MARCO POLO.   VOL. II. BK. III.

Dr. Laufer writes to me : " A clear distinction must be made

between dog-headed people and the motive of descent from a

dog-ancestor,—two entirely different conceptions. The best

exposition of the subject of the cynocephali according to the

traditions of the Ancients is now presented by J. MARQUART

(Benin-Sammlung des Reichsmuseums in Leiden, pp. cc-ccxix).

It is essential to recognize that the medimval European,

Arabic, and Chinese fables about the country of the dog-

heads are all derived from one common source, which is

traceable to the Greek Romance of Alexander ; that is an

Oriental-Hellenistic cycle. In a wider sense, the dog-heads

belong to the cycle of wondrous peoples, which assumed shape

among the Greek mariners under the influence of Indian and

West-Asiatic ideas. The tradition of the Nan shi (Ch. 79,

p. 4), in which the motive of the dog-heads, the women, how-

ever, being of human shape, meets its striking parallel in Adam

of Bremen (Gesta hamburg. ecclesice pontificum, 4, 19), who thus

reports on the Terra Feminarum beyond the Baltic Sea :

` Cumque pervenerint ad partum, si quid masculini generis est,

fiunt cynocephali, si quid femini, speciosissimm mulieres.' See

further KLAPROTH, J. As., X I I., 1833, p. 287 ; DULAURIER,

J. As., 1858, p. 472 ; ROCKHILL, Rubruck, p. 36."

In an interesting paper on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory, Dr.

Laufer (T'oung Pao, July, 1916, p. 357) refers to dog-headed

men with women of human shape, from a report from the

Mongols received by King Hethum of Armenia.

XIV., p. 313.   The people [of Ceylon] are Idolaters, and go quite

naked except that they cover the middle. . . . The King of this Island

possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world ; I will tell

you what it is like. It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a

man's arm ; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth ; it

is quite free from flaw and as red as fire. Its value is so great that a

price for it in money could hardly be named at all."

Chau Ju-kwa, p. 73, has : " The King holds in his hand a

jewel five inches in diameter, which cannot be burnt by fire, and

which shines in (the darkness of) night like a torch. The King

rubs his face with it daily, and though he were passed ninety he

would retain his youthful looks.

" The people of the country are very dark-skinned, they wrap

a sarong round their bodies, go bare-headed and bare-footed."