Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 537 (Color Image)

0537	Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1

as being «sowed» by means of the navel, or the shin-bone, or the horns, Li Shih-chên adds :
«The three versions are slightly different, and one does not know what was actually sowed; but
the truth must be what is said by Liu [Yü] (in the Hsi-shih chi). That too is, however,
mysterious; such are the wonders of nature!»

Wu Lai's sheep, whose shin-bone was sowed, might be said to be a 骨種羊 ku-chung
yang, a «bone sowed sheep», and Hsü Sung, who had heard of the tradition, inquired in vain
about this «bone sowed sheep» when travelling in Chinese Turkestan from 1812 to 1816 (cf. his
Hsin-chiang fu, 22 a). Hung Liang-chi (1746-1809), the author of the 聽讀書齋雜錄 Hsiao-
tu-shu-chai tsa-lu (Hung Pei-chiang ch'üan-chi ed., 1st series, I, 19-20) has been more successful,
or more credulous. After repeating Chang Shou-chieh's quotation from the I-wu chih, which
gives «Ch'in» instead of «Ta-Ch'in», Hung Liang-chi adds on his own account : «This is what is
now called ku-chung yang ('bone sowed sheep'). When formerly I was in Ch'in (= Shân-hsi),
I asked Ordos tribute envoys, and they said the same (as in Chang Shou-chieh's quotation).
They also said that this species was produced only by sowing sheep bones. I suspect that such
was also the case in ancient times.»

But this ku-chung yang, «bone sowed sheep», had also been popularly altered to 骨重羊
ku-chung yang, «sheep whose bones are heavy». A paragraph is devoted to the latter name in
the 茶餘客話 Ch'a-yü k'o-hua of 阮葵生 Juan K'uei-shêng (1731-1789; I-hai chu-ch'ên ed.,
8, 2) : «The ku-chung yang ('sheep whose bones are heavy') is produced among the Mussulmans
(Hui-tzŭ) outside the boundaries in Pu-ha-la (Bokhara), which can be reached by going some
twenty days west of Yeh-êrh-ch'iang (Yarkänd). The sheep produced are of small size and poor
in flesh; but their bones are extremely heavy. The Mussulmans did not think much of them,
but, after the Great (= Imperial) Army had subdued Yeh-êrh-ch'iang (i.e. after 1758), these
[sheep] by degrees penetrated into China. At the beginning, caps were made of their [fur], and
they would cost twenty to thirty taels; in recent days they do not cost more than ten taels, and
fur gowns are also made of them. Recently I heard that the whole range of mountains to the
south-west of An-chi-yen (Andijan) was all [full] of such [sheep]. The black ones, however, are
extremely numerous; of grey ones, there is not one out of ten, and the price [of these] is ten times
higher. I say that only a few years will pass before these ['heavy bone sheep'] will cost the
same as ordinary sheep. After a greater lapse of time Shân-[-hsi] and Kan[-su] will also produce
them everywhere. Small boys in the streets speak of 古董 ku-tung, or 古銅 ku-t'ung, which
shows how hearsay tradition can be inaccurate . . .» It is hard to see what Juan K'uei-shêng means
by the last sentence. Ku-tung, more usually written 骨董 ku-tung, «work of art», «curio», is
often said, though without proof, to have been altered from 古銅 ku-t'ung, «old bronze» (see the
Introduction to the Ku-t'ung chih by Li T'iao-yüan), but that offers no relation to the ku-chung
yang, the name of which does not seem to have ever popularly become ku-tung or ku-t'ung.
And it would be absurd to imagine that ku-tung, which goes back at least to Sung times, might
have been altered from the ku-chung of ku-chung yang.

Apart from the final sentence on ku-tung or ku-t'ung, the same passage, in a somewhat
shorter form, occurs in the 西域聞見錄 Hsi-yü wên-chien lu, a work on Central Asia by 七十
— Ch'i-shih-i, tzŭ 春圃 Ch'un-yüan, which exists also, in more or less different redactions, under

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Citation Information

OCR Text

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Citation Information

OCR Text

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books