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| 0612 |
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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and Rockhill (HR, 18), and Ferrand (Fe, 427) are all agreed that it is a transcription of
Ch'üan-chou, and Ferrand insists that its identification was made by Abū-'l-Fidā long before
European scholars (Phillips's «Scheikham» [JNCB, xxi, 42], or «Scheikhoun» [TP, 1890, 231],
taken from d'Herbelot, can be nothing but a misreading of Šānjū). I see things quite
differently. What Abū-'l-Fidā says is that he cannot ascertain the true forms of names given
to Chinese towns, rivers, etc., in ancient Western works, and therefore omits them. But for
the identification of two of these names he thinks he has good authority to fall back on. So
the two names must have been known in early Arabic geographical lore. One is obvious,
Ḫānfū. But the Ḫānfū of the 9th cent. is not Ḫansā, Hang-chou, but Canton (see «Quinsai»).
I am afraid that the informant who blundered over Ḫānfū did the same with Šānjū. Only one
Šānjū occurs in the ancient Mussulman works which treat of China, and this was Shan-chou in
the region of Hsi-ning, in Western China (see «Silingiu» and «Saciou»). It seems probable that
Abū-'l-Fidā inquired from the traveller about Šānjū, an ancient name of the true value of which
the man knew no more than he did of Ḫānfū. But, for a Mussulman traveller of the 14th cent.
who had gone to China by sea, the two important places were certainly Hang-chou (Ḫansā) and
Ch'üan-chou (Zāitūn). Ḫānfū (perhaps already altered to Ḫānqū in Abū-'l-Fidā's source) became
Ḫansā, and Šānjū was given as a former name of Zāitūn. Perhaps, the consonance between
Šānjū and Ch'üan-chou (Ts'yüan-čeu) helped the mistaken identification, if the Arabic traveller
ever heard and noticed the Chinese name; and with this possible explanation I am afraid I concede
too much already.
Ibn Baṭṭūṭah (iv, 269) says that at Zāitūn the Mussulmans had a city by themselves. What-
ever the facts may be about the Moor's very «Pintoan» account of China, he almost spoke the
truth in the present case, inasmuch as most foreigners, including the Mussulmans, lived in the
southern suburb of Ch'üan-chou, in a part called 泉 南 Ch'üan-nan, «South of Ch'üan[-chou]»
(cf. Hirth, in JRAS, 1896, 75; Ecke and Demiéville, The Twin Pagodas, 4). In his Chu-fan
chih of 1225, Chao Ju-kua speaks of the Arab who established a cemetery for foreigners outside
the south-eastern corner of the city; this Arab himself lived at Ch'üan-nan (HR, 119). In another
section of his book, Chao Ju-kua mentions two men from Nan-p'i (= Namburi, Brahmans of
Malabar), father and son, who had settled at «South-of-the-wall of Ch'tian[-chou]» (僉 之 城 南);
the term certainly refers to Ch'üan-nan (HR, 88). The name of Ch'üan-nan continued to be used.
I have quoted above, unfortunately at second hand, a sentence from a Ming work entitled Ch'üan-
nan tsa-chih, «Miscellaneous memoirs of Ch'üan-nan».
In speaking of non-Chinese tribes like the «Çardandan» in south-western Yün-nan and the
people of «Caugigu» (Upper Tonking), Polo describes the practice of tattooing, but it is only in
the chapter on «Çaiton» that he mentions it as in use in China proper; people came from «Upper
India» to have their bodies adorned by the local artists! I have no other information on tattooing
at Ch'üan-chou. But in the Yüan tien chang, 41, 24 a, there is mentioned the curious case, in
1309, of a man, at Hang-chou, who had forcibly tattooed the back and thighs of his wife with
dragons and devils in blue, and displayed her naked in the streets; as there was the aggravating
circumstance that he had beaten his mother-in-law, he was sentenced to 87 blows with the big
bamboo and his wife was sent back to her own kin.
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