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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

go back to the Han period, and that it was this western fable which, under the influence of Taoist
wonder-workers, was transferred in China to the Eastern Sea. But a fundamental error underlies
this argument. Ma Tuan-lin, who, by the way, ought never to be quoted as a source except for Sung
times, expressly mentions his source, 杜 邀 Tu Huan's 行 郡 記 Hsing-ching chi, which, as a matter
of fact, he copied second-hand from the T'ung-tien, and Tu Huan brought back his information from
Mussulman countries in 762. So here again a connection between the western fable and the Chi-
nese texts is hard to ascertain.

Another famous Chinese text speaks of a « Kingdom of Women » to the north-east of China;
it is the pretended report of the monk 慧 深 Hui-shên on the country of Fu-sang, in which, from
DE GUIGNES to D'HERVEY DE SAINT-DENYS, LELAND and VINING, so many scholars have seen Ame-
rica, and SCHLEGEL the island of Sakhalin. Hui-shên came back to the region of the Yang-tzŭ in
499, pretending to have travelled to Fu-sang, more than 20,000 li to the east of the north-eastern-
most country known to the Chinese. The whole report is fictitious, although it contains some charac-
teristic features of the Corean states; but it has a folklore interest. It has been preserved in the
Liang shu (54, 12-13), whence it has passed into the Nan shih (79, 3-4). At the end of the notice
on Fu-sang itself, there is the following description of the «Kingdom of Women» (cf. SCHLEGEL, in
TP, III, 495-496) : « Hui-shên also said : 'More than one thousand li east of Fu-sang, there is the King-
dom of Women (Nü-kuo). They are beautifully shaped, and of a pure white colour. Their body is
hairy, and the hair of their heads is so long that it trails on the ground. On the second or third moon,
they eagerly enter into the water, and become pregnant, and give birth to children in the sixth or
seventh moon. [These] women have no breasts on the chest, but, at the nape of the neck (頂 hsiang;
the Nan shih gives 頂 ting, « top of the head »; on this common corruption, cf. above, p. 682), hair
grows on white stems; in these hairs there is a juice with which they suckle their children. [The
children] can walk when they are one hundred days [old]; they become adult at three or four years.
When they see people, they run away in fright, and are particularly afraid of men. They eat 鹹 草
hsien-ts'ao (lit. « salt-herb »; LAUFER, 208, says « genus Salsola »; according to TARANZANO, Angelica
Kiusiana, Max.), like (初 ju; perhaps here = « or », «and ») birds and beasts; the leaf of the hsien-
ts'ao resembles 邪 蒿 hsieh-hao (Artemisia japonica, according to SCHLEGEL [TP, III, 496], but
Seseli libanostis, Koch., according to TARANZANO. The character 香 hsiang given in the text by
SCHLEGEL, which he translates «fragrant», can be but an arbitrarychangedue to the authors of the T'u-
shu chi-ch'êng, since it is given in no ancient text), but it has a fragrant scent, and the savour is salt.
When translating this same text from Ma Tuan-lin, D'HERVEY DE SAINT-DENYS (Ethnographie...,
Orientaux, 404) quite seriously adduced an ironical remark of BRETSCHNEIDER (Chinese Recorder,
III [Oct. 1870]) according to which, if Hui-shên's calculation of distance was correct, the « Kingdom
of Women » where « salt-herb » was eaten ought to have been near the Great Salt Lake, so that Hui-
shên's « Kingdom of Women » would have been like a prefiguration of the polygamist Mormons !
But SCHLEGEL's rationalistic explanation of this « Kingdom of Women » as a colony of seals, or
VINING's (An Inglorious Columbus, 493-514) as groups of Hapale monkeys of Central America,
fare no better. The whole account is fantastic. We may suppose, however, that, in the late Japa-
nese legend, the pregnancy due to a bath may be derived from the all too famous boast of the fake
traveller Hui-shên.