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

363. TOLOMAN

colomam FBt, P tholoman FA, Z; R tolomain Ft
taloman, tolomon VB tholomaya G toloman F, Fr, FAt, FB,
tholamam LTr toloma TA¹, TA³ L, TA¹, TA³, V, VA, Z
tholomam LT

This is the reading of the best Mss. (against the Coloman adopted in Y), and I have no doubt that it is correct. The name can only represent the barbarians (man) who are often mentioned in YS under the forms 禿(土)老蠻 T'u-la-man or 禿剌蠻 T'u-la-man (c. 121; cf. Wang Hui-tsu² 49, 5 b), and in Ching-shih ta-tien (in Yung-lo ta-tien, 19418, 14 b; 19419, 1 a, 7 a) as 禿(土)徒蠻 T'u-lao-man, or simply 土老(徒) T'u-lao. The name must have sounded *Tuloman, of which Polo's Toloman is a very fair representation.

The Chinese texts relating to these Toloman range from 1256 to at least 1293, but are too long and require too much commentary to be studied in detail here. Those I have noted are YS, 10, 2 a, 5 b (1278); 13, 3 b (1284); 16, 6 a (1291); 121, 3 a (1256); and Ching-shih ta-tien (站赤, refs. as above; 1290, 1291, 1293). Most of them relate to the postal stations established on the routes by water or by land between Yün-nan fu and 敍州 Hsü-chou fu (see « Cuigiu »), which crossed the territory of the T'u-lao-man, who are described as « of the region of Hsü-chou » or as « near 烏蒙 Wu-mêng (in the same region) to the north »; that is to say in the extreme north-east of Yün-nan province. This is exactly the road followed by Polo's itinerary. Charignon (Ch, II, 222) was the first to identify Toloman with T'u-lao-man, but later (Ch, II, 269-271) changed his opinion; and, although I agree with him that the Chinese texts show the T'u-lao-man much nearer to Hsü-chou fu than Polo's text would lead us to suppose, I think that Charignon's difficulties are partly due to his idea that Polo's return itinerary starts from Lin-an instead of from Yün-nan fu.

In T'u-lao-man the native name of these barbarians is only represented by T'u-lao. I have not traced its origin, nor would I for the present formulate any precise opinion on the ethnic or linguistic kinship of the T'u-lao. The name has survived, and modern Chinese works describe different sorts of T'u-lao (black, white, motley) scattered in the eastern half of Yün-nan from Lin-an in the south to 昭雲南通志稿 Chao-t'ung in the north (cf. 續雲南通志稿 Hsü Yün-nan t'ung-chih kao, 161, 1-3); and a vocabulary of their language is given in the same work (165, 1-2), from which it seems that it has some words common with the language of the Nung.

When Polo speaks later of the Gulf of Tonkin (c. 162; see « Cheynam ») as confining with the provinces of Toloman, Amu, etc., he is speaking by hearsay, and it may be supposed that his statement only means that these are the most south-eastern provinces he has mentioned when describing Yün-nan, and that they can be reached, although by travelling a great distance, from the Gulf of Tonkin. But Amu really bordered on the Gulf, and the mention of Toloman is rather anomalous. My explanation is this. Polo really means that from the gulf there is communication with « Amu