The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 43

Before Ibn Batuta's time, Sumatra or Samudra appears in the travels of Fr.

Odoric. After speaking of _Lamori_ (to which we shall come presently), he says: "In the same island, towards the south, is another kingdom, by name SUMOLTRA, in which is a singular generation of people, for they brand themselves on the face with a hot iron in some twelve places," etc. This looks as if the conversion to Islam was still (circa 1323) very incomplete. Ras.h.i.+duddin also speaks of _Sumutra_ as lying beyond Lamuri.

(_Elliot_, I. p. 70.)

The power attained by the dynasty of Malik Al-Salih, and the number of Mahomedans attracted to his court, probably led in the course of the 14th century to the extension of the name of Sumatra to the whole island. For when visited early in the next century by Nicolo Conti, we are told that he "went to a fine city of the island of Taprobana, which island is called by the natives _Sham.u.t.h.e.ra_." Strange to say, he speaks of the natives as all idolaters. Fra Mauro, who got much from Conti, gives us _Isola Siamotra_ over _Taprobana_; and it shows at once his own judgment and want of confidence in it, when he notes elsewhere that "Ptolemy, professing to describe Taprobana, has really only described Saylan."

We have no means of settling the exact position of the city of Sumatra, though possibly an enquiry among the natives of that coast might still determine the point. Marsden and Logan indicate Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out by Mr. Braddell in the _J. Ind.

Arch._, Malay tradition represents the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra, which seems to imply tolerable proximity.

And at the marriage of the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Salih, we are told that the latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like Gulf of Pasei, called in the charts _Telo_ (or Talak) _Samawe_; a place very likely to have been sought as a shelter to the Great Kaan's fleet during the south-west monsoon. Fine timber, of great size, grows close to the sh.o.r.e of this bay,[1] and would furnish material for Marco's stockades.

When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the leading state upon the coast, and certainly no state _called_ Sumatra continued to exist. Whether the _city_ continued to exist even in decay is not easy to discern. The _Ain-i-Akbari_ says that the best civet is that which is brought from _the seaport town of Sumatra, in the territory of Achin_, and is called _Sumatra Zabad_; but this may have been based on old information. Valentyn seems to recognise the existence of a place of note called _Samadra_ or _Samotdara_, though it is not entered on his map. A famous mystic theologian who flourished under the great King of Achin, Iskandar Muda, and died in 1630, bore the name of Shamsuddin _Shamatrani_, which seems to point to the city of Sumatra as his birth place.[2] The most distinct mention that I know of the city so called, in the Portuguese period, occurs in the _soi-disant_ "Voyage which Juan Serano made when he fled from Malacca," in 1512, published by Lord Stanley of Alderley, at the end of his translation of Barbosa. This man speaks of the "island of Samatra" as named from "_a city of this northern part_." And on leaving Pedir, having gone down the northern coast, he says, "I drew towards the south and south-east direction, and reached to another country and city which is called Samatra," and so on. Now this describes the position in which the city of Sumatra should have been if it existed. But all the rest of the tract is mere plunder from Varthema.[3]

There is, however, a like intimation in a curious letter respecting the Portuguese discoveries, written from Lisbon in 1515, by a German, Valentine Moravia, who was probably the same Valentyn Fernandez, the German, who published the Portuguese edition of Marco Polo at Lisbon in 1502, and who shows an extremely accurate conception of Indian geography.

He says: "La maxima insula la quale e chiamata da Marcho Polo Veneto Iava Minor, et al presente si chiama _Sumotra_, da un _emporie di dicta insula_" (printed by _De Gubernatis, Viagg. Ita._ etc., p. 170).

Several considerations point to the probability that the states of Pasei and Sumatra had become united, and that the town of Sumatra may have been represented by the Pacem of the Portuguese.[4] I have to thank Mr. G.

Phillips for the copy of a small Chinese chart showing the northern coast of the island, which he states to be from "one of about the 13th century."

I much doubt the date, but the map is valuable as showing the town of Sumatra (_Sumantala_). This seems to be placed in the Gulf of Pasei, and very near where Pasei itself still exists. An extract of a "Chinese account of about A.D. 1413" accompanied the map. This states that the town was situated some distance up a river, so as to be reached in two tides. There was a village at the mouth of the river called _Talumangkin_.[5]

[Mr. E.H. Parker writes (_China Review_, XXIV. p. 102): "Colonel Yule's remarks about Pasei are borne out by Chinese History (Ming, 325, 20, 24), which states that in 1521 Pieh-tu-lu (Pestrello [for Perestrello ?]) having failed in China 'went for' _Pa-si_. Again 'from Pa-si, Malacca, to Luzon, they swept the seas, and all the other nations were afraid of them.'"--H. C]

Among the Indian states which were prevailed on to send tribute (or presents) to Kublai in 1286, we find _Sumutala_. The chief of this state is called in the Chinese record _Tu-'han-pa-ti_, which seems to be just the Malay words _Tuan Pati_, "Lord Ruler." No doubt this was the rising state of Sumatra, of which we have been speaking; for it will be observed that Marco says the people of that state called themselves the Kaan's subjects.

Ras.h.i.+duddin makes the same statement regarding the people of Java (i.e. the island of Sumatra), and even of Nicobar: "They are all subject to the Kaan." It is curious to find just the same kind of statements about the princes of the Malay Islands acknowledging themselves subjects of Charles V., in the report of the surviving commander of Magellan's s.h.i.+p to that emperor (printed by Baldelli-Boni, I. lxvii.). Pauthier has curious Chinese extracts containing a notable pa.s.sage respecting the disappearance of Sumatra Proper from history: "In the years _Wen-chi_ (1573-1615), the Kingdom of Sumatra divided in two, and the new state took the name of Achi (Achin). After that Sumatra was no more heard of." (_Gaubil_, 205; _De Mailla_, IX. 429; _Elliot_, I. 71; _Pauthier_, pp. 605 and 567.)

NOTE 2.--"_Vos di que la Tramontaine ne part. Et encore vos di que l'estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou ne grant_" (G.T.). The _Tramontaine_ is the Pole star:--

"De nostre Pere l'Apostoille Volsisse qu'il semblast l'estoile Qui ne se muet ...

Par cele estoile vont et viennent Et lor sen et lor voie tiennent Il l'apelent la _tres montaigne_."

--_La Bible Guiot de Provins_ in _Barbazan_, by _Meon_, II. 377.

The _Meistre_ is explained by Pauthier to be Arcturus; but this makes Polo's error greater than it is. Brunetto Latini says: "Devers la tramontane en a il i. autre (vent) plus debonaire, qui a non _Chorus_.

Cestui apelent li marinier MAISTRE _por vij. estoiles qui sont en celui meisme leu_," etc. (_Li Tresors_, p. 122). _Magister_ or _Magistra_ in mediaeval Latin, _La Maistre_ in old French, signifies "the beam of a plough." Possibly this accounts for the application of _Maistre_ to the Great Bear, or _Plough_. But on the other hand the pilot's art is called in old French _maistrance_. Hence this constellation may have had the name as the pilot's guide,--like our _Lode-star_. The name was probably given to the N.W. point under a lat.i.tude in which the Great Bear sets in that quarter. In this way many of the points of the old Arabian _Rose des Vents_ were named from the rising or setting of certain constellations. (See _Reinaud's Abulfeda_, Introd. pp. cxcix.-cci.)

NOTE 3.--The tree here intended, and which gives the chief supply of toddy and sugar in the Malay Islands, is the _Areng Saccharifera_ (from the Javanese name), called by the Malays _Gomuti_, and by the Portuguese _Saguer_. It has some resemblance to the date-palm, to which Polo compares it, but it is a much coa.r.s.er and wilder-looking tree, with a general raggedness, "_incompta et adspectu tristis_," as Rumphius describes it. It is notable for the number of plants that find a footing in the joints of its stem. On one tree in Java I have counted thirteen species of such parasites, nearly all ferns. The tree appears in the foreground of the cut at p. 273.

Crawford thus describes its treatment in obtaining toddy: "One of the _spathae_, or shoots of fructification, is, on the first appearance of the fruit, beaten for three successive days with a small stick, with the view of determining the sap to the wounded part. The shoot is then cut off, a little way from the root, and the liquor which pours out is received in pots.... The _Gomuti_ palm is fit to yield toddy at 9 or 10 years old, and continues to yield it for 2 years at the average rate of 3 quarts a day."

(_Hist. of Ind. Arch._ I. 398.)

The words omitted in translation are unintelligible to me: "_et sunt quatre raimes trois cel en_." (G.T.)

["Polo's description of the wine-pots of Samara hung on the trees 'like date-palms,' agrees precisely with the Chinese account of the _shu theu tsiu_ made from 'coir trees like cocoa-nut palms' manufactured by the Burmese. Therefore it seems more likely that Samara is Siam (still p.r.o.nounced _Shumuro_ in j.a.pan, and _Siamlo_ in Hakka), than Sumatra."

(_Parker_, _China Review_, XIV. p. 359.) I think it useless to discuss this theory.--H.C.]

NOTE 4.--No one has been able to identify this state. Its position, however, must have been near PEDIR, and perhaps it was practically the same. Pedir was the most flouris.h.i.+ng of those Sumatran states at the appearance of the Portuguese.

Ras.h.i.+duddin names among the towns of the Archipelago _Dalmian_, which may perhaps be a corrupt transcript of Dagroian.

Mr. Phillips's Chinese extracts, already cited, state that west of Sumatra (proper) were two small kingdoms, the first _Naku-urh_, the second _Liti_.

Naku-urh, which seems to be the _Ting-'ho-'rh_ of Pauthier's extracts, which sent tribute to the Kaan, and may probably be Dagroian as Mr.

Phillips supposes, was also called the _Kingdom of Tattooed Folk_.

[Mr. G. Phillips wrote since (_J.R.A.S._, July 1895, p. 528): "Dragoian has puzzled many commentators, but on (a) Chinese chart ... there is a country called _Ta-hua-mien_, which in the Amoy dialect is p.r.o.nounced _Dakolien_, in which it is very easy to recognise the Dragoian, or Dagoyam, of Marco Polo." In his paper of _The Seaports of India and Ceylon_ (_Jour. China B.R.A.S._, xx. 1885, p. 221), Mr. Phillips, referring to his Chinese Map, already said: _Ta-hsiao-hua-mien_, in the Amoy dialect _Toa-sio-hoe_ (or _Ko_)-_bin_, "The Kingdom of the Greater and Lesser Tattooed Faces." The Toa-Ko-bin, the greater tattooed-face people, most probably represents the Dagroian, or Dagoyum, of Marco Polo. This country was called _Na-ku-erh_ and Ma Huan says, "the King of _Na-ku-erh_ is also called the King of the Tattooed Faces."--H.C.]

Tattooing is ascribed by Friar Odoric to the people of _Sumoltra_.

(_Cathay_, p. 86.) _Liti_ is evidently the _Lide_ of De Barros, which by his list lay immediately east of Pedir. This would place _Naku-urh_ about Samarlangka. Beyond _Liti_ was _Lanmoli_ (i.e. Lambri). [See _G.

Schlegel_, _Geog. Notes_, XVI. Li-ta, Nakur.--H.C.]

There is, or was fifty years ago, a small port between Ayer Labu and Samarlangka, called _Darian_-Gade (_Great_ Darian?). This is the nearest approach to Dagroian that I have met with. (_N. Ann. des V._, tom. xviii.

p. 16.)

NOTE 5.--Gasparo Balbi (1579-1587) heard the like story of the Battas under Achin. True or false, the charge against them has come down to our times. The like is told by Herodotus of the Paddaei in India, of the Ma.s.sagetae, and of the Issedonians; by Strabo of the Caspians and of the Derbices; by the Chinese of one of the wild tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the south coast of Floris, called _Rakka_ (probably a form of Hindu _Rakshasa_, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island.

Odoric tells precisely Marco's story of a certain island called Dondin.

And in "King Alisaunder," the custom is related of a people of India, called most inappropriately _Orphani_:--

"Another Folk woneth there beside; _Orphani_ he hatteth wide.

When her eldrynges beth elde, And ne mowen hemselven welde Hy hem sleeth, and bidelve And," etc., etc.

--Weber, I. p. 206.

Benedetto Bordone, in his _Isolario_ (1521 and 1547), makes the same charge against the _Irish_, but I am glad to say that this seems only copied fiom Strabo. Such stories are still rife in the East, like those of men with tails. I have myself heard the tale told, nearly as Raffles tells it of the Battas, of some of the wild tribes adjoining Arakan. (_Balbi_, f. 130; _Raffles_, Mem. p. 427; _Wallace, Malay Archip._ 281; _Bickmore's Travels_, p. III; _Cathay_, pp. 25, 100).

The latest and most authentic statement of the kind refers to a small tribe called _Birhors_, existing in the wildest parts of Chota Nagpur and Jashpur, west of Bengal, and is given by an accomplished Indian ethnologist, Colonel Dalton. "They were wretched-looking objects ...

a.s.suring me that they had themselves given up the practice, they admitted that their fathers were in the habit of disposing of their dead in the manner indicated, viz., by feasting on the bodies; but they declared that they never shortened life to provide such feast, and shrunk with horror at the idea of any bodies but those of their own blood relations being served up at them!" (_J.A.S.B._ x.x.xIV. Pt. II. 18.) The same practice has been attributed recently, but only on hearsay, to a tribe of N. Guinea called _Tarungares_.

The Battas now bury their dead, after keeping the body a considerable time. But the people of Nias and the Batu Islands, whom Junghuhn considers to be of common origin with the Battas, do not bury, but expose the bodies in coffins upon rocks by the sea. And the small and very peculiar people of the Paggi Islands expose their dead on bamboo platforms in the forest.

It is quite probable that such customs existed in the north of Sumatra also; indeed they may still exist, for the interior seems unknown. We do hear of pagan hill-people inland from Pedir who make descents upon the coast, (_Junghuhn_ II. 140; _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal_, etc. 2nd year, No. 4; _Nouv. Ann. des. V._ XVIII.)

[1] _Marsden_, 1st ed. p. 291.

[2] _Veth's Atchin_, 1873, p. 37.

[3] It might be supposed that Varthema had stolen from Serano; but the book of the former was _published_ in 1510.

[4] Castanheda speaks of Pacem as the best port of the land: "standing on the bank of a river on marshy ground about a league inland; and at the mouth of the river there are some houses of timber where a customs collector was stationed to exact duties at the anchorage from the s.h.i.+ps which touched there." (Bk. II. ch. iii.) This agrees with Ibn Batuta's account of Sumatra, 4 miles from its port. [A village named _Samudra_ discovered in our days near Pasei is perhaps a remnant of the kingdom of Samara. (_Merveilles de l'Inde_, p. 234.)--H.C.]

[5] If Mr. Phillips had given particulars about his map and quotations, as to date, author, etc., it would have given them more value. He leaves this vague.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE KINGDOMS OF LAMBRI AND FANSUR.

When you leave that kingdom you come to another which is called LAMBRI.

[NOTE 1] The people are Idolaters, and call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan. They have plenty of Camphor and of all sorts of other spices.

They also have brazil in great quant.i.ties. This they sow, and when it is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up and transplant it; then they let it grow for three years, after which they tear it up by the root.

You must know that Messer Marco Polo aforesaid brought some seed of the brazil, such as they sow, to Venice with him, and had it sown there; but never a thing came up. And I fancy it was because the climate was too cold.