So When The Two Great Hosts Were Pitched On The Plains Of Tanduc As You
Have Heard, Chinghis Kaan One
Day summoned before him his astrologers,
both Christians and Saracens, and desired them to let him know which of
the
Two hosts would gain the battle, his own or Prester John's. The
Saracens tried to ascertain, but were unable to give a true answer; the
Christians, however, did give a true answer, and showed manifestly
beforehand how the event should be. For they got a cane and split it
lengthwise, and laid one half on this side and one half on that, allowing
no one to touch the pieces. And one piece of cane they called Chinghis
Kaan, and the other piece they called Prester John. And then they said
to Chinghis: "Now mark! and you will see the event of the battle, and who
shall have the best of it; for whose cane soever shall get above the
other, to him shall victory be." He replied that he would fain see it, and
bade them begin. Then the Christian astrologers read a Psalm out of the
Psalter, and went through other incantations. And lo! whilst all were
beholding, the cane that bore the name of Chinghis Kaan, without being
touched by anybody, advanced to the other that bore the name of Prester
John, and got on the top of it. When the Prince saw that he was greatly
delighted, and seeing how in this matter he found the Christians to tell
the truth, he always treated them with great respect, and held them for
men of truth for ever after.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - Polo in the preceding chapter has stated that this plain of
Tanduc was in Prester John's country. He plainly regards it as identical
with the Tanduc of which he speaks more particularly in ch. lix. as
belonging to Prester John's descendants, and which must be located near
the Chinese Wall. He is no doubt wrong in placing the battle there. Sanang
Setzen puts the battle between the two, the only one which he mentions,
"at the outflow of the Onon near Kulen Buira." The same action is placed
by De Mailla's authorities at Calantschan, by P. Hyacinth at Kharakchin
Schatu, by Erdmann after Rashid in the vicinity of Hulun Barkat and
Kalanchinalt, which latter was on the borders of the Churche or Manchus.
All this points to the vicinity of Buir Nor and Hulan or Kalon Nor (though
the Onon is far from these). But this was not the final defeat of Aung
Khan or Prester John, which took place some time later (in 1203) at a
place called the Chacher Ondur (or Heights), which Gaubil places between
the Tula and the Kerulun, therefore near the modern Urga. Aung Khan was
wounded, and fled over the frontier of the Naiman; the officers of that
tribe seized and killed him. (Schmidt, 87, 383; Erdmann, 297;
Gaubil, p. 10.)
NOTE 2. - A Tartar divination by twigs, but different from that here
employed, is older than Herodotus, who ascribes it to the Scythians. We
hear of one something like the last among the Alans, and (from Tacitus)
among the Germans. The words of Hosea (iv. 12), "My people ask counsel at
their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them," are thus explained by
Theophylactus: "They stuck up a couple of sticks, whilst murmuring certain
charms and incantations; the sticks then, by the operation of devils,
direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direction of their fall was
noted," etc. The Chinese method of divination comes still nearer to that
in the text. It is conducted by tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces
of wood or bamboo of a peculiar form. It is described by Mendoza, and more
particularly, with illustrations, by Doolittle.[1]
But Rubruquis would seem to have witnessed nearly the same process that
Polo describes. He reprehends the conjuring practices of the Nestorian
priests among the Mongols, who seem to have tried to rival the indigenous
Kams or Medicine-men. Visiting the Lady Kuktai, a Christian Queen of
Mangu Kaan, who was ill, he says: "The Nestorians were repeating certain
verses, I know not what (they said it was part of a Psalm), over two twigs
which were brought into contact in the hands of two men. The monk stood by
during the operation" (p. 326).[2] Petis de la Croix quotes from
Thevenot's travels, a similar mode of divination as much used, before a
fight, among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the deck facing one
another and each holding two arrows by the points, and hitching the
notches of each pair of arrows into the other pair. Then the ship's writer
reads a certain Arabic formula, and it is pretended that whilst this goes
on, the two sets of arrows, of which one represents the Turks and the
other the Christians, struggle together in spite of the resistance of the
holders, and finally one rises over the other. This is perhaps the
divination by arrows which is prohibited in the Koran. (Sura, V. v. 92.)
It is related by Abulfeda that Mahomed found in the Kaaba an image of
Abraham with such arrows in his hand.
P. della Valle describes the same process, conducted by a Mahomedan
conjuror of Aleppo: "By his incantations he made the four points of the
arrows come together without any movement of the holders, and by the way
the points spontaneously placed themselves, obtained answers to
interrogatories."
And Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: "There are many different ways of
divination practised among the Buddhists; and that also mentioned by Marco
Polo is known to our Lama, but in a slightly different way, making use of
two arrows instead of a cane split up, wherefore this kind is called
da-mo, 'Arrow-divination.'" Indeed the practice is not extinct in India,
for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its application to detect the robber of a
government chest at Lodiana.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 226 of 335
Words from 229483 to 230485
of 342071
