137), in the general
sense of disgraced.
The shameful custom here spoken of is ascribed by Polo also to a province
of Eastern Tibet, and by popular report in modern times to the Hazaras of
the Hindu-Kush, a people of Mongolian blood, as well as to certain nomad
tribes of Persia, to say nothing of the like accusation against our own
ancestors which has been drawn from Laonicus Chalcondylas. The old Arab
traveller Ibn Muhalhal (10th century) also relates the same of the Hazlakh
(probably Kharlikh) Turks: "Ducis alicujus uxor vel filia vel soror,
quum mercatorum agmen in terram venit, eos adit, eorumque lustrat faciem.
Quorum siquis earum afficit admiratione hunc domum suam ducit, eumque apud
se hospitio excipit, eique benigne facit. Atque marito suo et filio
fratrique rerum necessariarum curam demandat; neque dum hospes apud eam
habitat, nisi necessarium est, maritus eam adit." A like custom prevails
among the Chukchis and Koryaks in the vicinity of Kamtchatka.
(Elphinstone's Caubul; Wood, p. 201; Burnes, who discredits, II. 153,
III. 195; Laon. Chalcond. 1650, pp. 48-49; Kurd de Schloezer, p. 13;
Erman, II. 530.)
["It is remarkable that the Chinese author, Hung Hao, who lived a
century before M. Polo, makes mention in his memoirs nearly in the same
words of this custom of the Uighurs, with whom he became acquainted during
his captivity in the kingdom of the Kin.
