Of their Laws and Judgments, and of their Death and Burial.
When two men fight, no one must interfere to part them, neither may a
father presume to aid his own son; but he who considers himself injured
must appeal to the court of his lord, and whoever shall offer him any
violence after this appeal is put to death. He who is appealed against,
must go without delay, and the appellant leads him as a prisoner. No one is
punished capitally, unless taken in the act, or unless he confesses; but
when witnessed against by many, he is severely tortured to extort
confession. Homicide, adultery, and fornication, are punished with death;
but a man may use his own slave as he pleases. Great thefts are punished
capitally; but for small ones, as for stealing a sheep, when the party is
not caught in the fact, but otherwise detected, the thief is cruelly
beaten. And when an hundred strokes are to be given by order of the court,
an hundred separate rods are required, one for each blow. Pretended
messengers are punished with death, as are likewise sacrilegious persons,
whom they esteem witches, of which more will be said hereafter.
When any one dies, he is mourned for with violent howlings, and the
mourners are free from tribute during a whole year. Any one who happens to
enter a house, in which a grown up person lies dead, must not enter the
house of Mangu-khan during a whole year; if the dead person is a child, he
is only debarred for one lunation. One house is always left near the grave
of the deceased; but the burial place of any of the princes of the race of
Jenghis-khan is always kept secret; yet there is always a family left in
charge of the sepulchres of their nobles, though I do not find that they
deposit any treasure in these tombs. The Comanians raise a large barrow or
tomb over their dead, and erect a statue of the person, with his face
turned towards the east, holding a drinking cup in his hand; they erect
likewise, over the tombs of the rich, certain pyramids or sharp pinnacles.
In some places, I observed large towers built of burnt bricks, and others
of stone, though no stones were to be found about the place. I saw the
grave of a person newly buried, in honour of whom there were hung up
sixteen horses hides, four of which towards each quarter of the world,
between high poles; and beside the grave they had set cosmos, that the
deceased might drink, and flesh for him to eat, although the person was
said to have been baptized. Farther east, I saw other kinds of sepulchres,
consisting of large areas, paved with stone, some round and others square,
having four large stones placed upright around the pavement, and fronting
the four cardinal points. When any one lies sick in bed, a mark is affixed
to the house, that no one may enter, as no one ever visits the sick, except
his own servant; and when any one belonging to the great courts is sick,
watchmen are placed at a great distance, all round, that no one may enter
the precincts; as they dread lest evil spirits, or bad winds, might enter
along with visitors.
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