The Title Of "Master Of The Mastiffs" Belonged To A High Court Official At
Constantinople In Former Days, Samsunji Bashi, And I Have No Doubt Marco
Has Given The Exact Interpretation Of The Title Of The Two Barons:
Though
it is difficult to trace its elements.
It is read variously Cunici (i.e.
Kunichi) and Cinuci (i.e. Chinuchi). It is evidently a word of
analogous structure to Kushchi, the Master of the Falcons; Parschi,
the Master of the Leopards. Professor Schiefner thinks it is probably
corrupted from Noghaichi, which appears in Kovalevski's Mongol Dict. as
"chaesseur qui a soins des chiens courants." This word occurs, he points
out, in Sanang Setzen, where Schmidt translates it Aufseher ueber Hunde.
(See S. S. p. 39.)
The metathesis of Noghai-chi into Kuni-chi is the only drawback to
this otherwise apt solution. We generally shall find Polo's Oriental words
much more accurately expressed than this would imply - as in the next
chapter. I have hazarded a suggestion of (Or. Turkish) Chong-lt-chi,
"Keeper of the Big Dogs," which Professor Vambery thinks possible. (See
"chong, big, strong," in his Tschagataische Sprachstudien, p. 282, and
note in Lord Strangford's Selected Writings, II. 169.) In East Turkestan
they call the Chinese Chong Kafir, "The Big Heathen." This would exactly
correspond to the rendering of Pipino's Latin translation, "hoc est canum
magnorum Praefecti." Chinuchi again would be (in Mongol)
"Wolf-keepers." It is at least possible that the great dogs which Polo
terms mastiffs may have been known by such a name.
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