267
seqq.; Biot. p. 283.)
Polo here introduces a remark about the practice of burning the dead,
which, with the notice of the idolatry of the people, and their use of
paper-money, constitutes a formula which he repeats all through the
Chinese provinces with wearisome iteration. It is, in fact, his definition
of the Chinese people, for whom he seems to lack a comprehensive name.
A great change seems to have come over Chinese custom, since the Middle
Ages, in regard to the disposal of the dead. Cremation is now entirely
disused, except in two cases; one, that of the obsequies of a Buddhist
priest, and the other that in which the coffin instead of being buried has
been exposed in the fields, and in the lapse of time has become decayed.
But it is impossible to reject the evidence that it was a common practice
in Polo's age. He repeats the assertion that it was the custom at every
stage of his journey through Eastern China; though perhaps his taking
absolutely no notice of the practice of burial is an instance of that
imperfect knowledge of strictly Chinese peculiarities which has been
elsewhere ascribed to him. It is the case, however, that the author of the
Book of the Estate of the Great Kaan (circa 1330) also speaks of
cremation as the usual Chinese practice, and that Ibn Batuta says
positively: "The Chinese are infidels and idolaters, and they burn their
dead after the manner of the Hindus." This is all the more curious,
because the Arab Relations of the 9th century say distinctly that the
Chinese bury their dead, though they often kept the body long (as they do
still) before burial; and there is no mistaking the description which
Conti (15th century) gives of the Chinese mode of sepulture.
