- The Saggio, here as elsewhere, probably stands for the
Miskal.
NOTE 5. - This is stated also by Abu Zaid, in the beginning of the 10th
century. And Reinaud in his note refers to Mas'udi, who has a like passage
in which he gives a name to these companions exactly corresponding to
Polo's Feoilz or Trusty Lieges: "When a King in India dies, many persons
voluntarily burn themselves with him. These are called Balanjariyah
(sing. Balanjar), as if you should say 'Faithful Friends' of the
deceased, whose life was life to them, and whose death was death to them."
(Anc. Rel. I. 121 and note; Mas. II. 85.)
On the murder of Ajit Singh of Marwar, by two of his sons, there were 84
satis, and "so much was he beloved," says Tod, "that even men devoted
themselves on his pyre" (I. 744). The same thing occurred at the death of
the Sikh Guru Hargovind in 1645. (H. of Sikhs, p. 62.)
Barbosa briefly notices an institution like that described by Polo, in
reference to the King of Narsinga, i.e. Vijayanagar. (Ram. I. f. 302.)
Another form of the same bond seems to be that mentioned by other
travellers as prevalent in Malabar, where certain of the Nairs bore the
name of Amuki, and were bound not only to defend the King's life with
their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by dashing among the
enemy and slaying until slain. Even Christian churches in Malabar had such
hereditary Amuki. (See P. Vinc. Maria, Bk. IV. ch. vii., and Cesare
Federici in Ram. III. 390, also Faria y Sousa, by Stevens, I. 348.)
There can be little doubt that this is the Malay Amuk, which would
therefore appear to be of Indian origin, both in name and practice. I see
that De Gubernatis, without noticing the Malay phrase, traces the term
applied to the Malabar champions to the Sanskrit Amokhya,
"indissoluble," and Amukta, "not free, bound." (Picc. Encic. Ind. I,
88.) The same practice, by which the followers of a defeated prince devote
themselves in amuk (vulgo running a-muck),[4] is called in the
island of Bali Bela, a term applied also to one kind of female Sati,
probably from S. Bali, "a sacrifice." (See Friedrich in Batavian
Trans. XXIII.) In the first syllable of the Balanjar of Mas'udi we have
probably the same word. A similar institution is mentioned by Caesar among
the Sotiates, a tribe of Aquitania. The Feoilz of the chief were 600 in
number and were called Soldurii; they shared all his good things in
life, and were bound to share with him in death also. Such also was a
custom among the Spanish Iberians, and the name of these Amuki signified
"sprinkled for sacrifice." Other generals, says Plutarch, might find a few
such among their personal staff and dependents, but Sertorius was followed
by many myriads who had thus devoted themselves. Procopius relates of the
White Huns that the richer among them used to entertain a circle of
friends, some score or more, as perpetual guests and partners of their
wealth.
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