Ix. of the Chinese work
Sze-i-kwan-kao is devoted to Xieng-mai Pa-pe), which includes the
subdivisions of Laos, Xieng Hung [Kiang Hung] and Muong-Ken.
(Deveria, Mel. de Harlez, p. 97.) - H.C.]
CHAPTER LVII.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF ANIN.
Anin is a Province towards the east, the people of which are subject to
the Great Kaan, and are Idolaters. They live by cattle and tillage, and
have a peculiar language. The women wear on the legs and arms bracelets of
gold and silver of great value, and the men wear such as are even yet more
costly. They have plenty of horses which they sell in great numbers to the
Indians, making a great profit thereby. And they have also vast herds of
buffaloes and oxen, having excellent pastures for these. They have
likewise all the necessaries of life in abundance.[NOTE 1]
Now you must know that between Anin and Caugigu, which we have left behind
us, there is a distance of [25] days' journey;[NOTE 2] and from Caugigu to
Bangala, the third province in our rear, is 30 days' journey. We shall now
leave Anin and proceed to another province which is some 8 days' journey
further, always going eastward.
NOTE 1. - Ramusio, the printed text of the Soc. de Geographie, and most
editions have Amu; Pauthier reads Aniu and considers the name to
represent Tungking or Annam, called also Nan-yue. The latter word he
supposes to be converted into Anyue, Aniu. And accordingly he carries
the traveller to the capital of Tungking.
Leaving the name for the present, according to the scheme of the route as
I shall try to explain it below, I should seek for Amu or Aniu or Anin
in the extreme south-east of Yun-nan. A part of this region was for the
first time traversed by the officers of the French expedition up the
Mekong, who in 1867 visited Sheu-ping, Lin-ngan and the upper valley of
the River of Tungking on their way to Yun-nan-fu. To my question whether
the description in the text, of Aniu or Anin and its fine pastures,
applied to the tract just indicated, Lieut. Garnier replied on the whole
favourably (see further on), proceeding: "The population about Sheu-ping
is excessively mixt. On market days at that town one sees a gathering of
wild people in great number and variety, and whose costumes are highly
picturesque, as well as often very rich. There are the Pa-is, who are
also found again higher up, the Ho-nhi, the Khato, the Lope, the
Shentseu. These tribes appear to be allied in part to the Laotians, in
part to the Kakhyens.... The wilder races about Sheuping are remarkably
handsome, and you see there types of women exhibiting an extraordinary
regularity of feature, and at the same time a complexion surprisingly
white. The Chinese look quite an inferior race beside them.... I may
add that all these tribes, especially the Ho-nhi and the Pa-i, wear large
amounts of silver ornament; great collars of silver round the neck, as
well as on the legs and arms."
Though the whiteness of the people of Anin is not noticed by Polo, the
distinctive manner in which he speaks in the next chapter of the dark
complexion of the tribes described therein seems to indicate the probable
omission of the opposite trait here.
The prominent position assigned in M. Garnier's remarks to a race called
Ho-nhi first suggested to me that the reading of the text might be ANIN
instead of Aniu. And as a matter of fact this seems to my eyes to be
clearly the reading of the Paris Livre des Merveilles (Pauthier's MS.
B), while the Paris No. 5631 (Pauthier's A) has Auin, and what may be
either Aniu or Anin. Anyn is also found in the Latin Brandenburg MS.
of Pipino's version collated by Andrew Mueller, to which, however, we
cannot ascribe much weight. But the two words are so nearly identical in
mediaeval writing, and so little likely to be discriminated by scribes who
had nothing to guide their discrimination, that one need not hesitate to
adopt that which is supported by argument. In reference to the suggested
identity of Anin and Ho-nhi, M. Garnier writes again: "All that Polo
has said regarding the country of Aniu, though not containing anything
very characteristic, may apply perfectly to the different indigenous
tribes, at present subject to the Chinese, which are dispersed over the
country from Talan to Sheuping and Lin-ngan. These tribes bearing the
names (given above) relate that they in other days formed an independent
state, to which they give the name of Muang Shung. Where this Muang was
situated there is no knowing. These tribes have langage par euls, as
Marco Polo says, and silver ornaments are worn by them to this day in
extraordinary profusion; more, however, by the women than the men. They
have plenty of horses, buffaloes and oxen, and of sheep as well. It was
the first locality in which the latter were seen. The plateau of Lin-ngan
affords pasture-grounds which are exceptionally good for that part of the
world.
[Illustration: Ho-nhi and other Tribes in the Department of Lin-ngan in S.
Yun-nan (supposed to be the Anin country of Marco Polo). (From Garnier's
Work)]
"Beyond Lin-ngan we find the Ho-nhi, properly so called, no longer. But
ought one to lay much stress on mere names which have undergone so many
changes, and of which so many have been borne in succession by all those
places and peoples?.. I will content myself with reminding you that the
town of Homi-cheu near Lin-ngan in the days of the Yuen bore the
name of Ngo-ning."
Notwithstanding M. Garnier's caution, I am strongly inclined to believe
that ANIN represents either HO-NHI or NGO-NING, if indeed these names be
not identical.