When I skipped through the
internet site http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/
I clicked on Johannes de Plano Carpini – never heard of him - and was
immediately fascinated: I found a 13th century description of the Mongols . As
I have studied comparative religion, I have an interest in cultural
anthropology, so I started reading the chapter on burial customs and decided to
write post.
Johannes de Plana Carpini (around
1185 - 1252) was a companion of St. Francis and much involved into preaching
the gospel. It was probably for that reason that he was chosen by pope Innocent
iv to complain to the Grand Khan of the Mongols – invading parts of Europe at
that moment – about the unfairness of harassing Christian countries and also
for converting the Grand Khan to Christianity. It goes without saying that the
attempt of conversion was an utter failure. The Grand Khan demanded instead
allegiance of the pope…
His travel took place between
1245 and 1247. In 1246 he reached Karakorum, the capital of the Mongols and
3000 miles away from where he started. At that time no one in Europe had any
idea that Mongolia was that far away and for Johannes, being for that time at
age and quite a bit obese, the journey must have been painful.
He was the first westerner ever
to visit that place and after he returned he wrote a detailed account of this
journey. This account exists in two versions: Ystoria Mongolorum quos nos
Tartaros appelamus and Liber Tartarorum.
The latter is an abridged version and this text is on internet. His travel account
is important for our knowledge of the Mongols at that period and for the
Mongols themselves too, as apart from The Secret History of the Mongols, they
have no vernacular accounts of their own history from that period.
Johannes must have been a man with
an open mind, trying to see what is good and not condemning a priori the
Mongols as devils. In the following account he tells about the burial customs
of the wealthy Mongols. Reading this, I was struck by the similarities with
other nomadic peoples, like the Scythes, the Huns and the Kurgan culture, the
alleged origin of the Indo-Europeans.
Note: the Tatars (wrongly spelt
Tartari) are a sub-branch of the Mongols with a strong Turkish influence,
actually a combination of Mongol and Turkish tribes. In the 14th century they mingled with the
Volga-Bulgarians and modern Tatars have more European traits than Mongolian. So
the equation of Tatars with Mongols is wrong in mediaeval sources.
JOHANNES DE PLANO CARPINI
LIBELLUS HISTORICUS IOANNIS DE PLANO CARPINI,
qui missus est Legatus ad Tartaros anno Domini 1246. ab Innocentio
quarto Pontifice maximo.
Ritus funebri (pars capitis iii)
Quando aliquis eorum infirmatur, ponitur in statione eius una hasta,
et contra illam filtrum circumvoluitur nigrum: et ex tunc nullus audet alienus
postes stationum intrare. Et quando incipit agonizare, omnes recedunt ab eo;
quoniam nullus de iis qui morti eius assistunt, potest ordam alicuius ducis vel
imperatoris usque ad novam lunationem intrare. Cum autem mortuus est, si est de
maioribus, sepelitur occulte in campo ubi placuerit: sepelitur autem cum
statione sedendo in medio eius, et ponunt mensam ante eum, et alveum carnibus
plenum, et cyphum lactis iumentini: Sepelitur autem cum eo unum iumentum cum
pullo, et equus cum freno et sella: et alium equum comedunt et stramine corium
implent, et super duo vel quatuor ligna altius ponunt, ut habeat in alio mundo
stationem ubi moretur, et iumentum de quo lac habeat, et, possit sibi equos
multiplicare, et equos etiam in quibus valeat equitare. Aurum et argentum
sepeliunt eodem modo cum ipso. Currus in quo ducitur frangitur, et statio sua
destruitur, nec nomen proprium eius usque ad tertium generationem audet aliquis
nominare. Alius etiam est modus sepeliendi quosdam maiores. Vaditur in campo
occulte, et ibi gramina removent cum radicibus et faciunt foveam magnam, et in
latere illius foueae faciunt unam sub terra, et illum servum quem habet
dilectum ponunt sub eo, qui iacet tam diu sub eo donec incipit agonizare,
deinde extrahunt eum ut valeat respirare, et sic faciunt ter. Et si evadet,
postea est liber, et facit quicquid ei placuerit, et est magnus in statione, ac
inter parentes illius. Mortuum autem ponunt in foveam, qua est in latere facta
cum his qua superius dicta sunt. Deinde replent foveam qua est ante foueam suam,
et desuper gramina ponunt, ut fuerant prius, ad hoc, ne locus ulterius valeat
inueniri. Alia faciunt ut dictum est. In terra eorum sunt coemeteria duo. Unum
in quo sepeliuntur imperatores, duces et nobiles omnes: et ubicunque moriuntur,
si congrue fieri potest, illuc deferuntur. Sepelitur autem cum eis aurum et
argentum multum. Aliud est in quo sepeliuntur illi qui in Hungaria interfecti
fuerunt: multi enim ibidem occisi fuerunt. Ad illa coemeteria nullus audet
accedere praeter custodes, qui ad custodiendum positi sunt ibidem. Et si aliquis
accesserit, capitur, spoliatur et verberatur, et valde male tractatur. Unde nos
ipsi nescientes intravimus terminos coemeterii eorum qui in Hungaria occisi
fuerunt, et venerunt super nos sagitta volantes: sed quia eramus nuncii
consuetudinem terrae nescientes, nos liberos dimiserunt abire.
statio –onis (f): (here) a yurt or ger, the movable house of Central-Asian
nomads
contra illam = circum illam
filtrum: felt (indeed connected with filter: early 15c., from Old French
filtre and directly from Medieval Latin filtrum "felt," which was
used to strain impurities from liquid, from West Germanic *filtiz (see felt
(n.)). Of cigarettes, from 1908. (Copied from the Online Etymology Dictionary.
As for the cigarettes, I don’t smoke filter, but roll them myself.)
agonizo: to struggle, fight for one’s life, die
orda: In an earlier chapter Johannes explains this as sic enim stationes imperatoris apud eos et
principum appellantur, so: `camp, residence (with various yurts)-‘. This
word entered Western languages through Polish as horde, with the meaning `troop, crowd’. In the beginning of the 17th
century the expression Zolotája Ordá
(Golden Orda) was used in Russian as name for the capital of the Mongols - who
by then had lost their power. Later this term was used as designation for the
whole Mongolian empire. The word orda
is also related with Urdu, the language of Pakistan. Originally this language
was known as zabån-e-urdu
`language of the army’, designating a mixed language of the local Hindi dialect
with a strong influence of Turkish and Persian words.
alveus: a hollow, deep vessel, basket
iumentum: mare
iumentum: mare
cyphum = scyphum (a drinking vessel)
lactis iumentini: genitivus partitivus. iumentinus
is an adjective from iumentum
pullus: foal
comedo: to eat
stramen straminis (n): straw
corium: skin, hide
lignum: wooden bar, beam
nomino: to give a name to
parentes illius: his superiors
spolio: to strip
verbero: to beat
As there is no translation of the Liber Tartarorum on internet, I have taken the trouble to make one
myself. It has no literary pretension, but is meant to understand the Latin.
When one of them weakens, a spear is placed on the yurt, and around
that a black felt is wound, and from that moment no stranger is allowed to pass
the entrance of the yurt. And when he is about to die, all go way from him, as
no one of those who are present at his death, can enter the orda of some nobleman or leader till new
moon. When he is dead, if he belongs to nobles, he is buried secretly on the
steppe wherever it pleases. He is buried with a yurt, sitting in the midst of
it and they put a table in front of him and a basket full of meat and a bowl
with the milk of a mare. A mare with a foal is also buried
with him, and a horse with bridle and saddle, and they eat another horse and
fill the skin with straw and put it two or four bars high up, so that he has in
the other world a yurt to dwell in and a mare from which he can have
milk and, if it is possible for him to multiply the horses, he has also horses
on which he can ride. In the same way they bury gold and silver with him. The chariot in which he is transported, is
broken and his own yurt is destroyed and no one dares to give the proper name
of him (to a child)) up to the third generation.
There is also another way of burying some nobility. They go secretly
into the steppe and there they remove grass with root and all and they dig a
large pit and in the side of that pit, they dig one (other) and they put the
slave whom he has as favourite, under it. He lies there so long till he starts
to suffocate and then they draw him out in order that he can take breath again
and they do this thrice. And when he survives this, he is free afterwards and
he does whatever he likes, and he is held in high esteem in the yurt and also
by his superiors. But they put the deceased in the pit which is dug in the side
with the items mentioned above. Next they fill the pit in front of his pit and
above that they put the grass as it had been before, so the place can not be
found anymore. They do the other things as said.
In their land there are two cemeteries: one in which emperors,
leaders and all nobles are buried , and wherever they die, if it possible to do
that, they are brought there. A large amount of gold and silver is buried with
them. The other one is where those who have died in Hungary are buried. Many
indeed have fallen there. No one dares to approach cemetery, except the
guardians who are placed there for guarding at that place. And if someone would
approach, he is captured, stripped and beaten, and very badly treated. For that
reason, when we - unaware of that - entered the cemetery of those fallen in
Hungary, arrows came flying over us, but because we came as envoys, unaware of
the customs of the country, they sent us away free to go.
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