Chapter X: The Kingdoms of Samara and Dagroian

So you must know that when you leave the kingdom of Basma you come to another kingdom called Samara, on the same Island.{1} And in that kingdom Messer Marco Polo was detained five months by the weather, which would not allow of his going on. And I tell you that here again neither the Pole-star nor the stars of the Maestro{2} were to be seen, much or little. The people here are wild Idolaters; they have a king who is great and rich; but they also call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan. When Messer Mark was detained on this Island five months by contrary winds, [he landed with about 2000 men in his company; they dug large ditches on the landward side to encompass the party, resting at either end on the sea-haven, and within these ditches they made bulwarks or stockades of timber] for fear of those brutes of man-eaters; [for there is great store of wood there; and the Islanders having confidence in the party supplied them with victuals and other things needful.] There is abundance of fish to be had, the best in the world. The people have no wheat, but live on rice. Nor have they any wine except such as I shall now describe.

You must know that they derive it from a certain kind of tree that they have. When they want wine they cut a branch of this, and attach a great pot to the stem of the tree at the place where the branch was cut; in a day and a night they will find the pot filled. This wine is excellent drink, and is got both white and red. [It is of such surpassing virtue that it cures dropsy and tisick and spleen.] The trees resemble small date-palms; ... and when cutting a branch no longer gives a flow of wine, they water the root of the tree, and before long the branches again begin to give out wine as before.{3} They have also great quantities of Indian nuts [as big as a man’s head], which are good to eat when fresh; [being sweet and savoury, and white as milk. The inside of the meat of the nut is filled with a liquor like clear fresh water, but better to the taste, and more delicate than wine or any other drink that ever existed.]

Now that we have done telling you about this kingdom, let us quit it, and we will tell you of Dagroian.

When you leave the kingdom of Samara you come to another which is called DAGROIAN. It is an independent kingdom, and has a language of its own. The people are very wild, but they call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan. I will tell you a wicked custom of theirs.{4}

When one of them is ill they send for their sorcerers, and put the question to them, whether the sick man shall recover of his sickness or no. If they say that he will recover, then they let him alone till he gets better. But if the sorcerers foretell that the sick man is to die, the friends send for certain judges of theirs to put to death him who has thus been condemned by the sorcerers to die. These men come, and lay so many clothes upon the sick man’s mouth that they suffocate him. And when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man’s kin, and eat him. And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man’s soul. And so they eat him up stump and rump. And when they have thus eaten him they collect his bones and put them in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns among the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them. And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway. It is a very evil custom and a parlous.{5}

Now that I have told you about this kingdom let us leave it, and I will tell you of Lambri.

NOTE 1.—I have little doubt that in Marco’s dictation the name was
really _Samatra_, and it is possible that we have a trace of this
in the _Samarcha_ (for _Samartha_) of the Crusca MS.

The _Shijarat Malayu_ has a legend, with a fictitious etymology, of
the foundation of the city and kingdom of _Samudra_, or SUMATRA,
by Marah Silu, a fisherman near Pasangan, who had acquired great
wealth, as wealth is got in fairy tales. The name is probably
the Sanskrit _Samudra_, “the sea.” Possibly it may have been
imitated from Dwára Samudra, at that time a great state and city of
Southern India. [We read in the Malay Annals, _Salalat al Salatin_,
translated by Mr. J. T. Thomson (_Proc. R. G. S._ XX. p. 216):
“Mara Silu ascended the eminence, when he saw an ant as big as a
cat; so he caught it, and ate it, and on the place he erected his
residence, which he named Samandara, which means Big Ant (_Semut
besar_ in Malay).”—H. C.] Mara Silu having become King of Samudra
was converted to Islam, and took the name of Malik al-Ṣálih. He
married the daughter of the King of _Parlák_, by whom he had two
sons; and to have a principality for each he founded the city and
kingdom of _Pasei_. Thus we have Marco’s three first kingdoms,
Ferlec, Basma, and Samara, connected together in a satisfactory
manner in the Malayan story. It goes on to relate the history of
the two sons Al-Dháhir and Al-Mansúr. Another version is given in
the history of Pasei already alluded to, with such differences as
might be expected when the oral traditions of several centuries
came to be written down.

Ibn Batuta, about 1346, on his way to China, spent fifteen days at
the court of Samudra, which he calls _Sămăthrah_ or _Sămŭthrah_.
The king whom he found there reigning was the Sultan Al-Malik
Al-Dháhir, a most zealous Mussulman, surrounded by doctors of
theology, and greatly addicted to religious discussions, as well
as a great warrior and a powerful prince. The city was 4 miles
from its port, which the traveller calls _Sărha_; he describes the
capital as a large and fine town, surrounded with an enceinte and
bastions of timber. The court displayed all the state of Mahomedan
royalty, and the Sultan’s dominions extended for many days along
the coast. In accordance with Ibn Batuta’s picture, the Malay
Chronicle represents the court of Pasei (which we have seen to be
intimately connected with Samudra) as a great focus of theological
studies about this time.

There can be little doubt that Ibn Batuta’s Malik Al-Dháhir is
the prince of the Malay Chronicle, the son of the first Mahomedan
king. We find in 1292 that Marco says nothing of Mahomedanism; the
people are still wild idolaters; but the king is already a rich
and powerful prince. This may have been Malik al-Ṣálih before his
conversion; but it may be doubted if the Malay story be correct
in representing him as the _founder_ of the city. Nor is this
apparently so represented in the Book of the Kings of Pasei.

Before Ibn Batuta’s time, Sumatra or Samudra appears in the
travels of Fr. Odoric. After speaking of _Lamori_ (to which we
shall come presently), he says: “In the same island, towards
the south, is another kingdom, by name SUMOLTRA, in which is a
singular generation of people, for they brand themselves on the
face with a hot iron in some twelve places,” etc. This looks as if
the conversion to Islam was still (_circa_ 1323) very incomplete.
Rashiduddin also speaks of _Súmútra_ as lying beyond Lamuri.
(_Elliot_, I. p. 70.)

The power attained by the dynasty of Malik al-Ṣálih, and the number
of Mahomedans attracted to his court, probably led in the course
of the 14th century to the extension of the name of Sumatra to the
whole island. For when visited early in the next century by Nicolo
Conti, we are told that he “went to a fine city of the island of
Taprobana, which island is called by the natives _Shamuthera_.”
Strange to say, he speaks of the natives as all idolaters. Fra
Mauro, who got much from Conti, gives us _Isola Siamotra_ over
_Taprobana_; and it shows at once his own judgment and want of
confidence in it, when he notes elsewhere that “Ptolemy, professing
to describe Taprobana, has really only described Saylan.”

We have no means of settling the exact position of the city of
Sumatra, though possibly an enquiry among the natives of that
coast might still determine the point. Marsden and Logan indicate
Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out
by Mr. Braddell in the _J. Ind. Arch._, Malay tradition represents
the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra,
which seems to imply tolerable proximity. And at the marriage of
the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Ṣálih, we are told that the
latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond
Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should
seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like Gulf of Pasei,
called in the charts _Telo_ (or Talak) _Samawe_; a place very
likely to have been sought as a shelter to the Great Kaan’s fleet
during the south-west monsoon. Fine timber, of great size, grows
close to the shore of this bay,[1] and would furnish material for
Marco’s stockades.

When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the
leading state upon the coast, and certainly no state _called_
Sumatra continued to exist. Whether the _city_ continued to exist
even in decay is not easy to discern. The _Aín-i-Akbari_ says that
the best civet is that which is brought from _the seaport town of
Sumatra, in the territory of Achin_, and is called _Sumatra Zabád_;
but this may have been based on old information. Valentyn seems
to recognise the existence of a place of note called _Samadra_ or
_Samotdara_, though it is not entered on his map. A famous mystic
theologian who flourished under the great King of Achin, Iskandar
Muda, and died in 1630, bore the name of Shamsuddín _Shamatráni_,
which seems to point to the city of Sumatra as his birth place.[2]
The most distinct mention that I know of the city so called, in the
Portuguese period, occurs in the _soi-disant_ “Voyage which Juan
Serano made when he fled from Malacca,” in 1512, published by Lord
Stanley of Alderley, at the end of his translation of Barbosa. This
man speaks of the “island of Samatra” as named from “_a city of
this northern part_.” And on leaving Pedir, having gone down the
northern coast, he says, “I drew towards the south and south-east
direction, and reached to another country and city which is called
Samatra,” and so on. Now this describes the position in which the
city of Sumatra should have been if it existed. But all the rest of
the tract is mere plunder from Varthema.[3]

There is, however, a like intimation in a curious letter respecting
the Portuguese discoveries, written from Lisbon in 1515, by a
German, Valentine Moravia, who was probably the same Valentyn
Fernandez, the German, who published the Portuguese edition of
Marco Polo at Lisbon in 1502, and who shows an extremely accurate
conception of Indian geography. He says: “La maxima insula la quale
è chiamata da Marcho Polo Veneto Iava Minor, et al presente si
chiama _Sumotra_, da un _emporie di dicta insula_” (printed by _De
Gubernatis, Viagg. Ita._ etc., p. 170).

Several considerations point to the probability that the states of
Pasei and Sumatra had become united, and that the town of Sumatra
may have been represented by the Pacem of the Portuguese.[4] I have
to thank Mr. G. Phillips for the copy of a small Chinese chart
showing the northern coast of the island, which he states to be
from “one of about the 13th century.” I much doubt the date, but
the map is valuable as showing the town of Sumatra (_Sumantala_).
This seems to be placed in the Gulf of Pasei, and very near where
Pasei itself still exists. An extract of a “Chinese account of
about A.D. 1413” accompanied the map. This states that the town
was situated some distance up a river, so as to be reached in
two tides. There was a village at the mouth of the river called
_Talumangkin_.[5]

[Mr. E. H. Parker writes (_China Review_, XXIV. p. 102): “Colonel
Yule’s remarks about Pasei are borne out by Chinese History (Ming,
325, 20, 24), which states that in 1521 Pieh-tu-lu (Pestrello [for
Perestrello?]) having failed in China ‘went for’ _Pa-si_. Again
‘from Pa-si, Malacca, to Luzon, they swept the seas, and all the
other nations were afraid of them.’”—H. C.]

Among the Indian states which were prevailed on to send tribute (or
presents) to Kúblái in 1286, we find _Sumutala_. The chief of this
state is called in the Chinese record _Tu-‘han-pa-ti_, which seems
to be just the Malay words _Tuan Pati_, “Lord Ruler.” No doubt this
was the rising state of Sumatra, of which we have been speaking;
for it will be observed that Marco says the people of that state
called themselves the Kaan’s subjects. Rashiduddin makes the same
statement regarding the people of Java (_i.e._ the island of
Sumatra), and even of Nicobar: “They are all subject to the Kaan.”
It is curious to find just the same kind of statements about the
princes of the Malay Islands acknowledging themselves subjects of
Charles V., in the report of the surviving commander of Magellan’s
ship to that emperor (printed by Baldelli-Boni, I. lxvii.).
Pauthier has curious Chinese extracts containing a notable passage
respecting the disappearance of Sumatra Proper from history: “In
the years _Wen-chi_ (1573–1615), the Kingdom of Sumatra divided in
two, and the new state took the name of _Achi_ (Achin). After that
Sumatra was no more heard of.” (_Gaubil_, 205; _De Mailla_, IX.
429; _Elliot_, I. 71; _Pauthier_, pp. 605 and 567.)

NOTE 2.—“_Vos di que la Tramontaine ne part. Et encore vos di que
l’estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou ne grant_” (G. T.). The
_Tramontaine_ is the Pole star:—

“De nostre Père l’Apostoille
Volsisse qu’il semblast l’estoile
Qui ne se muet ...
Par cele estoile vont et viennent
Et lor sen et lor voie tiennent
Il l’apelent la _tres montaigne_.”
—_La Bible Guiot de Provins_ in _Barbazan_, by _Méon_, II. 377.

The _Meistre_ is explained by Pauthier to be Arcturus; but this
makes Polo’s error greater than it is. Brunetto Latini says:
“Devers la tramontane en a il i. autre (vent) plus debonaire, qui a
non _Chorus_. Cestui apelent li marinier MAISTRE _por vij. estoiles
qui sont en celui meisme leu_,” etc. (_Li Tresors_, p. 122).
_Magister_ or _Magistra_ in mediæval Latin, _La Maistre_ in old
French, signifies “the beam of a plough.” Possibly this accounts
for the application of _Maistre_ to the Great Bear, or _Plough_.
But on the other hand the pilot’s art is called in old French
_maistrance_. Hence this constellation may have had the name as the
pilot’s guide,—like our _Lode_-star. The name was probably given
to the N.W. point under a latitude in which the Great Bear sets in
that quarter. In this way many of the points of the old Arabian
_Rose des Vents_ were named from the rising or setting of certain
constellations. (See _Reinaud’s Abulfeda_, Introd. pp. cxcix.–cci.)

NOTE 3.—The tree here intended, and which gives the chief supply of
toddy and sugar in the Malay Islands, is the _Areng Saccharifera_
(from the Javanese name), called by the Malays _Gomuti_, and by the
Portuguese _Saguer_. It has some resemblance to the date-palm, to
which Polo compares it, but it is a much coarser and wilder-looking
tree, with a general raggedness, “_incompta et adspectu tristis_,”
as Rumphius describes it. It is notable for the number of plants
that find a footing in the joints of its stem. On one tree in Java
I have counted thirteen species of such parasites, nearly all
ferns. The tree appears in the foreground of the cut at p. 273.

Crawford thus describes its treatment in obtaining toddy: “One
of the _spathae_, or shoots of fructification, is, on the first
appearance of the fruit, beaten for three successive days with a
small stick, with the view of determining the sap to the wounded
part. The shoot is then cut off, a little way from the root, and
the liquor which pours out is received in pots.... The _Gomuti_
palm is fit to yield toddy at 9 or 10 years old, and continues
to yield it for 2 years at the average rate of 3 quarts a day.”
(_Hist. of Ind. Arch._ I. 398.)

The words omitted in translation are unintelligible to me: “_et
sunt quatre raimes trois cel en_.” (G. T.)

[“Polo’s description of the wine-pots of Samara hung on the trees
‘like date-palms,’ agrees precisely with the Chinese account of
the _shu theu tsiu_ made from ‘coir trees like cocoa-nut palms’
manufactured by the Burmese. Therefore it seems more likely that
Samara is Siam (still pronounced _Shumuro_ in Japan, and _Siamlo_
in Hakka), than Sumatra.” (_Parker_, _China Review_, XIV. p. 359.)
I think it useless to discuss this theory.—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—No one has been able to identify this state. Its position,
however, must have been near PEDIR, and perhaps it was practically
the same. Pedir was the most flourishing of those Sumatran states
at the appearance of the Portuguese.

Rashiduddin names among the towns of the Archipelago _Dalmian_,
which may perhaps be a corrupt transcript of Dagroian.

Mr. Phillips’s Chinese extracts, already cited, state that west of
Sumatra (proper) were two small kingdoms, the first _Nakú-urh_,
the second _Liti_. Nakú-urh, which seems to be the _Ting-’ho-’rh_
of Pauthier’s extracts, which sent tribute to the Kaan, and may
probably be Dagroian as Mr. Phillips supposes, was also called the
_Kingdom of Tattooed Folk_.

[Mr. G. Phillips wrote since (_J. R. A. S._, July 1895, p. 528):
“Dragoian has puzzled many commentators, but on (a) Chinese chart
... there is a country called _Ta-hua-mien_, which in the Amoy
dialect is pronounced _Dakolien_, in which it is very easy to
recognise the Dragoian, or Dagoyam, of Marco Polo.” In his paper of
_The Seaports of India and Ceylon_ (_Jour. China B. R. A. S._, xx.
1885, p. 221), Mr. Phillips, referring to his Chinese Map, already
said: _Ta-hsiao-hua-mien_, in the Amoy dialect _Toa-sio-hoe_ (or
_Ko_)-_bin_, “The Kingdom of the Greater and Lesser Tattooed
Faces.” The Toa-Ko-bin, the greater tattooed-face people, most
probably represents the Dagroian, or Dagoyum, of Marco Polo. This
country was called _Na-ku-êrh_, and Ma Huan says, “the King of
_Na-ku-êrh_ is also called the King of the Tattooed Faces.”—H. C.]

Tattooing is ascribed by Friar Odoric to the people of _Sumoltra_.
(_Cathay_, p. 86.) _Liti_ is evidently the _Lidé_ of De Barros,
which by his list lay immediately east of Pedir. This would place
Nakú-urh about Samarlangka. Beyond _Liti_ was _Lanmoli_ (_i.e._
Lambri). [See _G. Schlegel_, _Geog. Notes_, XVI. Li-taï, Nakur.—H.
C.]

There is, or was fifty years ago, a small port between Ayer Labu
and Samarlangka, called _Darián_-Gadé (_Great_ Darian?). This is
the nearest approach to Dagroian that I have met with. (_N. Ann.
des V._, tom. xviii. p. 16.)

NOTE 5.—Gasparo Balbi (1579–1587) heard the like story of the
Battas under Achin. True or false, the charge against them has come
down to our times. The like is told by Herodotus of the Paddaei in
India, of the Massagetæ, and of the Issedonians; by Strabo of the
Caspians and of the Derbices; by the Chinese of one of the wild
tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru
Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the
south coast of Floris, called _Rakka_ (probably a form of Hindu
_Rákshasa_, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against
sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island.
Odoric tells precisely Marco’s story of a certain island called
Dondin. And in “King Alisaunder,” the custom is related of a people
of India, called most inappropriately _Orphani_:—

“Another Folk woneth there beside;
_Orphani_ he hatteth wide.
When her eldrynges beth elde,
And ne mowen hemselven welde
Hy hem sleeth, and bidelve
And,” etc., etc. —_Weber_, I. p. 206.

Benedetto Bordone, in his _Isolario_ (1521 and 1547), makes the
same charge against the _Irish_, but I am glad to say that this
seems only copied from Strabo. Such stories are still rife in the
East, like those of men with tails. I have myself heard the tale
told, nearly as Raffles tells it of the Battas, of some of the
wild tribes adjoining Arakan. (_Balbi_, f. 130; _Raffles_, Mem. p.
427; _Wallace, Malay Archip._ 281; _Bickmore’s Travels_, p. 111;
_Cathay_, pp. 25, 100).

The latest and most authentic statement of the kind refers to
a small tribe called _Birhōrs_, existing in the wildest parts
of Chota Nagpúr and Jashpúr, west of Bengal, and is given by
an accomplished Indian ethnologist, Colonel Dalton. “They were
wretched-looking objects ... assuring me that they had themselves
given up the practice, they admitted that their fathers were in the
habit of disposing of their dead in the manner indicated, viz., by
feasting on the bodies; but they declared that they never shortened
life to provide such feast, and shrunk with horror at the idea of
any bodies but those of their own blood relations being served up
at them!” (_J. A. S. B._ XXXIV. Pt. II. 18.) The same practice has
been attributed recently, but only on hearsay, to a tribe of N.
Guinea called _Tarungares_.

The Battas now bury their dead, after keeping the body a
considerable time. But the people of Nias and the Batu Islands,
whom Junghuhn considers to be of common origin with the Battas, do
not bury, but expose the bodies in coffins upon rocks by the sea.
And the small and very peculiar people of the Paggi Islands expose
their dead on bamboo platforms in the forest. It is quite probable
that such customs existed in the north of Sumatra also; indeed
they may still exist, for the interior seems unknown. We do hear
of pagan hill-people inland from Pedir who make descents upon the
coast. (_Junghuhn_ II. 140; _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal_, etc.,
2nd year, No. 4; _Nouv. Ann. des. V._ XVIII.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] _Marsden_, 1st ed. p. 291.

[2] _Veth’s Atchin_, 1873, p. 37.

[3] It might be supposed that Varthema had stolen from Serano; but the
book of the former was _published_ in 1510.

[4] Castanheda speaks of Pacem as the best port of the land: “standing
on the bank of a river on marshy ground about a league inland;
and at the mouth of the river there are some houses of timber
where a customs collector was stationed to exact duties at the
anchorage from the ships which touched there.” (Bk. II. ch. iii.)
This agrees with Ibn Batuta’s account of Sumatra, 4 miles from its
port. [A village named _Samudra_ discovered in our days near Pasei
is perhaps a remnant of the kingdom of Samara. (_Merveilles de
l’Inde_, p. 234.)—H. C.]

[5] If Mr. Phillips had given particulars about his map and quotations,
as to date, author, etc., it would have given them more value. He
leaves this vague.