XVII., p. 340.  “Here [Maabar] are no horses bred; and thus a great part of the wealth of the country is wasted in purchasing horses; I will tell you how.  You must know that the merchants of Kis and Hormes, Dofar and Soer and Aden collect great numbers of destriers and other horses, and these they bring to the territories of this King and of his four brothers, who are kings likewise as I told you...”

Speaking of Yung (or Woeng) man, Chau Ju-kwa tells us (p. 133):  “In the mountains horse-raising is carried on a large scale.  The other countries which trade here purchase horses, pearls and dates which they get in exchange for cloves, cardamom seeds and camphor.”

XVII., p. 341.

SUTTEES IN INDIA.

“Suttee is a Brahmanical rite, and there is a Sanskrit ritual in existence (see Classified Index to the Tanjore MSS., p. 135a.).  It was introduced into Southern India with the Brahman civilization, and was prevalent there chiefly in the Brahmanical Kingdom of Vijayanagar, and among the Mahrattas.  In Malabar, the most primitive part of S. India, the rite is forbidden (Anacharanirnaya, v. 26).  The cases mentioned by Teixeira, and in the Lettres edifiantes, occurred at Tanjore and Madura.  A (Mahratta) Brahman at Tanjore told one of the present writers that he had to perform commemorative funeral rites for his grandfather and grandmother on the same day, and this indicated that his grandmother had been a sati.”  YULE, Hobson-Jobson.  Cf. Cathay, II., pp. 139-140.

MAABAR.

XVII., p. 345.  Speaking of this province, Marco Polo says:  “They have certain abbeys in which are gods and goddesses to whom many young girls are consecrated; their fathers and mothers presenting them to that idol for which they entertain the greatest devotion.  And when the [monks] of a convent desire to make a feast to their god, they send for all those consecrated damsels and make them sing and dance before the idol with great festivity.  They also bring meats to feed their idol withal; that is to say, the damsels prepare dishes of meat and other good things and put the food before the idol, and leave it there a good while, and then the damsels all go to their dancing and singing and festivity for about as long as a great Baron might require to eat his dinner.  By that time they say the spirit of the idols has consumed the substance of the food, so they remove the viands to be eaten by themselves with great jollity.  This is performed by these damsels several times every year until they are married.”

Chau Ju-kwa has the following passage in Cambodia (p. 53):  “(The people) are devout Buddhists.  There are serving (in the temples) some three hundred foreign women; they dance and offer food to the Buddha.  They are called a-nan or slave dancing-girls.”

Hirth and Rockhill, who quote Marco Polo’s passage, remark, p. 55 n.:  “A-nan, as here written, is the usual transcription of the Sanskrit word ananda, ‘joy, happiness.’  The almeh or dancing-girls are usually called in India deva-dasi (’slave of a god’) or ramjani.”