Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [46]
BY THIS POINT in Marco Polo’s narrative, a subtle but significant shift in tone has taken place, as though Marco had seized the pen from Rustichello’s hand and begun to write down his adventures in his own words, rather than rely on an amanuensis. Until now, the narrator has engaged in a dutiful exercise in the pilgrimage genre. Henceforth, not even Rustichello’s hand would restrain Marco, who sensed a greater purpose and depth to his narrative and his experience—something more epic, comprehensive, and nuanced, on the order of Herodotus’s Histories, a compendium of vanished civilizations and fallen empires. Gradually, the Travels opened onto wider vistas in space and time suggested by the exhilarating landscapes spreading before him, as well as their enticing inhabitants.
The longer Marco spent among the people of Tangut, the more he cast off his shyness and prudery, and spoke freely about their lives, which in turn revealed his own sexual awakening. As his narrative continued, a new Marco Polo gradually emerged; he was less pious and self-effacing, and more eager to learn about and, by implication, participate in the unfamiliar but beguiling world all around him.
THE WOMEN of Kamul (now called Hami), which adjoined the province of Tangut, finally brought Marco out of himself. The people of the region as a whole struck him as wonderfully likeable children, freely sharing food and drink with “the wayfarers who pass that way.” The men, “greatly given to amusement,” passed their days in playing instruments and singing, in reading and writing, and in participating in “great bodily enjoyment,” especially with travelers such as the Polos. But it was the women who utterly captivated Marco.
“These people have such a custom,” he confides. “If a stranger comes to his house to lodge, [a man] is too much delighted at it, and receives him with great joy, and labors to do everything to please,” instructing his “daughters, sisters, and other relations to do all that the stranger wishes,” even to the point of leaving his house for several days while “the stranger stays with his wife in the house and does as he likes and lies with her in a bed just as if she were his wife, and they continue in great enjoyment. All the men of this city and province are thus cuckolded by their wives; but they are not the least ashamed of it. And the women are beautiful and vivacious and always ready to oblige.” And one more thing can be assumed: they were ready to oblige young Marco Polo, just coming into manhood.
Yes, he admits, it could be said that this licentious behavior dishonored the women and men of Kamul, “but I tell you that because of the general custom which is in all that province; and is very pleasing to their idols when they give so good a reception to wayfarers in need of rest.” Even more remarkable, the family unit remained intact: “All the women are very fair and gay and very wanton and most obedient to their husbands’ order, and greatly enjoy this custom.”
Although his description seems more fanciful than real, more ironic parable than reliable reportage, Marco is discussing a well-established custom of the region and an exception to “village endogamy,” in which the people