Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [87]
Fully in Kublai Khan’s thrall, Marco emphasizes selfless motives on the part of the leader of the Mongols: “All his thought and chief anxiety is to help the people who are under him, that they may be able to live, work, and multiply their goods.” At the same time, the Venetian never loses sight of the strict social order and rituals underlying Mongol family structure, agriculture, and military life.
NOWHERE WAS THE Mongol love of orderliness and opulence more evident than in their calendar. The Mongol New Year, which began in February, “by the Tartar computation,” was called simply “White.” In honor of the occasion, “Kublai Khan and his subjects dress themselves in white robes, both men and women.” They did so, Marco explains, “because white dress seems to them lucky and good, and therefore they wear it at the beginning of their year so that they may take their good and have joy all year.”
In their festive attire, Mongol barons bestowed still more presents upon the khan, “of gold and of silver and of pearls and of precious stones and of many rich white cloths,” in addition to a hundred thousand (five to twelve thousand in some manuscript versions) camels and horses, all of them white. “And if they are not altogether white, they are at least white for the greater part.”
Everyone embraced and kissed, exclaiming, “Good luck to you this year and may everything that you do turn out well.” Kublai Khan then displayed his elephants, which were “quite five thousand, all covered with beautiful clothes worked richly in gold and in silk with many other beasts and with birds and lions embroidered.” Each animal bore a coffer filled with items required for feasting, gold and silver utensils, and other trappings. His camels came next, draped in “very beautiful cloth of white silk.” The glittering spectacle moved Marco to exclaim, “It is the most wonderful and beautiful sight that was ever seen in this world.”
On the day of the White festival, all the prominent people of the realm appeared—kings, princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, barons, astrologers, philosophers, physicians, and falconers, along with other officials—to fill the “great hall before the great lord.” Kublai Khan sat on a throne situated so that he could see them all. The overflow crowds arrayed themselves around the walls and prepared to worship there. Marco relates: “When they are all seated each in his proper place a great wise ancient man, as one might say a prelate, stands up in the middle and says in a very loud voice, ‘Now all bow down and worship at once your lord.’ And as soon as he has so said they all rise up and bow themselves immediately and bend the knee and put their foreheads on the ground and make their prayer towards the lord and worship him just as if he were their God. Then the prelate says, ‘God save and keep our lord long with joy and gladness.’…And in such a way they worship him four times. And then, this done, they stand up and go all in their order to an altar which is there very well adorned, and on that altar is a red table on which is written with letters of gold and of precious stones of great value the proper name of the Great Khan.”
Marco specifies that Kublai Khan presided over twelve thousand barons upon whom he bequeathed thirteen robes apiece, each robe of a different color and decorated with precious stones, as well as a belt “of crimson cunningly worked with threads of gold and of silver, very rich and very beautiful and of great value,” and boots of similar luxury.
These statistics were simply too large for Europeans to credit, but Mongol and Chinese annals confirm their accuracy. The barons wore a different robe