The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

Manchu Dynasty, the burying of living men was prohibited by the Emperor Kang-hi, at the close of the 17th century, _i.e._ the forced burying; but voluntary sepulture remained in force [_Yu chi wen_]. Notwithstanding this prohibition, cases of forced burying occurred again in remote parts of Manchuria; when a concubine refused to follow her deceased master, she was forcibly strangled with a bow-string [_Ninguta chi_]. I must observe, however, that there is no mention made in historical documents of the existence of this custom with the Mongols; it is only an hypothesis based on the analogy between the religious ideas and customs of the Mongols and those of other tribes.” (_Palladius_, p. 13.) In his _Religious System of China_, II., Dr. J. J. M. de Groot devotes a whole chapter (ix. 721 _seqq._), _Concerning the Sacrifice of Human Beings at Burials, and Usages connected therewith_. The oldest case on record in China dates as far back as B.C. 677, when sixty-six men were killed after the ruler Wu of the state of Ts’in died. The Official Annals of the Tartar Dynasty of Liao, quoted by Professor J. J. M. de Groot (_Religious System of China_, vol. ii. 698), state that “in the tenth year of the T’ung hwo period (A.D. 692) the killing of horses for funeral and burial rites was interdicted, as also the putting into the tombs of coats of mail, helmets, and articles and trinkets of gold and silver.” Professor de Groot writes (_l.c._ 709): “But, just as the placing of victuals in the graves was at an early date changed into sacrifices of food outside the graves, so burying horses with the dead was also modified under the Han Dynasty into presenting them to the dead without interring them, and valueless counterfeits were on such occasions substituted for the real animals.”—H. C.]