472 Sino-Iranica 



had brought tribute before. The Javanese could hardly be expected 

 to have been dressed like Persians, as rashly assumed by Groeneveldt; 1 

 but they were certainly dressed like their congeners, the Malayan Po-se. 



Cou K'u-fei, in his Lin wai tai ta, 2 written in 1 178, gives the following 

 description of the country Po-se: "In the South-Western Ocean there 

 is the country Po-se. The inhabitants have black skin and curly hair. 

 Both their arms are adorned with metal bracelets, and they wrap 

 around their bodies a piece of cotton-cloth with blue patterns. There 

 are no walled towns. Early in the morning, the king holds his court, 

 being seated cross-legged on a bench covered with a tiger-skin, while his 

 subjects standing beneath pay him homage. In going out he is carried 

 in a litter (Ift 9B Iwan tou), or is astride an elephant. His retinue con- 

 sists of over a hundred men, who, carrying swords and shouting (to clear 

 the way), form his body-guard. They subsist on flour products, meat, 

 and rice, served in porcelain dishes, and eat with their fingers." The 

 same text has been reproduced by Cao Zu-kwa with a few slight changes. 

 His reading that Po-se is situated "above the countries of the south- 

 west" is hardly correct. 3 At all events, the geographical definition of 

 the Sung authors is too vague to allow of a safe conclusion. The expres- 

 sion of the Lin wai tai ta does not necessarily mean that Po-se was lo- 

 cated on an island, and Hirth infers that we might expect to find it in 

 or near the Malay Peninsula. However vague the above description 

 may be, it leaves no doubt of the fact that the tribe in question is one of 

 Malayan or Negrito stock. 



As far as I know, no mention is made of the Malayan Po-se in the 

 historical and geographical texts of the Ming, but the tradition regard- 

 ing that country was kept alive. In discussing the a-lo-p'o (Cassia 

 fistula) of C'en Ts'ah-k'i, as noted above (p. 420), Li Si-cen annotates 

 that Po-se is the name of a country of^the barbarians of the south-west 



There is some evidence extant that the language of Po-se belongs to 

 the Malayan family. Tsuboi Kumazo 4 has called attention to the 

 numerals of this language, as handed down in the Kodanlo (Memoirs 

 of Oye), a Japanese work from the beginning of the twelfth century. 

 These are given in Japanese transcription as follows: — 



1 sasaa, sasaka 6 namu 20 toaro 



2 toa 7 tokti, tomu 30 akaro, akafuro 



3 naka, maka 8 jembira, or gemmira 40 hiha-furo 



4 namuha (nampa) 9 sa-i-bira, or sa-i-mi-ra 100 sasarato, sasaratu 



5 rima (lima) 10 sararo, or lararo 1000 sasaho, sasahu 



1 Notes on the Malay Archipelago, p. 144. 



2 Ch. 3, p. 6 b. 



3 Ch. A, p. 33 b; Hirth's translation, p. 152. 



4 Actes du Douzieme Congres des Orientalistes, Rome 1899, Vol. II, p. 121. 



