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1,38,3 THE AMAZONS. 151
The name Ma-lo-nu is very like Malayu, our Malay, but we are not aware that that
name had already become an ethnical one in the twelfth century. The fashion of putting gold or
brass studs in the front teeth and of covering them with gold plates is still adhered to among
certain tribes in Borneo and Sumatra. See W. H. Furness, Home life of Borneo head-hunters,
5 157, and Mars den, History of Sumatra, 47.
4. The Amazons.
The countries of women {-jn; |g).
ftStill farther to the south-east (heyond Sha-hua-kung?) there is a
country of women (jjf |g ). (Here) the water constantly flows east, and once
10 in several years it overflows, or flows out ("^ 'jgg ^ 1^ [f|)-
«In this country there are lotus seed (^ |^) over a foot in length,
and peach stones two feet in length; the people who get them present them
to the queen.
«Iu olden days, whenever a ship was wrecked hy a tempest on these
15 shores, the women would take the men home with them, but they were all
dead within a few days. At last a cunning fellow who stole a boat at night,
managed to get away at the risk of his life and told the story.
«The women of this country conceive by exposing themselves naked
to the full force of the south wind, and so give birth to female children»^.
20 In the Western Sea there is also a country of women where only three
females go to every five males; the country is governed by a queen, and all
the civil offices are in the hands of women, whereas the men perform mili-
tary duties. Noble women have several males to wait upon them; but the
men may not have female attendants. When a woman gives birth to a child,
25 the latter takes its name from the mother. The climate is usually cold. The
chase with bow and arrows is their chief occupation. They carry on barter
with Ta-ts*in and T'ien-chu, in which they make several hundred per cent
profit ^.
Notes.
30 1) Quotation from Ling-wai-tai-ta, 3,5^. The earliest reference in Chinese works to this
fabulous country dates from the sixth century; the bonze Hui-shon is credited with it in the Liang
shu, 54,28. He said the women went into the water in the second and third moons of the year
and thereby conceived. See on the various countries of women, G. Schlegel, T'oungPao, Illand
IV, and Hervey St. Denis, Ethnogi-aphie, I, 402—404. Pigafetta, First Voyage round the
35 Word, 154 (Hakl. Soc. edit.), says: «Our old pilot (taken on board at the island of Mallua) told
us that in an island called Ocoloro, below Java Major, there are only women who become pregnant
with the wind, and when they bring forth, if the child is a male, they kill it, and if a female,
they bring it up; and if any man visit their island, whenever they are able to kill him, they do so».