Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
“The principal clothing of a Lolo is his mantle, a capacious
sleeveless garment of grey or black felt gathered round his neck
by a string, and reaching nearly to his heels. In the case of the
better classes the mantle is of fine felt—in great request among
the Chinese—and has a fringe of cotton-web round its lower border.
For journeys on horseback they have a similar cloak differing only
in being slit half-way up the back; a wide lappet covering the
opening lies easily along the loins and croup of the horse. The
colour of the felt is originally grey, but becomes brown-black
or black, in process of time. It is said that the insects which
haunt humanity never infest these gabardines. The Lolo generally
gathers this garment closely round his shoulders and crosses his
arms inside. His legs, clothed in trousers of Chinese cotton, are
swathed in felt bandages bound on with strings, and he has not yet
been super-civilised into the use of foot-gear. In summer a cotton
cloak is often substituted for the felt mantle. The hat, serving
equally for an umbrella, is woven of bamboo, in a low conical
shape, and is covered with felt. Crouching in his felt mantle under
this roof of felt the hardy Lolo is impervious to wind or rain.”
(_Baber, Travels_, 61–62.)
“The word, ‘Black-bone,’ is generally used by the Chinese as a name
for the independent Lolos, but in the mouth of a Lolo it seems to
mean a ‘freeman’ or ‘noble,’ in which sense it is not a whit more
absurd than the ‘blue-blood,’ of Europeans. The ‘White-bones,’ an
inferior class, but still Lolo by birth, are, so far as I could
understand, the vassals and retainers of the patricians—the people,
in fact. A third class consists of Wa-tzŭ, or slaves, who are all
captive Chinese. It does not appear whether the servile class is
sub-divided, but, at any rate, the slaves born in Lolodom are
treated with more consideration than those who have been captured
in slave-hunts.” (_Baber, Travels_, 67.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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