Dog-Headed Barbarians

Rockhill in a note to Carpini (Rubruck, p. 36) mentions “the Chinese annals of the sixth century (Liang Shu, bk. 54; Nan shih, bk. 79) which tell of a kingdom of dogs (Kou kuo) in some remote corner of north-eastern Asia. The men had human bodies but dogs’ heads, and their speech sounded like barking. The women were like the rest of their sex in other parts of the world.”

Dr. Laufer writes to me: “A clear distinction must be made between dog-headed people and the motive of descent from a dog-ancestor,—two entirely different conceptions. The best exposition of the subject of the cynocephali according to the traditions of the Ancients is now presented by J. Marquart (Benin-Sammlung des Reichsmuseums in Leiden, pp. cc–ccxix). It is essential to recognize that the mediæval European, Arabic, and Chinese fables about the country of the dog-heads are all derived from one common source, which is traceable to the Greek Romance of Alexander; that is an Oriental-Hellenistic cycle. In a wider sense, the dog-heads belong to the cycle of wondrous peoples, which assumed shape among the Greek mariners under the influence of Indian and West-Asiatic ideas. The tradition of the Nan shi (Ch. 79, p. 4), in which the motive of the dog-heads, the women, however, being of human shape, meets its striking parallel in Adam of Bremen (Gesta hamburg. ecclesiæ pontificum, 4, 19), who thus reports on the Terra Feminarum beyond the Baltic Sea: ‘Cumque pervenerint ad partum, si quid masculini generis est, fiunt cynocephali, si quid femini, speciosissimæ mulieres.’ See further Klaproth, J. As., XII., 1833, p. 287; Dulaurier, J. As., 1858, p. 472; Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 36.”

In an interesting paper on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory, Dr. Laufer (T’oung Pao, July, 1916, p. 357) refers to dog-headed men with women of human shape, from a report from the Mongols received by King Hethum of Armenia.

XIV., p. 313. “The people [of Ceylon] are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle.... The King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like. It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man’s arm; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all.”

Chau Ju-kwa, p. 73, has: “The King holds in his hand a jewel five inches in diameter, which cannot be burnt by fire, and which shines in (the darkness of) night like a torch. The King rubs his face with it daily, and though he were passed ninety he would retain his youthful looks.

“The people of the country are very dark-skinned, they wrap a sarong round their bodies, go bare-headed and bare-footed.”

XIV., p. 314 n.