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| The Confluence of Eastern and Western Knowledge: The Myth of the Pygmies in Yuan China Related by Odorico da Pordenone |
| Alvise Andreose1 |
.Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Udine 33100, Italy
.(Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage, University of Udine, Udine 33100, Italy);□ trans. by Qiu Zhirong |
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Abstract The Yuan Dynasty from 1271 to 1368 saw a new period of contact between China and Europe. Following the establishment of this Mongol empire, a flow of information reached Europe, gradually reshaping the traditional, consolidated image of the Orient that the Middle Ages had inherited from Hellenistic literature through the mediation of Latin culture. About halfway through the 13th century, in the European linguistic-cultural space, numerous texts began to circulate that communicated a new image of China compared to those transmitted by ancient sources.A key role in this renovation was played by the travel account written by the Franciscan Friar Odorico da Pordenone, who travelled from north-eastern Italy to China in the early fourteenth century, and visited the Khan’s court in Dadu. His journey was part of an extended missionary movement to Persia, India and China by the Franciscan and Dominican orders. The text written on his return to Europe represents one of the most important documents ever written by Western authors on the Chinese world at the time of the Yuan.As may be evident from its title in some manuscripts Relatio de mirabilibus Tartarorum (Report on the Marvels of the Mongols), the work is a travelogue, describing the wonderful things found by Odorico in the Mongol empire. An opinion very common among scholars is that Odorico’s text focuses on the Orient’s marvels more than any other medieval travel account. According to some scholars, this kind of interest would reflect a certain naivety and limited education on the part of Odorico. In fact, medieval european people were used to imagining Eastern Asia as an immense land of endless wealth, populated with fantastical beings and abounding with inexplicable wonders. However, it should be noted that many things and facts that Odorico perceives as exceptional “marvels” (mirabilia) have been identified and explained by modern Orientalists within the last century. Most of the details that have not yet found a plausible explanation depend probably on understanding local traditions and legends, which Odorico learned during his journey.A typical example is Odorico’s narrative of the Pygmies who dwelt along the Yangtze River. It is a mixture of myth and facts, derived from both Chinese and Western knowledge. The Pygmies were already recorded in ancient Chinese sources. The story of the Pygmies of Daozhou began to circulate in the Chinese Middle Ages, and the fact that cotton was grown in Hunan during the Yuan period may constitute the Chinese sources of Odorico. The name of the Pygmies’ place of occupation and the custom of early marriages recorded by Odorico are derived from Western intellectual traditions from ancient Greece and Rome to the Middle Ages.In some cases, myths deeply rooted in the occidental mind might influence Odorico’s perspective and lead him to interpret things observed at first hand or shape eastern legends heard from the locals through the lens of Western tradition. However, the marvels described by Odorico rarely correspond to those that the European classical and medieval imagination placed in a remote and unreal Far East. In the final lines of the Relatio, the author states that the “marvellous things” he put in writing are either based on his own observations or derived from tales heard from trustworthy people. Odorico does not seek confirmation of the fanciful beings and creatures described with abundant detail in encyclopedias, romances, and bestiaries, as friar Giovanni de’ Marignolli tried to do a few years later. The marvels related by Odorico are always the result of his travel experience.Odorico as a Medieval man, influenced by the myths and legends about the Orient that came from the Greco-Roman tradition, reached the Far East with an open mind, free from prejudice against the people he met. The Pygmies Odorico heard about in South China are not the deformed creatures who, according to a legend dating back to Homer, fought relentlessly against cranes, but short people dedicated to producing cotton, endowed with a rational soul, “as we are”. In making this affirmation, the author distances himself from scholastic philosophy, which considered the Pygmies as an intermediate being between man and monkey, and reveals his desire to update the traditional image of Eastern Asia. Odorico’s attitude towards reality is completely different from the usual medieval European image of the Orient. It can be considered a forerunner of the modern worldview.
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Received: 19 November 2021
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2022, Vol. 52 
