A chronicle called Liang si gong ji (Notes of four rulers of the Liang dynasty) told that in 499 a mendicant Buddhist monk named Huishan returned to China from a long voyage and began to talk about a distant country called Fusan.
She, according to the monk, was 20 thousand li (i.e. about 10 thousand kilometers) east of the Celestial Empire. The country got its name from a tree growing there, in the early stages of development similar to bamboo sprouts and having leaves similar in color to oak. Fusan trees had reddish pear-shaped fruits. Local residents made fabric and sewn clothes from bark, and from wood they sawed boards for their houses. The bark was also used to make paper.
There were no wars in the outlandish country of Fusan, and therefore the cities did not have fortress walls. They did not know any weapons in it, but crime still existed, and there were two prisons for the intruders: one in the south of the country, and the other in the north. Fusan had never heard of Buddhism before, so Huishan and his companions acted as preachers. Introduction to the ideas of Buddhism favorably influenced the rough customs of the inhabitants of this country.
Huishan also talked about the state of Women located a thousand li to the east of Fusan. Its inhabitants had a fairly fair skin and were very neat and clean. They wore their hair very long, sometimes to the ground. Their main food was salted plant leaves, which had a very pleasant smell and resembled some Chinese herbs.
Despite the fact that women ruled there, they highly respected their husbands. Only, seeing the brave Chinese navigators, at first they preferred to hide. The monk also knew that some people from Jinan (a city in China) crossed the ocean and were washed by a strong hurricane on an unfamiliar shore. The sailors landed on land, where they met a strange people: people there had a human body, and a dog's head. They even made sounds like barking dogs. At the same time, everyone wore clothes made of matter, ate something like small beans or grains, and made round houses out of fired clay bricks, with an entrance like a hole.
Fire rats and glowing dragons
Another outlandish overseas country that Huishan told about. It abounded in gold and silver, and ruled in it by its own emperor - the Ruler of the multitude. Further in the chronicle followed very strange passages, however, very eloquently demonstrating the quirkiness of the Chinese worldview and their peculiar manner of narration at that very distant time. “At a great distance to the south of this country lie the Yanshan Mountains (“smoking mountains”), whose inhabitants eat lobsters, crabs and hairy snakes in order to protect themselves from the heat. On the top of this mountain live fire rats - ferrets or squirrels, whose fur is used to make non-combustible material and is purified by fire. To the north, at a great distance from the State of Women, is the Black Throat or Plain, and to the north of the Black Throat are mountains so high,that reach the sky and are covered with snow all year round. The sun is not showing here at all. It is said that glowing dragons live here.
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A great distance to the west of the State of Women, there are fountains that taste like wine. In the same area you can also find the Laca Sea, and its waves are painted in the color of black feathers and fur, which are immersed in it, and a little nearby there is another sea - the color of milk. The area surrounded by these natural wonders is very extensive and fertile.
Large dogs, ducks and horses live here, and finally there are even birds that give birth to human babies. Male babies born from these birds do not survive. And only daughters are raised with great care by their fathers, who carry them in their beaks or on their wings. As soon as they start walking, they become their own masters. All of them are of remarkable beauty and very hospitable, but they die before reaching even thirty. Rats in this country are white and huge, like horses, and their fur is several centimeters long."
Did the Chinese cross the Pacific Ocean?
The chronicle said that the listeners in the imperial palace made fun of this extraordinary story. They laughed and clapped their hands, telling each other that they had never heard a better story. For a long time Western researchers saw in this fact a confirmation of the “progressiveness” of the Chinese people in antiquity, their ability to distinguish truth from fiction. But nowadays Sinologists tend to take Huishan's story much more seriously. Many of them find that the monk's story, clothed in the familiar language of Chinese myths and legends, is almost mathematically accurate.
The travel story first of all provides the attentive researcher with information about the direction of Huishan's navigation and the distance to the lands in question. Putting 10-12 thousand kilometers east of China on the map, we find ourselves in America. Is it paradoxical? Nevertheless, back in 1761, the above-mentioned Joseph de Guigne published a work entitled 'Investigations about the voyages of the Chinese to the American coast and about some peoples found at the eastern tip of Asia. In 1865, his colleague Gustave d'Eshintal published a work whose title spoke of the main idea: “A Study of the Buddhist Origins of American Civilization.” D'Eshintal pointed out that much of the Mayan and Aztec culture stems from the Buddhist tradition, possibly brought there by the Chinese …
In 1953, Henrietta Mertz's book "Faded Ink" was published, which seemed absurd to many scientists at the time, but the second edition of 1972 was more accurate in terms of facts, and also provided detailed maps of the wanderings of Chinese travelers across the American continent - and the possibility of a cultural relationship between the Chinese and the Indians is widely discussed throughout the world.
Explaining riddles
Henrietta Mertz, in particular, did not ignore Huishan's story. Fusan or kun-san, she wrote. - the ancient name of the hollow mulberry, the mention of which can often be found in traditional Chinese legends. The monk's story could well have been about some kind of analogue of mulberry, the exact name of which Huishan did not know and the fruits of which were indeed edible. According to Henrietta, there is no doubt about what kind of edible kernels or beans are mentioned in the text - we are talking, of course, about corn. Made of mud bricks, round dwellings with a burrow entrance are typical Native American structures that can still be found today, for example, in the state of Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park. In these places, the Enasazi people once lived, who left in an unknown direction, but left behind these buildings. The Anasazi bred corn and maize, whose grains were seen by Huishan and his companions.
The Sea of Lacquer should be the color of Chinese dark lacquer, that is, be large with dark, opaque waters. Such a lake can indeed be found in the immediate vicinity of modern Los Angeles. It is called Labre-Tarpitz. If you dip a feather or a piece of fur in it, then they really become dark. A sea with water as white as milk probably means some kind of salt lake or swamp. Such in those places during the Huishan times could also be found.
People who are like people in the lower part of the body, and dogs in the upper part can easily get their explanation. In this case, we are probably talking about ritual masks widely used by the Indians. Having put on such masks, the Indians could well simultaneously imitate the habits and voices of these animals.
What to say about the State of Women? A number of Central American Indians adopted maternal inheritance of the clan, for example, among the Montana and Pueblo peoples in the Southwest of the United States, as well as among the famous Hopi. We also succeeded in identifying “the leaves of salty plants, which resemble some Chinese herbs and have a pleasant smell.
These are the brackish plants of Anemonopsis californica, really odorous and until recently widely used in northern Mexico as a medicine.
As for the abundance of gold and silver, while unfamiliar with iron among a number of Indian tribes, it was striking for the Spanish conquistadors. Smoking volcanic vents and snow-covered mountain peaks can also be found on the American shores of the Pacific Ocean opposite China. So Huishan was not necessarily an inventor.
Andrey CHINAEV
"Secrets of the XX century" November 2012