Buyeo夫餘

Buyeo lies north of the Long Wall. It is a thousand li from Hyeondo. It borders Goguryeo on the south, Eumnu on the east and the Xianbei on the west, and to the north is the Yaksu (弱水). It is about two thousand li square, and its households are eighty thousand. Its people are settled on the land, and they have palaces and storehouses and prisons. There are many mountains and hills and wide marshes, and it is the most level and open ground in all the lands of the Eastern Yi. The soil suits the five grains, but the five fruits do not grow there.

The people are large and thick of body. They are strong and brave in nature, careful and generous, and they do not steal or plunder.

The country has a king, and the names of its offices are all made from the six domestic animals. There are maga (馬加), uga (牛加), jeoga (豬加) and guga (狗加), and daesa (大使), daesaja (大使者) and saja (使者). In the settlements there are men of substance (豪民), and those called haho (下戶) are all made servants. The several ga (加) each hold one of the four roads that go out (四出道). A great road holds several thousand houses, a small one several hundred.

In eating and drinking they all use the sacrificial vessels (俎豆). When they gather and meet they raise the cup and wash the cup, they bow and give way to one another, and they go up and come down. In the first month by the calendar of Yin they sacrifice to Heaven. The whole country gathers in a great assembly, and for days on end they eat and drink and sing and dance, and this is called Yeonggo (迎鼓). At that time they break off trials and punishments and let the prisoners go.

At home in their own country they honor white clothing. They make wide-sleeved robes and trousers of white cloth, and they wear leather shoes. When they go outside the country they honor silk and embroidery and woolen stuff. A great man puts on over these a fur coat of fox or wildcat or white monkey or black sable, and he dresses his cap with gold and silver. When the interpreters pass on words they all kneel, set their hands on the ground, and speak low.

They use punishment strictly and swiftly. Whoever kills a man is put to death, and the people of his house are seized and made slaves. For theft a man pays twelve for one. If a man and a woman are lewd, or if a wife is jealous, they are all put to death. Jealousy above all they hate. When such a woman has been killed, her body is laid on a mountain south of the country until it rots away. If her own family wishes to take her, they must bring oxen and horses, and then she is given to them. When an elder brother dies, a man takes his brother's wife, and in this their custom is the same as that of the Xiongnu.

The country is good at raising livestock, and from it come famous horses, red jade, the skins of sable and monkey, and fine pearls.

The larger pearls are the size of a wild jujube. For weapons they have bows and arrows and swords and spears, and every house keeps armor and arms of its own. The old men of the country say of themselves that they were fugitives who came in long ago. The walls and palisades they build are all round, like a prison.

When they go along the road they sing, by night and by day, old and young alike, and the sound does not stop the whole day through.

When there is a matter of war they also sacrifice to Heaven. They kill an ox and look at its hooves to divine good fortune and ill. If the hooves are parted it is ill, and if they are joined it is good. When an enemy comes the several ga fight of themselves, and the haho all carry up the grain and feed them.

When a person dies, in the summer months they all use ice. They kill people to bury with the dead, and at the most they may be counted in hundreds. They bury richly, and there is an outer coffin but no inner coffin.

The Wei lue (魏略) says: By their custom the mourning is held for five months, and they take it as an honor to hold it long. When they sacrifice to the dead there are raw things and cooked things. The chief mourner does not wish to hurry, and others press him, so that they are always pulling against one another, and they take this for good manners. In mourning both men and women wear pure white, and the women wear a cloth veil over the face and put off their rings and pendants. On the whole it is much like China.

Buyeo belonged of old to Hyeondo. At the end of Han, Gongsun Du spread his power boldly over the lands east of the sea and brought the outer Yi (夷) to submission by his might, and Wigutae, king of Buyeo, went over instead to Liaodong. At that time Goguryeo and the Xianbei were strong, and Gongsun Du, saying that Buyeo lay between the two barbarians, gave him a daughter of his own house to wife.

Wigutae died and Ganwigeo ascended the throne. He had no son by his wife, but he had a son by a concubine, Mayeo. When Ganwigeo died the several ga together set up Mayeo. A son of the elder brother of the uga, named Wigeo, was made daesa. He held goods lightly and gave freely, and the people of the country clung to him. Every year he sent envoys to the capital to bring tribute.

In the Zhengshi years, when Guanqiu Jian, Inspector of You province, struck Goguryeo, he sent Wang Qi, Grand Administrator of Hyeondo, to Buyeo. Wigeo sent a daega out to the outskirts to welcome him and to supply the army with grain. His uncle the uga was of two minds, and Wigeo killed his uncle and his uncle's son, wrote down their goods and seized them, and sent envoys to enter them in the register and deliver them to the office.

By the old custom of Buyeo, when rain and drought came unevenly and the five grains did not ripen, the blame was laid each time upon the king. Some would say he must be changed, and some would say he must be killed. When Mayeo died his son Uiryeo was six years old, and they set him up as king.

In the time of Han the kings of Buyeo used a jade casket (玉匣) for burial. It was always left beforehand in the commandery of Hyeondo, and when a king died they fetched it and buried him in it. When Gongsun Yuan was put to death there was still one jade casket in the storehouse of Hyeondo. In the storehouse of Buyeo today there are jade discs (玉璧) and jade tablets (珪) and jade ladles (瓚), things of many reigns, handed down from age to age and held as treasures, and the old men say that they were given by earlier reigns.

The writing on their seal says "Seal of the King of Ye" (濊王之印), and in the country there is an old fortress called Yeseong (濊城). So this was likely the land of the Yemaek from the first, and Buyeo held kingship in the midst of it, and their calling themselves "fugitives who came in" is likely enough.

The Wei lue says: The old records say further that long ago there was a country in the north called Gori (高離), and a serving maid of its king was with child, and the king wished to kill her.

The maid said, "A breath like a hen's egg came down and entered me, and so I am with child."

Later she bore a son, and the king threw him into the pigsty, and the pigs breathed on him with their snouts. He was moved to the stable, and the horses breathed on him, and he did not die. The king suspected that he was a son of Heaven, and so he had the mother take him up and raise him, and named him Dongmyeong (東明), and always set him to tend the horses.

Dongmyeong shot well with the bow, and the king, fearing that his country would be taken from him, wished to kill him. Dongmyeong fled south and came to the Sieomsu (施掩水). He struck the water with his bow, and the fish and the turtles rose up and made a bridge. Dongmyeong crossed over, and the fish and the turtles at once broke apart, so the soldiers who followed could not cross. Thereupon Dongmyeong made his capital there and became king in the land of Buyeo.