The kingdom of Fusang扶桑國

As for the kingdom of Fusang (扶桑國), in the first year of Yongyuan of Qi a monk of that kingdom named Huishen (慧深) came to Jingzhou and said: "Fusang is more than twenty thousand li east of the kingdom of Dahan, and its land lies east of China. In that land there are many fusang trees, and from these we took the name." The leaf of the fusang tree is like that of the paulownia, and when it first comes up it is like a bamboo shoot, and the people of that kingdom eat it. Its fruit is like a pear but red. They spin its bark into cloth and make clothing of it, and they make padding of it as well. They build houses of planks and have no city walls. They have writing, and they make paper from the bark of the fusang. They have no arms or armor and do not make war. By the law of that kingdom there is a southern prison and a northern prison. One who commits a light offense goes into the southern prison, and one with a heavy crime into the northern, and when there is a pardon the southern prison is pardoned and the northern is not. Those in the northern prison are matched man and woman. A son born to them becomes a slave at eight years and a daughter a bondwoman at nine, and the guilty man himself never comes out until he dies. When a man of rank is guilty, the kingdom holds a great assembly. They seat the guilty man in a pit and feast facing him, and they part from him as men part from the dead, and they draw a ring of ashes about him. If it is one ring, he alone is cast out. If it is two rings, it reaches his sons and grandsons. If it is three rings, it reaches seven generations. They call the king of the kingdom eulgi (乙祁). The first among the men of rank is the daedaero, the second the sodaero, the third the napdolsa. When the king goes abroad, drums and horns lead him and follow him. The color of his clothing changes with the year. In the years of jia and yi it is blue, in the years of bing and ding red, in the years of wu and ji yellow, in the years of geng and xin white, and in the years of ren and gui black. There are oxen with very long horns, and they load goods on the horns, as much as twenty bushels. For carts they have horse carts, ox carts and deer carts. The people of that kingdom keep deer as the men of China keep cattle, and they make curds of the milk.

There are mulberry pears, which keep a year and do not spoil. There are many grapes. In that land there is no iron but there is copper, and they do not prize gold and silver. In the markets there is no tax. As for their marriages, the man who would be the husband builds a hut outside the gate of the woman's house and sprinkles and sweeps there morning and evening. If a year passes and the woman is not pleased, she drives him away. If they are pleased with each other, the marriage is made. Their wedding rites are much the same as those of China. For a parent's death they do not eat for seven days, for a grandparent's death five days, and for a brother, an uncle, an aunt or a sister three days. They set up a spirit tablet as an image of the dead and bow and make offerings morning and evening, but they do not make mourning clothes or the mourning band. When the heir is set up as king, he does not look to the affairs of the kingdom for three years. In their customs there was no law of the Buddha in the old days. In the second year of Daming of Song five monks of the kingdom of Jibin traveled about and came to that kingdom, and they spread the law of the Buddha and its scriptures and its images and taught them to leave the household life, and so their customs were changed at last. This is what he said.

Huishen said also: "More than a thousand li east of Fusang there is a Kingdom of Women (女國). Their faces are comely and their color is very white, but there is hair on their bodies, and the hair of their heads is long and trails on the ground. When the second and third months come, they go into the water in rivalry and thereby conceive, and in the sixth or seventh month they bear a child. The women have no breasts in front. Hair grows at the back of the neck and the roots of it are white, and there is a juice in the hair with which they feed the child. At a hundred days it can walk, and in three or four years it is grown. When they see a man they are startled and flee, and they fear a grown man above all. They eat a salt herb as the beasts do. The leaf of the salt herb is like that of wormwood, but its smell is sweet and its taste is salty." In the sixth year of Tianjian a man of Jin'an crossed the sea and was driven by the wind to an island. He climbed the shore, and there were people living there. The women were like those of China, but their speech could not be understood. The men had the body of a man and the head of a dog, and their voice was like the barking of a dog. Among the things they ate there were small beans, and their clothing was like cloth. They piled up earth to make walls, round in shape, and their doorways were like the mouth of a burrow. So it is told.