Informant38

Central Asia: Early travelers
Part 1: Missions to the Mongols
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"Each man has as many wives as he can keep, one a hundred, another 50, another 10 - one more, another less," continued Carpini. "It is a general custom for them to marry any of their relations, with the exception of their mother, daughter and sister by the same mother. "
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"John Plano Carpini traveled through Central Eurasia during the period 1245-47, basically to assess the threat of the Mongols," {Professor Uli} Schamiloglu told RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty). "And his was not a very sympathetic mission, and I think he was going to see what Europe could do to save itself from the Mongols, which is one of the reasons why he focused so much on Mongol military tactics. And to be honest, he didn't have a very sympathetic representation of the Mongols, whom I think he was portraying as a very serious threat to Europe."
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In contrast to the mission of Carpini, the mission of Friar William of Rubruck was purely religious in character. William of Rubruck, a Franciscan monk on a mission for the French king, traveled by the old highway to Central Asia through Constantinople and the Crimea. After reaching the Tartar outposts, Rubruck's account corresponds very closely with that of Carpini eight years before.
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The food consists of everything that can be eaten, for they eat dogs, wolves, foxes and horses, and when driven to necessity, "they feed on human flesh". They have neither bread nor herbs nor vegetables - nothing but meat.
�Charles Carlson /Asia Times 08.28.03