When they go on voyages across the sea to visit China, they always select a man who does not comb his hair, does not rid himself of fleas, lets his clothing get as dirty as it will, does not eat meat, and does not lie with women. When the funeral is over, all members of the family go into the water to cleanse themselves in a bath of purification. The head mourners wail and lament, while friends sing, dance, and drink liquor. When death occurs, mourning is observed for more than ten days, during which period they do not eat meat. They cover the graves with earth to make a mound. When a person dies, they prepare a single coffin, without an outer one. They serve food on bamboo and wooden trays, helping themselves with their fingers. They smear their bodies with pink and scarlet, just as the Chinese use powder. They have houses father and mother, elder and younger, sleep separately. In winter as in summer the people live on raw vegetables and go about barefooted. During the Han dynasty, envoys appeared at the court today, thirty of their communities maintain intercourse with us through envoys and scribes. They formerly comprised more than one hundred communities. Thc people of Wa dwell in the middle of the ocean on the mountainous islands southeast of Tai-fang. 297Īdapted from Tsunoda and Goodrich, Japan in thc Chinese Dynastic Histories, pp. History of the Kingdom of Wei(Wei Chih) c.