The identical symbol which Williams calls Mu is in another dictionary (see Bailley's, iii, p. 246) termed Mo.
Morrison (vol. IV, p. 600-1) says that the two sounds Mu and Mo are both applied, and that in Canton this selfsame character is called Mok.
It thus appears that the builder or ruler of the fortresses in the region beyond the Eastern Sea, might be called Mu, Mo, or Mok.
And in the region referred to—"the region beyond the Eastern Sea"—we find many strongholds or forts (as well as cave-dwellings;) and when antiquarians inquire of the Indians for the name of the ancient Builder Prince, they are variously informed that he was the glorious Mu, Mo, or Mok.
If the royal infant (or ju) became in process of time a ruler of fortresses (tai) which "formerly held the Great Men's Country" (on the Sun and Moon Shan) would be surprising to find that he himself had been born within the shelter of a tai or fortress? And what is the fortified hill at Pimo but a fortress? He counts it as the first of the forts of Mu or Mo-ti in "the region beyond the Eastern Sea."
Remember that our own government has erected numbers of forts on hilltops throughout the South-west expressly for the purpose of holding such tribes as the Navajoes and Apaches in check. (And in addition we are furnishing the red men with supplies.) But in the 11th century there were no Congressional appropriations, no detachments of troops hurrying down from Washington to preserve order. Yet the ancestors of our savage tribes were certainly there. And although the warrior chieftans immediately around the young queen appear to have been filled with jealousy of each other, it is certain that they were united as one in devising for the princess a calm or sure retreat which no barbaric host could take by assault. From its base the savage ranks would reel, or break into foam like waves of the sea.
Aloft in this secure retreat she gave birth to Mo.
Who was his father?
The American General already referred to, supplies his own report of the Pimo interpreter's words:
"All he knew was a tradition amongst them, 'that in bygone days, a woman of surpassing beauty resided in a green spot in the mountains near the place where we were encamped. All the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion, grain, skins, etc., but gave no love or other favor in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain unmarried were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened the world with famine. In their distress, people applied to her, and she gave corn from her stock, and the supply seemed to be endless. Her goodness was unbounded. One day, as she was lying asleep with her body exposed, a drop of rain fell on her stomach, which produced conception. A son was the issue, the founder of a new race which built all these houses'.... The houses of the people (the agricultural or sedentary Pimos) are mere sheds, thatched with willow and corn stalks" (n. 85.)