It's more that Xinjiang was using the Mexican dollar as a stable form of currency, at the time, as was, I believe, much of China. Weird, huh?

Is that true? Can someone illuminate this strange facet of Chinese history for me?

The original Marco Polo story actually makes sense and is historically verifiable. The practice became customary because of the rather small number of people in each locale.Basically, they need new genes in their population to avoid in-breeding and keep the general population healthy.....

China declare that silver was the legal tender centuries ago, and created a shortage of silver world wide. Guess who has most silver ? Latin America under Spanish rule. Huge shipment of silver from Mexico was sent to China to satisfy this demand, making Spain filthy rich at the time, and finance a lot of Spanish conquest. The Mexico silver dollar with it's rich silver content, was as good as pure silver, and of the right size...

I remember seeing one of those ages ago.

The rest is history...

I also heard that the Inuits in the arctic also had similar wife sharing custom. I also heard that this was the way to reduce inbreeding, as most villages are small, and everyone you know are close relatives.

That was one of the best part of the whole Milione :)
Anyhow, if you think Marco Polo is harsh with northwest populations you should also consider how he describe the tibetans!

If you think Marco Polo was harsh on the Tibetans, you should see what I wrote about them. (Just kidding.)

Anyone care to make a polite inquiry the next time they're having lamb kebabs?

i love lamb kebabs.

Is this true? Well, it might be true, but is really far from my personal experiences. Back in january, I happened to read a picture album written by Mr Mou Jianwei, who was a front-line military journalist during the china-vietnam war. So when a tactical recon unit was to be sent to vietnam, he volunteered for it. In vietnam they were doing their best to avoid being noticed by enemy forces until they got spotted by, actually, a young and beautiful vietnam lady. When Mr Mou could not help talking to that lady, he got no idea what that very day would mean to him. Basiclly, for young girls living in that area, they would not talk to any man they met that day, which did mean they will have to get married with that man. It took them huge efforts to make her accept Mr Mou was not her Mr right.

The Mexican silver dollar was world-wide currency at one time, and the Candarin (the Chinese silver dollar) was made in imitation of it.

The Mexican silver dollar, US silver dollar, and Candarin were almost identical in size and weight - though not in silver content.

Above article from LA Times is far from the reality or it is aimed at muslims. The majority of the population in Gansu is Hui muslim and at the time of Marco Polo there is no chinese living in Uyghuristan (East Turkistan or Xinjiang), and there is no such offer among the muslim tradition, specially among the turkic muslims.

The reality is that Marco Polo had may be confused the personal tradition of Hero Mao with the people of central Asia.

http://www.topix.com/forum/world/china/TU4F2MOH5T32097PQ

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, here depicted in an Andy Warhol painting, offered women to the U.S.

"You know, China is a very poor country," Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department's historian office.

"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands."

A few minutes later, Mao circled back to the offer. "Do you want our Chinese women?" he asked. "We can give you 10 million."

After Kissinger noted Mao was "improving his offer," the chairman said, "We have too many women. ... They give birth to children and our children are too many."

"It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing. "We will have to study it."

When I was in Xinjiang, late one night, the closest I got was this: "Have you ever had sex with a Uyghur girl? Do you want to?" I'd highly doubt that he was offering his wife, but most likely some kind of prostitute.

That was with a friend rather than a stranger. It wasn't someone randomly approaching me.

I've been looking for some substantial ethnographic evidence to back reports of this practice up for some time but haven't found much except for its frequent mention in various travelogues to the region. I did find a 1994 article by Patricia Cone, entitled "Zoroastrian Communism", about a heretical sect of Zoroastrians called the Khurramis who trace their origins to the 3rd century C.E. priest Zaradusht . The teaching of this sect held that "women and wealth are the fundamental sources of human discord and that concord would prevail if both were equally available to all. God (that is, Ahura Mazda, the good deity) had created all men alike and placed the means of procreation and sustenance on earth 'so that mankind might divide them equally among themselves';women and property should be held in partnership like water, fire, and pasture; nobody was allowed to monopolize them, sharing was a religious duty." The author goes on to provide a quote from a 12th century Azeri source that states "women are the water of the house which every thirsty man is allowed to drink." Another addage of the time goes, "a woman is like a flower, no matter who smells it, nothing is detracted from it" Marco Polo may have been describing a pre-Islamic form of Central Asian hospitality and, oddly enough, religious devotion that continued into his day. That said, Uyghur women have come a long way since then and I wouldn't recommend poking around Khotan looking to meet a nice Khurramis family. That may have, what we technically refer to as, "unintended consequences".