182 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



Figure 90 represents a jade carving derived from the K'ao ku Vu 

 (Ch. 8, p. 2) and there styled hu "jade tiger." But it will be readily 

 seen that this animal is by no means a tiger, but is provided with the 

 head of a tapir. 



Under the regulations of the reigning dynasty (Huang ch'ao li k"i 

 Vu shih, Ch. 1, p. 51 b), the image of the white tiger has been abolished 

 in the imperial temple of the Moon, because there is no consensus of 

 opinion concerning its real shape. It has been replaced by a disk of 

 white jade (pai pi), 3^0 inches in diameter with a quadrangular perfora- 

 tion of some 10 inch and more, and some ^\ inch and more thick. 

 Judging from the illustration, the stone is pure white, unornamented 

 and un veined. 



The tiger was regarded as possessing the power of chasing away 

 demons, as stated in the Fung su Vung (Ch. 8), a work by Ying Shao 

 of the end of the second century a. d. But there are earlier testi- 

 monials on record of tigers watching the grave, as the following story 

 will show; and the burial of tiger-heads cast in bronze as practised in 

 the Chou period, as we shall see, was very likely connected with a 

 similar notion. 



Ho Lu, the king of Wu (b. c. 513-494) was buried in a triple coffin 

 made of copper. In front of his tomb, a water-course six feet deep was 

 dug; in the coffin, ducks and geese of gold, pearls, and his three precious 

 swords were placed. The tomb was surmounted by the stone carving 

 of a tiger and hence called Tiger's Hillock. The tiger was there to 

 protect the grave, as we see from the legend told concerning the Em- 

 peror Ts'in Shih Huang who once passed that place and desired to take 

 the three swords of Ho Lu; but a live tiger then crouched over the 

 grave to guard it; the Emperor seized a sword to kill it; he missed it 

 and struck the stone, the mark still being visible. Then the tiger fled, 

 but the Emperor despite his boring a hole into the grave did not find 

 the swords. According to another tradition, this grave had already 

 been opened before and dishonored by the people of Yueh on one of 

 their invasions into the kingdom of Wu. 1 



In the collection of Mr. Sumitomo in Osaka, Japan, there is an 

 ancient Chinese bronze of the type of the kettle yu shaped into the 

 figure of a tigress suckling a human child. 2 This unique and extra- 

 ordinary work is doubtless intended to illustrate an ancient legend of 

 the country of Ch'u. Jo Ngao, prince of Ch'ii (b. c. 789-763), was 

 married to a princess of Yun who bore to him a son, Tou Po-pi. On 

 his father's death, the boy followed his mother into her native country 



*A. Tschepe, Histoire du royaume de Ou, pp. 99-100 (Shanghai, 1896). 

 Published in The Kokka, No. 163, 1903, Plate II. 



