Feb., 1912. 



Jade. 



253 



which she wore in gathering the leaves of the mulberry-tree, — a 

 custom that in view of this artifice loses much of its natural charm; 

 then he made for her the toupets necessary on her visits to the emperor 

 (false locks are alluded to also in the Shi king: Legge, Vol. I, p. 77) 

 and the pins for the bonnet and the hair-pins, both of jade. The 

 former were called heng ki (Giles No. 888) and were suspended from 

 the two sides of the bonnet over the ears, 

 while the hair-pin held the hair-dressing 

 together. In Fig. 158, two such bonnet- 

 pendants of white jade are illustrated after 

 Wu Ta-ch'eng who believes he is justified 

 in this identification; as added in the leg- 

 end to this Figure, he gives the word tsan 

 as another name for ki which is a defini- 

 tion derived from the Shuo wen. Wu in- 

 terprets also the word ki occurring in the 

 Shi king (Legge, Vol. I, p. 76): pi ki leu 

 kia in the same sense; they are, accord- 

 ingly, not hair-pins, as translated by Giles 

 (No. 888). This passage intimates that 

 this pin-like pendant was adorned with six 

 gems {kia, Giles No. 1146), the character 

 being formed with the verb kia "to 

 add" and therefore explained as "gems 

 attached." The Ku yii t'u (Ch. 2, pp. 3 b, 

 4 a) pictures two of these jade gems, the one in the shape of a crescent, 

 the other an hexagonal short tube with two perforations going through 

 the axis. 



A curious ornament called Vien or ch'ung erh (i. e. filling the ears) 

 is mentioned in several passages of the Shi king (Legge, Vol. I, pp. 77, 

 92, 152; Vol. II, p. 410). This was simply an earring, leaf-shaped in 

 form (see Fig. 159 from Wu Ta-ch'eng) as it is still made of jadeite in 

 a similar shape in Suchow for the use of women. In ancient times, 

 such earrings were worn by men, 1 suspended from the cap by means of 

 threads of white, green or yellow silk. Mao, the learned commentator 

 of the Shi king annotates that they were made of jade for the Son of 

 Heaven, of stone for the feudal princes, but of jade again for all the 

 gentlemen of old age. The symbolical idea underlying this custom was, 

 as it is put, sai erh "to obstruct the ears," i. e. they should be a reminder 

 not to listen to bad discourses, and to shut off the voice of evil. Under 

 the same name, Wu gives, without further explanation, four other 



In one case, they are attributed to a woman (/. c, p. 77). 





Fig. 159. 



Earring of White Jade, Upper and 

 Lower Sides. 



