u8 Chinese Clay Figures 



animal. We know that the primeval habitat of the Tibetan stock was 

 located along the upper course of the Huang-ho (where Ptolemy knows 

 them as Bautai, derived from the native name Bod, "Tibetans;" the 

 Yellow River is styled by him Bautisos) , as well as along the upper Yang- 

 tse. There they lived in close proximity to the ancient Chinese; and 

 in that locality, as will be established from Chinese records, the rhi- 

 noceros was their contemporary. Large parts of the present Chinese 

 provinces of Kan-su and Sze-ch'uan are still settled by Tibetan tribes; 

 and we shall see that the rhinoceros occurred there in the times of 

 antiquity, and long survived, even down to the middle ages. The Pai- 

 lan — a tribe belonging to the Tibetan group of the K'iang, and border- 

 ing in the north-east on the Tu-yu-hun — in 561 a.d. sent an embassy 

 to China to present a cuirass of rhinoceros-hide (si kid) and iron armor. * 

 Whether they had made this cuirass themselves, or had received it 

 from an outside source (this fact is not indicated), this tribute, at any 

 rate, shows that they were acquainted with this material and its manu- 

 factures. 2 The Pen ts'ao yen i of 11 16 extols the horns of the Tibetan 

 breed of rhinoceros for the fine quality of the natural designs displayed 

 in them (see p. 148). Li Shi-chen, in his Pen ts'ao kang mu (see p. 149), 

 expressly names as habitats of the rhinoceros the regions of the Si Fan 

 and Nan Fan; that is, the western and southern Tibetans, — the former 

 scattered over Sze-ch'uan and Yun-nan with their borderlands, the 

 latter peopling the valley of the Tsang-po (Brahmaputra) and the 

 Himalayan tracts adjoining India. Indeed, down to the middle of the 

 nineteenth century, or even later, the rhinoceros was to be met with 

 along the foot of the Himalaya as far west as Rohilkund and Nepal; and 

 it survived longer still in the Terai of Sikkim. 4 J. Ch. White 4 notes the 



1 Chou shu, Ch. 49, p. 5 b. 



2 In the year 824 the Tibetans offered to the Chinese Court silver-cast figures of 

 a rhinoceros and a stag (T'ang shu, Ch. 216 B, p. 6 b). Bushell (The Early History of 

 Tibet, p. 88) translates the word si in this passage by "yak," but this point of view 

 is not admissible. True it is that some modern Chinese writers on Tibet call the yak 

 si niu, but this usage of the word is not earlier than the eighteenth century. The 

 T'ang Annals, however, persistently designate the Tibetan yak by the word li niu 

 (No. 6938); and in the very passage alluded to, the gift of the rhinoceros and stag 

 silver figures is immediately followed by the words, "and they brought as tribute a 

 yak" (kung li niu), which Bushell correctly interprets likewise as yak. The words 

 si and It niu in the same sentence cannot possibly refer to the same animal; and it 

 becomes evident from a consideration of all Chinese sources concerned that down to 

 the end of the Ming dynasty the Chinese word si with reference to Tibet and Tibetan 

 tribes invariably denotes the rhinoceros, and nothing else. Rhinoceros-horn was 

 formerly included among the tribute gifts which the Dalai Lamas of Tibet were 

 obliged to send to China; it took its place between coral, genuine pearls, precious 

 stones, amber, etc. (Wei Tsang t'u chi, 1792, Ch. A, p. 17). 



3 R. Lydekker, The Game Animals of India, p. 30. 

 * Sikhim and Bhutan, p. 322 (London, 1909). 



