Defensive Armor of the Archaic Period 183 



of a singular stratagem, in which iron mail (Vie k'ai) versus rhinoceros- 

 hide cuirasses (si kia) was at stake. Ma Lung defeated a hostile 

 army by covering the sides of a narrow pass with loadstone, 1 so that the 

 iron-clad enemies were unable to move, whereas his cuirassed men got 

 the better of them. Whatever the basis of this anecdote may be, we 

 recognize that hide armor still held its ground in the age of iron armor, 

 and insured mobility of troops to such a degree that hide-clad soldiers 

 could carry a victory over a heavy-mailed force struggling along under 

 the burden of metal. In some other passages of Tsin shu and Sung shu 

 we meet the term si p'i k'ai ("rhinoceros-hide metal armor"), which 

 must have been a suit with a hide foundation reinforced by metal 

 laminee. We shall hear more of cuirasses in later periods, and likewise 

 of metal armor. 



The hide armor of the Chou is irretrievably lost, and there is little or 

 no chance that any will ever come to light. To a certain degree, hide 

 armor, as still manufactured not so long ago by native tribes of America, 

 may serve as an object-lesson and substitute, and assist us in reconstruct- 

 ing in our minds the appearance of the ancient Chinese warriors. As 

 the course of our investigation renders it necessary to touch also the 

 subject of American defensive armor, these illustrations of American 

 specimens not easily accessible will be welcome to many students. 

 Plate XI illustrates an armor, in the form of a vest, made from extremely 

 hard, heavy, tanned moose-skin of two thicknesses, the two layers being 

 tightly pressed together. It is proof, against musket-balls fired at a 

 reasonable distance. It opens in front, and is closed by means of three 

 iron buckles of foreign make. The specimen comes from the Tlingit, 

 Alaska. 2 



The armor figured in Plate XII is the work of Asiatic Eskimo 

 from East Cape on the Chukotsk Peninsula. It is of particular interest 

 in this connection as exhibiting the tendency toward making a cuirass 

 of a single large piece of hide, as far as possible, thus avoiding the cutting 

 of it. Extending in its total width to fully 1.55 m, two complete skins 

 of seals are utilized in this specimen, the one forming the exterior, the 

 other the interior, of the suit. They are sewed together along the edges 



1 Regarding the loadstone in China see J. Klaproth (Lettre sur l'invention de la 

 boussole, pp. 66 et seq., Paris, 1834), and F. de Mely (Les lapidaires chinois, p. 106). 



2 Similar coats of hardened hide were turned out by the Haida, Chinuk, Hupa, 

 Shoshoni, Navajo, Pawni, Mohawk, and others. There are in the Field Museum sev- 

 eral other Tlingit cuirasses painted with the totemic emblems of the clans to which 

 the chiefs wearing them belonged. The shields of the Plains Indians were made 

 from buffalo-hide, with one or two covers of soft dressed buffalo, elk, or deer skin; the 

 hide used for the purpose was taken from the neck of the buffalo bull, and was made 

 exceptionally thick and tough by shrinking it, while wet, over a fire built in a hole 

 in the ground (J. Mooney, in Handbook of American Indians, Vol. II, p. 547). 



