184 Chinese Clay Figures 



with bands of seal-thongs, and enclose between them wooden slats. 

 The central piece protecting the chest has incased in it a board of the 

 same shape and size, while the gradually narrowing flaps have each 

 four slats inserted to secure greater elasticity of movement. 



On Plate XIII is illustrated an armor of hard tanned caribou-skin, 

 of especial interest to students of China because it is covered all over 

 with Chinese coins. It is of the same type of cuirass as the one in Plate 

 XI and comes from the Tlingit, Tarku Tribe, on the Tarku River, Alaska. 

 It was obtained by Lieutenant G. T. Emmons, who says that "the 

 Chinese money was procured in trade from the early Russians, whose 

 ships, exchanging the furs of the North Pacific with the Chinese for tea, 

 plied constantly between the two countries, by which means many 

 Chinese articles found their way to this coast." The coins (about a 

 thousand in number) are arranged in regular vertical rows, and are 

 fastened to the surface of the skin coat by means of leather strips, 

 which pass through their square perforations. The coins are all care- 

 fully selected, and only well preserved specimens have been used. The 

 obverse, containing the Chinese legend, is usually on the outside; only 

 in a few cases does the reverse with the Manchu legend stand out. 

 The bulk of these coins date from the beginning of the Manchu dynasty, 

 and are those inscribed with the periods Shun-chi (1 644-1 661), K'ang-hi 

 (1662-1722), and Yung-cheng (1723-1735). There are several coins of 

 the period K'ien-lung (1 736-1 795) in this lot, but they form the minority, 

 while the K'ang-hi coins outnumber all others. There is no coin later 

 than the K'ien-lung period, so that it may well be supposed that this 

 collection of coins was traded off in Alaska during or shortly after 

 that period, say roughly at the end of the eighteenth century. We 

 know, of course, that until a few years ago coins of the said description 

 were still circulating in many parts of the interior of China, particularly 

 in the country, though I understand that they have now been with- 

 drawn from currency owing to the financial and monetary reform; it is 

 not likely, however, that such a large number of those older coins would 

 have arrived in Alaska in recent times without any additional modern 

 coins. The conspicuous absence of any coins of the nineteenth century 

 in a lot of a thousand speaks in favor of the assumption that they had 

 been traded at the termination of the eighteenth century. A closer 

 attempt at dating could be made, if it were possible to take off all the 

 K'ien-lung coins, in order to read their reverses, which usually impart the 

 place of the mint, and in some cases would allow of the establishment 

 of a fixed year for the coinage. The last year thus determined would 

 yield the terminus a quo; that is, the approximate date, after which this 

 money may have left China en route to the north-east. It is not feasible 



