192 Chinese Clay Figures 



referred to it is said that in the east and west galleries of the imperial 

 palace the guards were clothed with armor, and that those posted east wore 

 armor of horn dyed red (hung jung kid) , those posted west wore armor 

 of horn dyed green and blue (pi [No. 9009] jung kid). It thus seems that 

 the Kin or Niiichi had a predilection for curious armor. 



Reference to the cuirass of the Mongols has already been made 

 above (pp. 180, 190). 



"They ride long like Frenchmen, and wear armor of boiled leather, 

 and shields and arblasts, and all their quarrels are poisoned," — thus 

 Marco Polo 1 describes the equipment of the inhabitants of the kingdom 

 of Nan-chao in Yiin-nan called by him Carajan. Yule is inclined to 

 prefer the reading "cuir de bufal" offered by another text, as some of 

 the Miao-tse of Kuei-chou are described as wearing armor of buffalo- 

 leather 2 overlaid with iron plates. 



Hide was indeed the chief material utilized for body armor by the 

 aboriginal tribes inhabiting southern China. In this respect we are 

 well informed by several reliable and observant authors of the Sung 

 period. The famous Fan Ch'eng-ta (1126-1193), 3 official, poet, florist, 

 traveller, and ethnographer, has the following description in his valuable 

 account of the regions of southern China, 4 "As regards the armor of 

 the Man tribes, harness and helmets are wrought to a large extent only 

 in the kingdom of Ta-li. 6 Elephant-skin is used for this purpose in such 



we find on Formosa. The aborigines of Formosa, at the time when the Chinese made 

 their first acquaintance in the beginning of the seventh century, were in a transitional 

 stage of life, iron being only sparsely used, while bone and horn took its place; and 

 a hoe with stone blade was employed in tilling the fields. The interesting account 

 given in the Annals of the Sui Dynasty (Sui shu, Ch. 81, p. 5) ascribes to them 

 knives, spears, bows and arrows, swords and daggers; and adds that owing to the 

 scarcity of iron in the country the blades are thin and small, being replaced to a great 

 extent by bone and horn, and that "of plaited hemp they make armor, or avail 

 themselves of bear and leopard skins." 



1 Ed. of Yule and Cordier, Vol. II, p. 78. 



2 According to the Nan-chao ye shi, as previously shown, it was rhinoceros-hide ; 

 while the text of Fan Ch'eng-ta which follows above speaks of elephant-skin. In all 

 likelihood these three materials, buffalo, rhinoceros, and elephant, were used side by 

 side. 



3 Giles, Biographical Dictionary, p. 242. 



4 The general title of the work is Kui hai yti heng chi (Wylie, Notes on Chinese 

 Literature, p. 56; Bretschneider, Botanicon Sinicum, pt. 1, p. 165). The single 

 chapters have separate headings; the one from which the above extract is given is 

 entitled Kui hai k'i chi ("Records of Implements in Southern China"). My quota- 

 tion refers to the reprint of the text in T'ang Sung ts'ung shu. 



5 Name of the country and the capital of the Shan in the present province of 

 Yun-nan, who ruled as the Nan-chao dynasty, and whose kingdom was destroyed 

 by the Mongols in 1252. It still was independent at the time to which our above 

 account refers. The fact that the armor of the Man is traced to the kingdom of Ta-li, 

 then inhabited by the T'ai or Shan, is of some significance. The T'ai were a warlike 

 and chivalrous nation like the Tibetans, and had developed a highly advanced culture 



