Defensive Armor of the Archaic Period 199 



When the coffin was lowered into the grave, he struck the four corners 

 with the spear, in order to chase away the spirits wang-liang. l The 

 bear-skin, a Chinese commentator explains, serves the purpose of lend- 

 ing him a formidable appearance; and the four golden eyes testify that 

 he spies in the four regions of the empire all places where contagious 

 diseases are raging. The spear seems to indicate that he combats 

 malignant spirits, and the shield is his means of defence against their 

 attacks. 



The two figures of shamans represented on Plates XV-XVII are clad 

 with tight-fitting, sleeveless leather jerkins, the material being cut out in 

 the form of scales arranged in regular horizontal rows. On the front 

 (Plates XV, XVII) the scales are carefully outlined in black ink or 

 varnish over a coating of pipe clay; 2 on the back of one of the figures 

 (Plate XVI) they are impressed in the surface of the clay, presumably 

 by means of a stamp. This process is not applied to the other figure, 

 whose back is plain. In both, the jerkin is held by means of a leather 

 belt tightly drawn around the loins. It does not seem to have a slit 

 in front, and was presumably put over the head. The shaman in Plates 

 XV and XVI wears a hide helmet surmounted by a queer crest, and 

 laid out in vertical grooves; on the back (Plate XVI) coifs of hide scales 

 are attached to it. The other shaman (Plate XVII) is adorned with a 

 snail-like, high tuft of hair held by a hoop. Both are manifestly repre- 

 sented in the attitude of warriors, displaying the same pose of arms and 

 feet. The right arm is raised, the thumb being placed against the 

 second finger: they are apparently in the act of throwing a spear; and 

 the spear, presumably of wood, may have actually been in their hands. 

 The left arm reaching forth with clinched fist, and the feet wide apart, 

 correspond to this action; and the two men naturally concentrate their 

 weight on their right sides. The lively fighting attitude and the body 

 armor show us that the two shamans are engaged in a battle with the 

 demons; and, if the tradition of the Chinese is correct that such clay 

 figures were interred in the graves during the Chou period, we may infer 

 that, as the shaman warded off pestilence and malignant spirits from the 

 grave before the lowering into it of the coffin, he continued in this 

 miniature form to act as the efficient guardian of the occupant of the 

 grave. 



Helmets bedecked with scales occur also in Chinese illustrations 

 (Fig. 33), and seem to have remained in the possession of shamans, even 

 though they did not don the scale armor. The clay figure of a magician 



1 No. 12,518. These sprites are mentioned among those haunting travellers in 

 the sand deserts of Turkistan (Pei shi, Ch. 97, p. 5). 



2 It is impossible to bring these fine lines out in the photographs. 



