The Problem of Plate Armor 267 



the present time to fix a date for these antiquities with any degree of 

 certainty ; but a general deduction may be hazarded. There are good 

 reasons for assuming that the Chinese derived their iron armor from 

 Turkish and Iranian peoples, — first, because their knowledge of smelt- 

 ing and forging iron came from them; and, second, because their own 

 inventiveness in defensive and offensive armor was rather poor, and be- 

 cause others of their weapons, like swords and daggers, were adopted 

 from the same group (p. 215). The sudden appearance of iron armor in 

 the Later Han dynasty speaks in favor of this view ; and as only copper 

 plate armor was known in the preceding period of the Former Han 

 dynasty, it seems very likely that iron armor among the Turkish tribes 

 was not much older than in China. As previously stated, the Su-shen 

 sent iron armor along with skin and bone armor to China, but only the 

 latter two types formed their national armor, according to the later re- 

 port of the Annals of the Tsin Dynasty. The occasional introduction of 

 iron armor, consequently, did not suppress among them the employment 

 of skin and bone armor; and although iron armor was known to them at 

 the end of the third century, they adhered, for several centuries down- 

 ward, to bone and hide, that seem to have represented a more efficient 

 means of defence at that time than iron armor, the making of which 

 must still have been in a primitive and experimental stage. On the 

 other hand, in opposition to this theory of a foreign influence, it must 

 be emphasized that the culture types of north-eastern Asia, on the 

 whole, have strong and pronounced characteristics which have hardly 

 any parallels in the rest of the Asiatic world, and that owing to geograph- 

 ical conditions the entire area has remained purer and more intact from 

 outside currents than any other culture group in Asia. The profound 

 researches of Bogoras and Jochelson have shown us that in language, 

 folk-lore, religion, and material culture, the affinities of the Chukchi, 

 Koryak, Yukagir, and Kamchadal go with Americans, not with Asiatics. 

 In fact, Turkish-Mongol influence on these tribes is exceedingly small; 

 Chinese influence, if any, amounts to a minimum; 1 and the alleged Japa- 



1 While the Chinese, owing to political circumstances, were comparatively well 

 acquainted with the tribes inhabiting Manchuria, Korea, and the Amur region, their 

 knowledge of the tribes beyond has always been very limited. Their first acquaint- 

 ance with the Ainu dates from the year 659 a.d., when some members of this tribe 

 accompanying a Japanese embassy made their appearance at the Court of the 

 Emperor Kao-tsung (650-683) of the T'ang dynasty; they are described on this 

 occasion as "forming a small country on an island in the ocean, having beards four 

 feet long, being clever archers, and sticking arrows through their hair; they have a 

 man hold an arrow (according to another reading, a vessel) which they use as a tar- 

 get at a distance of ten paces, without missing their aim" (T'ang shu, Ch. 220, p. 1 1 ; 

 and Yen kien lei han, Ch. 231, p. 47). They are called by their Japanese name 

 Yemishi (Chinese, Hia-i). This embassy is mentioned under the same year also 

 in the Japanese Nihongi (Aston, Nihongi, Vol. II, p. 260), where it is said that the 



