268 Chinese Clay Figures 



nese influence is a chimera. Plate armor, if due in that region to a 

 stimulus received from outside, would represent a somewhat isolated 

 instance of historical contact in the line of warfare; 1 and whatever the 

 psychology of this first stimulus may have been, — I venture to deny 

 that it ever operated in the haphazard and purely external manner 

 indicated by Ratzel and Hough, — a certain independent course of 

 development in that area cannot be absolutely denied. 



While I am very far from contesting that historical interrelations 

 may have been at play in the dissemination of the plate idea in north- 

 eastern Asia, I wish to maintain for the present an attitude of reserve 

 toward this point. The downright failure of the Japanese hypothesis 

 should put us on our guard; and, the imitation theory, I confess, be it 

 formulated with reference to the Japanese, Chinese, or Siberians, does 

 not strike me very favorably. Whatever we may now be inclined to 

 assume in that direction, it will remain mere assumption in our present 

 state of knowledge; and it must be upheld that no imitation theory, 

 with whatever modifications, can be backed up by certain facts. In 

 other words, the problem is not yet susceptible of a definite solution. 

 There is, however, not only an historical, but also a technical side to 

 this question, and we should not entirely lose sight of the technical 

 point. We observe in various culture-groups that plate armor is never 

 a primary type of armor, but occupies a secondary place in point of 



Japanese took with them a Yemishi man and woman of Michinoku to show to the 

 T'ang Emperor. In the Description of the Tributary Nations of the Ts'ing Dynasty 

 (Huang Ts'ing chi kung t'u, Ch. 3), published under the patronage of the Emperor 

 K'ien-lung, the Ainu are figured and briefly characterized under the name K'u-ye. 

 This is the Gilyak designation Kuhi for the Ainu, identical with the Huye of Du 

 Halde (Description de l'empire de la Chine, Vol. IV, p. 15; compare also L. v. 

 Schrenck, Reisen und Forschungen, Vol. Ill, p. 129). On some Chinese maps 

 Saghalin is still designated as " Island of K'u-ye." The Gilyak came to the notice of 

 the Chinese at a very late date; they do not seem to be mentioned earlier than in the 

 Se wen hien t'ung k'ao (published in 1586) under the name Ki (or K'i)-li-mi (Gilami), 

 the name given this people by its Tungusian neighbors (compare A. Wylie, Chinese 

 Researches, pt. 3, p. 249, who alludes to this passage without identifying the tribe). 

 In the Chinese work previously quoted, the Gilyak are pictured and described under 

 the term Fei-ya-k'a as inhabiting the country to the extreme east of the Sungari, 

 the littoral of the ocean, and scattered over the islands (compare L. v. Schrenck, 

 /. c, pp. 100-103). 



1 A very interesting case was established by Franz Boas in his study Property 

 Marks of Alaskan Eskimo (American Anthropologist, 1899, pp. 601-613). Property 

 marks are very frequently used by these tribes on weapons employed in hunting with 

 the object of securing property-right in the animal in whose body the weapon bearing 

 the mark is found. It is a remarkable fact that these marks occur only among the 

 Eskimo tribes of Alaska, but are not known from any other Eskimo tribe. This 

 fact, taken in connection with the form and occurrence of such marks among the 

 north-eastern tribes of Asia, suggests to Boas that this custom, like so many other 

 peculiarities of Alaskan Eskimo life, may be due to contact with Asiatic tribes. 

 This case is very plausible, and would merit a more profound historical investigation 

 in connection with the practice of tamga now disseminated throughout Siberia. 



