270 Chinese Clay Figures 



inventiveness of the aborigines, which may have resulted in a large 

 variety of ingenious armor spread over an extensive area. 1 



There remain other considerations to be made which would seem to 

 confirm this impression. The cut, the style, and the mode of wearing 

 armor in the North-Pacific region are different from those in eastern 

 Asia. The peculiar Chukchi fashion of having the left side covered up 

 and the left arm and hand hidden in the armor, while only the right arm 

 remains free for action, 2 is a striking feature, which is entirely lacking 

 in any other part of Asia. At any rate, I am inclined toward the opinion 

 that the type of bone plate armor under consideration is not exclusively 

 due to an impact of foreign influence. In some form unknown to us it 

 may have pre-existed, before any metal plate armor had reached the 

 Far East ; while I am quite willing to admit that at some later period 

 the regular, rectangular shapes of the ivory plates, and the peculiar 

 method of lashing them together, may be the outcome of an adaptation 

 to some imported model. 



The memorable passage in the Chinese Annals concerning the Su- 

 shen may elucidate still another problem. Their gifts to China in 262 

 consisted not only of bone armor, but also of iron armor. Bogoras 3 

 has shown that ancient iron armor, made of small pieces of iron with 

 fastenings of narrow leather strips, was until recently very common 

 among the Reindeer Chukchi; and he makes it probable that iron was 

 known among them before the arrival of the Russians. And here the 

 Su-shen come again to our assistance in dispelling the Japanese spectre ; 

 for the question of the origin and manufacture of Chukchi iron armor 

 suggests to Mr. Bogoras "a connection with the Japanese which does 

 not exist at present," — and which in all probability has never existed. 

 Mr. Bogoras is unable to furnish any evidence for such an alleged inter- 

 course, which is certainly not proved by the occasional occurrence of a 

 modern Japanese article of trade in that region. 4 The facts in the case 



1 1 do not mean to say, of course, that the development has actually and ob- 

 jectively taken place that way, but only wish to point out that it may be thus 

 construed in our minds. 



2 Hough, Plate V; Bogoras, The Chukchee, p. 163 (shows also a suit of left- 

 handed iron armor). 



3 The Chukchee (Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. VII, No. 1, p. 54). 



4 The statement of Bogoras that the armor and helmet figured on p. 164 are 

 Japanese seems to me to require further proof. It rather conveys the impression of 

 being un- Japanese. Bogoras alludes to the advance of the Japanese to Kamchatka 

 without citing sources in support of this opinion. I presume he must have had in 

 mind the passages of G. W. Steller (Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, 

 pp. 3, 249) saying that the Japanese were long known as traders to the inhabitants 

 of the littoral of the Okhotsk Sea (on the Kamchadal name of the Japanese, see L. v. 

 Schrenck, /. c, p. 192). Kamchatka was vaguely known to the Japanese of the 

 eighteenth century, as we see from Klaproth's Apercu g6n6ral des trois royaumes 



