272 Chinese Clay Figures 



Korea. 1 These considerations are instructive also in that they reveal the 

 baselessness of what might be styled "the Japanese mirage of American 

 ethnology." Not only objects of material culture like plate armor, but 

 also motives of myth and legend, have been traced from America directly 

 to Japan, as, for instance, by the late Paul Ehrenreich. 2 This method 

 seems to me inadequate for historical reasons. The primeval culture 

 type of Japan, as we know it, is a comparatively recent production, 

 very recent when contrasted with the great centres of culture developed 

 on the mainland of Asia, and recent even in comparison with all in- 

 digenous cultures found on the American Continent. I mean to say 

 that most phenomena of culture, inclusive of myth and religion, are by 

 far older on this continent, and still preserved in an older form, than any 

 corresponding phenomena in Japanese culture, even if the latter are 

 reduced to their oldest attainable condition. The Kojiki and Nihongi, 

 the main text-books of Japanese mythology, do not present a pure source 

 of genuine Japanese thought, but are retrospective records largely 

 written under Chinese and Korean influence, and echoing in a bewilder- 

 ing medley continental-Asiatic and Malayo-Polynesian traditions. 

 But more than that, — it may be safely stated at the present time that 

 the history of American cultures has never had, and never could have 

 had, any relation with Japan, which always was beyond the pale of 

 American-Asiatic relations, and that American ethnology offers no 

 point of contact with Japan. The threads of historical connection run- 

 ning from America into Asia do not terminate in Japan, but first of all, 

 as far as the times of antiquity are concerned, in a territory which may 

 be defined as the northern parts of modern Manchuria and Korea. 

 From ancient times the varied population of this region has shared to 

 some extent in the cultural elements which go to make up the character- 



forging among the Gold on the Amur is due to the adjoining Manchu-Chinese, how- 

 ever, is entirely erroneous, as this art doubtless is much older in that region than the 

 rule and influence of the Manchu, and points decidedly in the direction of the Turkish 

 Yakut. Many iron objects of an ornamental character in use among the Gold can 

 be plainly recognized as Yakutan in origin, and Yakut are constantly living and trad- 

 ing in their midst. Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese need be invoked to explain 

 iron-forging in eastern and north-eastern Siberia, as it is much older in the interior 

 of Siberia, where there have been at all times better blacksmiths, forging better 

 iron-work than was ever turned out in China. 



1 The Annals of the Later Han Dynasty (Hoti Han shu, Ch. 115, p. 5 b) relate 

 that the country Shen-han in Korea produced iron, that the Wei, Wo (Japanese) 

 and Ma-han went there to purchase it on the market, and that iron was the means 

 of barter in all business transactions. There was no iron in the country of the Shi- 

 wei, and they received it from Korea in exchange for sable-skins (Pei shi, Ch. 94, 

 p. 9 b). The considerable beds of iron ore in Kang-wun Province are still worked by the 

 natives, who scrape it up from the surface of the ground, and smelt it in furnaces by 

 means of charcoal (H. B. Hulbert, The Passing of Korea, p. 274). 



2 Die Mythen und Legenden der sudamerikanischen Urvolker, pp. 77 et seq. 

 (Berlin, 1905). 



