62 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XIII. 



in the ''Institutes of the Manchu Dynasty" {Ta Ts'ing hui tien fu, 

 Ch. 42). When the emperor officiates in the Temple of Heaven (T'ien 

 fan), he wears a rosary of lapis lazuli beads; in the Temple of Earth 

 (Ti fan), one of amber beads, yellow being the color of Earth; in the 

 Temple of the Sun (Ji fan) , one of corals ; and in the Temple of the Moon 

 {YUe fan) one of turquoises (lii sung shi) ; while the girdle for the service 

 in the latter temple is set with white jade.^ The ordinary imperial 

 court-girdle consists of yellow silk and is adorned with rubies or sap- 

 phires and turquoises. Also in the State Handbook of the Manchu 

 Dynasty (Huang ch'ao U kH fu shi) turquoises are repeatedly mentioned 

 as entering imperial helmets and sword-sheaths, also as employed for 

 the jewelry of the empress and the court-ladies. They usually were 

 combined with river pearls, corals, and lapis lazuli.^ 



1 Color symbolism is an ancient and conspicuotis feature of Chinese rites, and was 

 originally associated with the four quarters and the cosmic deities who were linked 

 with the latter (compare Jade, p. 120) ; at a later time it was affiliated also with the 

 five elements and other categories of five (a comparative table of these associations 

 is given by A. Forke, Lun-h6ng, Vol. II, p. 440). The Chinese system has already 

 been compared with those found in North America and Mexico by Mrs. Zelia 

 NuTTALL, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations {Arch, 

 and Ethn. Papers, Peabody Museum, Vol. II, Cambridge, Mass., 1901, pp. 286, 293), 

 with the result that, "whilst the fundamental principle of the system was identical, 

 the mode of carrying it out was different in China and America, a fact which indicates 

 independence and isolation at the period when elements and colors, etc., were chosen 

 and assigned to the directions in space." The whole problem, of course, is not histor- 

 ical but purely psychological. — In the imperial worship of the Manchu dynasty, as 

 shown above, color symbolism was still fully alive. In the Temple of Heaven covered 

 with blue-glazed faience tiles, everything was blue during the ceremonies, the 

 sacrificial utensils being of blue porcelain, the participants in the rites being robed in 

 blue brocades, and Venetian shades made of thin rods of blue glass were hung over 

 the windows, in order to lend also to the atmosphere a tinge of blue. At the Temple 

 of Earth, all was yellow; at the Temple of the Sun, red; and at the Temple of the 

 Moon, everything was brilliant with a moonlight white. 



^ In the Sungari River, a light-green stone of unctuous appearance is found which 

 is utilized for the making of ink-slabs. It is called in Chinese sung hua yii, lit., pine- 

 tree flower jade, but it has nothing to do with turquois nor with jade. The Manchu 

 name Sungari means in the Manchu language the Milky Way, and is popularly called 

 in Chinese, with reference to the Manchu sounds. Sung hua kiang, "Pine-tree Flower 

 River," while the designations of the Chinese written language are Hun-t'ung Kiang 

 or Hei Shui ("Black Water"). The meaning of the stone sung hua yii, accordingly, 

 is "precious stone of the Sungari River." Compare Man-chou yiian liu k'ao, Ch. 19, 

 pp. 1-2 (a work on the History of the Manchu published in 1777). When the records 

 of the Manchu dynasty mention turquois in combination with pearls, this is not a 

 contradiction to what has been stated above regarding this point (p. 31). The pearls 

 of the imperial house were cheap river pearls known as eastern pearls {tung chu), a 

 product of Manchuria. They were fished in the Sungari and its side-rivers, and are 

 described as brilliant-white nearly half an inch (Chinese) big, even the smallest of 

 the size of the seed of a soy-bean. They were chiefly utilized on the crowns of the 

 caps of royal princes, their number marking differences of rank {Man-chou yiian liu 

 k'ao, Ch. 19, p. i). The shell yielding this pearl has been identified with Anodonta 

 plicata Sol. (compare Grum-Grzhimailo, Description of the Amur Province, in 

 Russian, p. 358, St. Petersburg, 1894, where some information regarding the pearl 

 industry of the Amur region is given). — The word for lapis lazuli in the State Hand- 

 book is ts'ing kin shi (see p. 44). Beads made from this stone were chiefly employed 

 for ornaments of the empress and court-ladies, likewise for the adornment of cere- 

 monial head-dresses. 



