112 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



pestilences off their necks. From then on the Koreans and Japanese 

 kept sparring for centuries. 



In 274 A.D. the Emperor Ojin had a boat built that measured a 

 hundred feet. This created a most extraordinary sensation, the thing 

 being regarded with awe throughout the country for a century, and 

 when it finally became useless due to rot, its timbers were used to 

 evaporate tons of sea water, the salt resulting from this operation 

 being sent to all parts of the realm in memory of the wondrous ob- 

 ject. This is a strange thing to contemplate among a maritime people 

 at a time when even the dismal Romans were barging about the 

 Mediterranean in enormous quinqueremes, and Dravidian ships car- 

 rying several hundred people had been in use almost three thousand 

 years before, in the Indian Ocean. Nevertheless, the Japanese do 

 not seem to have employed sail until about 1000 a.d. All their earUer 

 ships were propelled by oars, and there was even a period in their 

 history when no shipbuilding was allowed at all. This was designed 

 to prevent nationals from leaving the country, which was made il- 

 legal by imperial decree. 



Now, about this time a certain meticulous historian in China hap- 

 pened to record in detail items sent to his emperor by the tributary 

 Su-Shen people of the north, and these included "bone armor." This 

 simple statement means a lot more than it might indicate, for the 

 armor was stated to have been made of ku-tu-si. This is not a Chi- 

 nese word but is one of Khitan origin. The Khitans were Tungus 

 who lived and still live to the north of Manchuria (see map on 

 page 105). The Chinese colloquialized this word, first to kutusi, 

 and then simply to kutu, and in this form it became the trade name 

 for a very valuable product throughout Asia for thousands of years. 

 It finally reached the Turks, who wrote it hutu, and this was trans- 

 literated by the Arabs as chutwiv, which must be just about the 

 most improbable word ever written in Roman characters. It was re- 

 garded as a priceless gem, but what it really was proves a little dis- 

 appointing and rather surprising; yet, it is quite important to our 

 main theme. It was walrus ivory. 



Without going into the details of this fabulous Chinese trade, we 

 may record that two substances known respectively as ku-tu-si 

 and tu-na-si were in great demand throughout Asia from at least 

 100 to 1500 A.D. The second was the ivory of the narwhal's "spear," 



