638 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1912. 



Wliile it is likely that the people of ancient India were familiar with 

 the striae on the fuager tips, there is, however, no evidence whatever that 

 finger impressions were employed to establish the identity of a person. 

 No mention of finger prmts is made in the ancient Indian law books. 

 The signature of an individual was a recognized institution of law 

 and a requirement in all contracts. The debtor was obliged to sign 

 his name at the close of the bond, and to add: ''I, the son of such and 

 such a one, agree to the above." Then came the witnesses signing 

 their name and that of their father, with the remark: "I, so and so, 

 am witness thereof." The scribe finally added: "The above has 

 been written by me, so and so, the son of so and so, at the request of 

 both parties." An illiterate debtor or witness was allowed to have a 

 substitute write for him. A note of hand written by the debtor 

 himself was also valid without the signatures of witnesses, pro\dded 

 there was no compulsion, fraud, bribery, or enmity connected with 

 the operation. The cleverness of forgers is pointed out, and the 

 necessity of comparison of handwritings and conscientious examina- 

 tion of documents are insisted on.^ 



Besides the documents pertaining to private law, there were 

 public or royal deeds, among which those relating to foundations, 

 grants of land to subjects as marks of royal favor, took a prominent 

 place. They were written on copper plates or cotton cloth, and the 

 royal seal (mudrd) was attached to them, a necessary act to legalize 

 the document. The forgery of a deed was looked upon as a capital 

 crime, in the same way as in China. The seals represented an animal 

 like a boar or the mythical bird Garuda. It is thus shown by the 

 legal practice in ancient India that there was no occasion in it for 

 the use of finger prints, and it appears that the significance of the 

 latter was recognized only in palmistry and magic.^ 



In recent times the finger-print system has been employed in 

 China only in two cases, at the reception of founcUings in the found- 

 ling asylums and in the signing of contracts on the part of iUiterate 

 people. In regard to the former mode we owe valuable information 

 to F. Hirth,^ who has made a study of the regulations of Chinese 

 benevolent institutions.* The foundling asylums established in aU 

 large cities receive orphan children, forsaken babies, or any others 

 sent to them. These are placed by their relatives in a sliding drawer 

 in the wall near the front gate and a bamboo drum is struck to notify 

 the gatekeeper, who opens the drawer from the inside of the waU and 



» Compare J. Jolly, Recht und Sitte, p. 113 (Grandriss der indo-arischen Philologie, Strassburg, 1896). 



» Possibly, also the Malayan tribes, as shown by their notions of palmistry, may be acquainted with 

 finger marks. W. W. Skeat (Malay Magic, London, 1900, p. 502) notes that a whorl of circular lines on 

 the fingers is considered as the sign of a craftsman. 



3 T'oung Pao, vol. 7, 1896, p. 299. 



< Au interesting account of these is given also by W. Lockhart, The Medical Missionary in China, London, 

 1861, pp. 23-30, and recently by Yu- Yue Tsu, The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy (Columbia University, 

 1912), who refers also to the finger marks (p. 61). 



