640 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



In all contracts of civil law Chinese custom demands the auto- 

 graphic signatures of the contracting parties, the middlemen, and 

 the witnesses.^ Also the writer of the bond is obliged to sign his 

 name at the end with the title iai pi ("writing for another"). If the 

 seUer write the contract out in person, he should sign again at the 

 end, with the addition tse pi ("self-written"). As the number of 

 those able to write is very large, and as even those who have an imper- 

 fect or no knowledge of writing are at least able to write their names, 

 it will be seen that there is little occasion for the employment of 

 finger prints in such contracts. Prof. Giles ^ states that title deeds 

 and other legal instruments are still often found to bear, in addition 

 to signatures, the finger prints of the parties concerned; sometimes, 

 indeed, the imprint of the whole hand. This would indicate a sur- 

 vival of the originally magical and ritualistic character of the custom. 



From the fact that the signature has little or hardly any legal 

 importance, it follows that the forgery of a signature does not fall 

 under the provisions of the Penal Code. The Code of the Manchu 

 dynasty provided only for the forging of imperial edicts and official 

 seals with intent to defraud, and punished these as capital crimes.^ 



In plates 2 and 3 a Tibetan document written in the running hand 

 is reproduced. It is a promissory note signed by the debtor with the 

 impressions from the balls of both his thumbs. The Tibetans have 

 apparently derived the practice from the neighboring Chinese; there 

 is little probability, at least, that, to speak with Herschel, "a pas- 

 senger of the Mongolia" may have carried the suggestion to Tibet. 

 The language of the Tibetans proves that this procedure is an old 

 affair with them, for a seal or stamp is called Ve-mo, which is derived 

 from, or identical with, the word t^e-bo, "thumb." Sarat Chandra 

 Das in his Tibetan-English Dictionary justly says that the word 

 t'e-mo originally mc^ans the thumb or thumb impression. We may 

 hence infer that the thumb print was the first mode of signature of 

 the Tibetans, in vogue prior to the introduction of metal (brass, 

 iron, or lead) seals which were named for the thumb print, as they 

 were identical with the latter in the principle of utilization. In the 

 related language of the Lepcha, which has preserved a more ancient 

 condition, we find the saxie expression t'e-tsu, "seal," and even t'e 

 c'ung, "small seal," meaning at the same time "little finger."* 



1 Numerous examples may be seeu in P. Hoang, Notions techniques sur la propri^ttS en Chine avec un 

 choix d'actes et de documents officicls, Shanghai, 1897 ( Varieles sinologiques No. 11). 



s Adversaria Suiica, Shangliai, 1908, p. 184. 



3 0. Th. Staunlon, Ta Tsing I.eu Lee, being the Fundamental Laws * * * of the Penal Code of 

 China, London, 1810, pp. 392, 396. E. Alabaster, Notes and Commentaries on Chinese Criminal Law, 

 London, 1899, pp. 438, 439. B. H. Chamberlain (Things Japanese, .3d ed., 1898, p. 445) states: "It seems 

 odd, considering the high esteem in which writing is held in Japan, that the signature should not occupy 

 the same important place as in the West. The seal alone has legal force, the impre.ssion being made, not 

 with sealing wax, but with vermilion ink." 



< Mainwaring and Griinwedel, Dictionary of the Lepcha Language, Berlin, 1898, p. 155. 



