650 ANNUAL KEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



period or the Former Han dynasty is involved; this question is irrele- 

 vant; at all events it may be stated confidently that this object, like 

 other clay seals, was made in the pre-Christian era. An examination 

 of other pieces may reveal some of the religious ideas underlyhig the 

 application of the thumb print. Many clay seals are freely fashioned 

 by means of the finger and exhibit strange relations to these organs. 

 The finger shape of the two seals in figures 6 and 7 on plate 4 is 

 obvious. Our illustration shows the lower uninscribed sides, while 

 the name is impressed by means of a wooden mold on the upper side. 

 Examination of these two pieces brings out the fact that they were 

 shaped from the upper portion of the small finger, and further from 

 the back of the finger. The lower rounded portion of the object in 

 figure 7 is evidently the nail of the small finger wliich was pressed 

 against the wet clay lump; the seal has just the length of the first 

 finger joint (2.6 cm. long), the clay mold follows the round shape of 

 the finger, and the edges coiled up after baking. The lines of the 

 skin, to become visible, were somewhat grossly enlarged in the 

 impression. The clay seal in figure 6 (2.4 cm. long), I believe, was 

 fashioned over the middle jouit of the small finger of a male adult, 

 the two joints at the upper and lower end of the seal being flattened 

 out a little by pressure on the clay, and the lines of the epidermis 

 being artificially inserted between them. The seal in figure 5, of 

 red-burnt clay, with four characters on the opposite side (not illus- 

 trated), was likewise modeled from the bulb of the thumb by pressure 

 of the left side against a lump of clay which has partially remained as 

 a ridge adhering to the surface. The latter was smoothed by means 

 of a flat stick so that no finger marks could survive. The groove in 

 the lower part is accidental. Another square clay seal in our coUection 

 (No. 117032) has likewise a smoothed lower face, but a shai-p mark 

 from the thumb nail in it. These various processes sufiice to show 

 that the primary and essential point in these clay seals was a certain 

 sympathetic relation to the fingers of the owner of the seal. Here 

 we must call to mind that the seal in its origin was the outcome of 

 magical ideas, and that, according to Chinese notions, it is the pledge 

 for a person's good faith; indeed, the word yin, ''seal," is explained 

 by the word sin, "faith." ^ The man attesting a document sacrificed 

 figuratively part of his body under his oath that the statements 

 made by him were true, or that the promise of a certain obligation 

 would be kept. The seal assumed the shape of a bodily member; 

 indeed, it was immediately copied from it and imbued with the flesh 

 and blood of the owner. It was under the sway of these notions of 

 magic that the mysterious, unchangeable furrows on the finger bulbs 

 came into prominence and received their importance. They not 



1 In the work T'ie yiln ts'ang t'ao, p. 85b, above quoted, is illustrated a clay seal containing only this one 

 character. The same book contains also a number of finger-shaped clay seals. 



