18G ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS 



]\Iongolian release. A picture of Tanniu, painted one 

 hundred and fifty years ago and supposed to be a copy 

 of a Chinese subject six or seven hundred years old, shows 

 plainly the Mongolian release. In a picture by Keion, 

 seven hundred years old, the archer is represented in the 

 act of wetting with his tongue the tips of the first two 

 fingers of his hand ; and this certainly suggests the Japa- 

 nese form of the Mongolian release. 



Among the Emperor's treasures at Nara is a silver ves- 

 sel supposed to be of the time of Tempei Jingo (765 A. 

 D.), upon which is depicted a hunting-scene. Here the 

 release, if correctly depicted, suggests the Mediterranean 

 form. The bow is Mongoloid. The vessel is probably 

 Persian : it is certainly not Japanese. The earliest allu- 

 sions to Japanese archery are contained in "Kojiki, or 

 Records of Ancient Matters," of which its translator, Mr. 

 Basil Hall Chamberlain, says : " It is the earliest authentic 

 literary product of that large division of the human race 

 which has been variously denominated Turanian, Scythian, 

 and Altaic, and even precedes by at least a century the 

 most ancient extant literary compositions of non- Aryan 

 India." These- records take us back without question to 

 the 7th century of our era. In this work allusion is made 

 to the heavenly feathered arroio, to the vegetable ivax-tree 

 bow and deer boiv, and also to the elboio pad. It is diffi- 

 cult to understand the purpose of the elbow pad in arch- 

 ery, assuming the same practice of the bow in ancient 

 times as in present Japanese methods. It is difficult to 

 believe that a pad on the elbow was needed to protect 

 that part from the feeble impact of the string. If the 

 pad WHS a sort of arm-guard surrounding the elbow, then 

 one might surmise the use of a highly strung bow of ]Mon- 

 golian form held firmly and not permitted to rotate as in 

 the Japanese style. 



