NOTES ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF TIBET. 719 



the native coius or even Cliiiiese bullion, tlie purity of which the peo^ile 

 have 110 means of testin<i,'. 



In the Museum collection is a full set of Tibetan coins (see also jjl. 27, 

 fig. 3) ; all the older ones, bearing Chinese and Tibetan inscriptions, are 

 plaster casts obtained from the British Museum cabinet, 



Chinese money scales {jama) are used by the Tibetans and in Mon- 

 golia. The form met with throughout China iS shown on pi. 27, fig. 1, and 

 pi. 28 shows a rough copy made in Taichinar Ts'aidam. In the latter 

 the wooden beam is roughly indented to indicate onnces, tenths, and 

 hundredths of ounces (in Tibetan called sraiKj, djo, and l-arma); instead 

 of a brass tray one of buckskin suspended by horse-hairs is used, and 

 the weight is a bullet rou?,hly flattened out. These scales fit in a wooden 

 trough roughly whittled out with a knife. 



Money (see fig. 3) is carried either in a small leather bag (pi. 27, fig. 4) 

 with a long buckskin string by which it is tied to the gown, or in a small 

 pouch with a leather loop through which the girdle passes (fig, o). A.t 

 Lh'asa the i^eople use portemonnaies of semicircular form made of red 

 leather embossed and with an ornamental border. They have two 

 pockets and close with a hook, with a large silver boss on the flap. 



In most parts of the country money is but little used, the people 

 bartering for most of the things they require. Brick tea is used to such 

 an extent in their.mercautile transactions that it is, for all practical pur- 

 poses, a unit of value. Salt, f samba, boots in the Kokonor,2J/^/o, cotton 

 cloth, and even walnuts (in the Bat'ang country), are accepted without a 

 murmur instead of silver, and in most places one or any of these articles 

 are preferred to it. 



Wriihig. — Tibetans write from left to right in horizontal lines, using 

 a bamboo pen or nyugu (pi. 29, fig. 8), which they carry in pen cases 

 (nyushii) of metal, brass, copper, or silver (figs. and 7), in form like a 

 sheath, with a sliding top and rings on either side, by which it may be 

 suspended by a cord from the girdle. Hanging from the same string 

 is a small ink pot {napang) also of metal, in which they carry dissolved 

 iiidia ink [natsa). In fig. 7 is shown a Lh'asan silver pen case and ink 

 pot finely chased. The brass pen-case shown in fig, 6, made at Lit'aug, 

 has the eight signs of good luck in repousse work on it, A small cast 

 brass ink iiot from Lh'asa is shown in fig. 3. 



Chinese paper is usually used for letter writing, but when copying 

 books or when printing the Tibetans use paper made in Nepaul and 

 Bhutan from the bark of various species of Daphuene, and especially of 

 Edgeworthia gardneri, which has been previously washed with a little 

 milk and water, so that it may not blot. They also manufacture them- 

 selves a paper from the root of a small shrub, which is of a much thicker 

 texture and more durable than Daphne paper. In western Tibet this 

 paper is manufactured with a species of Astragalus, the whole shrub 

 being reduced to pulp. (J. D. Hooker, Himalayan Journals, ii, 162,)* 



* See also B, H, Hodgson, Miscellaneous essays relating to Indian subjects, ii, p. 251. 



