NOTES ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF TIBET. 723 



The khata or scarf of felicitation plays such au important role iu Tibetan life that 

 it is in place to say something of it. The khata is a piece of sillv, nearly as tine aa 

 gauze. Its color is a bluish white. Its length is al>out three times its width ; the 

 two extremities usually terminate in fringes. There are khata-s of every size and 

 price; for it is an object that the poor as well as the rich can not do without. No 

 one ever goes anywhere without carrying a small supply of them with him. When 

 one pays a formal visit, when one has a service to ask of some one, or to thank a 

 person, the first thing to do is to unroll a khata; it ia taken iu both hands and offered 

 to the person one wishes to honor. If two friends, not having met for some time, 

 suddenly run across each other, the first thing they do is to offer each other a khata. 

 It is done with as much empressement and as promptly as one shakes hands iu Europe. 

 It is also customary when one writes a letter to fold Tip in it a little khata. It is 

 incredible what importance the Tibetans, Si-Fan, Hung-Mao-£ul, and all the people 

 living to the west of the Blue Sea attach to the khata ceremony. It is among them 

 the purest and sincerest expression of all noble sentiments. The finest words, the 

 most costly preoents, are nothing without the khata. With it, on the contrary, the 

 most ordinary object acquires immense value. If some one asks a favor of you, a 

 khata in his hand, it is impossible to refuse it, unless one wishes to show contempt 

 %r all rules of propriety. (Hue, Souvenirs d'uu voyage, ii, p. 88.) 



Besides these everyday usages referred to by Hue to which the Ic'atag 

 is put, it is the most ordinary form of ottering- to the gods. Huudreds 

 aud thousands of tliem are suspended on the statues of the gods in 

 every temple or shrine in Tibet and Mongolia, and in some sections of 

 the country a Ihxtag of a certain quality, called by the Chinese icu chai 

 shou-pa, is a recognized standard of value in commercial transactions. 

 (Land of the Lamas, pp. 66y 105, and p. 122, note.*) 



Ceremonial scarfs appear to have been at one time used among the 

 Chinese. In 1575 Mendoza visited Fu-chou, in the province of Fu-kien, 

 and was received with several other missionaries by the viceroy, 

 who — 



commanded iu his presence to put about the neckes of the friers, in manner of a 

 scarfe, to eyther of them sixe peeces of silke and unto the shoulders of their com- 

 panions, and unto Omoncou and Suisay, each of them foure peeces and to everyone 

 of their servantes two a peece * * * so with the silke about their neckes, and 

 with the branches iu their hands, they returned out of the hall and downe the 

 staires the way they came, and through the court into the streetes. (Mendoza, 

 History of China, Hakluyt Soc. Edit., ii, p. 83.) 



A similar custom would appear to have existed in India in olden 

 times; for we read in early Buddhist works of a piece of light stuff 

 being put over the shoulders or around the neck of an honored 

 person. 



Games and toys. — I have given much time, while traveling iu Tibet, 

 to inquiring concerning toys for children and games, and have also 

 carefully examined nearly all the works of Asiatic and European trav- 

 elers for information on these subjects, but I have failed to hear of or 

 learn anything of any importance on these subjects. What I wrote in 

 The Land of the Lamas (p. 248) concerning the Tibetans of the Horba 

 country seems applicable to the whole land: 



* See also Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc., n. s., xxiii, p. 228, and Turner, Embassy to Court 

 of Teshoo Lama, p. 233. 



