EARLY CHINESE CULTURES— EBERHARD 517 



certain folkname of a neighboiing people who, under the form Jurjen, 

 are perhaps to be identified as the ancestors of the later Manchus. 



It is possible, perhaps even probable, that this Northern Culture, 

 for all its proto-Tungusic characteristics, contained a strong Palae- 

 asiatic element also. Excavations on NeoHthic sites in northern 

 China show that the New Stone Age population of that area, insofar 

 as it possessed this particular type of culture, lived in pit dwellings 

 about a man's height in depth and with their tops reaching only a 

 little way above ground. These people, moreover, made use even in 

 far later times of bone arrow points. For clothing they must origi- 

 nally have employed fur garments. Further, this culture had myths 

 about the fox,^ m which that animal plays the role both of a "trickster" 

 and of a semidivine being. Noteworthy also was the great freedom 

 permitted to women. This reached such a degree, indeed, that it is 

 possible to speak of something in the nature of a matriarchate ; there 

 seems likewise to have existed a custom of guest prostitution Uke that 

 found today among certain Siberian tribes. Among the myths be- 

 longing to this culture may also be that of the exposure of the hero 

 wliile still an infant and his protection by various beasts (Hou Ch'i 

 myth). In regard to this last attribution, however, I am not entirely 

 satisfied ; for here enters the question of borrowings from the Western 

 Culture (to be discussed below), since this particular type of myth 

 displays in many of its details distinct solar elements. Head flatten- 

 ing seems also to have been practised, at least occasionally, although 

 whether it was really a characteristic trait is not sure. Traces of it 

 appear, however, even today, in northern China; for there, longheaded 

 children are regarded as ugly and a child's head is therefore kept in a 

 cushioned ring which probably causes a certain amount of head de- 

 formation. Whether the dead were disposed of by means of platform 

 burial is also uncertain. This Northern Culture was in its primitive 

 form quite devoid of anything in the way of agriculture, and is accord- 

 ingly to be reckoned among the higher types of hunting and food- 

 gathering. 



2. West of the preceding was what we shall term here the Western 

 Culture. Many things about this unite to indicate that its possessors 

 were people of Turkic stock, doubtless very early intermingled with 

 other groups. To it we must ascribe a strong element of pastoral 

 nomadism with a rigidly organized patriarchate and a rehgion con- 

 sisting of the worship of the heavenly bodies. Among further char- 

 acteristics we may reckon the use of the horse, with a rite of horse- 

 sacrifice. Clothing was probably of skin. The dwelling, originally a 

 round tent, was later widely adopted as a type of habitation through- 

 out eastern Asia. Graves were marked by tumuli or mounds, hkewise 



» Concerning the details of these myths see W. Eberhard: Typen chlnesischer Marchen (F. F. Com- 

 munications, No. 120, Helsinki, 1937); for the texts, ibid., Chinese fairytales, Loudon, 1937. 



