518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



round in form. Boats, when used at all, were of hide or of mfiated 

 skins. The typical musical instrument was an earthenware drum; 

 later (perhaps through foreign influence) there appeared stringed 

 instruments. The levirate and associated practices seem to have 

 been common. The part of China occupied by this culture appears 

 to have been the northern fruige of Shensi, western Shansi, and part 

 of Kansu. 



3. Adjoining this Western Culture on the south was what may be 

 termed the Southwestern Culture. Tliis had its center in what is 

 today the province of Szechuan, and its possessors we can with cer- 

 tainty identify as the Tanguts — a people in all probability of Tibetan 

 stock. This culture must in earlier tunes have had a greater extension 

 eastward, in one direction to Honan, in another to Hupei and Hunan; 

 while it also sometimes reached southward as far as Tongking. 

 Among nearer areas later penetrated by this culture were Yunnan 

 and Tibet. 



Here too, horse breeding played an important part, along with 

 pastoral nomadism and sheep raising. Cremation was perhaps typi- 

 cal, as likewise were polyandry and the couvade. It is however 

 diiTicult to determine just what were its distinctive features; for there 

 survive, from the period when it played a part of importance for the 

 whole of China, no traditions which might supply us with clues; 

 while so far no excavations have been undertaken on sites indubitably 

 belonging to it. In later times, moreover, it lay a little to one side of 

 the main current of Chinese development, so that there exist very few 

 literary references to help us. 



4. To the east, in the heart of the present Chinese area, was the 

 Southern or Ch'u Culture, so called from the ancient kingdom of Ch'u, 

 which had its nucleus in the present province of Hupei. Next to it 

 and lying along the coast was the Coastal or Yiieh Culture, named after 

 the old state of Yiieh. Of these two cultures we shall speak later on 

 in more detail. For the moment wc may turn to the last of the early 

 cultures, one whose existence has thus far been scarcely more than 

 hypothetically established, and to which only a very few traits can be 

 assigned as definitely typical. It is, however, of extraordinary import- 

 ance to a correct understanding of the cultural situation in southern 

 and central China. This is the Li Culture, whose possessors were in 

 my opinion Austroasiatics. That we must reckon with the presence 

 of people of that stock in Chuia is rendered the more certain by the 

 fact that even to this day their remnants survive in the province of 

 Kueichow. This in itself justifies us in including them in our enu- 

 meration. There are, moreover, many other indications that in earUer 

 times they played a role of greater importance than we should at first 

 have suspected. Their culture can only have been that of a very 

 backward hill-people who were food gatherers, not growers; at most 



