522 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



which the head was thrust. Thus originated the earliest form of the 

 so-called "kimono" type of gannent, typical of all eastern Asia, in 

 marked contrast to the fitted and tailored clothing found in the 

 Northern and Western Cultures. The loin cloth (the Japanese 

 fundoshi) also perhaps belongs to the Coastal Culture; for it is still 

 occasionally to be seen in the island of Hainan, where, however, it 

 seems not to have been a very ancient feature. Possibly also bark 

 cloth was made. Tattooing in various patterns, perhaps totemic in 

 nature,* as also the staining of the teeth black, were like^vdse customary. 

 Another practice sometimes mentioned was that described as "drink- 

 ing through the nose." This is a special way of drinking certain 

 stimulants by sucking them through a tube of some sort, by way of 

 the nose. Bathing in rivers was quite general, as was also the practice 

 of pouring warm water over the body (cf . the latter practice in Japan). 

 Cockfighting was characteristic. An important arm was the cross- 

 bow, just as the Southern Culture is distinguished by its use of poisoned 

 weapons. The horse was entirely unlaiown. Walled towns, origi- 

 nally absent, appeared later, bcj^ond much doubt as a foreign intrusion. 

 In their place, communal houses were typical — long pile dwellings 

 beneath whose elevated floors were kept the domestic animals. 

 Cultivation seems to have been carried on in fields cleared by fire, with 

 the aid of the digging-stick and the spade; the latter of these imple- 

 ments, however, perhaps did not come into use until later. In later 

 times also rice-growing was adopted from the Southern Culture by 

 that of the coast, through which it eventually traveled still farther, 

 even to Japan. Notched sticks (tallies) and knotted cords (quipus) 

 as means of recording events or sending messages receive such frequent 

 mention that they must have been typical of tliis Coastal Culture. 

 The sun was regarded as feminine, the moon as masculine. 



The traits just enumerated are obviously so heterogeneous that 

 they cannot possibly have originated in any one culture. Such a 

 condition seems most likely to have been due to the superposition of 

 the real Austronesian bearers of this culture, in the hilly country on 

 the one hand upon the Li people, in the plains on the other upon the 

 possessors of the Southern Culture; from both of these they would in 

 time have absorbed certain culture elements. Sometliing of tliis 

 sort, at least, appears the most probable solution of the problem. 

 Perhaps, however, it will eventually appear that we must seek in this 

 connection still another early culture, whose very existence we as yet 

 hardly suspect. 



The entire structure, in fact, which I have tried to erect is so far 

 merely an experimental one, certain to need rebuilding and carrying 



« Perhaps these same patterns were also displayed on the garments, as F. Rmnpf has suggested In the case 

 of the Japanese. The designs on the clothing se«m usually to have been worked on them in cross stitch. 

 Even today among some aboriginal peoples of southern China, certain designs on the rlothinp are tynica) 

 of certain families or other social groups. 



