226  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
of  bone  and  in  form  are  identical  with  those  used  on  St.  Lawrence 
Island  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  distribution  of  bone  (or  ivory) 
armor  in  Alaska  is  limited  to  the  Bering  Strait  area  where  it  was  used 
by  the  Eskimos  at  Wales,  on  the  Diomede  and  St.  Lawrence  Islands, 
and  bv  the  Eskimos,  Chukchee,  and  Koryak  in  northeastern  Siberia 
(Nelson,  1899,  p.  330;  Bogoras,  1904-09,  pp.  162-168;  Jochelson, 
1905-08,  pp.  562-563). 
In  approaching  the  question  of  the  origin  and  relationships  of 
Eskimo  armor  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  the  types  occurring  in 
other  parts  of  America  and  Asia.  Fortunately  for  our  purpose, 
aboriginal  American  armor  has  l^een  subjected  to  a  careful  study  by 
Hough  (1895).  whose  valuable  paper  provides  detailed  information 
on  armor  types  from  Bering  Strait  southward,  while  Laufer's  scholarly 
treatise  (1914)  has  thrown  a  flood  of  light  on  the  important  problem 
of  Chinese  armor  in  relation  to  that  of  other  Asiatic  peoples. 
Hough  (1895,  pp.  631-632)  lists  six  types  of  armor  used  by  the 
American  Indians : 
Plate  armor. — Rows  of  overlapping  plates,  perforated  and  lashed.  Eskimo 
and   Chukchis. 
Slat  armor. — Wooden  slats  twined  together.  Sitkans,  Shastas,  Iroquois, 
Virginia  Indians. 
Rod  armor. — Wooden  rods  twined  together.  Aleuts,  Sitkans,  Columbia  River 
tribes,  Klamaths,  Hupas,  Iroquois,  Virginia  Indians,  etc. 
Baud  armor. — Bands  of  skin  arranged  in  telescoping  fashion.     Chukchis. 
Skin  armor. — Coats  of  hardened  hide.  Tlingits,  Haidas,  Hupas,  Chinooks, 
Navajocs  [traditional],  Mohawks,  Shoshones,  Pawnees  [traditional,]  Coman- 
chcs,  etc. 
Cotton-padded  armor. — Mexicans,   Isthmians,  and   Peruvians. 
In  the  distribution  of  North  American  armor  types  Hough  recog- 
nizes three  well-defined  areas,  (i)  Bering  Strait;  (2)  Western,  ex- 
tending from  southeastern  Alaska  to  northern  California,  the  Central 
basin  and  Mexico;  and  (3)  Eastern,  extending  from  southeastern 
Canada  to  Virginia. 
The  Bering  Strait  area  is  characterized  by  the  use  of  two  types, 
the  plate  armor  of  bone,  ivory,  and  occasionally  iron,  and  the  banded 
armor  of  skin.  The  Diomede  and  Wales  Eskimos  use  only  the  plate 
armor ;  the  Chukchee,  Siberian  and  St.  Lawrence  Eskimos  use  both 
types. 
In  the  Western  area  we  find  four  types — skin,  rod,  slat,  and  in 
Mexico  and  Central  America,  padded  cotton.  These  were  not  mutually 
exclusive  as  both  the  skin  and  wooden  types — rod  and  slat — were  often 
used  by  the  same  tribe.  The  skins  employed  were  those  of  elk,  bison 
