302 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



the Khitan name hu-tu-si. It is said to be veined like 

 (elephant) ivory, and to be of a yellow colour; its chief use 

 was for sword-hilts or knife-handles; and Hung Hao denom- 

 inates it "a priceless jewel." In an ancient glossary of 

 Khitan words composed in the Liao period (907-1125 A. D.) 

 this hu-tu-si is defined as "the horn of a thousand years' old 

 snake," and this definition is supplemented by a statement 

 of T'ao Tsung-i in his "Cho keng-lu," published in 1366, that 

 it is "the horn of a large snake, and as it is poisonous by 

 nature, it can counteract all poisons, for poison is treated 

 with poison." This fancy indicates a transference to the 

 hu-tu-si of the old belief touching the qualities of the rhinoc- 

 eros horn as an antidote to poisons. That narwhal ivory 

 should be represented as derived from "snakes' horns" is 

 explained as a fanciful, half-poetic notion of the inland 

 natives who worked this material and traded it with the 

 Chinese, but to whom it had been brought from the far- 

 distant north and who had no clear idea of what a narwhal 

 really was; very possibly these supposed narwhal tusks 

 were really fossil ivory from Siberia. Ko Hung, a Taoist 

 writer of the fourth century A. D., represents the special 

 virtue of rhinoceros horn as due to the fact that in the indis- 

 criminate vegetable diet of this animal some poisonous herbs 

 were included. The poison was attracted to the horn, 

 and made it an antidote on the principle that like cures 



like.* 



Two important passages in a mineralogical treatise by the 

 Arabic writer Al-Beruni (973-1048 A. D.)t describing a 

 product called in Arabic al-chutww, are referred by Doctor 

 Laufer to this hu-tu-si (walrus ivory). Al-Berunl writes: 



*'It originates from an animal; it is much in demand, and 



*0p cit., p. 11. 



tCited by E. Wiedemann in "Der Islam." Vol. II, pp. 345-358; "Ueber den Wert von 

 Edelsteinen bei den Muslimen." 



