Chinese Clay Figures
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Field Museum of Natural History Publication 177 Anthropological Series Vol. XIII, No. 2 CHINESE CLAY FIGURES PART I PROLEGOMENA ON THE HISTORY OF DEFENSIVE ARMOR BY Berthold Laufer Associate Curator of Asiatic Ethnology 64 Plates and 55 Text-figures The Mrs. T. B. Blackstone Expedition Chicago 1914 CONTENTS PAGE I. History of the Rhinoceros 73 II. Defensive Armor of the Archaic Period . i?4 III. Defensive Armor of the Han Period 201 IV. History of Chain Mail and Ring Mail 237 V. The Problem of Plate Armor 258 VI. Defensive Armor of the T'ang Period 292 VII. Horse Armor and Clay Figures of Horses .... 306 CHINESE CLAY FIGURES PART I PROLEGOMENA ON THE HISTORY OF DEFENSIVE ARMOR I. HISTORY OF THE RHINOCEROS. An extensive collection of ancient clay figures gathered in the provinces of Shen-si and Ho-nan during the period from 1908 to 19 10 is the basis of the present investigation. As the character of this material gives rise to research of manifold kinds, it has been thought advisable to publish it in two separate parts. Many of the clay statu- ettes which form the nucleus of our study are characterized by the wear of defensive armor, hence this first part is devoted to an inquiry into the history of defensive armor,—a task of great interest, and one which here- tofore has not been attempted. It will be recognized that this subject sheds new light on the ancient culture of China and her relations to other culture zones of Asia. The second part of this publication will deal in detail with the history of clay figures, the practice of interring them, the religious significance underlying the various types, and the culture phase of the nation from which they have emanated. Before embarking on our subject proper, a preliminary question must be decided. It is the tradition of the Chou period that the cuirasses l employed at that time were manufactured from the hides of two animals designated by the words se (No. 10,298) and si (No. 2 4218). It is imperative to have a clear understanding of what these two animals were in the early antiquity of China. As this problem is still pending, and as a close and coherent investigation of the matter has never been made, I have decided to treat it from the very beginning by means of all accessible methods, with the possible hope of a final solution. 3 The present state of the problem is as follows: Edouard Biot, 1 "Cuirass" or "cuirbouilly" is the right term for this kind of armor, as these words (like French cuirasse, Italian corazza) go back to Latin coratium ("a breast- plate of leather"), derived from the word corium ("leather"). 2 These figures refer to the numbers of the Chinese characters in the Chinese- English Dictionary of H. A. Giles. 3 Le Tcheou-li, ou Rites des Tcheou, Vol. II, p. 507 (Paris, 1851). 73 74 Chinese Clay Figures the ingenious translator of the Chou li, has expressed his opinion in these words: "I translate by buffalo the character si, and by rhinoceros the character se. These two characters x denote in the Shi king a rhinoceros or a wild buffalo, without the possibility of distinguishing between them. The skin of the rhinoceros being very thick, it seems difficult to believe that it could have been sliced, and that the pieces were sewed together, 2 in order to make cuirasses. In this case the two characters of the text 3 would designate here two species of buffalo." Palladius, in his Chinese-Russian Dictionary, treats the matter in the opposite way, and renders se by (i) "an animal resembling a wild ox," (2) "Malayan rhi- noceros," and si by "rhinoceros." Couvreur credits the word se first 4, with the latter meaning, secondly with that of bceuf sauvage. 6 Chavannes has clearly and sensibly expressed the opinion that 1 It should properly read, "words." 2 Referring to the passage of the Chou li where the hide cuirasses are mentioned. 3 In his essay on the Manners of the Ancient Chinese (in Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, Prolegomena, p. 148), Biot says that "they hunted also herds of deer, of boars, of wild oxen," on which Legge annotates, "These wild oxen would seem to be rhinoceroses." But in his original article {Journal asiatique, 1843, p. 321), Biot has added the following comment: "Le caractere si est traduit ordinairement par rhino- ceros, et c'est, en effet, son sens actuel. Lacharme a traduit, tantdt bos sylvestris, tant6t rhinoceros. II me semble que les grandes chasses devaient Stre dirig£es surtout contre des troupeaux de bceufs sauvages ou buffles." The objections raised by Biot in the above passage are not valid; it is certainly possible to slice rhinoceros-hide, and to sew the pieces together. Cuirasses and shields have been made from it, as may be seen from many specimens in the collections of our museums. A shield of rhinoceros- hide is illustrated in Plate XXVII. In accordance with the above definition, Biot, likewise in his translation of the Annals of the Bamboo Books (Extrait du Journal asiatique 1841 and 1842, pp. 41, 46), rendered se by "rhinoceros" and si by "bceuf- si (rhinoceros)," while Legge (Chinese Classics, Vol. Ill, Prolegomena, pp. 149, 153) in both cases has "rhinoceros." It will be seen in the course of this investigation how Biot's error was caused, and that his opinion is untenable. W. R. Gingell (The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese, p. 81, London, 1852) treated the two words in a way opposite to that of Biot, translating in the passage of Chou li the term si kia by "rhinoceros-hide armor" and se kia by "wild buffalo 's-hide armor." No one of those who from purely philological points of view proposed the rendering "wild buffalo" has ever taken the trouble to raise the question whether anything like wild buffalo exists in China, anciently or in modern times. Bushell (The Stone Drums of the Chou Dynasty, Journal China Branch R. As. Soc, Vol. VIII, 1874, P- l 5A) was of the opinion that the ancient Chinese hunted the rhinoceros in the low swamps. 4 The passage in Lun yu (xvi, 7) is translated by Couvreur (Les quatre livres, p. 250), "Si un tigre ou un bceuf sauvage s'^chappe de sa cage." Nevertheless in the glossary (p. 664) the;,word se is rendered by "rhinoceros." Legge (Chinese Classics, Vol. I, p. 307) translates here "rhinoceros," despite Chu Hi's (undoubtedly wrong) interpretation of se being a ye niu (" wild bull ") . In his first edition of Lun yu (which is not accessible to me, but this may be gleaned from Plath, Die Beschaftigungen der alten Chinesen, p. 56), Legge translated se by "wild ox." In the text of Ming-tse in (III, 2, ix, 6), Legge (Classics, Vol. II, p. 281) and Couvreur (/. c, p. 452) are mutual accord in translating the word si by "rhinoceros," and this is likewise the case with reference to the word se in Li ki, II, 1, in, 40 (Legge in Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXVII, p. 158; Couvreur, Li ki, Vol. I, p. 181). In Tso chuan,\n, 2, Legge (Classics, Vol. V, p. 289) renders si se by "rhinoceroses and wild bulls." 6 Les M6moires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. Ill, p. 502. History of the Rhinoceros 75 se niu and si appear to be two different species of rhinoceros. Also G. Deveria 1 has translated se and si by "rhinoceros." Bretschneider, both a naturalist and an eminent sinologue, upheld the opinion that the rhinoceros, and goblets made from rhinoceros-horn, are repeatedly mentioned in the Chinese classics, and that the latter has been reputed from time immemorial for its antipoisonous virtues. He refers the saying that rhinoceros-horn cures all poisons, to the Shen-nung pen ts'ao king, attributed by tradition to the mythical Emperor Shen-nung, 2 at all events the most ancient Chinese materia medica in existence. In the first edition of his Chinese-English Dictionary, Professor Giles, the eminent sinologue at the University of Cambridge, Eng- land, attributed to both se and si the meaning of "rhinoceros," with- out establishing a distinction between the two. In the second edition, however, we read under se (No. 10,298), "A bovine animal, figured as a buffalo with one horn, known as the se niu. Another name for the si 4128; see 8346 for its confusion with the rhinoceros." Under the last- named heading it is said that the term si niu is "a bovine animal, figured as a buffalo with a single horn;" with the addition that the traditional "rhinoceros" of foreigners seems to be wholly wrong. Further, the reader is requested to correct No. 4128 si, where the meanings "tapir" and "rhinoceros" had been given. In his "Adver- saria Sinica" (p. 394), Mr. Giles has expounded more in detail the reasons which induced him to make these alterations. The arguments advanced by him are briefly three: 1. The rhinoceros is known to the Chinese as pi kio, "nose-horn." 2. In two passages of Chao Ju-kua (translation of Hirth and Rockhill, pp. 118, 233), rhinoceroses are spoken of as being shot with arrows, while Giles finds it stated in the T'u shu tsi ch'eng that arrows cannot pierce the hide of the rhinoceros. 3. The si and the se are figured in the latter work as slightly differing 1 Histoire des relations de la Chine avec l'Annam, p. 88 (Paris, 1880).