Students no longer seriously regard the Chinese civilization as unitary in origin–as derived, in other words, from any single source. It appears rather to have developed out of the interaction, over a long period, of several antecedent cultures. Certain of its elements, past or present, are northern, even circumpolar, in distribution Others appeared first in the distant West, and only reached China (overland, not by sea) considerably later. Others still originated in southeastern Asia itself. Among traits of the last-named class are the two forming the subject of the present paper.