National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

in books. The analogies do not depend on any cultural connections but on similar
climatic conditions. Both at Lop-nor and in the desert parts of N. America the cli-
mate is so arid that objects which in other localities would have perished have been
astonishingly well preserved.

The Ephedra plant has been in use in the Chinese pharmacy for a long time. It is
not impossible that its medical quality was known as early as 2,000 years ago. I have
asked Dr. D. Hummel, the surgeon of the expedition, who has experience of Ephed-
ra both as a medical man and as a botanist, if the presence of Ephedra twigs in the
coffins could account for the preservation of the mummies. He was not convinced
that the Ephedra twigs would act as a preservative agent unless present in large
amounts. In Grave 5 A there was a certain quantity; the photo Pl. VI c gives indeed
the impression that the belly of the mummy was stuffed with Ephedra twigs. Such
small amounts, however, as those placed in the bundles tied on the mantles can
hardly have been of any importance as preservatives.

But Ephedra is an ever-green, and this feature, apart from the medicinal qualities
of the plant, may have caused primitive peoples to regard it as possessing vitalizing
powers, and therefore useful to the dead in this respect.

Stein does not believe in the interpretation of this burial practice as a symbolic
provision to prevent decay of the corpses; he only refers to the potential medicinal
qualities of the plant. (Stein 1930—32).

An Ephedra is used nowadays by the Parsees of Bombay to produce their sac-
red beverage Homa. The Parsee priests say that the Homa never decays, and they
keep it for a considerable time before they use it.

Gerhard Bexell has kindly furnished me with the following important inform-
ation about the use of the Ephedra plant among the Tibetans in Nan-shan south of
Suchow.

Those of the Tibetans who cremate their dead take merely a few logs as a found-
ation for the funeral pyre, which consists mainly of Ephedra bushes. During the
combustion the Ephedra plants develop a strong aroma which somewhat weakens
the stench from the cremation.

The Ephedra plant is also used for the fabrication of incense in this region. The
untreated twigs are sometimes used as incense by the poor, or in cases where proper
incense is unobtainable.

These facts show the significance of the Ephedra twigs as a predecessor of in-
cense-sticks, and also confirm the view that the use of incense as an offering has
developed out of the pure necessity to milden the smell of the burning corpse or the
burning sacrificial meat through adding some fragrant agent. In the course of
time this detail has become dissociated from its origin, developed into the use of
incense sticks and become in itself a sacrifice.

The occurrence in some coffins of grains of wheat and millet show that the
people carried on agriculture to a certain extent. It is less likely that these handfuls

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