Hides. The thick hides of pachydermatous animals correspond to the quilted armour of ancient and semi-civilized races. Some animals, like the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, are entirely armed in this way; others have their defences on the most vulnerable part, as the mane of the lion, and the shoulder pad of the boar.[31] The skin of the tiger is of so tough and yielding a nature, as to resist the horn of the buffalo when driven with full force against its sides.[32] The condor of Peru has such a thick coating of feathers, that eight or ten bullets may strike without piercing it.[33]
Plate VII.
According to Thucydides, the Locrians and Acarnanians, being professed thieves and robbers, were the first to clothe themselves in armour.[34] But as a general rule it may be said, that the opinions of ancient writers upon the origin of the customs with which they were familiar, are of little value in our days. There is, however, evidence to show that the use of defensive armour is not usual amongst savages in the lowest stages of culture. It is not employed, properly speaking, by the Australians, the Bushmen, the Fuegians, or in the Fiji or Sandwich Islands. But in other parts of the world, soon after men began to clothe themselves in the skins of beasts, they appear to have used the thicker hides of animals for purposes of defence. When the Esquimaux apprehends hostility, he takes off his ordinary shirt, and puts on a deer’s skin, tanned in such a manner as to render it thick for defence, and over this he again draws his ordinary shirt, which is also of deer-skin, but thinner in substance. The Esquimaux also use armour of eider drake’s skin.[35] The Abipones and Indians of the Grand Chako arm themselves with a cuirass, greaves, and helmet, composed of the thick hide of the tapir, but they no longer use it against the musketry of the Europeans.[36] The Yucanas also use shields of the same material. The war-dress of a Patagonian chief from the Museum of the Institution is exhibited (Plate VII, figs. 11, 12); it is composed of seven thicknesses of hide, probably of the horse, upon the body, and three on the sleeves. The chiefs of the Musgu negroes of Central Africa use for defence a strong doublet of the same kind, made of buffalo’s hide with the hair inside.[37] The Kayans of Borneo use hide for their war-dress, as shown by a specimen belonging to the Institution (Fig. 13). The skin of the bear and panther is most esteemed for this purpose.[38] The inhabitants of Pulo Nias, an island off the western coast of Sumatra, use for armour a ‘baju’ made of leather. In some parts of Egypt a breastplate was made of the back of the crocodile (Fig. 14). In the island of Cayenne, in 1519, the inhabitants used a breastplate of buffalo’s hide.[39] The Lesghi of Tartary wore armour of hog’s skin.[40] The Indians of Chili, in the seventeenth century, wore corselets, back and breast plates, gauntlets, and helmets of leather, so hardened, that it is described by Ovalle as being equal to metal.[41] According to Strabo (p. 306), the German Rhoxolani wore helmets, and breastplates of bull’s hide, though the Germans generally placed little reliance in defensive armour. The Ethiopians used the skins of cranes and ostriches for their armour.[42]
Plate VIII.
We learn from Herodotus that it was from the Libyans the Greeks derived the apparel and aegis of Minerva, as represented upon her images, but instead of a pectoral of scale armour, that of the Libyans was merely of skin.[43] According to Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Roman Antiquities (s.v. lorica), the Greek ‘thorax’, called στάδιος, from its standing erect by its own stiffness, was originally of leather, before it was constructed of metal. In Meyrick’s Ancient Armour, there is the figure of a suit, supposed formerly to have belonged to the Rajah of Guzerat (Plate VIII, fig. 15). The body part of this suit is composed of four pieces of rhinoceros hide, showing that, in all probability, this was the material originally employed for that particular class of armour, which is now produced of the same form in metal, a specimen of which, from the Museum of the Institution, taken from the Sikhs, is now exhibited (Fig. 16).
Plate IX.
In more advanced communities, as skins began to be replaced by woven materials, quilted armour supplied the place of hides. In those parts of the Polynesian Islands in which armour is used, owing probably to the absence of suitable skins, woven armour appears to have been employed in a comparatively low state of society. Specimens of this class of armour from the Museum of the Institution are exhibited; they are from the Kingsmill Islands, Pleasant Island, and the Sandwich Islands. A helmet from the latter place (Pl. VIII, fig. 17) much resembles the Grecian in form, while the under tippet, from Pleasant Island (Pl. VII, fig. 18), may be compared to the pectoral of the Egyptians (Fig. 19, a and b), which, as well as the head-dress (Pl. VIII, fig. 20), was of a thickly quilted material. The Egyptians wore this pectoral up to the time of Xerxes, who employed their sailors, armed in this way, during his expedition into Greece. Herodotus says that the Indians of Asia wore a thorax of rush matting.[44] In 1514, Magellan[45] found tunics of quilted cotton, called ‘laudes’, in use by the Muslims of Guzerat and the Deccan. An Indian helmet of this description from my collection (Fig. 21) is exhibited; in form it resembles the Egyptian, and an Ethiopian one (Fig. 22), composed of beads of the same form, brought from Central Africa by Consul Petherick, is exhibited. Fig. 23 shows that the same form, in India, was subsequently produced in metal. A suit of quilted armour formerly belonging to Koer Singh, and lately presented to the Institution by Sir Vincent Eyre, is also exhibited (Plate VII, fig. 24). The body armour and helmet found upon Tippoo Sahib at his death, which are now in the Museum of the Institution (Plate IX, fig. 25, a, b, and c), were thickly quilted. Upon the breast, this armour consists of two sheets of parchment, and nine thicknesses of padding composed of cocoons of the Saturnia mylitta, stuffed with the wool of the Eriodendron anfractuosum, D.C., neatly sewn together, as represented in fig. 25 b.[46] The Aztecs and Peruvians also guarded themselves with a wadded cotton doublet.[47] Quilted armour or thick linen corselets were used by the Persians, Phoenicians, Chalybes, Assyrians, Lusitanians, and Scythians, by the Greeks, and occasionally by the Romans.[48] By the Persians it was used much later; and in Africa to this day, quilted armour, of precisely the same description, is used both for men and horses by the Bornouese of Central Africa, and is described by Denham and Clapperton[49] (Plate VIII, fig. 26). Plate VII, fig. 27, is a suit of armour in the Institution, from the Navigator Islands, composed of coco-nut fibre coarsely netted. Fig. 28 is part of a Chinese jacket of sky-blue cotton, quilted with enclosed plates of iron; it is precisely similar to the ‘brigandine jacket’ used in Europe in the sixteenth century, which was composed of ‘small plates of iron quilted within some stuff’, and ‘covered generally with sky-blue cloth’.[50] This class of armour may be regarded as a link connecting the quilted with the scale armour, to be described hereafter.