Battle armour money...
Chinese coin presents riddle in Yukon bush
yukon-news.com
A 300-year-old Chinese coin discovered in the Yukon bush this summer is raising tantalizing questions about trade connections that long predated the Klondike Gold Rush.
The coin, minted between 1667 and 1671, appears to have been carried into the Yukon’s interior long before stampeders headed for Dawson City in 1898.
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He suspects that Russian traders served as intermediaries between the Chilkats and Chinese. Russian trade along the Pacific Northwest is known to have occurred as early as the 1740s. They came for furs - primarily sea otter, but also seal, fox, beaver, lynx and marten.
“The Russians would make this loop,” said Mooney. “They’d come down, take the furs, trade with the First Nations, and then go back up to Southeast Asia and trade for glass beads, silk, other cloth, coinage and other metals.”
The Tlingit came to value Chinese coins, sometimes as trinkets and charms, but more often for a more practical purpose. They used them to make armour, by sewing them in overlapping patterns.
One Tlingit warrior’s coin-laden vest is now on display at the American Museum of Natural History, after it was collected by the famous anthropologist, Franz Boaz.
Chinese coins are minted with holes in their centres, which proved handy for sewing on to clothes. The coin discovered by Mooney’s team also had four smaller holes drilled in each corner - another hint it may have been attached to clothing, said Mooney. |
