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11

dropping off its prefix Ts'ui-chia; [[strikethrough]]and[[/strikethrough]] ^[[it was]] renamed as Hou Hsiao-t'un(後小屯). But as early as the third year of Tao-kuang(道光三年=1823 A.D.) the further abbreviated name, Hsiao-t'un, already appeared in a family paper of Chang Hsüeh-hsien(張學獻), who is now the wealthiest man of the village, and consequently also its chief at present. Thus the name Hsiao-t'un has existed already a little over one hundred years.

2. Yin-hsü since 1899 A.D.

In the year 1899, Fan Wei-ch'ing(范維卿) of Wei Hsien(潍縣), Shantung, first offered the inscribed bones to the curio market. For a number of years, the farms north of the village Hsiao-t'un and south west of the Huan River had yielded tortoise shells and sho^[[u]]lder bones of ox, inscribed with archaic Chinese characters. Li Ch'en[[superscript]]12[[/superscript]] (李成) was the only native villager who was shrewd enough to find in these bones a good source for extra earning. He collected them assiduously and sold them to the drug stores as dragon bones. It is said that Li Ch'en traded these bones to the druggists for several ten years before Fan Wei-ch'in stepped into this business.

In the academic circle it is still believed that Wang I-yung(王㦤禜) was the first to discover the historical value of these bones. But the villagers of Hsiao-t'un assured us that if Fan Wei-ch'in was the first curio dealer to get interested in these bones, Tuan Fang(端方) was the first connoisseur to discover their historical quali-[[ty]]

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[[Footnote]] 12. Li Ch'en died sometime ago. He made "dragon bone" dealing a life business. In this case the so-called dragon bones, are wholly oracle bones. He sold them both in retail and by wholesale. The wholesale business was transacted with the druggists who purchased them at six cashes per cady. Inscribed bones were not wanted, so to suit the demand, the inscriptions were scraped off before the bones were offered for sale. The retail business was carried during the annual spring fair, the bones were ground into powders and marked as "sword point medicine"(刀尖藥).