Occupational marks help to identify the unknown dead or amnesic. To this purpose, some are very valuable, some are moderately valuable, and some are considered of little value, if they are rare, obsolete, or from faraway lands.1 Japan is a distant country, but close to the United States at the present time. Consequently, an occupational mark, even if rare and found only in Japan, is of more than academic interest.
In the April, 1947, and May, 1950, issue of the National Geographic Magazine appeared illustrations of two finger-nails of a Japanese silk weaver. The edges of these nails were dented by a fine file-work so that they resembled a saw or a rake or a comb. The worker is not a common textile worker, but belongs to a select group of silk-weaving artists, a secluded old group, making elaborately designed silk fabrics. He