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EAST ASIA.
form a straight line nearly across the face. The eyes are somewhat deep-set and
of a rich liquid brown colour, with a singularly soft expression, corresponding to
the gentle and kindly character of the people. The skin is described as almost
white, or else of a delicate olive brown tint, thin and light enough to show the
changes of colour in the cheeks.
What little is known of the Aino language is sufficient to show that it has no
sort of affinity to that of the Japanese, which greatly surpasses it in softness. But
although many words end in sibilants, it is modulated with an almost musical
accent, and spoken with such slight
dialectic differences, that the interpreters from
the Kurile Islands have no difficulty in understanding the people of South Yeso.
There is no literature, and hitherto none of the Ainos have learned to read or write,
except a few youths sent to the schools at Tokio. But they have an excellent
memory, and are quick at sums. By means of little notched sticks and knotted
strings, like the Peruvian quippos, they keep all their accounts on the decimal
system, and readily detect any attempts of the dealers to cheat them. Their
wooden utensils, with carved designs, also attest their artistic skill and good taste,
while the musical faculty is highly developed. Their melancholy airs are sung with
a shrill voice, and their string instruments are ingeniously constructed of the
tendons of the whales stranded on the coast.
The Ainos lead a wretched existence exclusively engaged in hunting and fishing.
They follow the bear, deer and fox, and capture all the large cetacea except the
whale, to whom they thus show their gratitude for driving the shoals of herrings
up the creeks in spring. When a bear's cub is found in the lair, it is brought
home and given to a nurse, who suckles and rears it with her own children. For
six months the animal is treated as a member of the family, but in autumn a great
feast is held, winding up with a banquet, at which the bear is devoured.
" We
kill you, oh, bear," they cry while sacrificing it,
"
but you will soon return to us
in an Aino." The head stuck on a stake in front of the hut henceforth protects
the household of its former host. The heads of deer are also wrapped in leaves
and placed on poles, generally in the forest where they have been struck down.
Such are the chief religious ceremonies of the Ainos, who, in this respect, belong
to the same group as the East Siberian tribes, amongst whom travellers have
observed analogous rites. Like the Golds of Manchuria, the Ainos are very fond
of the company of animals. In nearly all the villages bears and eagles are kept in
large cages, and become objects of family worship.
Sun, moon, and stars, are also
"
them,
worshipped ; besides " the sea which feeds, the forest which protects
all the forces of nature, and the Kamui, or heavenly and earthly spirits, which are
found both in the old Japanese cosmogony and in that of the East Siberian races.
They also invoke the Japanese hero Yositsune, who vanquished their forefathers,
because the legend praises his clemency to the conquered. Strangers, to whom
they show hospitality, are also honoured by the title of Kamui, and, like the Japanese
Sintoists, they profess a profound devotion for the shades of their ancestors.
The house of the departed is levelled, and the materials burnt or dried, after which
a new dwelling is erected to him, resembling the one he occupied on earth. The