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400
EAST ASIA.
THE ABORIGINES OF JAPAN.
The dominant people in Japan are evidently a mixed race,
in which the Aino
element is but slightly represented. According to the prepossession of observers,
they have been affiliated to various stocks ; but although Whitney and Morton
regard them as members of the Caucasic family, most anthropologists class them
with the Mongol races of Siberia and East Asia. The Chinese records referring to
the land of Wo, that is, of Japan, before the inhabitants were acquainted
Fig. 185. PRIMITIVE POPULATIONS OP NIP-PON, ACCORDING TO THE JAPANESE ANNALS.
Scale 1 : 15,000.000.
Kmaso or Yusou. Yamato. Yemisi or Yebsis Itinerary of Kamou Yamato
Aino. Ivare biko.
300 Miles.
with the
art of writing, mention certain facts attesting the preponderating influence of
Chinese civilisation even at that remote epoch. Migrations must have taken place
from the Yang-tze basin to the adjacent archipelago, and according to one legend
the ancestors of the Japanese race were three hundred young men and women sent
across the seas by the Emperor Tsin-Shi-hwangti in search of the " flower of immor-
tality." Many have suspected the presence of Malay elements amongst the inhabitants
of Nip-pon, while the
curly hair and dark complexion common in the south
have been referred by Siebold to a mixture with " Alfuros," Melanesiuns, and Caroline
Islanders. Vessels may certainly have often drifted northwards with the equatorial