Aino Folk-Tales

31/10/2016 Aino Folk­Tales
arrangement. The "Scraps of Folk­Lore," which have been added at the end, may perhaps be considered out
of place in a collection of tales. But I thought it better to err on the side of inclusion than on that of exclusion.
For it may be presumed that the object of any such investigation is rather to gain as minute an acquaintance
as possible with the mental products of the people studied, than scupulously to conform to any system.
There must be a large number of Aino fairy­tales besides those here given, as the chief tellers of stories, in
Aino­land as in Europe, are the women, and I had mine from men only, the Aino women being much too shy
of male foreigners for it to be possible to have much conversation with them. Even of the tales I myself
heard, several were lost through the destruction of certain papers,—among others at least three of the
Panaumbe and Penaumbe Cycle, which I do not trust myself to reconstruct from memory at this distance of
time. Many precious hours were likewise wasted, and much material rendered useless, by the national vice of
drunkenness. A whole month at Hakodate was spoilt in this way, and nothing obtained from an Aino named
Tomtare, who had been procured for me by the kindness of H. E. the Governor of Hakodate. One can have
intercourse with men who smell badly, and who suffer, as almost all Ainos do from lice and from a variety of
disgusting skin­diseases. It is a mere question of endurance and of disinfectants. But it is impossible to obtain
information from a drunkard. A third reason for the comparatively small number of tales which it is possible
to collect during a limited period of intercourse is the frequency of repetitions. No doubt such repetitions
have a confirmatory value, especially when the repetition is of the nature of a variant. Still, one would
willingly spare them for the sake of new tales.
The Aino names appended to the stories are those of the men by whom they were told to me, viz. Penri, the
aged chief of Piratori; Ishanashte of Shumunkot; Kannariki of Poropet (Jap. Horobetsu); p. 7 and Kuteashguru
of Sapporo. Tomtare of Yūrap does not appear for the reason mentioned above, which spoilt all his
usefulness. The only mythological names which appear are Okikurumi, whom the Aino regard as having
been their civilizer in very ancient times, his sister­wife Turesh, or Tureshi[hi] and his henchman
Samayunguru. The "divine symbols," of which such constant mention is made in the tales, are the inao or
whittled sticks frequently described in books of travels.
Miyamoshita, Japan,
20th July, 1887.
BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN.
I.—TALES ACCOUNTING FOR THE ORIGIN OF PHENOMENA.
i.—The Rat and the Owl.*
An owl had put by for next day the remains of something dainty which he had to eat. But a rat stole it,
whereupon the owl was very angry, and went off to the rat's house, and threatened to kill him. But the rat
apologised, saying: "I will give you this gimlet and tell you how you can obtain from it pleasure far greater
than the pleasure of eating the food which I was so rude as to eat up. Look here! you must stick the gimlet
with the sharp point upwards in the ground at the root of this tree; then go to the top of the tree yourself, and
slide down the trunk."
Then the rat went away, and the owl did as the rat had instructed him. But, sliding down on to the sharp
gimlet, he impaled himself on it, and suffered great pain, and, in his grief and rage, went off to kill the rat.
But again the rat met him with apologies, and, as a peace­offering, gave him a cap for his head.
These events account for the thick cap of erect feathers which the owl wears to this day, and also for the
enmity between the owl and the rat.—(Written down from memory. Told by Ishanashte, 25th November,
1886.)
ii.—The Loves of the Thunder­Gods.
http://www.sacred­texts.com/shi/aft/aft.htm#I 5/31