The tunes seldom contain modulations from one key into another, except in the case of genius-gifted improvisators, who sometimes indulge in such a luxury, especially when intoxicated; but the usual modulation is generally begun pianissimo and in irregular time, and is sometimes like a slow lamentation gradually and irregularly increasing in force, some notes marked violently and the next very faintly, thus giving a weird effect of light and shade. When a sentence comes to an end, there is a chromatic interval fortissimo, and the keynote generally concludes the tune. The melody repeats itself again in the next sentence, sometimes altering the pianissimo into fortissimo, and vice versâ, according to the force which the narrator wishes to give to certain words. The Ainu, as far as I could judge, have no fixed rhythmical method, and each man constructs his own. Their melodies are generally short and simple, and the same phrases and passages—in fact, usually the whole melody—occur again and again in their songs. No Ainu melody that I heard was constructed according to any rule of musical form. All were invariably of one part only, in which the name of the tune was often applied to a certain form of rude poetical composition. For instance, some of the folk-lore legends—which, unfortunately, are not purely Ainu—are chanted in a musical intonation, and are a kind of extempore composition, though the roots of the songs and the verse have probably been brought down from former generations. This is proved by the preservation in them of some obsolete words and forms of speech which are never used in current conversation, and which none of the younger folks can understand or explain. I believe, however, that none of these legends are very old. The Ainu, having no written language, it is but natural that their tradition and legends should have been greatly changed and corrupted, especially by intercourse with the more imaginative Japanese. It is to be noted, however, that the Ainu, though to a certain extent as imitative as monkeys, have also a large amount of personality and originality, due to their shy and unsocial habits. This originality is not surprising when we remember that they are taught nothing, and that each man provides for himself and his family, but has no markedly friendly feelings towards his neighbours; in other words, it is a state of degradation very similar to that of wild animals. Perfect indifference is shown by the people of one village towards those of another. They are neither friends nor foes. All have a right to live, but as for helping one another, that is out of the question.
Having no written documents, each man, in his easy-going manner, recites and sings as best pleases himself such verses or legends as he has heard from his father or from some other person, and the result is that, according to the reciter's greater or smaller poetical and musical tastes, the grandfather's composition, already altered by his father, is again altered by the son, which makes it a composition of his own. This transformation of a given theme is common even among civilised nations when people are set to repeat the same story verbally transmitted from one to the other—the version of the third person has but little in common with that of the first. If this we do with a spoken narrative, how much more with tunes learned by ear only, and characterised in the delivery by individual temperament and transient mood.
The Ainu do not teach these legends to their children, and if learned at all they are merely "picked up" by ear and, in a manner, at random; therefore, most Ainu profess ignorance as to their existence, and a man, when I asked him if he knew any, scornfully answered in these identical words, translated:—"The Ainu are taught nothing, and they know nothing."
The few legends, &c., that I heard were told me by Benry at Piratori, and by another old man, the chief of a village up the Saru River. The title of one was "Tushi-une-pan"—"Twice Below;" the story of Yoshitsune, a Japanese hero, and Samoro-kuru (a Japanese man-friend of Yoshitsune), who came to Yezo and had a great struggle with a huge fish, which was harpooned by them and disappeared twice under the water, capsizing the boat which contained the two fishermen. Yoshitsune's temper was roused, and he cut the nipesh[38] rope to which the harpoon was fastened. The fish went to die at the mouth of the Saru River, when plains of hemp sprouted out of its body.
Another legend, called "Kimta-na," is a rather different and more simple version of Tushi-une-pan's story which I have just related.
Yet another variant of the same legend is found in the "Inu-sapk"—or "A Summer Story" (literally translated: Inu, hear, relate; sapk, summer), which was so very confused that I could not make head or tail of its minuter details; but, like the "Kimta-na," it was about a famine in the Ainu land.
Then there was a fourth, which went by the name of "Abe-ten-rui"—"Burning to embrace," or love-sick. It was again about Yoshitsune, who had fallen in love with a pretty Ainu maid, and could not eat either good or bad fish until she appeared to him in a dream. As Yoshitsune was a strong-minded man he got over his love, and taught the Ainu not to be deceived by woman's wiles.
These and other similar legends, some of which do not bear repeating, being too improper, can be collected at Piratori or on Volcano Bay from the half-civilised Ainu; but I am inclined to think that they are mostly concoctions of Japanese ideas construed or misconstrued in the Ainu language.
Ainu do not indulge in poetic compositions which have a definite metre, nor do they use special words for rhyme or rhythm; but all the words in their songs are intelligible, and seldom meaningless syllables are used, as in many of the chants of other savage nations. This of course is because, as has been said, their songs are merely a form of conversation adopted on certain occasions.
Some of their music seems to have been suggested to them by such animal sounds as the plaintive howling of bears, wolves, and dogs.
Music is believed by the Ainu to have the power of curing illness, or rather, of scaring away from the body those evil spirits which are supposed to have taken possession of it; but, when used as exorcism, the music is no longer grave, slow, and sentimental, but verily diabolical, consisting mainly of wild howling with an accompaniment of stamping feet and the rattling of sword and knife, and followed by a disgusting expectoration of chewed convolvulus roots, which are said to be powerful in expelling the evil spirit and restoring the sick person to health.
Furthermore, music is invariably used by the Ainu—especially by the women—to facilitate manual labour, as when pounding millet, rowing, pulling canoes on shore, or drawing water from a well, when packing sea-weed, or when preparing salmon for the winter; and also in their games, which I have already described in the chapter on the festival at Piratori.
During the process of pounding millet—which is only practised in the southern part of Yezo—two or three girls stand round a mortar in which the millet has been placed, and each girl, holding with both hands a pestle, beats and sings, one after the other, the words "Huye, huye," as the pestle is let down, increasing in loudness when the grain requires harder pounding, and slowly decreasing in volume towards the end. This pounding begins about sunset, and the place chosen for the operation is generally the small porch of the huts. It has indeed a weird effect to hear these many voices from the distant huts gradually dying away as darkness comes on, till finally only two or three break the stillness of the coming night. Then even those wear away, and everything becomes as silent as the grave.
When riding on horseback, especially if alone, young men are fond of singing, and when going through forests, chopping and collecting firewood, Ainu invariably sing.
I have often heard two or three Ainu, when packing sea-weed within a few yards of one another, each singing to himself, and each so much absorbed in his own composition as not to even hear his neighbours. An Ainu does not and cannot sing unless he feels in the mood for it; but if he sings he is carried away by his own music. Of course this is a good quality in Ainu music, as in all arts where "feeling" is to be appreciated as much as execution. The latter is to be got by constant practice and teaching; but the first has to be born in one.
My readers must forgive me if I am judging Ainu music, not from the European, but from the native standpoint, for I think it is only fair to give things as they are, without too much reference to our own ideas.
With savage nations, music is the expression of the feelings and passions of the musician. Thus, it is necessary to well know the man himself before we can understand his productions and appreciate them; and such knowledge is only attained by constantly living with natives, not as a mere stranger, but as one of them.
Very few travellers have seen the real Ainu, or studied them accurately, while many, partly owing to their inability to differentiate one race from another, have given us highly imaginative descriptions, and even photographs, of Japanese half-castes and actual Japanese, describing them as Ainu. If such worthy ethnologists as have visited the "civilised part only" of the Ainu country, have been unable to distinguish types of the hairy Ainu race from those of the hairless Japanese, or from mixtures of the two, undoubtedly racial characteristics have been but imperfectly recorded.
It is more particularly in music and poetry, as I have already explained, that temperamental characteristics are shown, and one ought to be careful to clearly define what is native music and poetry—in which I include legends, traditions, and folk-lore—and what has been transmitted by neighbouring and conquering races. Loud music is not appreciated by the Ainu, and makes them grin with more scorn than enjoyment. I could only try experiments in this direction by singing to them, as I had no European musical instruments with me; but I found that singing con brio at the top of my voice was not so pleasing to them as when I sang piano con passione. For instance, the song "Toreador," in the opera Carmen, created fits of merriment from a crowd at Frishikobets, while the same crowd, a few minutes later, listened attentively and silently to Gounod's "Ave Maria," sung in a kind of "miaoling" voice.
I may here mention incidentally, to show the different musical tastes of Ainu and Japanese, that some months previous to this I was at a concert at Tokio in which the same "Ave Maria" was performed by some distinguished European musicians. The large Japanese audience, who had been attentive and well-composed till then, went into fits of laughter when Gounod's masterpiece was played, and all through it the noise of people laughing was so great as to drown entirely the orchestra and singers. Some of the women in the audience nearly went into hysterics at the long legato notes at the beginning of the piece. Louder melodies and of a livelier character did not affect them so. I wish to draw attention to this fact, that amongst all primitive peoples the native music is sad and slow—the livelier melodies coming later; and also, that with both wild and domestic animals the most noteworthy effects are produced by slow and simple music. We all know how dogs will remain quiet and calm when a soft and gentle air is played, but get furious to the point of savageness under the "plan-plan-rataplan" of a merry noisy tune. As for the last item connected with Ainu music, viz., dancing, it is rarely practised, even by the Ainu women, to whom alone it pertains. At the best it is of a very rude form. In the Piratori festival (Chapter IV.) we have seen that their dancing is accompanied by rhythmical sounds imitating the noises produced by implements in everyday use, as the squeaking of a paddle by the friction on the canoe, the cry which accompanies the pounding of millet, blowing alight the fire, and similar sounds. Time is kept by clapping the hands and by vociferations which tell the partners what position or action to assume, each action being accompanied by a different sound, but all performed while the hopping is kept up. I have not felt justified in classifying these rhythmical sounds, which accompany the dancing, as choruses, for there is not enough in them to constitute either a tune or a melody. They are suggested more by the action of the arms and upper part of the body than by the steps; in fact, if it were not for the continuous hopping it would be more accurate to describe Ainu dancing as "posturing." The dancers form a circle, with sometimes one or two children in the centre. As there are no professional musicians, there are no professional dancers; but though each man may be his own composer of music, the women never alter their dances, which are handed down unchanged from one generation to another. It is only at festivals that the dance is performed, and never inside the huts, but in the open air. It is not for the amusement of spectators, for besides one or two of the older women, spectators there are none; but it is for the enjoyment of the dancers themselves. The men do not seem to take the slightest interest in the dancing, and apparently regard it as unmanly. They remain in the hut drinking while the girls enjoy themselves in this way outside, and should one of them by chance come out, he would stop and look on no more than men in civilised countries would stop and watch little children at play. On the other hand, on such occasions Ainu matrons squat in a semicircle not far from the dancers, and keep up a lament-like or sometimes quarrelsome conversation among themselves, and occasionally encourage the girls in their hopping, and suggesting encores of this figure or that, which, between one quarrel and another, has taken their fancy.
The mental qualities of the Ainu are not many, and what they have are by no means great; nor are they improved by education, for what they know comes more from inheritance than personal acquirement, though naturally every rule has its exceptions. I repeatedly noticed that talent, such as it was, ran in certain families, the members of which were all more or less intelligent. Certain families were more musical than others; other families were more artistic—if, indeed, such a word could be applied to the very low development of the artistic faculty when at its best among the hairy people. Various members of one household were potently insane; others were as potently idiotic. I shall not class under this heading of heredity transmitted disease, like leprosy, consumption, &c., but I shall limit myself to heredity in physical traits and mental qualities. Unfortunately, with the Ainu intercourse between the sexes is so imperfectly regulated as to often lead one to erroneous conclusions. The reader may easily imagine the difficulty of establishing precise rules of transmission in a race like the Ainu, where castes are not marked, with the exception of the chieftainship in each village, the only necessary qualifications for which are a sound, sharp intellect, a strong physique, and personal courage. The office is hereditary if these qualifications are also inherited; but should the sons or brothers of the chief prove unworthy of his place, the Ainu would assemble in a "village council" and elect another strong, clear-headed, and brave man in place of the roi fainéant thus summarily deposed. These chiefs have no absolute authority, though the men often consult them in their quarrels and difficulties, which they are asked to settle. Thus, because of these qualities necessary for the office, these chiefs are a slightly superior type to the other natives; for with savages, as with civilised people, sharp-witted, strong, and brave men are naturally of a finer type than those who are their inferiors in these qualities: but the difference among the best Ainu and the worst is so small that I do not feel justified in classing chiefs as of a different caste. Besides, exceptional beauty, strength, or larger stature is not necessarily transmitted in the families of chiefs, nor do the Ainu themselves consider them better-looking than others.
As Ainu laws of marriage have no relation to the physical and moral improvement of the race, the only way of classifying the natives for purposes of heredity is by tribes, each village being considered as a tribe. Ainu villages are generally very small, and the inhabitants of each village intermarry among themselves, therefore each member of the community is in some way related to every other member; hence heredity in certain physical traits, mental qualities, and diseases shows itself in one community and not in another. The difficulty of tracing the exact connection of each individual with his or her relations beyond the acknowledged father and mother also baffles research in more minute details. Abnormal formations are sometimes transmitted to many members of one tribe, as, for instance, the hare-lip and webbed fingers, of which deformities two or three specimens could be found in a small village numbering fifteen or twenty houses. Malformation of the umbilicus is common—sometimes in almost every member of one small community—while it is very rare in others. Children are mostly affected by this, as in some villages the cord is not treated at all at birth; and this leads to an abnormality till the child grows older, when the few who survive seem to get all right. In other villages the cord is fastened in a very primitive, not to say imperfect, manner, with a common string of Ulmus campestris fibre.
Albinism is very uncommon among the Ainu. I do not know of any case when it has been transmitted, as albinos are greatly disregarded by the Ainu, and, I was told, seldom marry.
Red hair, or hair with red shades in it, is common among the Ainu of the north-east coast of Yezo, and also among the Kurilsky Ainu of Shikotan, where nearly all the children have light hair. It darkens considerably as they grow older, as many of the men said they had light hair when young, which turned dark with age. Members of certain communities have inherited the love of bear-hunting; others the love of fishing; some tribes have a musical aptitude, and a certain artistic talent for rough ornamentations on wood; others have developed their inherited power of sustaining hunger and thirst. The only characteristic which all the different tribes have inherited, without exception, is love for intoxicating drinks; and this love is not only inherited by thoroughbred Ainu, but also by half-castes.
Mixed marriages between Japanese and Ainu are frequent, but the progeny are unfortunate beings, of whom a large percentage die when very young: those who live are generally malformed, ill-natured, and often idiotic. Their sight and hearing are not so acute as with the pure Ainu, and crosses are said to be sterile, with very few exceptions. If children of second crosses are born they seldom live to be more than five years old.
Half-breeds are invariably from a Japanese man with an Ainu woman, but occasionally an Ainu man marries or cohabits with a half-caste woman. I have never seen a pure-blood Ainu man marry a pure-blood Japanese woman. The majority of half-breeds are males: I should think two-thirds males and one-third females. The half-caste women are physically finer than the men, but they are said to be very generally, if not uniformly, sterile.
The products of the first cross greatly resemble in general look the Ainu parent, without being quite as hairy, though still very hairy; but a strange peculiarity is, that they get bald while quite young. One can easily detect them by their eyes, which are frequently like those of the Japanese, by the wide flat forehead, and by the pose of the head, which inclines forward. They generally walk with their toes turned in, instead of keeping their feet perfectly straight, like the pure Ainu. The moral and intellectual position of these half-breeds is a pitiful one. They are rejected by both the Ainu and Japanese, and are held inferior to both alike.
A high moral standard, whether got from philosophic breadth or Christian virtues, does not suit a despised barbarian race like the Ainu. Nothing could or does kill them quicker than civilisation. Experiments have been tried to civilise certain Ainu: they were made to wash, bathe, and live in comfortable, clean quarters: they were instructed and got good food; but after a few months they had to be sent back to their native place and ways, for civilisation only killed them.
The half-castes have none of the good qualities of either race. They are neither as brave as the Ainu nor courteous and light-hearted like the Japanese. The following remarks, which I take direct from my diary, were written by me between Shimokebo and Tomakomai, on the south-west coast of Yezo, where many half-breeds are found along the sea-shore, and I shall pass them on untouched to my readers.
"The Ainu along this coast were decidedly ugly. Many half-breeds are also found along this coast. These half-breeds invariably grow bald in early life, whereas the Ainu do not. The hair on their back, arms, and legs is not so long or so thick as with the pure Ainu. Their teeth are neither so strong nor so sound. As is usually the case when a mixture of two or more races takes place, the lower and upper jaws not being of the right proportion, it follows as a matter of course that unusual pressure and friction injure and wear out the enamel of the teeth, thus causing premature decay. The Americans and Australians are good examples of this premature decay caused by the disproportion of the upper and lower jaws. Also, teeth which do not fit well together sometimes grow so long as to be a nuisance to the person who owns them. I found that these half-breeds have all the bad qualities of both the Ainu and the Japanese, and have not retained any of the good ones. They are ill-tempered, lazy, and vindictive. It is well to mention that, on the Japanese side, they have come mostly from the criminals exported by the Japanese Government, which fact partly explains why they are so evil-minded and untrustworthy. Instead of falling into the more civilised ways of the Japanese, these half-breeds prefer the wild life of their Ainu ancestors; and if anything they are wilder than the Ainu themselves. Insanity is very common among half-breeds. The head is in most instances of an abnormal size; the frontal bone is generally more sloping than with the thoroughbred Ainu; and though the skull be wide from one temple to the other, it is not spacious enough from the frontal bone to the back of the head. They have heads so shaped that the animal propensities are in excess of the moral and mental faculties. In thoroughbred Ainu I found the bumps of amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, and tune very well developed. In the half-breeds these bumps hardly show at all, and in some cases the back of the head—where the two first bumps are found—is almost flat.
"Ainu half-breeds never live to be very old. They are often affected with rheumatism—kaki, a disease peculiar to the Far East—leprosy, and consumption, and they suffer from these diseases much more than do the pure Ainu. I found leprosy quite common among half-breeds—while I have seen but few Ainu affected with it. In most instances, though, leprosy had only attained its first stages—contraction of fingers and subsequent dropping off of the three phalanges, ears, and nose; but this may be explained by the fact that the sufferers in general succumb before the disease attains its more serious character, when the whole body is visibly affected by it."
Precise laws as to the degree of quickness of perception, power of reasoning, and learning of the Ainu race cannot be given, for, as I have mentioned before, almost each individual would require a special rule for himself. My readers may have noticed that, while some Ainu were but little above monkeys, others were sharp, and gave answers very much to the point. This may apparently be regarded as a contradiction on my part by people who have neither lived with savages, nor studied the temperament of beasts. But it is not a contradiction. There are in this world clever monkeys and stupid monkeys: some can never be made to learn any tricks; others will learn them in no time. Intelligence is instinctive, and not acquired, though of course it can be greatly developed with education; thus, the Ainu are instinctively intelligent, but I wish my readers clearly to understand that their intelligence does not go much further than that of an intelligent monkey, though of course the Ainu have the advantage over beasts of being able to talk, and therefore, to a limited extent, discuss and combine. The Ainu memory is a perfect blank in certain respects, as with arithmetic, science, mechanics, reading, writing, drawing, and delineating maps; while in other directions it seems to be fairly keen, as in hunting, fishing, tracking, and acquiring languages up to a certain point. This last faculty is noticeable in nearly all the lowest races, as the Australian aborigines, the Tasmanian natives (now extinct), the Tierra del Fuegians, &c. The Ainu ideas of time are vague, and if you add to that the extreme difficulty which they experience in counting even up to ten, and their inability to count beyond that number, it is easy to understand why we can never learn the exact age of Ainu individuals.
Like the monkeys, the Ainu cannot concentrate their attention, and they are easily wearied. Beads and shiny objects have a fascination for them; but other objects, even perfectly new to them, arouse but little curiosity, which soon passes, and they show no intelligence and less imagination as to the probable use of these strange objects. They show no inquisitiveness, and no wish to be taught the use of anything new and unfamiliar.
It will be remembered that at Yamakubiro, on the Tokachi River, beyond the natural astonishment caused by the first appearance of my ponies, the strange baggage, and myself, the Ainu did not pay much attention to this novel sight, and did not show any wish to have it explained, while more civilised people, like the Japanese, would not have been satisfied until I had shown and explained every article in my possession, and allowed each person to try its use, &c., after which they would talk for hours of what they had seen. The Ainu are not "built" so, and therefore they have never made any progress. In the more civilised parts of Yezo we have a proof of it. Their backwardness in acquiring the habits and customs of their conquerors the Japanese, arises from incapacity more than from conservatism. Yet for all that the Ainu are so incapable of improving themselves, they are very persevering in what they do attempt, as in their rough wooden carvings, the hollowing of their "dug-outs," the construction of their wooden tools and weapons, the weaving of their rough garments, and the ornamentation thereof; but in all these they appear to act more automatically than with keen and constructive intelligence.
The Ainu are not to be taken au pied de la lettre, for the illusions produced by ignorance and untutored imagination prevent anything like literal accuracy; but they are not what we may call conscious and immoral liars. A good example of this is my adventure at Horobets, when, although they knew that they would be severely punished by the Japanese policeman, the Ainu confessed their attack on me, and did not attempt either denial or evasion. They are often plucky, and even distinctly courageous; as, when out bear-hunting, a man armed only with a large and not over sharp knife unhesitatingly attacks this formidable beast, who sits up on his hind quarters, sure to crush the life out of his assailant should he miss his stroke. The Ainu, protecting his head with his left arm, and having taken the precaution to cover his back with skins, goes merrily for the embrace; and while Bruin squeezes, the hairy man splits its body open with the large knife.
The Ainu are cool-blooded. They are not subject to strong emotions, and therefore they are not much affected by dreams and nightmares. They are not affectionate except for a momentary impulse; but, like most animals, they are faithful when they love. Mothers are fond of their children till they have reached puberty; but after that the affection seems to fade away. Paternal love is much less strong.
The pure Ainu are comparatively honest people, which may be due to the incapacity for being dishonest. In a country where there is no exact definition of property, where anybody can get what he requires without resorting to theft, there is no reason why everybody should not be honest. Then, according to Ainu ideas, stealing is not always stealing. For instance, if an Ainu, without asking, takes away some of the salmon caught by one of his hairy brethren, he will be blamed for it, he will get into a row, and probably be beaten; but if the theft is perpetrated on a Japanese or a stranger he will be praised, though the Ainu well knows that he is not acting right. Their desire is stronger than their conscience, such as it is; and having no laws of their own to rule them worth speaking of, they often do according to their desire, without deserving the accusation of conscious dishonesty. It is exactly the same case as when a dog jumps on the dining-table when everybody is absent and carries off the leg of mutton which he knows he ought not to touch; but the temptation was too strong, and he could not resist it. The Ainu are fond of independence, though in many instances I found them gentle, and apparently submissive to a stronger will than their own. The field of their brain-power is of course very narrow, and the same rough, rude, primitive thoughts and ideas are constantly repeated in their conversation as well as in their designs.
The following physiological remarks are mostly from observations made on Ainu of the Upper Tokachi district, the natives of which have had no communication with Europeans and little with Japanese previous to my own visit to them. Observations made on the semi-civilised Ainu of Volcano Bay and Piratori, on those of the north-east and west coasts, and the Ishikari River, as well as on half-castes of different districts, have been taken into consideration.
Owing to the lack of a clinical thermometer and other instruments, I, unfortunately, was not able to ascertain the normal temperature of the body; nor could I get any very accurate observations as to the frequency of the pulse-beat, owing to the miserable condition of my watch and the difficult task of getting natives to sit perfectly still while their pulse was felt. A superstitious fear, too, that some evil would befall them accelerated the pulsations, and they invariably moved away rubbing the spot I had touched on their wrist. Though I could not count the exact number of pulsations to a minute, the movement of the pulse was as a rule slow and rather weak. Respirations were fourteen to seventeen to a minute in men, and about sixteen to twenty in women, and the respiratory movements were similar in both sexes, viz., costal breathing was predominant. In half-castes I have sometimes noticed abdominal breathing.
The Ainu not only bear cold well, but prefer it to heat, though, indeed, their country is never very hot. The sun's rays have no fascination for them, as with so many other races; and I have seldom seen Ainu basking in the sun for purely physical pleasure, although they go about with uncovered heads, and do not seem to suffer any ill effects from the practice. The Ainu of Piratori wear Japanese hats of wicker-work; and others, especially women, tie round their head a Japanese towel—a fashion, as we have seen, also adopted from the Japanese. With this head-dress the crown of the head is left uncovered.
The Ainu are not massively formed, but they are sturdy, and, as we have seen, can bear almost any amount of privation as regards food and drink. Sleep is necessary to them, and they require a great deal to be in anything like good condition. The sleeping hours are generally from an hour or so after sunset to sunrise; but during the day they are often drowsy, and turn in to have a siesta after food and exercise. In men the voice is soft and deep; shriller but still gentle in women. The Ainu seldom perspire, partly because the pores of their skin are blocked with dirt; partly because their long hair absorbs a great quantity of natural moisture; and mostly because they do not drink much except when they can get hold of intoxicants.
The skin is greasy—the natural result of many years of an unwashed existence; and this gives to the hairy people a peculiar and strong odour, much resembling that of monkeys. Many are familiar with the peculiar odour of an uncleaned monkey's cage, and the same, intensified a thousand times, characterises an Ainu village. Hundreds of yards off you can distinctly smell out a village, or if the wind is blowing towards you, that peculiar odour is perceptible for a full half-mile. Although the sense of smell is acute in the Ainu—for they sometimes employ it in tracking animals—they are not aware of their own strong odour; but they are quick in distinguishing that of other races. I have several times heard Ainu of the coast remark that I possessed a different odour from that of the Japanese; but they could neither define it nor assimilate it to that of any animal they knew, though several of them one day held a lengthy pow-wow about it; and in the interest of anthropology I submitted to the unpleasant process of being smelt all over by them. The Chinese unanimously assert that Europeans smell like sheep, and they say this is the reason we constantly wash and bathe, being aware of our infirmity, and doing our best to diminish it by soap and water. We ourselves attribute to Jews one distinct odour, and yet another to the Russians; not to speak of those belonging to the negroes, the Chinese, and, in fact, all other nations. Thus, the odour has some importance in the classification of peoples, as it largely depends on the kind of food as well as the personal habits of a race. Meat-eaters smell differently from fish-eaters, and these again from vegetarians. As regards the Ainu, their filthy habits of course increase their offensiveness, while bodily exercise renders them intolerable. The Japanese recognise the Ainu odour as a distinguishing mark of the race, and Japanese fishermen have often said to me, "Aino shto taihen kusai"; "Saru," or else "Kumma onaji koto"—"Ainu men smell bad, just like a monkey or a bear."
As an Ainu grows older this peculiarity increases. The weaker sex is generally more "strongly scented" than are the men, owing to the fact that women wear skins and rough cloth rags nearly all the year round, while in summer the men go about either entirely naked, or very lightly clad.
On the north-east coast of Yezo and in Shikotan (Kurile Islands) I saw some Ainu who, contrary to the rule, had red hair, and their animal odour was terribly offensive. The Ainu do not use any unguents like palm-oil, cocoanut-oil, or the like, by which the unpleasantness of certain African tribes and Eastern peoples is to be accounted for. What they have is natural and national, and due to their food, habits, and race alone.
The Ainu have no partiality or dislike for any particular scents, and their sense of smell shows itself mainly in their power of tracking game or animals, as was said before. The same might be said of the sense of "touch," which they seldom apply practically, notwithstanding their sensitiveness in certain parts of the body, especially under the arm-pits and on each side of the spinal column and the back of the head—just those parts which in most animals are the most sensitive; but they have no developed sense of touch in their finger-tips, as with civilised nations.
Most Ainu find it difficult to declare which is the heavier of two not very unequal weights. Differences in the temperature of two bodies, and in the smoothness or texture of two surfaces, are also extremely difficult for them to define, while it is easy for them to judge of weights and texture by eyesight. The palms of the hands, which are so sensitive with us, owing to the papillæ being more thickly studded there than in other parts of the body, are less intelligently sensitive with the Ainu. When they touch cold or hot objects they feel pain, but not difference of temperature, as when with us a wound is touched it makes little difference whether it is by something hot or cold, it is simply pain, and not discrimination. Their lips, as well as the tip of the tongue, are slightly more sensitive; the lower lip more so than the upper. I was never able to determine the relative sensibility of the sensitive parts of the Ainu body, as my experiments either caused anger and impatience, or hilarity and mockery. If the first, the observations had to be stopped before they were well begun; if the second, beyond the general results which I have quoted, the answers were mere guesswork on their part, and therefore not worth recording. Most of my observations are based on experiments made while the men were unaware that they were observed at all. Often, when asleep, I have touched them on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands without causing them to awake, while when touched on the lower lip or in the lumbar region they invariably woke up startled. One day I tried this experiment on an Ainu who was sleeping on his back, with his mouth wide open. I touched his tongue with a well-sharpened lead-pencil, and the effect was subitaneous; more so than on either the lips or the lumbar region. The skin directly over the spine was dull, but the ears showed a certain amount of sensibility. The sense of "taste," which is a mere modification of the sense of touch, is also dull, although naturally, when stimulated by very acid or bitter substances, it produced distinct impressions. Even with ourselves, though more perfected than the sense of smell—which, however, often comes to its assistance—few can boast of having the sense of taste very acute. In our lower classes an extraordinary amount of salt, mustard, pepper, or sugar is needed before they can call their food "tasty," whereas a person of more refined education will detect the lack or excess of even the smallest portion. Over-stimulation of the lingual nerves and extremes of heat or cold deaden the sensibility of the tongue, palate, and fauces, and destroy the power of distinguishing flavours; bad digestion also frequently affects the organs of taste. From this we may argue, then, that the sense of taste, though born in one, has to be cultivated before it is brought to any degree of refinement. The Ainu not only do not possess this acquired refinement, but, through monotony of food, learn only one kind of flavour, and cannot distinguish differences. Thus, as many labourers in our country would not find any difference between a beef-steak slightly underdone and one over-cooked, so an Ainu finds no difference whatever between a piece of salmon properly dried and one perfectly rotten. In this respect the Ainu are far below beasts.
In tribes of natives like the Ainu, who have lived an adventurous life, mostly in the open air, it is but natural that the two senses of "sight" and "hearing" should be more developed than those of "touch," "smell" and "taste;" as life itself depends mostly on their accuracy and acuteness. The Ainu possess good sight. Inflammation of the eyes is very common among their children, owing to their filthy condition; but it seldom affects their permanent sight; very few Ainu suffer either from myopy or cataract, or other eye affections such as are frequent among civilised and more studious nations. In very warm climates, where the sun is powerful and the light strong, the eyes are generally shielded by specially long and thick eyelashes and eyebrows, which last prevent the sweat from running down the forehead into the orbit; but, strange to say, the Ainu, who are a northern race, and have always lived in cold climates, have eyelashes even longer and thicker than any race of people in tropical climates. The iris is of a somewhat greyish tint, sometimes traversed with brown shades. The white of the eye is less pearly than with Caucasian races, and the eyes, shaded as they are by long eyelashes and heavy eyelids, seem to possess all the qualities necessary for abnormally long vision. And this we find to be the case, for the Ainu can distinguish objects a long way off, but they are dense as to minutiæ. In other words, the eye of an Ainu is ready to receive an impression, but very slow in transmitting to the brain the impression received.
As we have seen, they cannot reproduce the "human form divine," or any faithful representation of anything animate or inanimate which they have seen. They see en gros; thus, should an Ainu's attention be drawn to some very distant object rapidly moving on the shore, he will at once say that it is a horse, because he knows that the chances are it is a horse, but he will be unable to describe its colour, and whether cantering or galloping, saddled or unsaddled, by a single glance at the horse, unless his attention is called to each particular detail, when he will answer each question correctly enough. The Ainu vision is then strong, but the brain is not quick in response. Testing their sight by "test dots," as used in the British Army, was not a success, greatly owing to their inability to count and the inaccuracy of their answers.
The most fully-developed sense in the hairy people is, in my opinion, that of hearing. Distant sounds are clearly recognised and specified, and they are also aware that by placing one ear near the ground, far-off sounds of horse's hoofs and the like can be clearly distinguished. The ticking of a Waterbury watch could be heard by Ainu at a distance of twenty and twenty-two feet, while I could only hear it nineteen feet away. I was often struck by the quickness with which they detected the tick-tack even when the watch was in my pocket, and they were six or eight feet away. The unusual sound fixed their attention and made them curious as to the cause, and they showed a childish kind of surprise and delight when the watch was produced and passed round among them, each one being allowed to enjoy his share of the ticking.
Resuming these few remarks on the characteristic points of Ainu senses, my readers will probably have noticed certain facts which strongly support Darwin's theory of evolution, and the hairy arboreal ancestor with pointed ears from which the races of men are descended.
I cannot begin this chapter better than by saying that Ainu religious ideas are essentially chaotic. They recognise no supreme God, and no intelligent Creator; and they cannot be called polytheists, for indeed they are not worshippers of any power—taking the word in its full meaning. The Ainu worship nothing.
If they have any belief at all it is an imperfect kind of Totemism, and the central point of that belief is their own descent from the "bear." This does not include the smallest reverence for their ancestor. They capture their "Totem" and keep it in captivity; they speak to it and feed it; but no prayers are offered to it. When the bear is fat, it is taken out of the cage to be ill-treated and baited by all the men present. It is tied to a stake and a pole is thrust into its mouth; and when the poor beast has been sufficiently tortured, pricked with pointed sticks, shot at with blunted arrows, bruised with stones, maddened with rage and ill-usage, it is killed outright, and, "ancestor" as it may be, it makes the chief dish and raison d'être of a festival, where all the members of the tribe partake of its flesh. The owner of the hut in which the feast takes place then sticks the skull on to a forked pole, and sets it outside with the others at the east end of his hut. The skin is made into garments, or is spread on the ground to sleep on.
In addition to this rudimentary kind of Totemism—if I may call it so—the Ainu show a certain amount of fear and respect for anything which supports their life or can destroy it. This, however, is under the form of an "instinct" rather than a "religious feeling." Dumb animals of any kind are similarly affected by powers which they cannot explain; but as we would not think for a moment that when a dog is barking at the moon the dog is worshipping the orb of night, or when it basks in the sun that it is offering prayers and reverence to the orb of day, no more should we think that the Ainu, who are not much above dumb animals, worship all they respect and fear.
If other writers, most of whom have never visited the Ainu country, had not written on this subject, I would have limited myself to saying that the Ainu, properly speaking, have no religion, but as certain untenable theories and false ideas have been published, I feel bound to state what I know on the subject, that, so far as I can, I may correct these erroneous impressions. I regard myself as qualified to speak with some authority, as I am the only foreigner who has seen and studied all the different tribes of Ainu in Yezo and the Kuriles; while other writers, the few who have actually been there, have based their statements on a few half-castes or Ainu in the more civilised part of southern Yezo, collecting from them ideas left behind by previous travellers, and offering them to the public as purely Ainu. That these hasty travellers and cursory writers have been deceived, or have deceived themselves, is not astonishing; for it must be borne in mind that the Ainu language is as poor in words as the Ainu brain is deficient in thoughts. Thus it is no easy matter to explain to an Ainu what is meant by "religion," by "divinities," and by "worship." The nearest approach can be made only by comparisons and analogies, which often lead far from the point aimed at. Like all savages and barbarians, the Ainu are more apt to answer as they think will please the questioner than to give a definition of their own beliefs. The manner in which a question is put gives the keynote to the reply, which is in no sense an independent statement of their own thoughts.
For instance, if you were to say to an Ainu, "You are old, are you not?" he would answer "Yes"; but if you asked the same man, "You are not old, are you?" he would equally answer "Yes." Knowingly speaking the truth is not one of their characteristics; indeed, they do not know the difference between falsehood and truth. This is a common failing with all savages as well as with all Orientals; but with the Ainu it is even more accentuated; and when, in addition to this, the difficulty of making them understand exactly what one means is taken into consideration, it is not astonishing that a traveller arrives at a wrong conclusion if the utmost pains be not taken in pursuing one's investigations.
Of course the Ainu who have come in contact with Japanese know of a God, and some of them, at the instigation of Japanese bonzes, have become nominal Buddhists. Benry, at Piratori, showed me a small Buddhist shrine, of Japanese manufacture, which had been put up on a neighbouring hill. All the time I stayed at Piratori I never observed any Ainu worship at it. One day I saw two boys throwing stones at it, but that could hardly be called an act of reverence, even among my hairy friends.
On my inquiring as to the origin and use of the shrine, I was told by some that it was erected to the God of the Japanese. Benry, who was always "well informed," both in things that he knew and those that he did not know, said that it was built in honour of Yoshitsune, the Japanese personage who, as we have seen, is the hero in semi-Ainu legends, and whose image or spirit, according to travellers' tales, is worshipped by the Ainu.
It always appeared strange to me that the Piratori Ainu had this Japanese hero in their legends, but still more strange that they should make him their deity. Yet what was most singular of all was, that with the exception of Benry and a few others at Piratori, no other Ainu I met in any other part of Yezo seemed to know about Yoshitsune—or Okikurumi, as he is sometimes called by them; and, moreover, they knew nothing of his doings, or of the reason of his being worshipped. The Ainu of the Tokachi knew nothing whatever of this personage.
The Ainu idea of soul is always associated with "breath" or "life;" and as for the resurrection of the body and the future life of the soul, they have never even dreamt of it. Metempsychosis is equally unknown to them.
As my readers have seen, in the description of a burial the implements and weapons which belonged to a deceased person are buried with him. The articles, however, previous to being thrown into the grave, are smashed to pieces; for the idea is, not that the dead body should profit by these things in the other world, but that no other person should make use of what had been his property in this. The reasoning power of the Ainu does not carry him beyond what is purely material; his mind has never been trained to go beyond that limit, and he finds that he can live well within it. Like all animals, he is guided by his instinct, which tells him what is good and what is bad for him; but as to any attempt to find out why such things are good or bad for him, he is utterly at a loss, and has to give up the quest. Though not devoid of a rudimentary kind of shrewdness, the Ainu is dense and ignorant to the last degree, and just as he is reluctant to adopt new modes of living, so he is unable to accept new ideas or larger thoughts. The mere conception of a Superior Being, who is the Maker of all things and above all things, is far beyond the comprehension of any Ainu. Eating and drinking are what he principally lives for. He does not thirst for knowledge, nor strive after the Divine; and he has no creed of any kind and no formula of sacrifice or worship, which two conditions are essential to even the most elementary religion.
What the Ainu do really possess in the way of supernaturalism is the ordinary savage's credulous superstition, which manifests itself in certain charms or fear of certain omens. However, after that degree they take the world as it comes. They have no idea of who made it, and they are not anxious to learn. The sun, the moon, bears, salmon, water, fire, mountains, trees, are all things for which an Ainu has a dumb kind of regard, not amounting to reverence, as he knows that he could not live without them. This has led some persons to define these objects as the principal divinities of the Ainu, and to call the people themselves polytheists. The word Kamoi, or Kamui, has been rendered as "god," gods "divinity." Now, what does the word Kamoi, or Kamui, really mean? Translated literally it means "old" or "ancient"; but amongst a hundred other meanings it also denotes "large," "beautiful," "strange," "it," "the man," "he who," &c. In fact, it is used to qualify anything, whether good or bad; and in some ways corresponds to our adjectives "wonderful," "awful," "grand "; but assuredly the Ainu do not by this word mean to designate the objects thus described as so many gods. Anything for which they entertain respect or fear is described as Kamoi, or Kamui, which thus is applied to the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, rivers, old trees, bears, salmon, large stones, &c., not with the intention of making them divinities, but simply to specify their power, greatness, or antiquity. The word is applied to every kind of thing, animate or inanimate, good or bad, respected or derided, dreaded or revered, admired or abhorred. It is sometimes a prefix, sometimes an affix, and is the most universal attribute the Ainu world or language contains. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion, that either the Ainu are polytheists or pantheists to such an extent as occasionally to make everything and everybody a god; or else, that translators have given their own, and a greatly exaggerated, meaning to the word Kamui, and that these so-called gods are not gods at all. To me there is no alternative opinion on the matter. The Ainu have no gods in our sense.
Basing conclusions on wrong premises, writers on the Ainu religion have been naturally led astray altogether. For instance, the composite word Kotan-kara-kamui,[39] which a learned missionary has translated "Creator," only means "the man who made the village"—a description which hardly corresponds to the grandeur attributed to the words by its imaginative translator.
Then again, Kamui kotan, which according to some means "the home of God," in its real signification is "an ancient village; a beautiful place." When Kamui is applied to persons, it is generally a suffix; when to things, it is a prefix.
But let us come to the inao, which by some have been called the "Ainu gods," by others "Divine symbols." These inao are willow-wands, with shavings depending from the upper end, sometimes from the middle, and occasionally from near the lower end as well.
The larger wands are about four feet in length, and have either one or two bunches of shavings at the upper end only. They go by the name of inao netuba, or "big inao." Other smaller inao, like the Chisei-kara-inao,[40] are kept in the house, and stuck in the eastern corner of the hearth, and in the wall directly opposite the entrance door. Some of the inao are shaved upwards from the bottom, others downwards from the top; and one, a big inao, is often thrust through the small window facing the east. Sometimes they are placed about singly, especially inside the huts; but outside, close to the eastern wall, I have often seen eight or ten standing together in a row. When so taken collectively they are called nuza. On Volcano Bay, up the Saru River, and on the Lake Kutcharo, where it is the custom of the Ainu to make trophies of the skulls of bears and deer which have been killed in the hunt, one or two inao are placed at the foot of the trophy. Sometimes, but very rarely, a whole nuza is to be seen in front of a trophy; but in most cases the nuza I saw were near huts that had no trophy at all, and, as I say, only very seldom were they in front of the trophy itself, unless a bear feast was going on. I am therefore under the impression that these nuza are only put up when some festival takes place, and that they are not kept there permanently. I remember that at Piratori there were no inao and no nuza outside Benry's house, but on the day that the festival took place one was put up, and several inao were placed inside the hut, in the hearth and on the north wall. Likewise, a nuza was put up on the same day at the east end of the hut in which the feast was given, and the inside was also adorned with inao of various sizes and descriptions. Each inao is pointed at the lower end, so as to be easily stuck in the ground. The inao of all sizes and shapes impressed me as being mostly for ornament. Then some are held as charms against misfortune and disease; but they never impressed me as being offerings to the gods. Inao are placed near springs, so that the good water may not turn into pestilential, and occasionally inao of a peculiar shape are hung in the doorway of newly-built huts. They are made of a number of small willow sticks tied together, from which hang five or six bunches of shavings; they are hung horizontally, and not in a vertical position, like the other inao. They are very uncommon, and only used on certain specified occasions. For example, when a child is born an inao, in the shape of a doll, is made of a bunch of reeds folded double and tied with a string about an inch from the bend, which thus forms the head; it is then tied lower down to indicate the waist. By dividing the reeds into two equal portions they produce a pair of legs, and a stick is then passed through the reeds between the head and the waist to form the arms. When this doll is made it is placed near the infant, so that should any disease or misfortune, in the shape of a kind of evil spirit, be tempted to enter the child's body, it may be averted, and enter the doll instead. Should a person fall ill new inao are stuck in the hearth, as the Ainu share our own idea that evil spirits dwell mostly in fire; others are placed near the sick person. They are not meant as offerings to the gods for his or her quick recovery, but merely to bring good luck to the individual whose body they think has been taken possession of by "animals inside," or, in other words, evil spirits.
Even at the present day in England and on the Continent horseshoes for luck are hung over entrance doors, and if a horseshoe be fastened on to a stable-door, the beasts within are supposed to be held free from accidents and illness.
In Spain and Italy little red rags tied to a small wand, not dissimilar in shape to a small Ainu inao, are stuck in flower-pots near windows, over beds, doors, and up chimneys, to keep witches at bay, red being a powerful exorcist in the way of colours, and as good as the "running stream which witches dare not cross." Some hysterical women have declared that they have seen witches hiding in the smoke of the boiling Pentola (the earthenware pot in which the soup is boiled)—but that on seeing the red rags they vanished, and never visited the house again. Italian and Spanish women and children almost invariably carry charms round their necks, that are to keep them safe from harm; and, furthermore, when a child falls ill, one or more red rags are fastened to its bed before a doctor is sent for. Then, again, people suffering from epileptic fits have often been supposed to be "possessed," and beaten to death or burnt alive, so that the evil spirit which was in them should thus be destroyed. It must be borne in mind that not many centuries ago similar beliefs were prevalent even in free and enlightened England.
If we compare these beliefs with those of the Ainu, we find that they differ very little either in form or substance. In place of the witches which our own ancestors, modern Italians, and Spaniards, and some benighted peasantry still to be found in the West of England, believed, and do still believe in, the Ainu have imaginary animals or evil spirits. The wands and red rags of our Latin neighbours are represented by their inao; and our lucky horseshoe is with them the horizontal inao. Charms are worn by the Ainu men, women, and children; and when going to war or to hunt the men carry a block of wood to which their knife or sword is attached, and on the right-hand side of which hangs a small inao.
These blocks of wood are flattened, and are elliptical at both ends. Their length varies from four to fifteen inches, and sometimes ornaments—generally circles—are carved on them. A string is fastened on one side so as to sling them to the shoulder; but they are usually carried under the arm. They are supposed to protect the carrier from accidents, and also to bring him good fortune.
We see, then, that similar ideas are entertained by utterly different peoples thousands of miles distant from one another; and that certain superstitious beliefs left on this side of the globe find their parallel among the hairy people on the other. Of course with them it is natural that their beliefs should count for more than with Europeans, as civilisation has not in any way enlarged or improved their minds; but it seems to me unfair that the same identical beliefs should go under the name of superstitions when applied to Europeans, and called the "Ainu religion" when practised by the hairy inhabitants of Northern Japan. Though to this I know it may be replied that, as all things spring from germs, so these ignorant superstitions of the Ainu may be in a manner called their religion, as the germ of a more developed system—the cotyledonous state of what might grow into a more advanced spirituality. Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Ainu wave their moustache-lifters, during their libations, towards the sun, the fire, and the person who has paid for the wine, before they address themselves to the large wooden bowls wherein lies their happiness; but this also is not a religious ceremony, and no religious feeling whatever is connected with it. It is a mere toast—part of their etiquette—which exactly corresponds to the German "Prosit," or to our English "Your good health." The Ainu of course have no special high-days, no Sundays, no religious services, no prayers, no priests, no sacrificial priests, no churches, and no bells; but they can "swear"; and as the Neapolitans invoke their saints, so they occasionally call the sun, the moon, the fire, and everything else, all sorts of bad names if things do not go as they ought. This "swearing" has been defined as Ainu praying by one authority on the Ainu religion; moreover, the same authority calls the Ainu a "distinctly religious people," and an "exceedingly religious race!" To anyone who visits a country and regards all that he finds from one point of view only, it is not difficult to interpret words and things in accordance with the preconceived idea; but however high the principles sought to be established, I do not consider a man justified in attributing to definite facts an importance and significance to which they have no claim. I have no doubt that a native who had associated with or been in the employment of a Christian would make statements in accordance with his master's belief as it had been taught him; but it is incorrect to offer these "borrowed statements" as the religious beliefs of a whole nation.
I shall not discuss this question at greater length; but for the sake of readers who are interested in the subject it may be well to make two or three more statements before closing this chapter. The Ainu do not know of a heaven and hell; but in one of the latest publications on the aborigines of Japan we are told that they do; and, moreover, that they are fully aware of the resurrection of the body in the other world!
Even assuming, for the moment, that the Ainu are theists, or polytheists, after what we have heard of their gods, this is a somewhat surprising statement. It will be remembered that anything good or bad, dreaded or repulsive, respected or not respected, is qualified by the Ainu as Kamui, and we shall attribute for a while the imaginary meaning of "God" to the word. Now, if everything and everybody, good or bad, is equally a god, I myself fail to see the necessity of a hell, as the chances are that all the gods would inhabit heaven. This alone serves to show how absurd the theory is; but I wish to give the exact translation of the words Kando and Teine-pokna-moshiri, which are said to be the two Ainu expressions for "heaven" and "hell."
Kando means "sky," not "heaven." Teine-pokna-moshiri[41] stands for the "wet earth under(ground)." As the Ainu are in the habit of burying their dead, I find it more rational to apply to the words in question the meaning of a "burial-place," a "cold place of rest" rather than that of Hades or Gehenna.
"They" (the Ainu), says a learned missionary, "seem to conceive of men and women as living in large communities in the other world in the same way and under the same conditions as they do in this, excepting that they can know no death." In other words, resurrection of the body and eternal life.
Strange to say, the writer of the same lines asserted in the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,"[42] that "The Ainu know nothing of a resurrection of the body."
It must not be argued that because they have no religion the Ainu are bad people. They are far from it. They are decidedly not moral, for nothing is immoral among them. The Ainu must be considered more as animals than as human beings. When we speak of a dog, we do not ask whether it is a moral dog, but only if it is a good dog. The same can be said of the Ainu. We cannot compare them to ourselves, nor judge them by our own standard of morality. Taken by themselves they are gentle, kind, brave, and above everything they are simple. Their language, manners, customs, arts, habits, as we have seen, are the very simplest and rudest possible. Thus, it is absurd to suppose that such simple brains could entertain high religious ideas. If they had brains enough to compass high religious beliefs they would long ago have used those brains in bettering their miserable condition and filthy mode of living. They would have striven to make the beginnings of a history and a literature, or at least to have devised or adopted some mode of writing with which they could preserve these high ideas, and pass them on from generation to generation. Even their language is so poor in words as to hardly express their everyday wants. The Ainu are low in the scale of humanity. They have always been low; they have not sunk, for they have never risen. They have never done any harm in this world, and they will never do any good.
The Ainu are without laws, which, paradoxical as it sounds, to a great extent makes them good. People are never so good as when no harm can be done. There are indeed few crimes among them; no voluntary infanticides; very very rarely murders; no suicides; little theft, and as little treachery among people of the same tribe. Though usually retiring and reserved, they are hospitable on special occasions, and generous with what little they possess. The young show an instinctive reverence for the aged, without considering it a virtue or a duty. Cowardice is despised by the Ainu, but courage, endurance of pain, and hardship, drunkenness, and similar qualities, are looked on as the chief virtues in men. Punishments are seldom inflicted by Ainu on any of their tribesmen, and the crime must indeed be great to raise the whole community against the criminal. If by rare chance some great evil has been done, the chief of the village and all the men assemble, and decide on the punishment to be inflicted. Flogging is the general punishment for the lesser crimes, which, according to Ainu ideas, are theft and assault. The murder of a tribesman is sometimes punished by cutting the tendons of the hands and feet of the murderer, thus disabling him from hunting or fishing. If, however, the man murdered was of another tribe, or a Japanese, this Draconian kind of justice is not administered. Quarrels among tribesmen are settled by private retribution, and no one interferes either one way or the other. These quarrels, however, very seldom occur, as the Ainu are naturally a peaceful people. Imprisonment does not exist, for the simple reason that the Ainu have no prisons. They do not know what a prison is; neither is capital punishment practised by them. According to their own ideas they are not cruel to children, for we seldom see them wilfully ill-treating them; but according to civilised notions Ainu women make shockingly bad mothers. They love, but they do not look after, nor practically take care of, their little ones after these are about a year and a half old; and as to washing them, combing their hair, educating them, or trying to cure them of the thousand and one wretched skin diseases, which come chiefly by their own neglect, an Ainu mother puts her hand to these things no more than the men put theirs to the building of a temple or the creation of a literature. This neglect is not with them, as it would be with us, an intolerable crime, but is the natural result of their animal instinct as contradistinguished from rational development. For if a baby is not old enough at one and a half years of age to take care of himself, he is of no good as an Ainu. It is needless to add that, in these circumstances, most of them are of no good, and that the percentage of infantile deaths is appalling to a civilised mind.