1, 7, INAO-NETUBA. 2, 3, 4, 5, CHISEI-KARA-INAO. 6, A PESTLE OR POUNDER.

CHAPTER XXIX.
Marital Relations, and Causes that Limit Population.

The laws of marriage in the Ainu country are not very stringent; in fact, there are no laws. If a young man takes a fancy to a pretty hairy maid, and the maid reciprocates his affections, all they have to do is to go and live together, and there is no Mrs. Grundy to be scandalised at the want of closer forms and ceremonies. There is no function to celebrate the occasion; there are no wedding presents, no bridesmaids, no officiating clergyman, and no old slipper flung after the happy pair as soon as the knot is tied. The bridegroom either goes to live in his bride's hut, or, if he does not care for his mother-in-law, he will bring his lady-love to his own father's hut. Usually, however, the two, especially if their respective families are large, prefer to build a hut of their own. The honeymoon is spent in house-building, and while the bride carries the loads of timber and long reeds, the bridegroom accomplishes the more difficult task of putting them together as well as he can for future shelter. All goes well with the happy couple until the roof has to be lifted up bodily and perched on the forked poles, during which process "family rows" generally begin. But they do not last long, and when the house is finished, though not decorated, home peace reigns within, and the bridegroom, as we have already seen, proceeds to ornament his chief treasure—his wife—with tattoos on her arms. This idyllic state of things is not specially permanent, for soon after this first marriage the Ainu feels that he would like another wife, and, without thinking twice about it, he marries again. Though savage and barbarian, the Ainu is shrewd enough not to take his second wife to live with his first, for he knows what the result would be, human nature being the same in Yezo as it is in London, and jealousy as strong among the tattooed women of the hairy people as among the fair-skinned daughters of the West. All women are bad enough when out of temper, but the Ainu women are pre-eminent in this respect. Our shock-haired bigamist calls his first wife poro-machi—"great wife," and he calls the other pon-machi—"small wife;" and as long as the two females do not live under the same roof they are all happy with the arrangement. If, indeed, he chooses to have more than these two wives he thinks small blame to himself. There is no bar of any kind in his code to his having a third "half;" but this seldom happens now, for the women are not in such over abundance in the Ainu country as to allow each man to indulge in a "triple alliance." The Ainu are therefore polygamists when they can find the third woman, and almost always bigamists when this is possible. The wife does not take her husband's name, for no Ainu has a family surname; and each man or woman is called after some peculiarity which he or she possesses, or after some event or accident which has befallen them. For instance, Una-charo, a man's name, means "Sprinkled-ashes," and Yei-Ainu, "Dangerous Ainu," &c.; and Korunke, a woman's name, means "Ice-eater;" Reoback, "Who burst three times," and so on, each person having a different name, which is nothing more than a nick-name. When the girl gets married she does not drop this nick-name, neither, as has been said, does she take her husband's name, though sometimes she is called So-and-So's wife. Supposing that Miss Burst-three-times were to marry Mr. Sprinkled-ashes, she would be Mr. Sprinkled-ashes' wife, and would still be called by her maiden name, Burst-three-times.

It is impossible to quote exact statistics of the Ainu population, and whether the women outnumber the men, but from my own observation I should think that females are in excess of the males in some districts, and about even in others.

The man, naturally, is the lord and master of the household, and the wife is like a kind of inferior being or a slave, whose duty it is to obey her male companion. She has to yield in everything, whether she is right or wrong; she is occasionally beaten; she never takes active part in any of her husband's Bacchanalian revels; but though she leads a sad kind of life, a life of hard work and no pleasure, she does not seem to be any the worse for it. There are wives, of course, who, as in other countries, give a "pretty rough time" to their husbands; but in the Ainu country these are certainly the exception. As there is no ceremony of marriage, there is naturally no "divorce;" but if an Ainu gets sick of his wife, all he has to do is to leave her and go elsewhere, or else to banish her from his hut. This, however, very seldom happens, for that rare creature the henpecked Ainu husband is willing to put up with a lot; and though brave enough to encounter single-handed a bear, the hairy man is by no means valiant enough to face his wife's temper; while, for all that she is practically a slave, and personally an inferior, is sometimes in Ainuland, as everywhere else, the strongest factor in the domestic sum.

As long as the wife does her duty well as a "beast of burden," little more is required from her. Her morals, as far as I could make out, are not well looked after. Adultery is not considered a crime. I do not mean by this that adultery is practised on principle, for it is not so: there is no reason whatever why it should be, for each man has his own wife or wives; but if adultery were practised by any members of a community, what we consider a dreadful crime would be regarded as a mere "joke" among the hairy people. The husband, like any other animal, dumb or not, would naturally resent the intrusion, but the community would in no way interfere, or punish the offender. A girl is considered fit to be married when she is about sixteen years of age; a man about twenty, or as soon as the body is fully developed.

People as a rule marry in the same village. It is but seldom that a girl marries a man or a man a girl of a different village. Villages, as we have seen, are generally composed of only a few houses, and the result of this strict endogamy is, that marriages take place among very near relations. In very small villages of only one or two houses, the father has been known to marry his own daughter, the uncle his own niece, &c. But enough of this. The result of this dreadful state of affairs is, that the race is rapidly dying out, destroyed by consumption, lunacy, and poverty of blood. All the members of one village are necessarily related to one another; and, as I have demonstrated in a previous chapter, this is the main cause why certain diseases are common to one community and utterly unknown to others, and certain hereditary talents or tendencies are frequent in one village and imperceptible in the next.

The Ainu seem to have no Platonic love; their love is purely sexual. It is not to be wondered at, in a country where marital relations are so peculiar, that very little love is felt for children beyond a certain age. The mother suckles her own child usually for seven or eight months. She can bear children till she is about thirty-five, though some who seem to be much older are still fruitful. It was difficult to ascertain this fact for no Ainu knows his own age. As far as I could learn fertility is neither hindered nor checked in any way—either by adopting a peculiar diet or by other practices. On the other hand, many a woman is sterile, and many are also affected with the most horrible of all diseases. I am inclined to think, however, that this special malady was imported to Yezo with Japanese civilisation, for it is in the more civilised parts of the Ainu country that it is most frequent.

There is probably no country in the world where there is so much loss of infant life due to want, accidents, and diseases, as with the Ainu. Abortion is common, owing to the severe exertion of the mother during pregnancy; and many a child dies not many days after birth for the same reason, and consequent disappearance of milk in the mother's breasts. The greater mortality of children, however, is between the age of six and ten. Only a small percentage of these poor creatures live to take part in the game of life; while many succumb to ill-treatment and the most horrible skin eruptions. Thus we have a good explanation of the frightful rapidity with which the Ainu race is fast disappearing. Naturally, those few who survive grow strong and healthy; but their great fondness for alcoholic drinks, which they can now so easily procure from the Japanese, destroys even them.

One is generally struck in Ainuland by the number of old men and children, and by the almost entire lack of young fellows between the age of fifteen and thirty. This is due mainly to the great increase of mortality in children during the last two generations. The sadness which seems to oppress the Ainu, and which we see depicted on the face of each individual, is nothing but the outcome of this degeneration of the race. As a race the Ainu will soon be extinct. I dare say that in fifty years from now—probably not so long—not one of the hairy savages, who were once the masters of Sakhalin, Yezo, the Kuriles, Kamschatka, and the whole of the southern Japanese Empire, will be left. Not one of these strange people—soft, good, and gentle, but savage, brave, and disreputable—will live to see their country civilised; and in the life which they have led of filth and vice they will die in front of that greater scourge, civilisation, leaving behind no traces of themselves, of their past, of their history, nor of their present—nothing but a faint recollection, a tradition, that in Yezo and the Kuriles died the last remains of those curious people, the Hairy Ainu.

APPENDIX.

I.—MEASUREMENTS OF THE AINU BODY, AND DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTERS.

The following measurements were taken on five men and five women of the pure Ainu of Frishikobets (Upper Tokachi River). They were carefully chosen among the best types.

The names of the men were:—

1. Unacharo: Una, ashes; charo, sprinkled = "Sprinkled-ashes."

2. Aba pukuro: Aba, a relation; pu, storehouse; kuro, a man = "Related to the man of the storehouse."

3. Pe chantwe; Pe, undrinkable water; chan, to run away; we, to tell = "Who ran to tell of the undrinkable water."

4. Kosankeyan: Ko san, to go down; ke, eating; yan, cold.

5. Yei Ainu: Yei, dangerous; Ainu, Ainu.

The following were the names of the women:—

1. Usattean: Usat, cinders; tean, long.

2. Korunke: Korun, ice; ke, to eat = "Ice-eater."

3. Sho kem: Sho, so; kem, blood = "Covered with blood."

4. Uina mon: Uina or Una, ashes; mon, tranquil.

5. Reoback: Re, three; oback, to burst = "Who burst three times."

Height

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.61}1.58¾}
2.65}2.59⅞}
3.60½} Med. 62-19/40.3.59½} Med. 58⅜
4.64⅞}4.54⅝}
5.61}5.59⅛}

Length from Tip to Tip of Fingers with Arms Outstretched.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.64⅝}1.59⅛}
2.65}2.62½}
3.63½} Med. 65⅜.3.62½} Med. 61-13/40.
4.69½}4.60}
5.64¼}5.62½}

It is interesting to notice the great difference between the height and this latter measurement, showing the great length of the arms in the Ainu race.

The Humerus.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.9}1.8½}
2.9⅝}2.8¾}
3.8½} Med. 9-9/40.3.10⅜} Med. 9-19/40.
4.9}4.9¾}
5.10}5.10}

The Ulna.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.9¼}1.9¼}
2.10¾}2.9⅛}
3.9⅛} Med. 9-37/40.3.8⅞} Med. 9¼.
4.11}4.9⅜}
5.9½}5.9⅝}

The Hand.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.7⅜}1.6⅞}
2.7½}2.7}
3.7¼} Med. 7⅖.3.6⅞} Med. 6-9/10.
4.7⅞}4.6¾}
5.7}5.7}

The Spine (dorsal and lumbar vertebræ to the sacrum).

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.25½}1.27}
2.28⅝}2.26¾}
3.27½} Med. 27⅘.3.28¼} Med. 27⅝.
4.29⅝}4.27}
5.27¾}5.29⅛}

The Leg (Femur, Tibia and Foot.)

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.34⅜}1.32⅞}
2.36¼}2.35½}
3.32½} Med. 35-1/20.3.34} Med. 33-13/20.
4.37⅞}4.30½}
5.34¼}5.35⅜}

Femur.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.17½}1.18⅜}
2.18⅜}2.19⅞}
3.17⅛} Med. 18⅝.3.18½} Med. 17-33/40.
4.20}4.14}
5.20⅛}5.18⅜}

Tibia.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.14}1.14¼}
2.14⅞}2.13}
3.12⅝} Med. 13½.3.13½} Med. 13⅘.
4.14⅞}4.14}
5.11⅛}5.14¼}

(The Tibia is very flattened with the Ainu.)

Tarsus (from ground to Ankle).

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.2¾}1.2}
2.3}2.2⅝}
3.3} Med. 3.3.2} Med. 2⅜.
4.3¼}4.2½}
5.3}5.2¾}

Chest (from Arm-pit to Arm-pit).

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.13½}1.12⅝}
2.13⅝}2.14¼}
3.13½} Med. 13-19/40.3.14¼} Med. 13-7/20.
4.13}4.12¼}
5.13¾}5.13⅜}

Around Chest.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.36½}1.33⅜}
2.35⅜}2.34½}
3.37½} Med. 37-3/40.3.35½} Med. 34⅕.
4.37⅝}4.32⅞}
5.38⅛}5.34¾}

Around Waist.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.33}1.28⅜}
2.37}2.31½}
3.34} Med. 34-7/10.3.34⅞} Med. 31-7/20.
4.36}4.31}
5.33½}5.(37⅝ but was conceived.)}

Maximum Breadth of Shoulders.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.19¼}1.15½}
2.16}2.13⅝}
3.18} Med. 17½.3.13⅞} Med. 14⅖.
4.18}4.13⅞}
5.16¼}5.15⅛}

The Foot.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.9¼}1.8⅝}
2.9⅝}2.9⅛}
3.9½} Med. 9-23/40.3.9⅛} Med. 8⅘.
4.10¼}4.8¼}
5.9¼}5.8⅞}

The Head (around the Head, just above the Ears).

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.23½}1.23⅜}
2.23½}2.22⅝}
3.24⅜} Med. 23¾.3.23⅝} Med. 22-29/40.
4.22⅜}4.22}
5.23⅛}5.23}

Length of Face.(From Hair to Chin.)

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.7½}1.7¼}
2.9}2.6¾}
3.7½} Med. 7-31/40.3.6¾} Med. 6⅞.
4.6⅞}4.7}
5.8}5.6⅝}

Width of Face from Ear to Ear (over Forehead and Cheek Bones).

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.11⅞}1.11⅛}
2.12½}2.11}
3.12} Med. 11-19/20.3.11¾} Med. 11-21/40.
4.12}4.11⅞}
5.12⅛}5.11⅛}

Height of Forehead.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.2¼}1.2¼}
2.2⅞}2.1¾}
3.2⅜} Med. 2-2/5.3.2⅛} Med. 2.
4.2}4.2}
5.2¾}5.1⅞}

Width of Forehead.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.5}1.6}
2.5¼}2.5½}
3.5½} Med. 5⅕.3.5} Med. 5⅜.
4.5¾}4.4⅞}
5.6}5.5½}

Length of Ears.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.3}1.2⅜}
2.3¼}2.2⅜}
3.2¾} Med. 2-23/40.3.2¾} Med. 2-23/40.
4.2½}4.2⅞}
5.2⅝}5.2½}

Length of Fingers.

MEN.
inches.		WOMEN.
inches.
1.3⅛}1.3}
2.3⅜}2.3}
3.3} Med. 3-9/40.3.3} Med. 2-39/40.
4.3⅝}4.2⅞}
5.3}5.3}

(a) Colour of skin (in parts not exposed to air)—light reddish slightly tending towards brown, but almost as light as with Europeans.

(b) Colour of hair—black, dark-brown, reddish-black, red.

(c) Colour of eyes—light-brown tending towards dark-grey.

(d) Character of hair—wavy.

(e) Amount of hair—abundant on face and all over the body in males more so than in females.

Measurements of Shikotan Ainu.

The skin and eyes are the same colour as with the Yezo Ainu. The hair is black, dark-red, or dark-brown. Black is the prevalent colour. Children often have fair hair, which grows darker as they grow older. The hair is abundant over body and face, and it is wavy.

The face possesses the identical characteristics of the Yezo Ainu.

Medium height: 61 inches to 62¾ inches.
Round waist: 32⅞ inches.
Chest: Empty, 35⅞ inches; inflated, 37½ inches.
Humerus: 11⅞ inches.
Ulna: 8-11/16 inches.
Hand: 6¾ inches.
Foot: 9½ inches.
Spinal vertebræ: 24 inches.
Scapula (from shoulder to shoulder): 17 inches.
Between shoulder-blades: 5⅞ inches.
Femur: short.
Tibia: very long.
(Natives objected to have their legs measured.)
The Tibia is much rounder than with the Yezo Ainu.
Length of face: 7½ inches.
Width of face from ear to ear: 11⅛ inches.
Round head above ears: 21⅝ inches.
Ears: small.
Forehead: 2⅜ inches high; 5¼ inches wide.

With arms outstretched and from tip to tip of fingers the Shikotan Ainu measure generally the length of one hand (about 6¾ inches) more than their own height. Consumption, kaki, and syphilis are common complaints among them.

II.—GLOSSARY OF AINU WORDS, MANY OF WHICH ARE FOUND IN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES IN YEZO AND THE KURILE ISLANDS.[43]

INDEX.