THE AINOS OF JAPAN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1897

THE AINOS OF JAPAN.

The island of Yezo, north of Japan, or Hakkaido, as the Japanese call it, says Sarah E. Wilcox, in the Housekeeper, is inhabited by a strange people, distinguished from other races by a peculiar hairy growth which covers their bodies. Though this is possibly exaggerated, and sometimes denied, we have the testimony of travelers who have visited the island and become familiar with its inhabitants.

Several years ago a noted English woman, Miss Isabella Bird (now Mrs. Isabella Bird-Bishop), while traveling in Japan, determined to visit the island and verify or disprove the statements made concerning this people. On horseback, attended only by a Japanese guide, she traversed dense forests, climbed steep mountains, crossed bogs and ravines, was borne over swift-flowing rivers, to reach the lonely mountain country where dwelt these “hairy Ainos,” and upon which the foot of a white woman had never rested. More recently J. H. Savage-Landor spent some time upon the island, and his description of the people confirms the statements made by Miss Bird.

She found them gentle and inoffensive, courteous and hospitable. The skin of the men is of a dark olive tint, and is usually, not invariably, covered with short bristling black hair, more especially abundant upon the arms and legs. In boys, this sometimes has the appearance of fur. Miss Bird says she saw boys whose backs were covered with fur as soft and silky as that of a cat. Children of five or six years of age wear no clothing, and men do not always, as she was ferried across a river by a man whose only covering was short black hair.

The men are short, broad-shouldered, thick-set, with very short necks and limbs, and striking physiognomy. Profuse masses of coal-black hair, parted in the middle, fall nearly to the shoulders. The beard is very black and heavy, sometimes commencing underneath the eyes. Miss Bird thus describes a chief: “Benri is a typical Aino; he is a little over five feet high, has a prominent forehead, small ears set low, short nose, wide mouth, and thin lips. A heavy wavy black beard ripples over his hairy chest nearly to his waist. Profuse masses of black hair rest upon his shoulders; he looks a veritable savage were it not for his deep-set, dreamy eyes, with their long, silken lashes, his sweet smile when he speaks, displaying small and beautifully white teeth.”

Untanned skins and coarse garments made from the inner bark of trees form the clothing of men and women. The women weave this prepared bark on a rude loom fashioned with a knife. Clothing is never removed after having been donned until past wearing. They wear neither sandals nor shoes, save rude moccasins when on hunting expeditions. Bathing is unknown. A Japanese woman took an Aino woman into her home, and insisted on her taking a bath. On visiting the bathroom to ascertain the cause of her prolonged absence, she found the woman sitting stolidly in the water with all her clothes upon her person.

The Aino women are short, with noticeably small heads and faces; heavy masses of hair, as with the men, fall to the shoulders. The mouth is broad, and the breadth apparently increased by wide tattoo lines which encircle it. Mr. Landor speaks of having seen women with these lines extending from this circle to the ear on either side. This tattooing gives to faces of the women a more peculiar expression, if possible, than that of the men. Hands and feet are small, and both are disfigured with blue lines and bars. The tattooing process is commenced when girls are very young, and is described by Miss Bird, who witnessed the operation performed on a little girl of five years.

A woman took a very sharp knife and quickly cut several horizontal lines on the upper and under lips, following the curve of the mouth, and united the lines at the corners. Into these cuts, before the bleeding ceased, she rubbed soot taken from the bottom of a fire-pan. In two or three days the fearfully swollen and inflamed lips were bathed with a decoction of bark which gave a blue color to the lines when healed. The little girl clasped her hands tightly, and uttered no sound when cut, nor when the soot, with no gentle hand, was pressed into the bleeding wounds. No girl can be married until mouth, hands, and arms have been tattooed. Tattooing has since been prohibited by the Japanese Government, but so wedded are the Ainos to the custom, it is said not to be strictly enforced.

There is little variety in their food, and but two meals a day are eaten. Miss Bird spent several days in the rude huts of these people, eating and sleeping under their steep thatched roofs, and although previously provided with edibles, did not altogether refuse the hospitality of the natives. Stews are made in large iron pans containing water, into which are indiscriminately thrown wild roots, beans, mushrooms, slugs, pieces of dried fish, venison, bear’s meat, stale fish oil, in fact, anything and everything obtainable that can be eaten. The contents of the pan are stirred and stewed several hours, and then eaten with chop-sticks. A thick soup is also made from a putty-like clay which is found in some parts of the island.

Mr. Landor says the Ainos have no literature, books, nor writing; and not one in a hundred can count five even with the aid of his fingers. They do not know their ages, have no methods of computing time, and claim descent from a dog.

Houses and persons swarm with vermin, and they have little thought, apparently, beyond an animal existence, yet they are courteous to each other, hospitable, truthful, and honest. Old age is respected, children obey their parents, and women are well treated. They have one vice which makes them kin to civilized nations, drunkenness. To become beastly intoxicated is a virtue, not a vice, and believed to be most pleasing to the gods. A future life appears to find no place in their thoughts. In a vague, indefinite way they may be said to worship the sun, moon, and animals, especially the bear. They have a yearly bear feast which can scarcely be called religious. In every Aino village may be seen a tall pole crowned with the skull of a bear. On no pretext will man or woman go near a grave, for all have a great terror of death. “No dream of Paradise ever lights for the Aino the ‘Stygian shades,’ in this lonely land he lives and dies, without God and without hope in the world.”