Alone With The Hairy Ainu Part 23

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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese, 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 j.a.panese, 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 j.a.panese. 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-sh.o.r.e, and I shall pa.s.s 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 j.a.panese, and have not retained any of the good ones. They are ill-tempered, lazy, and vindictive. It is well to mention that, on the j.a.panese side, they have come mostly from the criminals exported by the j.a.panese Government, which fact partly explains why they are so evil-minded and untrustworthy. Instead of falling into the more civilised ways of the j.a.panese, 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 s.p.a.cious 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 b.u.mps of amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, and tune very well developed. In the half-breeds these b.u.mps hardly show at all, and in some cases the back of the head--where the two first b.u.mps 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 succ.u.mb 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 pa.s.ses, 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 j.a.panese, 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 j.a.panese, 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 j.a.panese 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 a.s.sailant 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 p.u.b.erty; 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 j.a.panese 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAKED AINU MAN FROM THE NORTH-EAST COAST OF YEZO, PACKING SEAWEED FOR WINTER USE.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

Physiological Observations--Pulse-beat and Respiration--Exposure--Odour of the Ainu--The Five Senses.

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 j.a.panese 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 superst.i.tious 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 s.e.xes, 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 j.a.panese hats of wicker-work; and others, especially women, tie round their head a j.a.panese towel--a fashion, as we have seen, also adopted from the j.a.panese. With this head-dress the crown of the head is left uncovered.

The Ainu are not ma.s.sively formed, but they are st.u.r.dy, 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 quant.i.ty 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 j.a.panese; but they could neither define it nor a.s.similate 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 a.s.sert 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 cla.s.sification 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 j.a.panese recognise the Ainu odour as a distinguishing mark of the race, and j.a.panese fishermen have often said to me, "_Aino shto taihen kusai_"; "_Saru_," or else "_k.u.mma onaji koto_"--"Ainu men smell bad, just like a monkey or a bear."

As an Ainu grows older this peculiarity increases. The weaker s.e.x 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 papillae 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 a.s.sistance--few can boast of having the sense of taste very acute. In our lower cla.s.ses 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 minutiae. 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TROPHY OF BEARS' SKULLS.]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Ainu Superst.i.tions--Morals--Laws and Punishments.

I cannot begin this chapter better than by saying that Ainu religious ideas are essentially chaotic. They recognise no supreme G.o.d, 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, p.r.i.c.ked 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'etre_ 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 a.n.a.logies, 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 j.a.panese know of a G.o.d, and some of them, at the instigation of j.a.panese _bonzes_, have become nominal Buddhists. Benry, at Piratori, showed me a small Buddhist shrine, of j.a.panese 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 G.o.d of the j.a.panese. 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 Yos.h.i.tsune, the j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese 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 Yos.h.i.tsune--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.