Ainu Clothes, Ornaments, and Tattooing.
[Illustration: WINTER BEAR-SKIN COAT.]
The Ainu men generally go naked in summer time, but in some parts of
Yezo civilisation has forced them to adopt cheap Japanese clothes. It
must not be supposed from this that the real Ainu never wear any clothes
at all, for indeed on grand occasions they dress gaudily enough, but
always in a rude, elementary kind of way. For winter use they sew
together the skins of either bear or deer, fox or wolf, making a kind of
sleeveless jacket, which protects the chest, the shoulders, and the
back. Another kind of fur garment of deer-skin is longer and has
sleeves, is large at the shoulders, and very narrow at the wrist, as a
still further protection against the cold. This deer-skin coat is mostly
worn by women as an under-garment. Besides these fur garments for winter
weather, they wear the _atzis_, a long reddish-yellow wrapper, made of
the woven fibre of the _Ulmus campestris_. It has sleeves similar to the
deer-skin coat, only these sleeves are a great deal wider.
[Illustration: BACK OF ATZIS.]
On the southern coast some of the civilised tribes have either adopted
Japanese _kimonos_ altogether, or make their _atzis_ after the same
pattern, to ingratiate themselves with their masters, on the principle
of imitation being the sincerest flattery, and perhaps also because they
come cheaper in the end. The _atzis_ reaches below the knees, and is
folded round the body. It is kept in position by a girdle or belt of the
same material, or of bear or sea-lion skin. This _atzis_ is ornamented
with embroidery both back and front, round the sleeves, round the neck,
and all round the border, or, as we should say, hem. The embroideries
are done in Japanese coloured cottons and threads. The colours are
invariably red, blue, and white, on a background of this yellow _Ulmus
campestris_ cloth. They have the same characteristic patterns, and are
identical with the ornaments on knife-sheaths, drinking-bowls,
moustache-lifters, &c., as the readers will find in the chapter on the
"Arts of the Ainu." Men and women wear _atzis_ of the same shape, only
those of the women are longer than those of the men, and reach nearly to
the feet. Moreover, the patterns which are embroidered on the men's
dresses are not considered suitable for the women's, and _vice versâ_.
Women--who, by the way, do all these embroideries--have to content
themselves with the simplest patterns devisable--a mere thin line of
blue stitches; but they give to the men a more elaborate ornament. They
first sew on heavy bands of material, which then they embroider in
highly complicated patterns, thus giving a much heavier and handsomer
appearance to the male _atzis_. In winter the sleeveless fur jacket is
sewn over the _atzis_, and, as has been said, women wear the deer-skin
gown as an under-garment. Ainu embroideries vary considerably, not only
in different tribes and different villages, but also in each family,
according to the talent and patience possessed by the embroidress. It
takes an affectionate wife a year or longer to ornament the elm-bark
dress of her beloved husband, and in the case of a chief's robe the work
never comes to an end, as additions are constantly made. Children have
an extremely simple embroidery, when any, round the sleeves and hem of
the _atzis_, but never any, simple or elaborate, either on the back or
front.
I have often seen women working patiently hour after hour while sitting
on the tiny door of their storehouses; and the result of their labour
would be half an inch of coarse stitching, which for them was a great
work of art. Most Ainu now possess needles of Japanese manufacture, but
in former days they had only bone needles, and instead of fine well-dyed
Japanese thread were obliged to be content with the fibre of the elm
tree dyed black. The ornamentations on the _atzis_ of Ainu who have no
Japanese needles are necessarily a great deal coarser and simpler than
those which are done with steel needles and cotton threads. The
essential characteristics are the same in both. In sewing together skins
for winter garments fish-bone needles are often used up to this day.
These embroidered clothes, when new, are only worn on grand occasions,
as at a bear festival, or when paying a visit to a neighbouring village.
A few rags constitute the usual every-day costume, and no difference is
made between the in-door and the out-of-door clothing. In fact, most
Ainu sleep in their clothes, such as they are.
[Illustration: THE "HOSHI."]
One article of dress which is worn by all alike, young and old, male or
female, is the _hoshi_, or leggings. Like their gowns, these are
sometimes made of the inner fibre of the elm-tree bark and sometimes of
rushes and reeds plaited as in the ordinary rush matting. When of
elm-tree bark, they are often embroidered in the upper part, as can be
seen in the illustration. They are fastened just under the knee by means
of the two upper strings, then wrapped tightly round the leg and bound
round the ankle with the lower and longer ribbon. The Ainu go barefooted
in the summer, but during the winter months, when the cold is too severe
for this, they cover their feet with mocassins and long boots made of
salmon-skin, and often of deer-skin. When the Ainu goes for a long
journey or a hunt, during which he has to traverse rough ground, he
generally protects his skin boots--the soles of which would soon be
destroyed by the sharp stones and ice--by slipping over them a pair of
thick rope sandals, which protect the sides, the back, the toes, and
sole of the foot. If to this inventory be added a head-gear consisting
of a band wound round the head, and an occasional apron, the whole of
the Ainu wardrobe is catalogued. This band, which is worn principally by
women, is untied and removed when saluting or meeting a man, whether on
the road or in the woods. A Japanese towel often takes the place of the
native manufacture. I am inclined to think that this custom of covering
the head has been acquired from the Japanese, as none of the Ainu of the
Upper Tokachi--the only pure ones remaining--wore anything in the shape
of band or kerchief, while it is extremely common with the Ainu of
Volcano Bay and Piratori to wear these unbecoming towels. At Piratori
the Ainu women give a more artistic character to this ugly headgear by
embroidering it in front and wearing it like a tiara. An apron is
occasionally worn by Ainu, but this too, in my opinion, has been
borrowed from the Japanese. Ainu clothes often get undone, owing to
their shape, and therefore Ainu men sometimes wear these aprons, but
rather because they are made to wear them than from native modesty or
inclination to be commonly decent. I have seen Ainu on the north-east
coast of Yezo and on Lake Kutcharo wear coarse hats of matted rushes.
When laid flat, these hats have a diameter of about thirty inches; but
when worn, they are folded in two, and kept in this position by a string
tied under the chin and passed through the hat. They are used
principally in winter as a protection against the snow. The Ainu care
more to adorn than to clothe themselves. A few glass beads, a metal
earring, a silver coin, or anything that shines, can make a man or a
woman as happy as a king. Intoxicants come first of all things, but
after them there is nothing in this world that Ainu cherish more than
personal ornaments, and this is, of course, even truer of women than of
men. What strikes a stranger when looking at an Ainu for the first time
is, as I have already said, the size of their metal earrings and heavy
glass necklaces. As the Ainu cannot work in metals or make glass, these
ornaments have been purchased from Japanese, Chinese, and Corean
adventurers, and many costly skins of bears, foxes, wolves, or seals are
gaily bartered for a few beads, worth next to nothing. The Ainu is fond
of metals, but he does not know the difference between one and the
other. All that glitters is gold for him; and if it is not gold then it
must be silver. Therefore some Ainu are known to have invested all their
fortune of valuable furs for a pair of brass earrings, and, what is
more, they have never grudged the bargain! Previous to the importation
of these worthless articles their ornaments were made of wood, bone, and
shells, of which "survivals" are still to be seen with the Ainu of the
Upper Tokachi.
[Illustration: BOOTS TO BE SOAKED IN WATER SO AS TO TAKE SHAPE OF FOOT,
AND TO BE KEPT UP WITH A STRING.]
[Illustration: DEER-SKIN SHOE.]
[Illustration: THE TARRA OR HEAD-BAND.]
The large circular earrings are much prized: men and women alike wear
them. Many men, however, do not wear these metal earrings, but prefer
instead a long strip of red or black cloth, or skin.
The lobes of the ears are frequently torn down by wearing these heavy
earrings from early childhood, and they know not how to mend them by
sewing them. Another hole is sometimes bored in the upper and sound
part.
Ainu women of civilised districts occasionally wear metal finger-rings,
but these are of course of foreign make, and imported.
Ainu _menokos_ (girls) seem to have no partiality for bracelets or
amulets, but necklaces are the dream of their life. The delight of an
Ainu woman in a new necklace is in proportion to the size and number of
the beads. A woman who possesses one of extra large beads is envied by
all her less fortunate neighbours; and she who has several strings is at
once admired and hated by all the womankind of the village. For, indeed,
Ainu women are "human" enough to know how to hate each other! The beads
which most take their fancy are the blue, black, white, or metal ones.
The larger beads in the necklace are in front; and the rough wooden
pendants with bits of bone, metal, or broken beads inlaid in it, which
hang to the necklace, rest on the breast. Large Japanese sword-hilts are
often used as pendants by the Volcano Bay natives.
The Ainu of the Upper Tokachi region had none of these beads, but a
rough wooden pendant was suspended round their neck by a leather string.
Girdles are worn by men and women for two purposes--first, to keep their
clothes together; next, to support the large knives which the Ainu
always carry with them.
The Ishikari Ainu who lived formerly in Sakhalin wear leather belts, and
the women wear besides a peculiar cloth headgear. Both these articles
are ornamented with drops of melted lead and Chinese cash sewn on to the
cloth.
These are all the articles of clothing and ornament which are in common
use among the Ainu. None of them are worn as symbols of rank, or to
denote virginity. No Ainu can explain why he or she wears one thing more
than another, except for the reason that he or she likes it. There are
no Ainu laws as regards clothing, and with the exception of the "chief,"
who on special occasions dresses more gaudily, and wears a crown made
either of willow-tree shavings or dried sea-weed, with a small
carved-wood bear head in front, they all dress pretty much alike. A
chief could not be distinguished from a commoner by his everyday
clothing.
Speaking of personal ornamentation, I may as well describe the way in
which the hair is dressed, and also the tattoo-marks.
Little care is taken of the long hair, which reaches down to the
shoulders. It is never washed, nor brushed, nor combed. At the back it
is cut in a semicircle round the neck. Over the forehead the men shave a
small part of the long hair, which, falling over their eyes, is
uncomfortable to them; but women do not. Until lately this shaving was
done with sharp shells, and wives shaved their husbands. The process was
said to be rather painful, and the thoughtful women have now adopted
knives for that purpose, to the great delight of the stronger sex. The
part shaved is in the shape of a lozenge two and a half inches by two
inches respectively from angle to angle. This open space causes the hair
to part in two different directions and hang down in large wavy curls.
The fingers are occasionally passed through it, and then with the palms
of the hands it is plastered down on both sides.
A characteristic Ainu method of making the morning "toilette" is to bend
the head low and let the long hair fall over the forehead. The two hands
are then placed under it on the temples, and suddenly and violently the
head is shaken and thrown back, the hair being pressed down by the hands
at the same time. If the first attempt at neatness is not approved of,
the process is repeated two or more times. I must confess that
personally I could seldom see any marked difference between a head of
hair "dressed" and one "not dressed"; but it must be remembered that the
Ainu have no looking-glasses, and what they think is right is of course
right for them.
Formerly, when an old woman lost her husband she had her head entirely
shaved, and when the hair had grown long again she repeated the process
as a proof of fidelity and affection to her deceased spouse. It is very
rarely done now. She used to wear a sort of cap, with an aperture at the
top, round the crown of the head during the time that her hair was
short; and it was incumbent on the widow to wear a look of sorrow and
pain till her hair grew long again.
The Ainu men have long beards and moustaches, which are never trimmed,
with the exception of the Kurilsky Ainu, who trim theirs. The beard
begins to grow when they are very young, but it is shaved till they
reach manhood. It is then left to grow naturally, and never touched
again as long as they live. Ainu women, whom nature has not favoured
with such a manly ornament, supplement their deficiency by having a long
moustache tattooed on their lips. Their hands and arms are also
tattooed.
The tattooing among the Ainu is limited to the fair sex, and it is
confined to the head and arms. Why and when the fashion was adopted is
not known, and the semi-Ainu legends on the subject are very vague. One
legend says that when the Ainu conquered Yezo, which was then inhabited
by a race of dwarfs--"the Koro-pok-kuru"--some Koro-pok-kuru women came
to the Ainu camp to beg food from them, and they did so by passing their
arms through the reed walls of the Ainu huts. One day an Ainu clutched
one of these arms and pulled it in, when a tattooed pattern on the tiny
arm was greatly admired by the hairy conquerors, who adopted the
practice from that day.
A simpler reason is that the women, not being so hairy as the men, are
humiliated by their inferiority in that respect, and try to make up for
it by tattooing themselves. In support of this theory may be quoted the
fact that women are only tattooed in parts which are left uncovered when
clad in their long _atzis_ gowns.
The Ainu process of tattooing is a painful one. The tattoo marks are
usually done with the point of a knife; not with tattooing needles, as
by the Japanese. Many incisions are cut nearly parallel to each other.
These are then filled with cuttlefish-black. Sometimes smoke-black mixed
with the blood from the incisions is used instead. On the lips the
operation is so painful that it has to be done by instalments. It is
begun with a small semicircle on the upper lip when the girl is only two
or three years of age, and a few incisions are added every year till she
is married, the moustache then reaching nearly to the ears, where at its
completion it ends in a point. Both lips are surrounded by it; but not
all women are thus marked. Some have no more than a semicircular tattoo
on the upper lip; others have an additional semicircle under the lower
lip; and many get tired of the painful process when the tattoo is hardly
large enough to surround their lips. The father of the girl is generally
the operator, but occasionally it is the mother who "decorates" the lips
and arms of her female offspring. Besides this tattooed moustache, a
horizontal line joins the eyebrows, and another line, parallel to it,
runs across the forehead. The tattoo could not be of a coarser kind. A
rough geometrical drawing adorns the arms and hands of women, the
pattern of one arm being often different from that of the other.
Frequently only one arm is tattooed. I never saw tattoos that went
further than the elbow, neither did I see any other part of the body
tattooed. The four specimens given in the illustration show the patterns
most usual in different tribes, though each individual has some slight
variations.
Fig. 1 was copied by me from the arm of a woman at Frishikobets
(Tokachi River); Figs. 2 and 3 are the two arms of Kawata Tera, a girl
of Tobuts (north-east coast of Yezo); and Fig. 4 is the left arm of a
girl at Piratori.
[Illustration: TATTOO-MARKS ON WOMEN'S ARMS.]
It will be noticed that in the regions where the Ainu have come in
contact with Japanese, rings are tattooed round the fingers, while the
Tokachi Ainu women have none. In the two arms of Kawata Tera (Figs. 2
and 3) the dissimilarity of the two patterns is very marked at first
sight, but on a close examination it is easy to perceive that the
operator meant to carry out the same pattern on the right arm as on the
left; only through his incapacity to reproduce correctly his former
lines, or for other reasons, he got muddled up in the design, and left
his work unfinished. If all the lines in the upper half of Fig. 3 were
continued, the design would be very similar to Fig. 2.
Tattooing is considered an ornament, besides, as I have already
mentioned, adding the coveted air of "virility" to women. There is no
religious feeling connected with it, and the practice is rapidly dying
out, as the Japanese men make fun of the Ainu women, who after all only
tattoo their mouths and arms, while they themselves often tattoo the
whole of the body. The Ainu have no rules as to when the girls are to be
operated on. They are done both before and after marriage, contrary to
what has been said, that the women do not tattoo themselves after they
have become wives. The moustache is generally finished before a girl
gets married, as she herself is anxious to be thus decorated; but there
are no rules as to virginity or marriage, for the arms and hands are as
often tattooed after marriage as before. Indeed, in the Ainu country,
"tattooing" one's wife seems to be one of the pleasures of the
honeymoon. The design of these tattoos is meant to be, but is seldom,
symmetrical. The Ainu apparently execute these designs on a preconceived
plan, but the results rarely come up to expectation, as no drawing of
the design is prepared beforehand. The bluish-black colour of the tattoo
is very permanent and strong, and many an Ainu woman is disfigured for
life, who, according to our ideas, would otherwise be good-looking.
[Illustration: SNOW-SHOES.]
[Illustration: AINU SALUTATION.]