The Ainu Superstitions--Morals--Laws and Punishments.
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.
[39] _Kotan_, village, place, site; _kara_, to make, build; _kamui_,
the man, ancient, strength.
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.
[40] _Chisei_, house, dwelling, hut; _kara_, make; also, have.
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.
[41] _Teine_, wet; _pokna_, under; _moshiri_, earth, place, island.
"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."
[42] Vol. X., Part II., §6.
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.
[Illustration: 1, 7, INAO-NETUBA. 2, 3, 4, 5, CHISEI-KARA-INAO. 6, A
PESTLE OR POUNDER.]