AMONG THE “HAIRY” AINU
The most interesting thing about Hokkaido or Yezo, the big northern
island of Japan, is that it is the home of the Ainu. This primitive race
are not at all like the Japanese. No one knows exactly where they came
from. They have no written language of their own and therefore all that
is known about their history is in the form of legends and traditions
told by father to son, or mother to daughter. The Ainu were living in
almost all the islands of Japan when the Japanese came up from the
south, or wherever it was they came from, and conquered them.
If you see an Ainu and a Japanese side by side, the Ainu looks larger
and stronger, with features more like our own. He does not have
almond-shaped eyes. But his race was no match for the Japanese. They
were like prize fighters or football players who have trained only their
bodies and given little attention to their minds. While the Japanese
were studying and becoming more and more civilized, the Ainu were
improving only their muscles, so that when the clash came they were
almost helpless against the more clever invaders.
Hundreds of years ago the Japanese drove them entirely off the main
island, and now Japanese settlers are crowding them still higher into
the hills of the cold northern island, planting the fertile lowlands
themselves. So you find hamlets, clusters of huts, of the Ainu among the
uncultivated hills, and in places along the seacoast of Hokkaido, and
sometimes even on the Kuriles and Sakhalin. In a way they are treated by
the Japanese as we treat the Indians on our reservations; but they are
left more to shift for themselves.
[Illustration:
An Ainu house, thatched with straw, looks very primitive. The children
look primitive too, but very likely they are just as happy as if
they lived in a more civilized way.
]
I visited several Ainu villages during my journey through Hokkaido. You
can tell them as far off as you can see them, because the houses are
different from those of the Japanese. The walls are usually made of
reeds, almost like cornstalks, set upright and bound together with
poles. The roof is made of coarse straw, and generally put on in thick
layers overlapping one another, so that at a distance it seems to be
covered with huge shingles. Inside, there is no floor, only the earth,
and few beds or other furniture. There may be a small garden about the
house, tended by the women more often than by the men. However, the men
are good fishermen, and groups of them could be seen mending their nets
and big trays woven like baskets, which are used for the drying of fish.
The Ainu men are brave hunters, often using only spears, or knives, or
bows and arrows to kill the big savage brown bears that inhabit the
forests of Yezo. Curiously enough, they not only kill and eat bears but
worship them. Their religion is a very simple one, a kind of
nature-worship, such as the traveler often finds among people who have
always lived out of doors. A part of their worship is to put a bear cub
in a crude log cage before the house and fatten it at the same time that
they worship it, finally killing it for a great religious feast and
putting another cub in its place.
This curious tribe is often called the “hairy” Ainu and sometimes the
“white men of Japan.” Though their features are heavy and their noses
blunt, some scientists think that they are really Caucasians, like us,
rather than Mongolians, like the Japanese and Chinese. But we would
hardly call them white men, though a few generations of living indoors
and using soap and hot water might make a great difference. Nor did they
seem to me especially hairy. To be sure, the old men all had long thick
beards, but such beards used to be popular among old men in America. The
young Ainu seem to be sensitive about this reputation for hairiness, and
most of them now shave, and dress like the Japanese. But to their
Japanese conquerors, who, like the Chinese and other Mongolian
neighbors, hardly have any need for a razor, these primitive bearded men
seem very hairy.
[Illustration:
Ainu fishermen mending their trays for drying fish.
]
I was not nearly so much surprised by the beards of the Ainu men as by
the long mustaches of the women! For hundreds of years it has been an
Ainu custom to tattoo the faces of the girls, especially on the upper
lip. It is said that kitchen soot is used for this, along with some
native dye that gives it a bluish color, so that by the time she
marries, the Ainu girl has a blue mustache flaring up at the ends in a
very jaunty way. Sometimes there is a little tattooed beard on the lower
lip also, and blue decorations on other parts of the face and body. But
the Ainu girls seem to be giving up this interesting custom, and even
the old women often hold a corner of their garments across their faces
to hide their mustaches from the stranger.
[Illustration:
Here is an Ainu who has welcomed Japanese ways and adopted some of the
clothing introduced from Europe and America.
]
Queer Customs of the Ainu
The Ainu, especially the old chiefs, have some very ceremonial ways. If
the visitor knows how to win the friendship of primitive people, he may
persuade the chiefs to put on their elaborate tribal robes instead of
the commonplace, everyday garments they seem to have taken partly from
the Japanese and partly from the Western world. The women have gaudy
costumes that include huge beads and queer earrings. When the men visit
one another and engage in formal conversation, they spread a grass mat,
take off their sandals, and squat with their feet in front of them, not
on their heels, like the Japanese. When they meet, they show politeness
by stroking their beards and rubbing their own palms together.
The Ainu are decreasing so rapidly that scientists fear they will soon
disappear entirely. Their miserable straw huts without floors are not
suitable dwellings for the long, cold Hokkaido winters. They have no
doctors, and when a man, or even a child, falls ill they do nothing but
wrap him in a blanket and let nature cure him if it can. The typical
Ainu are disappearing also because many of them have intermarried with
the Japanese, and their descendants have some of the qualities of each
race. But the chief cause of their decrease is that they drink too much
hard liquor.
Anyone who gives or sells liquor to our Indians is likely to be severely
punished; but the Japanese do not take so serious an attitude toward
strong drink. Their Indians, as we might call the Ainu, drink on every
possible occasion. Drinking is a part of the ceremonial at weddings,
funerals and religious feasts. The drink is usually _sake_, or Japanese
rice-whiskey, and for the ceremonies there are very elaborate wooden
cups, with a thin flat stick to keep the beard and long mustache out of
the way, reminding us of the “mustache cups” that used to be given our
bearded grandfathers at Christmas and on their birthdays. The men drink
slowly, but as they also drink often and usually for long periods, they
do themselves much harm.
The women are not allowed to drink, at least during ceremonies; besides,
they have very little time for such things, because they have to do
almost all the work, except hunting and fishing. In some parts of
Hokkaido they still make the ceremonial garments of elm bark, weaving
and embroidering it to look like cloth. But most of the Ainu now wear
cheap Japanese cotton, and are losing many of their picturesque customs.
An Amusing Occurrence
The Ainu did not seem at all savage, but rather friendly. It would have
been hard for me to realize that they are really savages, had it not
been for a certain experience with one of their chiefs. I had been
wandering most of the afternoon about a large village, taking
photographs. Some of the people ran away at sight of my camera, and some
merely stared at it as if wondering what that strange little machine
could be. But many people in other parts of the world act in the same
way. Either they do not know what photography is or they are afraid that
anyone who gets a picture of them on a film can do them harm by hurting
the picture.
[Illustration:
The old Ainu chief who later threatened to strike me with a plow,
standing before a typical Ainu house roofed with overlapping layers
of thatch.
]
Suddenly an old chief who must have been a very strong man indeed in his
prime, came running down one of the sandy lanes that take the place of
streets in an Ainu village. A small boy who had been following me made a
queer noise that was part grunt and part shriek, as if he were trying to
warn me of trouble. I had already photographed this old man, so I could
not imagine what had made him angry, unless perhaps he had just
discovered what my camera was. He walked up to me and thrust his face so
close to mine that I could feel his breath and see the separate hairs in
his great bushy snow-white beard and his long uncut locks. His liquid
black eyes, which reminded me of the eyes of a wild animal, were blazing
with rage. He did not seem to know a word of Japanese, so the little I
knew of that language did not help me to find out what he was angry
about. In a great bass voice that could be heard all over the village,
he shouted something in his own tongue, which, of course, I could not
understand.
Apparently he was ordering me to do something, and became more and more
angry because I did not do it. Suddenly he ran to a house near by and
picked up a plow! It was merely a wooden plow, with no iron about it,
yet it was heavy for all that. But this sturdy old man lifted it high
above his head in one hand and acted as if he were about to strike me
with it. Because it makes any American feel cowardly to run away, I
stood my ground, half turning to close the camera before he could break
it, ready to dodge if the plow began to descend. The chief was shrieking
like a true wild man, quite different from the angry tones of civilized
races. Yet he had perhaps been somewhat tamed by being all his life
under the rule of the Japanese, for instead of striking me he merely
continued to flourish the plow. Finally he threw it down and grasped me
by my coat lapel.
I tried to pull away, but his grip was like that of a tiger’s claw. I
caught him by one thumb and gave it a quick twist, as boys in a quarrel
sometimes do. He grunted with pain and let go. As I walked away, he
continued to bellow, with most of the people of the village gazing at us
from their doorways. Savages are like children in many ways, and this
one acted so much like a boy who wanted to fight but was afraid to do so
because the teacher might catch him at it, that I could not help
laughing.
Generally the Ainu are such simple, kindly people, even though the
Japanese do call them “barbarians,” that I was sorry not to be able to
understand and obey the old chief. I had no desire to offend this
ancient leader of a much abused yet very likable race. But you will
agree with me that no one likes to have a plow waved over his head.