United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Ainos of Yezo may be called Shamanists or Animists; that is, their minds are cramped and confused by their belief in a multitude of inferior spirits whom they worship and propitiate by rites and incantations through their medicine-man or sorcerer.
In my own case, I found myself, after a short time, listening to the stories for their own sake, not merely as linguistic exercises; and I ventured to include a few of them in the "Memoir on the Ainos" which was published a few months ago by the Imperial University of Japan.
He satisfied himself that his Ainos were not making believe, like Europeans with nursery tales, but that the explanatory myths of natural phenomena are to them theorems of physical science, and the wonder-tales are told under the impression that they really happened.
Dealing in the first instance with the sagas found in this country, or in Germany, our investigations have by no means ended there; for in order to understand these sagas, we have found occasion to refer again and again to the märchen, as well as the sagas, of other European nations, nay, to the traditions of races as wide apart from our own in geographical position and culture, as the South Sea Islanders, the Ainos, and the Aborigines of America.
The same process is found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a deity.
I would, therefore, merely suggest in passing that the probabilities of the case are in favour of the Ainos having borrowed from their only clever neighbours, the Japanese. Thus it is a priori likely that the stupid and barbarous will be taught by the clever and educated, not the clever and educated by the stupid and barbarous.
Tremblingly she hid herself, but the dog sought her out, and, to her surprise, entered into conversation with her, and finally into a more intimate alliance. From the union of these two opposite natures according to this account the Aïnos are descended. One other tradition I will mention the Chinese which perhaps has something of the truth in it.
Many European writers have described them, but hardly any with such opportunities as Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Professor of Philology at the Tōkyō University, who has taken down from the Ainos the present collection of their tales, and prefaced it with an account of their ways and state of mind. As is well known, the hairiness of the Ainos marks them sharply off from the smooth-faced Japanese.
When the old people died, he inherited all their possessions; and then, with his new wife and his beloved son, returned to his own village. So you see that, even among us Ainos, there are wicked women. xl. The Bride Bewitched. There was once a very beautiful girl who had many suitors.
The Russian fur trade Kruzenstern appointed to the command of an expedition Noukha-Hiva Nangasaki Reconnaisance of the coast of Japan Yezo The Ainos Saghalien Return to Europe Otto von Kotzebue Stay at Easter Island Penrhyn The Radak Archipelago Return to Russia Changes at Otaheite and the Sandwich Islands Beechey's Voyage Easter Island Pitcairn and the mutineers of the Bounty The Paumoto Islands Otaheite and the Sandwich Islands The Bonin Islands Lütke The Quebradas of Valparaiso Holy week in Chili New Archangel The Kaloches Ounalashka The Caroline Archipelago The canoes of the Caroline Islanders Guam, a desert island Beauty and happy situation of the Bonin Islands The Tchouktchees: their manners and their conjurors Return to Russia.
Word Of The Day