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'I came, O minstrel, to rest in thine arms and to be thy companion and wife for ever, the fish replied; 'to keep thy home in order and to do whatever thou pleased. For I am not a fish; I am no salmon of the Northern Seas, but Youkahainen's youngest sister. I am the one thou wert fishing for Aino, whom thou lovest. Once thou wert wise, but now art foolish, cruel.
The place of sacrifice or execution was marked as holy by being surrounded with whittled sticks, from the tops of which shavings hung in curls. Such sticks are with the Gilyaks, as with the Aino, the regular symbols that accompany all religious ceremonies.
On the whole it is evident that the Ainos are an ancient race in this part of Asia, and so far isolated that anthropology has not yet the means of settling their physical connection with other Asiatic tribes. Professor Chamberlain's careful examination of the Aino language leads him to a similar result. It is made not only from his own knowledge, but with the advantage of working with the Rev.
Tsneta Mori, that this belongs to the tale of the Wager of the Phœnix, known to all Japanese children, and in which the Phœnix is plainly derived from China. On the other hand, there is much genuine Aino matter in the present collection. It is simply the expression of the dislike and contempt of the coast Ainos, who tell the stories, for the hill Ainos further up the rivers.
B. Scheube on the tenth of August at Kunnui, which is a village on Volcano Bay in the island of Yezo or Yesso. As his description of the rite contains some interesting particulars not mentioned in the foregoing account, it may be worth while to summarize it. On entering the hut he found about thirty Aino present, men, women, and children, all dressed in their best.
It is therefore possible that, as our principal authority, the Rev. J. Batchelor, believes, the bear may have been the totem of an Aino clan; but even if that were so it would not explain the respect shown for the animal by the whole Aino people. But it is the bear-festival of the Aino which concerns us here. Towards the end of winter a bear cub is caught and brought into the village.
There she sank down, weary, on a rock, and sat there alone in the black night, listening to the solemn music of the wind and the waves, as they sang her funeral melody. When at last the day dawned Aino beheld three water-maidens sitting on a rock by the sea. She hastened to them, weeping, and then began to take off all her ornaments and lay them carefully away.
Again, it is said that "the bear is their chief divinity"; "in the religion of the Aino the bear plays a chief part"; "amongst the animals it is especially the bear which receives an idolatrous veneration"; "they worship it after their fashion"; "there is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more of the feeling which prompts worship than the inanimate forces of nature, and the Aino may be distinguished as bear-worshippers."
I would draw special attention to the character of the translation, as being an absolutely literal one in the case of all those stories which I originally wrote down in Aino from the dictation of native informants. As time pressed, however, I sometimes had the story told me more rapidly, and wrote it down afterwards in English only, but never more than a few hours afterwards.
So far as I can judge, that "disease of language" which we call metaphor, and which is held by some great authorities to have been the chief factor in the fabrication of Aryan myth, has no place in Aino fairy-land; neither have the phenomena of the weather attracted more attention than other things. But I speak subject to correction.
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