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Updated: June 17, 2025
Bears, are, however, becoming rare in Yesso, and the Japanese Government, which is paternal even in regard to the fauna of the islands, has from time to time interfered with many venerable Aino customs. The religion of this interesting race is almost as mysterious as everything else appertaining to it.
By Basil Hall Chamberlain. Prefatory Remarks. I visited the island of Yezo for the third time in the summer of 1886, in order to study the Aino language, with a view to elucidate by its means the obscure problem of the geographical nomenclature of Japan. But, as is apt to happen on such occasions, the chief object of my visit soon ceased to be the only object.
But again the rat met him with apologies, and, as a peace-offering, gave him a cap for his head. These events account for the thick cap of erect feathers which the owl wears to this day, and also for the enmity between the owl and the rat. ii. The Loves of the Thunder-Gods. Two young thunder-gods, sons of the chief thunder-god, fell violently in love with the same Aino woman.
We treated them to sailors' fare, allowing them the free run of our bread barges, and endeavoured all we could but without success to set them at their ease. They were all highly perfumed with the penetrating odour of garlic. I noticed that the married ladies, in common with Aïno women, tattoo the backs of their hands, though not their mouths.
She chose the best of all the treasures there and adorned herself like a queen, with rings and jewels and gold ornaments of every sort. When she was fully arrayed she left the storehouse and wandered over fields and meadows and on through the dim and gloomy fir-forest, singing as she went: 'Woe is me, poor broken-hearted Aino! My grief is so heavy that I can no longer live.
One purpose which their language serves is to prove how widely they once spread over the country now Japan, where place-names alone remain to indicate a former Aino population. Some of these are unmistakeably Aino, as Yamashiro, which must have meant "land of chestnut trees," and Shikyu, "place of rushes."
Twelve hundred years ago a Chinese historian stated that "on the eastern frontier of the land of Japan there is a barrier of great mountains, beyond which is the land of the Hairy Men." These were the Aino, so named from the word in their own language signifying "man."
This indeed is plainly affirmed of the Aino: they call the millet "the divine cereal," "the cereal deity," and they pray to and worship him before they will eat of the cakes made from the new millet.
So the mother told the news to Aino, but when she heard it she wept for three whole days and nights and refused to be comforted, saying to her mother: 'Why should this great sorrow come to me, dear mother, for now I shall no longer be able to adorn my golden hair with jewels, but must hide it all beneath the ugly cap that wives have to wear.
When they had done so, the Aino, peeping a little, saw that there was a river, and that they were drawing water with dippers from the mouth of the river, and sipping it. They said to each other: "How good this water is!" Half the fleet went up the river. But the boat in which the Aino was went on its voyage, and at last reached his native place, whereupon the sailors threw the Aino into the water.
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