Age Is Held In Much
Reverence, And It Is Etiquette For These Old Men To Do Honour To A
Guest In The Chief's Absence.
As each entered he saluted me
several times, and after sitting down turned towards me and saluted
again, going
Through the same ceremony with every other person.
They said they had come "to bid me welcome." They took their
places in rigid order at each side of the fireplace, which is six
feet long, Benri's mother in the place of honour at the right, then
Shinondi, then the sub-chief, and on the other side the old men.
Besides these, seven women sat in a row in the background splitting
bark. A large iron pan hung over the fire from a blackened
arrangement above, and Benri's principal wife cut wild roots, green
beans, and seaweed, and shred dried fish and venison among them,
adding millet, water, and some strong-smelling fish-oil, and set
the whole on to stew for three hours, stirring the "mess" now and
then with a wooden spoon.
Several of the older people smoke, and I handed round some mild
tobacco, which they received with waving hands. I told them that I
came from a land in the sea, very far away, where they saw the sun
go down - so very far away that a horse would have to gallop day and
night for five weeks to reach it - and that I had come a long
journey to see them, and that I wanted to ask them many questions,
so that when I went home I might tell my own people something about
them. Shinondi and another man, who understood Japanese, bowed,
and (as on every occasion) translated what I said into Aino for the
venerable group opposite. Shinondi then said "that he and
Shinrichi, the other Japanese speaker, would tell me all they knew,
but they were but young men, and only knew what was told to them.
They would speak what they believed to be true, but the chief knew
more than they, and when he came back he might tell me differently,
and then I should think that they had spoken lies." I said that no
one who looked into their faces could think that they ever told
lies. They were very much pleased, and waved their hands and
stroked their beards repeatedly. Before they told me anything they
begged and prayed that I would not inform the Japanese Government
that they had told me of their customs, or harm might come to them!
For the next two hours, and for two more after supper, I asked them
questions concerning their religion and customs, and again
yesterday for a considerable time, and this morning, after Benri's
return, I went over the same subjects with him, and have also
employed a considerable time in getting about 300 words from them,
which I have spelt phonetically of course, and intend to go over
again when I visit the coast Ainos. {19}
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