Yesterday Morning We All Breakfasted Soon After Daylight, And The
Able-Bodied Men Went Away To Hunt.
Hunting and fishing are their
occupations, and for "indoor recreation" they carve tobacco-boxes,
knife-sheaths, sake-sticks, and shuttles.
It is quite unnecessary
for them to do anything; they are quite contented to sit by the
fire, and smoke occasionally, and eat and sleep, this apathy being
varied by spasms of activity when there is no more dried flesh in
the kuras, and when skins must be taken to Sarufuto to pay for
sake. The women seem never to have an idle moment. They rise
early to sew, weave, and split bark, for they not only clothe
themselves and their husbands in this nearly indestructible cloth,
but weave it for barter, and the lower class of Japanese are
constantly to be seen wearing the product of Aino industry. They
do all the hard work, such as drawing water, chopping wood,
grinding millet, and cultivating the soil, after their fashion;
but, to do the men justice, I often see them trudging along
carrying one and even two children. The women take the exclusive
charge of the kuras, which are never entered by men.
I was left for some hours alone with the women, of whom there were
seven in the hut, with a few children. On the one side of the fire
the chief's mother sat like a Fate, for ever splitting and knotting
bark, and petrifying me by her cold, fateful eyes.
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