For two hours staring into the fire with her big
brown eyes, rushed to meet her mother when she entered, and threw
her arms round her, to which the woman responded by a look of true
maternal tenderness and a kiss. These little creatures, in the
absolute unconsciousness of innocence, with their beautiful faces,
olive-tinted bodies, - all the darker, sad to say, from dirt, - their
perfect docility, and absence of prying curiosity, are very
bewitching. They all wear silver or pewter ornaments tied round
their necks by a wisp of blue cotton.
Apparently the ordinary infantile maladies, such as whooping-cough
and measles, do not afflict the Ainos fatally; but the children
suffer from a cutaneous affection, which wears off as they reach
the age of ten or eleven years, as well as from severe toothache
with their first teeth.
LETTER XXXVII - (Continued)
Aino Clothing - Holiday Dress - Domestic Architecture - Household
Gods - Japanese Curios - The Necessaries of Life - Clay Soup - Arrow
Poison - Arrow-Traps - Female Occupations - Bark Cloth - The Art of
Weaving.
Aino clothing, for savages, is exceptionally good. In the winter
it consists of one, two, or more coats of skins, with hoods of the
same, to which the men add rude moccasins when they go out hunting.
In summer they wear kimonos, or loose coats, made of cloth woven
from the split bark of a forest tree.
