"Custom" Enjoins The Exercise
Of Hospitality On Every Aino.
They receive all strangers as they
received me, giving them of their best, placing them in the most
honourable place, bestowing gifts upon them, and, when they depart,
furnishing them with cakes of boiled millet.
They have few amusements, except certain feasts. Their dance,
which they have just given in my honour, is slow and mournful, and
their songs are chants or recitative. They have a musical
instrument, something like a guitar, with three, five, or six
strings, which are made from sinews of whales cast up on the shore.
They have another, which is believed to be peculiar to themselves,
consisting of a thin piece of wood, about five inches long and two
and a half inches broad, with a pointed wooden tongue, about two
lines in breadth and sixteen in length, fixed in the middle, and
grooved on three sides. The wood is held before the mouth, and the
tongue is set in motion by the vibration of the breath in singing.
Its sound, though less penetrating, is as discordant as that of a
Jew's harp, which it somewhat resembles. One of the men used it as
an accompaniment of a song; but they are unwilling to part with
them, as they say that it is very seldom that they can find a piece
of wood which will bear the fine splitting necessary for the
tongue.
They are a most courteous people among each other. The salutations
are frequent - on entering a house, on leaving it, on meeting on the
road, on receiving anything from the hand of another, and on
receiving a kind or complimentary speech.
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