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.
They do not make any
acknowledgments of this kind to the women, however. The common
salutation consists in extending the hands and waving them inwards,
once or oftener, and stroking the beard; the formal one in raising
the hands with an inward curve to the level of the head two or
three times, lowering them, and rubbing them together; the ceremony
concluding with stroking the beard several times. The latter and
more formal mode of salutation is offered to the chief, and by the
young to the old men. The women have no "manners!"
They have no "medicine men," and, though they are aware of the
existence of healing herbs, they do not know their special virtues
or the manner of using them. Dried and pounded bear's liver is
their specific, and they place much reliance on it in colic and
other pains. They are a healthy race. In this village of 300
souls, there are no chronically ailing people; nothing but one case
of bronchitis, and some cutaneous maladies among children. Neither
is there any case of deformity in this and five other large
villages which I have visited, except that of a girl, who has one
leg slightly shorter than the other.
They ferment a kind of intoxicating liquor from the root of a tree,
and also from their own millet and Japanese rice, but Japanese sake
is the one thing that they care about. They spend all their gains
upon it, and drink it in enormous quantities. It represents to
them all the good of which they know, or can conceive. Beastly
intoxication is the highest happiness to which these poor savages
aspire, and the condition is sanctified to them under the fiction
of "drinking to the gods." Men and women alike indulge in this
vice. A few, however, like Pipichari, abstain from it totally,
taking the bowl in their hands, making the libations to the gods,
and then passing it on. I asked Pipichari why he did not take
sake, and he replied with a truthful terseness, "Because it makes
men like dogs."
Except the chief, who has two horses, they have no domestic animals
except very large, yellow dogs, which are used in hunting, but are
never admitted within the houses.
The habits of the people, though by no means destitute of decency
and propriety, are not cleanly. The women bathe their hands once a
day, but any other washing is unknown. They never wash their
clothes, and wear the same by day and night. I am afraid to
speculate on the condition of their wealth of coal-black hair.
They may be said to be very dirty - as dirty fully as masses of our
people at home. Their houses swarm with fleas, but they are not
worse in this respect than the Japanese yadoyas. The mountain
villages have, however, the appearance of extreme cleanliness,
being devoid of litter, heaps, puddles, and untidiness of all
kinds, and there are no unpleasant odours inside or outside the
houses, as they are well ventilated and smoked, and the salt fish
and meat are kept in the godowns. The hair and beards of the old
men, instead of being snowy as they ought to be, are yellow from
smoke and dirt.
They have no mode of computing time, and do not know their own
ages. To them the past is dead, yet, like other conquered and
despised races, they cling to the idea that in some far-off age
they were a great nation. They have no traditions of internecine
strife, and the art of war seems to have been lost long ago. I
asked Benri about this matter, and he says that formerly Ainos
fought with spears and knives as well as with bows and arrows, but
that Yoshitsune, their hero god, forbade war for ever, and since
then the two-edged spear, with a shaft nine feet long, has only
been used in hunting bears.
The Japanese Government, of course, exercises the same authority
over the Ainos as over its other subjects, but probably it does not
care to interfere in domestic or tribal matters, and within this
outside limit despotic authority is vested in the chiefs. The
Ainos live in village communities, and each community has its own
chief, who is its lord paramount. It appears to me that this
chieftainship is but an expansion of the paternal relation, and
that all the village families are ruled as a unit. Benri, in whose
house I am, is the chief of Biratori, and is treated by all with
very great deference of manner. The office is nominally for life;
but if a chief becomes blind, or too infirm to go about, he
appoints a successor. If he has a "smart" son, who he thinks will
command the respect of the people, he appoints him; but if not, he
chooses the most suitable man in the village. The people are
called upon to approve the choice, but their ratification is never
refused. The office is not hereditary anywhere.
Benri appears to exercise the authority of a very strict father.
His manner to all the men is like that of a master to slaves, and
they bow when they speak to him. No one can marry without his
approval. If any one builds a house he chooses the site. He has
absolute jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, unless (which is
very rare) the latter should be of sufficient magnitude to be
reported to the Imperial officials. He compels restitution of
stolen property, and in all cases fixes the fines which are to be
paid by delinquents. He also fixes the hunting arrangements and
the festivals. The younger men were obviously much afraid of
incurring his anger in his absence.
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