They Are Certainly Superior To Many Aborigines, As They Have An
Approach To Domestic Life.
They have one word for HOUSE, and
another for HOME, and one word for husband approaches very nearly
to house-band.
Truth is of value in their eyes, and this in itself
raises them above some peoples. Infanticide is unknown, and aged
parents receive filial reverence, kindness, and support, while in
their social and domestic relations there is much that is
praiseworthy.
I must conclude this letter abruptly, as the horses are waiting,
and I must cross the rivers, if possible, before the bursting of an
impending storm. I. L. B.
LETTER XXXVIII
A Parting Gift - A Delicacy - Generosity - A Seaside Village -
Pipichari's Advice - A Drunken Revel - Ito's Prophecies - The Kocho's
Illness - Patent Medicines.
SARUFUTO, YEZO, August 27.
I left the Ainos yesterday with real regret, though I must confess
that sleeping in one's clothes and the lack of ablutions are very
fatiguing. Benri's two wives spent the early morning in the
laborious operation of grinding millet into coarse flour, and
before I departed, as their custom is, they made a paste of it,
rolled it with their unclean fingers into well-shaped cakes, boiled
them in the unwashed pot in which they make their stew of
"abominable things," and presented them to me on a lacquer tray.
They were distressed that I did not eat their food, and a woman
went to a village at some distance and brought me some venison fat
as a delicacy. All those of whom I had seen much came to wish me
good-bye, and they brought so many presents (including a fine
bearskin) that I should have needed an additional horse to carry
them had I accepted but one-half.
I rode twelve miles through the forest to Mombets, where I intended
to spend Sunday, but I had the worst horse I ever rode, and we took
five hours. The day was dull and sad, threatening a storm, and
when we got out of the forest, upon a sand-hill covered with oak
scrub, we encountered a most furious wind. Among the many views
which I have seen, that is one to be remembered. Below lay a
bleached and bare sand-hill, with a few grey houses huddled in its
miserable shelter, and a heaped-up shore of grey sand, on which a
brown-grey sea was breaking with clash and boom in long, white,
ragged lines, with all beyond a confusion of surf, surge, and mist,
with driving brown clouds mingling sea and sky, and all between
showing only in glimpses amidst scuds of sand.
At a house in the scrub a number of men were drinking sake with
much uproar, and a superb-looking Aino came out, staggered a few
yards, and then fell backwards among the weeds, a picture of
debasement. I forgot to tell you that before I left Biratori, I
inveighed to the assembled Ainos against the practice and
consequences of sake-drinking, and was met with the reply, "We must
drink to the gods, or we shall die;" but Pipichari said, "You say
that which is good; let us give sake to the gods, but not drink
it," for which bold speech he was severely rebuked by Benri.
Mombets is a stormily-situated and most wretched cluster of twenty-
seven decayed houses, some of them Aino, and some Japanese. The
fish-oil and seaweed fishing trades are in brisk operation there
now for a short time, and a number of Aino and Japanese strangers
are employed. The boats could not get out because of the surf, and
there was a drunken debauch. The whole place smelt of sake. Tipsy
men were staggering about and falling flat on their backs, to lie
there like dogs till they were sober, - Aino women were vainly
endeavouring to drag their drunken lords home, and men of both
races were reduced to a beastly equality. I went to the yadoya
where I intended to spend Sunday, but, besides being very dirty and
forlorn, it was the very centre of the sake traffic, and in its
open space there were men in all stages of riotous and stupid
intoxication. It was a sad scene, yet one to be matched in a
hundred places in Scotland every Saturday afternoon. I am told by
the Kocho here that an Aino can drink four or five times as much as
a Japanese without being tipsy, so for each tipsy Aino there had
been an outlay of 6s. or 7s., for sake is 8d. a cup here!
I had some tea and eggs in the daidokoro, and altered my plans
altogether on finding that if I proceeded farther round the east
coast, as I intended, I should run the risk of several days'
detention on the banks of numerous "bad rivers" if rain came on, by
which I should run the risk of breaking my promise to deliver Ito
to Mr. Maries by a given day. I do not surrender this project,
however, without an equivalent, for I intend to add 100 miles to my
journey, by taking an almost disused track round Volcano Bay, and
visiting the coast Ainos of a very primitive region. Ito is very
much opposed to this, thinking that he has made a sufficient
sacrifice of personal comfort at Biratori, and plies me with
stories, such as that there are "many bad rivers to cross," that
the track is so worn as to be impassable, that there are no
yadoyas, and that at the Government offices we shall neither get
rice nor eggs! An old man who has turned back unable to get horses
is made responsible for these stories. The machinations are very
amusing. Ito was much smitten with the daughter of the house-
master at Mororan, and left some things in her keeping, and the
desire to see her again is at the bottom of his opposition to the
other route.
Monday. - The horse could not or would not carry me farther than
Mombets, so, sending the baggage on, I walked through the oak wood,
and enjoyed its silent solitude, in spite of the sad reflections
upon the enslavement of the Ainos to sake.
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