The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-10-29

L
enough TO find a garment of salmon skin.
quite deliberately decorated, made in the
same shape as the more ordinary elm
nbre kimono. and the only one of its
kind encountered during the summer
! Some of the beads and ornaments used
! for the great bear festivals are brought
| from Saghalien, and are quite odd enough
| to have originated in a region so remote.
| In one of the horseback rides within a
| few miles of Esashi l visited an Ainu
| house where very old man lived, with
| many children and grandchildren. The
roof was matched thickly with scrub
| bamboo, and the general plan within was
| much like the usual type of japanese
house-one end having a floor of earth
trodden hard, and the remainder raised
a foot or more above, covered with the
straw mates. A square hole was filed
with burning fagots, the smoke from
which was supposed to find its own way
out of small hole in the roof, but seem
ed to prefer lettering about the room.
The rafters hung several inches deep with
scot, and even the fish drying above was
similarly Ornamented. Lying on the floor
with arm thrown over his eyes was
an Ainu man sound asleep, his bushy
hair and beard standing out weirdly
about his face. Two three shy children
were eating rice near the fire, over which
an iron pot full of an indescribable stew
was suspended, bubbling vigorously. A
pretty young girl sat sewing dark blue
Japanese cotton upon an elm fibre apron
In fanciful figures, and an older woman,
curled into tiny heap, looked up at us
from under her arm, with bright and
rather alarmed eyes. Round the room
were piled the family treasures in a
rather chaotic mass; but conspicuous
among them, as always, were two or
three large round boxes of Japanese
lacquer, in which the choicest things are
kept, and which, if dire poverty or mis-
fortune come, are parted with the last.
There is legend to the effect that when
Yoshitsune, in disgrace and obliged to
flee from the main island during the sho-
gunate of his brother, Yorimoto, many
hundred years ago, took refuge in Hok-
kaido, he escaped from his enemies in
one of these boxes, caused miraculously
to contain him. He is in a sense the god
of Hokkaido, and his memory is devoutly
worshiped. Kakimonos representing him
are found in many places, always brought
out and reverently hung on feast days.
The old man we had come to see stood
in the low doorway of the house, and the
interior was SO dark that his face was
hardly seen in detail. He was an ina
pressive figure, with a magnificent bush
of white hair and beard But the SCOT,
the smoke, the close air, the dim light,
the budding family, the mental as well
as the physical atmosphere, was oppres-
sive, and a full breath of outer oxygen
and sunshine was an intense relief.
The first object I happened to see upon
emerging was the fine French cruiser
Alger lying off in the harbor outside |
Esashi, in attendance upon Prof. Des- |
landres. Such are the sharp contrasts in |
this world that, coming instantly from |
an Ainu hut and near at hand study of |
one of the most primitive races in the !
world (rapidly dying out from sheet in
ability to maintain itself in the face of
another nation), into the clear air out
side, it should be possible to see in sin
gle glance an epitOme of that worlds
pest civilization-one night dinner party
lpon a man-of-war representing one of
he most cultured of countries, the next
a call in a house within plain
sight, where books were never heard of,
ats, sleeps and weaves upon the floor
round boiling pot of dreadful herbs
n entire family, whose one relief from
N intolerable monotony is the annual
ear killing and feast, and to whom no
bought or knowledge ever came of a {
ossible civilization beyond.
In another village an old woman was !
he most picturesque figure Wrnkled I
nd brown, she was bent nearly double, ]
s she hobbled along leaning on a stick.
Ter bushy hair was snow white, her I
Mouth deliberately tattooed. Huge hoops |
{ German silver weighed down her ears, Y
nd a brass bracelet was conspicuously {
worm above score of bracelets done in /
attoo. Her daughters or granddaughters {
TODD or crouched around her when she {
eSted, with babies strapped upon their
acks after the Japanese fashion. She /
vas so interested in her odd caller that l
he managed to get into the edge of the {
iver near the house, in order to watch !
ny horse step upon the fat-bottomed {
erryboat which a shock-headed Ainu boy
vas pulling across by a rope.
Some of the rivers had no ferry, in 7
which case we forded them, but on one {
ccasion in the deepest place our horse
deliberately lay down, to the discom- i
ture, temporarily at least. of his rider I
Could the stay in these curious regions (
ave been prolonged another month, the I
reat interest ethnoIogicaIly (and geolo- I
ically and botanically as welD would 7
ave been by no means exhausted. But | $
ach time on returning from these ex- 8
ursions 1 found a few more instruments |
AIKEN down and carefully packed, a few '
1ore tents gone, a few more boxes piled .
I the old school house ready for trans
and a few more long pieces of
Tx and satin paper, brought in by our
indy Japanese friends, upon which we
Tere asked to paint poems or pictures
pr kakimonos.
NTAPET TOOHTTS TnTn