The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-11-21
THE ANU RAGE OF JAPAN.

Mrs, Mabel I,oomis Todd's Cancellations
 for the Failure of the Amherst
 Eclipse Party.
 The Ainu were obseured by no clouds of any sort during the sojourn in their vicinity, and very fine opportunities for studying this interesting race were afforded. There are no roads in north ern Yezo, no jinrlkishas, no lagos, no carriages, but plenty of horses and no side saddles, So the country had to be explored in rather primitive but perfectly effectual manner, on horse- back through the narrow and often be- wildering footpaths through the thickly growing scrub bamboo, or along the hard sand beaches at low tide. In these rides l was fortunate in having the company of Japanese gentleman, for merly a governor of one of the Hok- kaido provinces, who knows the Ainu thoroughly, and their language as well, and who, still better, is well known to them for many miles In all directions. In way they are a shy race, almost ermit-like, so far as foreigners are concerned, and any casual traveller visiting the village alone, or with a Japanese guide who is strange to them, sees little of their life or customs, and can rarely purchase any of their inn plements or articles of dress. The fact that foreigners were in the region had interested them greatly, and that for tho fret tirpa fn,,aion la5u u,ac paa Y, by aroused much curiosity, and at all the villages they seemed as glad to see me asI was to see, them. So, mutually in exceedingly good humor, and able to communicate easily by my helpful ac- quaintance, our study of each other progressed finely.
 The elder women have elaborate or
 lamentations around the mouth in tattooing of blue-black color, which gives them peculiarly barbarous ap- pearance; but the young girls are att
 tractive, and often pretty, for the tat
 tooing was forbidden by the Japanese govrnment several years ago, and
 while not entirely suppressed, is far less frequent than formerly. These young girls have generally clear brown skin, showing warm russet red
 in the cheeks, with beautiful brown eyes, shaded by long and thick eye lashes. In the younger generation, too, the luxuriant black hair is often simply coiled at the back of the head, instead of being cut in the strangely awkward
 native way, to stand out thickly on each side of the head, like an over
 h-hr short at the back of the head nearly
 half way to the top. Their teeth are even and white, and altogether they look little like the cruel. heather race
 they were fomerly supposed to be- But
 the Ainu have no literature, no written
 language even, and their arts are of
 the rudest, Contact with the culti-
 Vated Japanese for a thousand years
 has apparently taught them little or
 nothing, and even now they would be
 scarcely beyond the stone age except
 for the easily obtained implements of Japanese make.
 The native Ainu utensils are primi- tive and very interesting. The bows with their poisoned arrows, the tobacco pouches, the knife handles and sheaths,
 the apparatus for weaving elm fiber in to cloth-all of wood, often very we'll
 carved-have sometimes been handed
 down from parent to child through sev- eral generations. Frequently family
 has but one of each article, and that one highly prized which accounts largely for their dislike of selling their
 possessions. My Japanese friend, how ever, prevailed upon some of the Ainu to sell their dearly beloved heirlooms, by the promise of unlimited sake as well as the purchase money. I was fortunate enough to find a garment of salmon skin, quite elaborately deco- rated, made in the same shape as the more ordinary elm fiber kimono, and the only one of it's kind encountered during the summer. Some of the beads and ornaments used for the great bear festivals are brought from Saghalien, and are quite old enough to have orig mated in a region so remote.
 In one of the horseback rides within a few miles of Esashi, visited an Ainu
 house where a very old man lived, with many children and grandchildren. The roof was thatched thickIy with scrub bamboo. and the general plan within was much like the usual type of Japan
 ese house-one end having a floor of earth trodden hard, and the remainder raised foot or more above, covered with the straw mats. A square hole was filled with burning fagots, the smoke from which was supposed
 to find it's own way out of a small hole | in the roof, but seemed to prefer loiter- l ing about the room. The rafters hung
 several inches deep with soot, and even 1 the fish drying above was similarly or
 namented. Lying on the floor, with one arm thrown over his eyes, lay an Ainu | man sound asleep his bushy hair and beard standing out welrdly about his face. Two or three shy children were eating rice near the fire, over which an 1 iron pot full of an indescribable stew, l was suspended, and ,bubbling vigorous i ly. A pretty young girl sat sewing dark blue Japanese cotton upon an elm l fiber apron in fanciful figures, and an l older woman, curled into tiny heap, | looked up at us from beneath her arm with bright and rather alarmed eyes. | Round the room were piled the family | treasures in rather chaotic mass, but
 conspicuous among them, as always, were two or three large round boxes of old Japanese lacquer, in which, if dire poverty or misfortune come, are part ed with the last. There is legend to