The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-01-10
THE DRTIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH LIVE IN JAPAN
Wash Their Faces Only Funerals. The
Which They Eat Are Never Washed

lieve, then the hairy Ainu OF YeZo
the northernmost japanese island, are
irreclaimably damned by their owr
flthiness.
Without doubt they are the dirties
collection of human beings to be found
in any of the worlds out-of-the-way
corners.
The men never wash their hands anC
faces except when they are called or
to attend funeral. AS for bathing
their bodies their religion does not
make it obligatory on them to engage
in such work, even in respect to the
dead, and so the word bathtub is not
known among them.
The women are equally adverse to
indulging in additions of any sort.
Their partially for personal dirt ex-
tends to everything connected with
their homes.
"Why should we wash the dishes?"
runs the Ainu housekeeper's argu-
ment. They'll soon have food put
in them again, and everything that is
put in them is just food, and all food
is good for one. Is not this true?"
! What chance is there for the mis-
sionary to make any advance in the
face of such ingenious argument?
And what is the result when an Ainu
woman is persuaded to use water free
ly? She does such astonishing things
as that of bathing her baby in her
largest stewing pan.
Cleaning up'' is an unknown insti-
tuition in Ainu land, and what with
personal uncleanliness both houses
and people are ''malodorous, " to say
the least; and to quote Missionary
John Bachelor, who has labored
among the Anus since 1875, and
knows more of their ways than any
other foreigner.
The FishmOnger Outdone.
According to Missionary Bachelor
the Anu woman, for all she is the abb
| ject slave of her husband, has a hair
trigger temper, and once she is cross
ed her "cursing is simply wonder
full" The grimaces she makes at that
man who has been so unfortunate as
to incur her disfavor are equally Won
derful, and the poor man is in constant
dread that he will see her leering feat
ures peering at him from behind every
house corner and tree. She has a
long string of favorite epithets, but
| the one which she uses to crush her
enemy after she has made life misera-
BILE for him for good half day or
so is "a corpse" Many poor devil
when so addressed in the presence of
his fellows has wandered away from
the village to be found few days la
ter corpse in reality. To be called a
corpse by woman is about the great
est disgrace that can fall to the lot of
an Ainu man.
She is given no part in the Ainu re-
ligion other than that of cook for the
feasts attendant on various ceremo-
MES. Prayer is not for her; it is the
rarest thing to hear of an Ainu woman
praying.
why the Woman Is TatOoed.
Among most barbarian peoples the
man usually abrogates to himself the
vanity of being Enthusiastically tattooed.
Therefore, to the initiated, it seems
strange that the Ainu man permits the
woman to monopolize tattooing. But
he has good reason for it, and here
it is, set down in one of his numerous
legends:
There is a good deal of bad blood in
women which must be taken out. Tat
tooing was therefore introduced, and
! is still kept up, as a means of letting
the blood escape, and thus making the
body strong.
Yet another legend tells us why the
marks are so peculiarly located:
"The tattoo marks are placed espe-
cially upon the lips or arms, because
they are the most conspicuous parts
of the body. They are put there in
order to brighten away the demon of
disease. Now, the wives of the heav-
emily deities are everyone of them thus
tattooed, so that when the demons
come and find that the Ainu women
are marked in the same way they mis-
take them for goddesses, and forth
with flee away"
Poor demons They must have mis-
terable eyesight, or else the goddesses
are as excruciatingly ugly and pain
fully devoid of life-like expression as
the average Ainu woman. But there
is little wonder that any light shines
in the Anu woman's face. She has
been her husbands slave since prehis-
| toric times-and then that hideous bit
of tattoOing on the upper lip.
This is accomplished with knives,
and is not finished until a girl is be-
trothed or married, when the ends of
the indelible mustache are put on.
Though the process is exceedingly
painful the mothers, in spite of all at
tempts to enlighten them to the con-
trary, take particular pains to teach
their daughters that unless they sub
nit to being tattooed the marks will
be put on in hell at one sitting by de-
mons welding huge knives. The vic
/ Tins are even more averse to seeing
4 the custom die out than are its mascu-
line originators.
raasOnab HE amount of food thor