354 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



of Niphon. the great island of Japan, and in its southern part is 

 the port of Hakodadi ; the Ainos are the Aborighies of these 

 islands. They are stout and strong, hardly taller than the Japan- 

 ese, — about 5 feet 2 inches, — and not as tall as the average of the 

 people in the north of China. One of their chief peculiarities is 

 the great development of their hair, not only on the head and 

 face, but over the whole body. Their eyebrows and eyelashes 

 are very thick, and, like their beards and hair, always of a jet- 

 black till past middle life, when, as with us, they change to gray, 

 and in extreme old age to white. The hair appears coarse com- 

 pared with ours or with that of the Japanese ; they wear it long, 

 down to the shoulders, and the men as long or longer than the 

 women. Their eyelids are horizontal and open widely, as in the 

 Indo-European races, and are not oblique and open but partially, 

 as in the Mongolian races ; their e3'es are bright and always black ; 

 the cheek-bones are not prominent. The fine development of 

 their chests, their full and heavy beards, give them the appearance 

 of noble and hardy men as compared with their effeminate Japan- 

 ese rulers. They seem to be endowed with great vitality, and the 

 fact that they so successfully resisted the repeated 5*ttacks of a 

 more enlightened race for 1,800 years, sufficiently proves their 

 daring and perseverance. They have many gods, but lire is the 

 principal one, and they pray to it in general terms for everything 

 they need. They obtain their wives by presents to the parents, 

 and make no great rejoicing nor display at their marriages. 

 When a wife dies they burn the liouse in which she lived, but 

 when a man dies they bury him without any funeral ceremonj'. 

 They keep no cats, but catch rats in traps ; they keep fowls, but 

 no ducks, eating the birds but never their eggs. They have no 

 special burying-grounds, and desire to forget the dead as soon as 

 possible. They do not appear to have any idea of a future life ; 

 they have no written history, and only oral traditions. 



According to Japanese chronology, the first Japanese emperor 

 effected a f)ermanent settlement on Niphon b. c. 6G0, on the 

 south-east part of the island, conquering the Aborigines, doubt- 

 less the ancestors of the present Ainos. 



In the characters above mentioned they call to mind the bearded 

 peasants in Russia, of the Slavonian branch of the Aryan family. 

 He asks "Are they, therefore, an extreme branch of the Korth 

 Turanian family, or, as is more probable, in the same manner that 

 the Indo-European races migrated from the high plateau of Cen- 

 tral Asia through the plateau of Iran to the west, and the Persians 

 and Indians to the south, did anorhei" part of that same family pass 

 on to the east until they finally reached the islands now forming 

 the empire of Japan; and do their living representatives now ap- 

 pear before us in the persons of this isolated and ancient people, 

 the Ainos ? " 



In the second paper he remarks that these Ainos differ from all 

 the Turanians not only in their physical but in their mental char- 

 acteristics ; instead of being reserved and shy, like Mongolians, 

 they are open-hearted and communicative ; instead of being of a 

 roving character, they seem to be attached to their own country ; 



