AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 8i 



AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 



By J. K. GOODEICH. 



"FTP to the age of three or four years an Ainu child is called 

 v-v ai-ai (baby), without regard to sex. From that age until 

 al)out seven, a boy is called sontak and a girl opere. From seven 

 until about sixteen or eighteen a lad is called heikacJii, and a maid 

 matkachi. After that age a maid is called sliiiventep, or woman. 

 From eighteen to thirty a young man is called okkaibo or okkaiyo ; 

 after the age of thirty a man is an Ainu — that is, " a man." 



The boy is trained in fishing and hunting by his father and the 

 other men of the village, and at the age of about twelve accom- 

 panies the men in their manly vocations. The girl assists her 

 mother and the older females of the family in gardening and 

 cooking ; in cleaning, salting, and curing fish ; in spinning, weav- 

 ing cloth, and making clothes ; and generally in all the drudgery 

 of the household, for the Ainu man is as lofty in his notions that 

 labor is beneath his dignity as is the North Americaji Indian. 



While not as demonstrative in their affection for their children, 

 I think the Ainu parents love their little ones quite as tenderly as 

 any other people ; and if Miss Bird's observation is correct, they 

 have one pleasant way of displaying their affection which one 

 does not see through the length and breadth of the empire of 

 Japan, and that is the kiss of affection. 



There is no ceremony of any kind, nor isolation of the mother, 

 before the birth of a child. As the women are not allowed to offer 

 prayers or take any active part in religious observances, the pro- 

 spective mother can not ask the gods for their assistance at the 

 time of delivery in order -to make parturition easy ; indeed, it 

 would probably never enter the head of an Ainu woman to thus 

 interfere with the course of Nature. The father, always prefer- 

 ring sons, and being extremely anxious for a male heir, if he has 

 none already, will pray to the gods to give him a son, and offer 

 libations of sake to the goddess of fire, if his means admit of the 

 expense, or his desire is sufficiently keen to justify the extrava- 

 gance. 



Parturition is very easy, due to the active habits of the women, 

 and is greatly assisted by their physical conformation, as they 

 have broad hips and great strength in the pelvic region. The 

 woman continues her daily tasks until the labor-pains actually 

 come on. She then retires to her hut, where she is attended by a 

 few of her most intimate relations, and, if it be her first baby, her 

 mother will doubtless officiate as midwife. As the kneeling posi- 

 tion which a woman assumes at the time of delivery greatly f acili- 



VOL. XXXIV. — 6 



