AINU FAMILY-LIFE AND RELIGION. 85 



like dumplings. Tlie groom is expected to provide most of the 

 sake, if not all of it, as he is supposed to have engaged in manly 

 vocations, to have received his share of the products of hunting 

 and fishing, and to have accumulated enough money to buy the 

 ceremonial wine, or beer rather, as sake is a brewed beverage, not 

 a fermented or distilled liquor. 



The newly married couple at once take possession of a new, 

 small hut, which has been erected for them. These huts are made 

 with a light frame of poles, the sides and roof being heavily 

 thatched with reeds. They are by no means warm or impervious 

 to the weather ; indeed, many breaks in the thatching admit of 

 ventilation to a degree that must lower the temperature in winter 

 to a point well-nigh unbearable. The first hut is usually built 

 upon ground belonging to the bride's father, and near his own 

 house ; but the location of the new hut seems to depend in a meas- 

 ure upon the manner of asking in marriage. If the groom or his 

 father asks for the bride, then, to compensate the bride's father for 

 the loss of his daughter, the groom goes to live on his father-in- 

 law's land and becomes a member of his household ; but if, on the 

 contrary, the application has come from the other side, and the 

 bride (as may sometimes be the case) or her father has asked for 

 the groom in marriage, then compensation is considered to be due 

 to li is family, and the bride goes to her husband's land, becomes a 

 member of her father-in-law's family, and assists in the domestic 

 duties of her new home. An exception to this rule may occur 

 when the bride's father has no sons, and asks for a husband for 

 his oldest daughter in order to secure an heir. 



When first married an Ainu couple is considered well set up' 

 in housekeeping if a small hut is provided with barely sufficient 

 room for them to sleep on the left-hand or northern side of the 

 central fireplace, a tiny little platform at the eastern end,, oppo- 

 site the entrance and under the sacred window, and a space on the 

 right of the fireplace for guests, of about the same dimensions as 

 the sleeping-place. For furniture there will probably be some 

 mats to sit and sleep on, some rugs or skins for covering, a kettle, 

 and a few dishes in which to serve food. As the family increases — 

 and this is almost sure to be the case, for a childless family is un- 

 known unless the fault is the man's — the house is either added to,, 

 or (as is more frequently the case) taken down and entirely re- 

 built in more and more pretentious proportions, until it has its 

 entrance porch opening to the south, its anteroom in a western 

 extension, and its main apartment, sometimes thirty or forty feet 

 square. Near it will be a small storehouse raised on stilts,, and at 

 one side a little patch of garden for beans, millet, etc. 



When the newly married couple take possession, a house- 

 warming is held. This, like every Ainu ceremony, is merely an 



