EARLY JAPAN BISHOP 551 



US nothing; for, aside from loan words from neighboring tongnes, 

 the Ainu speech stands entirely isolated.'^ Phj^sically there is no 

 evidence of connection with the Mongoloid family, save for such inter- 

 minglings as have taken place in relatively recent times. Many 

 investigators have regarded the Amur region of Siberia as that from 

 which this ancient race entered Japan. The fact should not be over- 

 looked, however, that individuals of Ainu type are by no means un- 

 known in Korea, while a possible relationship has also been suggested 

 between the Ainu and the pre-Dravidian tribes of India, or even with 

 the natives of Australia. 



Perhaps we may say, in the light of all the available evidence, that 

 the feAv thousand Ainu still remaining, as well as the related stocks 

 inhabiting Japan in days prior to the advent of Mongoloid man, 

 represent an extremely ancient generalized human type from which 

 more than one of the wavy haired and heavily bearded races of 

 Europe and southern Asia have been specialized.^ 



Of the culture of the ancestral Ainu, thanks to the somewhat ex- 

 tensive excavations of the past few j^ears, we know considerably more 

 than we do of their origin. They were already in the Neolithic 

 stage as far back as they have been traced. They manufactured 

 polished stone implements and a highly interesting and very ornate 

 type of pottery, made, of course, without the aid of the potter's 

 wheel. They seem to have derived part of their subsistence from the 

 cultivation of millet, although doubtless dependent mainly upon 

 hunting, fishing, and various wild vegetable products. Of domestic 

 animals, with the exception of the dog, they Avere entirely ignorant. 

 In summer they lived in rough huts and in winter in earth-covered 

 lodges constructed either partly or wholly underground. Dwelling 

 mainly on the coast and knowing how to make large dugout canoes, 

 they were fearless seafarers, hunting the whale as well as smaller 

 marine animals and, in later times, meeting the fleets of war boats 

 of the invading Japanese in fiercely contested naval combats from 

 which the newcomers by no means always emerged victorious. 



Of their social, political, and military organization we can infer 

 but little. It se?ms clear, however, that in these respects they were 

 scarcely if at all behind the earlier comers of Mongolian extraction 

 who settled among them ; for they were able to keep the latter pretty 



'' Berthold Laufer : The Vigesimal and Decimal Systems in the Ainu Numerals : With 

 Some Remarks on Ainu Phonology, Journ. Amcr. Oi-iental Soc, vol. 37, 1917, pp. 192- 

 208 ; reference on p. 205. 



* On the classification of the Ainu, see George Montandon : Notice prglimmaire sur les 

 ATnou, Archives Suisses d'Anthropologie G<5nerale, vol. 4, No. .3, 1921, pp. 233-246 ; refer- 

 ence on p. 242 ; also, A. F. Chamberlain : The Japanese Race, Journ. of Race Devel., vol. 

 3, 1912-13, pp. 176-187 ; reference on p. 182. 



