Bickmoi-e.] 336 [December 4, 



over from right to left* and bound at the waist with a sash. Their 

 heads, feet, and legs are usually bare. The women have a short 

 sacque coming down to the hips, and beneath this a piece of 

 cloth wrapped around the waist and hanging down nearly to the 

 knee. 



As they have no written records, the earliest accounts of this peo- 

 ple have coine down to us through Japanese histories. According to 

 a Japanese chronology, compiled from the best sources and kindly 

 translated for me by Father Nicholai, of the Russian Legation, 

 Jin-mu, the first Japanese emperor, appeared on Kiusiu at Hunga (or 

 liewng-nga) in B. C. 667. In B. C. 663, he first came to Nippon, 

 but was defeated and driven back by the aborigines. In B. C. 660 

 he returned and effected a permanent settlement on the south-east part 

 of that island. In most of the Japanese histories, at least, no mention 

 appears of the arrival of any new peojjle, and the Japanese all be- 

 lieve that these aborigines were the ancestors of the present Ainos. 

 Thus this peojjle, although so little known to this day, are mentioned 

 half a century before the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and six hundred 

 years before the northern and western parts of Eurojje were first 

 described by Caesar in his Commentaries, and more than two thousand 

 one hundred years before the discovery of the continent by Columbus. 

 In A. D. 272 the Ainos, for the first time, brought ])resents to the 

 J;ipanese authorities and acknowledged them as their rulers. In A. D. 

 352 they rebelled, and in A. D. 366 they defeated the Japanese 

 and killed their general. During the next two centuries, however, 

 they appear to have been completely subjugated; for an edu-cated Jap- 

 anese informs me that as early as A. D. 655, the Japanese sovereign 

 tlicn reigning established a kind of government over the Ainos in 

 Yesso, which was located near Siribets, a volcano on the north shore 

 of Volcano Bay. In A. D. 1186, Yoritomo usurped the ruling power 

 in Nij^pon, and becoming jealous of his brother Yosi Tsunai, had 

 him put to death, according to history, at a headland on the east 

 coast, now called Shendai. But according to tradition, Yosi Tsunai 

 escaped to Yesso, and treating the Ainos hei'e with the greatest kind- 

 ness, was deified by them and is now their chief hero. 



Although the Ainos had long been conquered by the Japanese, 

 some of them yet lived on Nippon till about two hundred years ago, 

 when they were all banislied to Yesso. The same educated Japan- 

 ese informs me that up to a short time ago, the ruins of a rude fortifi- 

 cation — prol^ably made by the Ainos — was to be seen at Nambu Point, 

 the most north-eastern part of Nippon ; and that similar ruins are re- 



* This is the manner in which tlie Japanese women fold their dresses. The 

 Jajjauese men fold theirs from left to right. 



