14 NOTES ON TEE KURIL ISLANDS. 



Europeans. The exaggerated idea of their hairiness is, no doubt, 

 due to the contrast between the smooth-skinned, hairless Japanese 

 and Chinese and these people. As for the Ainu women, they are 

 practically free from any abnormal growth of hair, and I have 

 never seen amongst them any approach to the hirsute crop 

 observable on the faces of many women of Southern Europe. 



The Ainu people are fast diminishing, and although a project 

 has been set on foot by influential Japanese and foreigners to 

 take means to try and preserve the race from extinction, there is, 

 I am afraid, but little hope of success. Their habits, their helpless- 

 ness and want of spirit, and their passion for strong liquor, are 

 against them ; and, like all other savage peoples who come in 

 contact with civilized ones, they are doomed to disappear. 



The Ainu have no energy or ambition, and every bit of spirit, 

 if they ever possessed any, has disappeared. Although to-day one 

 sees but little, if any, actual tyranny on the part of their Japanese 

 masters, yet there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to show that 

 they have suffered harsh and cruel treatment. Practically leading 

 the life of serfs, and taught to look upon themselves as altogether 

 inferior beings to their Japanese conquerors, they have for 

 hundreds of years been so cowed and crushed, that they have 

 lost all idea of resistance or independence, and helplessness and 

 submissivencss have become hereditary. Whatever the Ainu may 

 have been ages ago, to-day they are the most docile, submissive, 

 and spiritless people on the face of the earth. Strike an Ainu man, 

 and the chances are he will burst into tears. I have seen this 

 on more than one occasion, the chastisement being nothing more 

 than a smart cuff with the open hand. In the Ainu there is 

 a curious mixture of courage and timidity ; they do not hesitate 

 to attack a bear, but they have a mortal and instinctive fear of the 

 Japanese. Witness their dread of offending the Japanese officials 

 by giving information about themselves to Miss Bird, as recorded 

 in her charming book, " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan." Even the 

 northern Kurilsky Ainu, who were not subject to Japan, were 

 terribly afraid of the Japanese, and I have known them hurriedly 

 shift from one island to another on learning their approach. 



This fear of their Japanese masters was much more apparent 

 some twelve or fifteen years ago than it is to-day. It was probably 

 as causeless then as it is now ; but there is little doubt that this 



