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25 



THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1887. 



THE AINOS. 



The Language^ Mythology, and Geographical Nomencla- 

 ture of Japan viewed in the Light of Aino Studies. 

 By Basil Hall Chamberlain, Including an Ainu Gram- 

 mar by John Batchelor, and a Catalogue of Books 

 relating to Yezo and the Ainos. CMemoirs of the 

 Literature College, Imperial University of Japan, 

 No. I, 1887. Published by the Imperial University, 

 Tokyo.) 



THE Ainos have long been a puzzle to the philologist 

 and ethnologist. Their place amongst the races of 

 the world, living or extinct, has been, and remains, un- 

 settled ; and their relations to the present inhabitants of 

 the Japanese archipelago, though the subject of frequent 

 discussion in recent years in Japan, form an unsolved 

 problem. Like fragments of races still existing in various 

 other lands, the Ainos refuse to fit into any ethnological 

 scheme, and are waifs and strays in science much as they 

 are in the world around them. The main cause of this, 

 no doubt, is that so little has really been known about 

 this curious race. A certain amount of knowledge has 

 been repeated by one writer after another, but that invalu- 

 able instrument of investigation, the Aino language, has 

 stood outside the pale of philology. The writer of this very 

 important and interesting monograph does not attempt to 

 answer the questions arising out of the presence of the 

 Ainos in Yezo, the Kuriles, and Southern Saghalien ; his 

 object is, " by comparing the language and mythology of 

 the Ainos with the language and mythology of the early 

 Japanese, to ascertain what sort of relationship, if any, 

 exists between the two races, and to shed light on the 

 obscure problem of the nature of the population of the 

 Japanese archipelago during late prehistoric times." His 

 equipment for this interesting task is a profound know- 

 ledge of the Japanese language and mythology — " which, 

 in the absence of a thorough practical knowledge of Aino 

 itself, is the first condition of the successful investigation 

 of any subject connected with the Island of Yezo " — and 

 travel and investigation, especially in regard to their 

 myths, amongst the Ainos themselves. He has also 

 associated with him in the work the Rev. John Batchelor, 

 of the Church Missionary Society, who has published in 

 the present monograph a grammar of the Aino language, 

 and whose " five years' intercourse with the Ainos in their 

 own homes, and close study of the language as it falls 

 from the lips of the people, enable him to speak with an 

 authority belonging to no other investigator." The result 

 of this co-operation is the work before us, and perhaps 

 the best method of reviewing it is to explain the method 

 followed by Prof. Chamberlain in his investigation, and 

 the results at which he has arrived. 



First, then, he compares the Aino language with the 

 Japanese. The close and intimate resemblance between 

 the two is only superficial, and vanishes as soon as they 

 are carefully compared. "The paradox of two races 

 so strongly contrasted speaking related languages has no 

 foundation in fact." Then follows a list of fifteen salient 

 points of difference between the Japanese and Aino 

 linguistic systems. Some of these, the writer says, may 

 Vol. XXXVI. — No. 915. 



not be appreciated at their true value by scholars accus- 

 tomed exclusively or chiefly to the study of the Aryan 

 family of languages, whose looser structure allows of such 

 wide divergences between the various members of the 

 family. " But the Altaist, knowing the iron rule which 

 forces all the Tartar tongues into the same grammatical 

 mould, however widely their vocabularies may be separ- 

 ated, will hold the opinion of fundamental want of con- 

 nexion between Japanese and Aino, until very strong 

 arguments shall have been brought forward on the other 

 side," and he proceeds to point out that on thirteen of 

 the fifteen points of difference there is absolute identity 

 between Japanese and Corean. As for the points of 

 similarity between Japanese and Aino — such as the same 

 construction of the sentence, and nearly the same pho- 

 netic system — Prof. Chamberlain suggests the long con- 

 tact between the two peoples ; but the borrowing, if 

 borrowing there be, must have been on the side of the 

 Ainos. On the whole, he is inclined to accept the theory 

 of Von Schrenck, in his work on Amur Land, that Aino is 

 to be regarded as a language altogether isolated at the 

 present day, and " when it is remembered that the Aino 

 race is isolated from all other living races by its hairiness 

 and by the extraordinary flattening of the tibia and 

 humerus, it is not strange to find the language isolated 

 too." Pie treats with ridicule the suggestion that the 

 Aino may be an Aryan tongue. 



Next he comes "to that of which language is the 

 vehicle — to the religion, the traditions, the fairy-tales of 

 the two nations. Do the Ainos account for the origin of 

 all things after the manner of their Japanese neighbours ? 

 Do Aino mothers and Japanese mothers lull their little 

 ones to sleep with the same stories ? " Japanese mytho- 

 logy is almost all to be found in the Kojiki, a work of 

 the early part of the eighth century of our era, a literal 

 translation of which, by Prof. Chamberlain himself, was 

 noticed in Nature a few years ago. With regard to the 

 Aino myths, as there are no Aino books of any sort, these 

 have to be obtained orally, by a tedious process of listening 

 to successive story-tellers, for the brain of the Aino soon 

 tires. The writer gives the results side by side : on one side 

 the Japanese account of the Creation, of their origin, of 

 the origin of civilisation, of the aborigines, of heaven 

 and hell, the sun and moon ; and then the Aino myths 

 on similar subjects. In addition, a large number of 

 stories of both peoples, relating to such subjects as Rip 

 Van Winkle, the Isle of Women, a visit to the under- 

 world, various beast-myths, stories about monsters, the 

 causes of the peculiarities of natural objects, &c., are 

 related — sometimes side by side for purposes of com- 

 parison ; sometimes only the Aino version is given, the 

 corresponding Japanese tale being readily accessible else- 

 where. It will be seen from this bare outline of the con- 

 tents of this section that a new world of folk-lore is here 

 opened to the study of inquirers into this branch of 

 research. The general conclusion at which Prof, Cham- 

 berlain arrives after this comparison of the two mytho- 

 logies is that there is even less connexion between them than 

 between the two languages. The stories could scarcely 

 be more divergent in general complexion. The Japanese 

 stories " are myths pure and simple, airy phantoms of the 

 imagination," and have no moral tendency whatever . 

 Japanese commentators on their own myths, struck with 



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