798 . PRIME V^AL JAPANESE. 



tion of sex in apparel oi- of coiisaiiyii-iiiity in intorcourse; they clad 

 themselves in skins; they drank blood; they practiced cannibalism; 

 they were insensible to benefits and perpetually resentful of injuries; 

 they resorted to savao-ely cruel forms of punishment — severing the 

 tendons of the leg-s, boiling the arms, slicing off the nose, etc.; they 

 used stone implements, and, unceasingly resisting the civilized immi- 

 griinfs who subsequently reached the islands, they were driven north- 

 ward bv degrees, and finally pushed across the Tsugaru Strait into the 

 island of Yezo. That long struggle, and the disasters and sufferings 

 it entailed, i-adically changed the nature of the Ainu. They became 

 timid, gentle, submissive folk; lost most of the faculties essential to 

 survival in a racial contest, and dwindled to a luere renmant of semi- 

 sa\'ages, incapable of progress, inditi'erent fo improvement, and pre- 

 s(Miting a jnore and more vivid contrast to the energetic, intelligent, 

 and iMubiti'ous Japanese. 



But these Japanese — who were they originally i? Whence did the 

 three or more tides of inunigration set which ultimately coalesced to 

 form iho race now standing at the head of Oriental peoples!* Strangely 

 varying answers to this question have been furnished. Kampfer per- 

 suaded himself that the primeval Japanese were a section of the build- 

 ers of the Tower of Babel. Hyde-Clarke identified them with Turano- 

 Africaiis who traveled eastward through Egypt, China, and Japan. 

 Macleod recognized in them one of the lost tribes of Israel. Severjil 

 Avriters have regarded them as Malayan colonists. Griffin was content 

 to think that they are modern Ainu, and recent scholars incline to 

 th(^ ))elief that they l)elonged to the Tartar-Mongolian stock of Central 

 Asia. Sonu'thing of this diversity of view is due to the fact that the 

 Japanese are not a pure race. They present sevei-al easily distinguish- 

 able types, notably the patrician and the plebeian. This is not a 

 question of mere coarseness in contrast with refinement; of the degen- 

 eration due to toil and exposure as compared with the improvement 

 produced by gentle living and mental (-ulture. The representative of 

 the Japanese plebs has a conspicuously dark skin, prominent cheek 

 bones, a large mouth, a robust and heavil}' boned physi([ue, a flat nose, 

 full straight eyes, and a receding forehead. The aristocratic type is 

 symmetrically and delicately built; his complexion varies from yellow 

 to almost pure white; his eyes are narrow, set obliquely to the nose; 

 the eyelids heavy; the eyebrows lofty; the mouth small; the face oval; 

 the nose aquiline; the hand remarkably slender and supple. 



Here are two radically distinct types. What is more, they have 

 ))een distinguished by the Japanese themselves ev(>r sini-e any method 

 of recording such distinctions existed. For from the time when he 

 first ])egan to paint pictures, the Japanese artist recognized and repre- 

 sented only one tyi)e of male and female beauty — namely, that dis- 

 tinguished in a marked, often an exaggerated, degree by the features 



