AINU OF JAPAN 261 
Japanese law, marriages occasionally occur, but are disapproved by relatives 
and members of the village and regarded as bringing ill-luck not only to 
the parties concerned but perhaps to the community. 
(2) Formerly the levirate was a general custom, signified by a special 
name, matraie or matraire, ‘ wife-uplifting,’ confined to this custom. Owing 
to poverty, more independence of women in tilling fields, and perhaps 
prevalent alcoholism of men, the levirate is no longer in vogue. 
(3) Two brothers might not marry two sisters—they were one flesh in 
the bond of the kut. Strict injunction against it is pronounced in the 
sacred traditions. In a genealogical list of upwards of 250 names there 
were five cases of such union. Though permissible in Japanese law, 
these cases of double marriage of brothers and sisters were a scandal in 
their villages. 
(4) The sororate was forbidden. 
(5) Marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is said to have been forbidden 
formerly ; it is now unpopular. 
(6) Parallel cousins when children of two brothers could marry, but not 
the children of two sisters. 
(7) Cross-cousins could marry, unless, as might possibly happen, their 
mothers had the same upsoro kut, say of the wolf clan. In this district, 
however, cousin marriage is not conspicuous. In 98 marriages of the 
total genealogical list prepared, only two cases of such marriage occurred, 
both cross-cousins. 
(8) Uncles could not marry their nieces, nor aunts their nephews. 
The upsoro kut has been prominently treated here because it is the one 
criterion whereby the Ainu decide all questions of marriage. Clan kinship 
does not in fact imply unadulterated lineage. During the last fifty years or 
more, the Ainu have adopted poor Japanese children, girls taking the kut of 
their new mothers. This is not because the Ainu are infertile. Rather, 
it appears, it is because they have been impressed with the idea that the 
Japanese are so much superior. Orphan Ainu girls, too, when adopted into 
another family take the kut of their new mother, after due solicitation and 
offering to Kamui Fuchi, to whom pertains authority in such matters. 
RELIGION. 
On first acquaintance there seemed to be considerable difference between 
the religious beliefs and rites of north and south. There is the same 
fundamental generalisation of ramat, conceived either as spirit personality 
or (less definitely) as purposive potency. Everything is inter-penetrated 
by vamat in some degree : whether quiescent or quick, whether acting from 
spontaneous impulse or subservient to more personal ramat known as kamui 
can usually be decided by what it does. ‘The word kamui, however (ka, 
above, over), is applied not only to the supernatural but to anything extra- 
ordinary or superb, Ramat and kamui express the quintessence of Ainu 
religion, while the ekashi, or elder, is at once priest and shaman. 
All Hokkaido Ainu employ the same means in soliciting and gaining the 
goodwill of the kamui, viz., innono-itak, or sacred talk, mainly invocation, 
achikka, libations, shinurappa, when offering to the dead, and—most 
important—inau. In the southern districts about twenty varieties of inau 
(sacred wands), the description of which would occupy much space, were 
examined and photographed. One noteworthy point is that for each kind 
of kamui a definite number of one or more kinds of imau are prescribed. 
In this respect there is little difference in any of the southern kotan (villages) 
visited. Though the northern kotan are less familiar, there seems to be a 
little more difference in the numbers allotted, while the inau themselves are 
