Traditions of the Ainos. 229 



come confounded with the traditions received and ultimately be 

 repeated as a part of them. This is likely to occur when a people 

 is isolated ; but it is yet more likely to happen, when a dominant 

 race intrudes and displaces the original inhabitant. His ideas 

 will then be influenced to a perceptible degree by those who dis- 

 place him. This result is manifest in many of the traditions 

 held by the Ainos. Undoubtedly sincere in the belief that such 

 statements were handed down as true facts of their own history, 

 their holding them can be accounted for in no other way. Thus, 

 the tradition of their origin from a dog, related in good faith by 

 the Ainos themselves, is most undoubtedly, as many Japanese 

 acknowledge, a fabrication of the latter to express their contempt 

 for, and sense of superiority to, the former. 



In spite of this, however, tradition must form not only an 

 interesting but important part of ethnological studies, and it is 

 for this reason that the following are here placed upon record, 

 since they relate to a most interesting remnant of a people 

 concerning whom but little has been written until within a few 

 years. 



According to their established traditions, the origin of the 

 Ainos is traced to an outcast woman, who came from some 

 country toward the West. Attempts to account for her ancestry 

 generally credit her with being the daughter of a ruler of a not 

 far distant country. One version, in which she is the daughter 

 of an Asiatic ruler, makes her the persecuted object of her father's 

 lust ; and it is to escape from this that she seeks voluntary exile, 

 by embarking alone in an open boat with a large white dog as a 

 companion. The filial reverence of the child, however, gains the 

 supremacy in her solitary exile ; and owing to her cherishing the 

 name of her father Kamui, and instilling thoughts of reverence 



7 O C 



for his name into the minds of her children, he becomes more and 

 more an object of reverence, until he is finally deified, under the 

 slightly modified name of Kamoi, which is now applied to all the 

 Gods of the Ainos. 



Another and very common version places Jinmu Tenno, the 

 founder of the Japanese, as the primal ancestor. This, however, 

 throws undoubted discredit upon the tradition, as proving its 

 relatively modern origin. However, in this case, the daughter 

 became the object of her father's displeasure, and was forced into 



