230 Traditions of the Ainos. 



unwilling exile by him. He had a rude boat constructed, and in 

 this his daughter was placed, together with a sword * and some 

 food. After drifting about for some time, generally said to be 

 three days, she was finally cast ashore upon southern Yezo. 

 Here she built a round house f and formed an attachment for a 

 white dog. The Ainos were the result of the union. Interesting 

 as it would be to know, tradition fails to enlighten us as to the 

 name of this founder of the Aino race. 



Other versions are not wanting, and at times they receive ex- 

 tended embellishment at the hands of writers, which materially 

 alters their form. One such is given by Wood J as follows : — 



" Their story places a woman as the first of their race, and 

 she came, as they say, from the West. This was soon after 

 the world was formed out of the waters, which is the genesis of 

 their cosmogony. The Ainos know of no land except islands; so 

 that really this might be the form which tradition has taken 

 since that remote period when the Isles of Japan and the Kuriles 

 were forced up, as they appear to have been, by volcanic action 

 from the Ocean bed. The Ainos tell how this woman, the first of 

 their race, floated over the waves in a vessel freighted with bows 

 and lances, with nets and lines, and with all things necessary for 

 the chase and fishing. She landed on an island where was a beau- 

 tiful garden, and in it she dwelt alone and happily for a long 

 period of years. That garden still exists, say they, but no living 

 man has yet been able to find it. The close of this reign of 

 single blessedness, so long enjoyed by this first of the Amazons, 

 was brought about by a singular circumstance, which, however, 

 can scarcely be narrated here. There is not, as in most legends, the 

 record of a broken commandment, though transgression of some 

 kind is implied : the change being connected with the loss of the 

 garden and the increase and dispersion of the race. These events 



* A facsimile of this weapon, supposed to have been made under the 

 direction of the ancestral mother and handed down by her, was obtained 

 at considerable expense by ine,and is now to be found in the collection 

 at the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass. 



f Evidence that the early form of the Aino house was round is not 

 wanting; such houses are faid to be used occasionally at the present 

 day, though I never saw one. 



X Trans. Eth. Soc, New. Ser., Vol. 4, p. 34, etc. 



