12 Canadian Record of Science. 



true facts. Yet it is proper for us to give these traditions 

 due consideration, as being the only historical records of 

 the people. 



The principal tradition of their origin is that already re- 

 lated, 1 according to which Jinmu Tenno, the founder of the 

 Japanese, became displeased with his daughter and set her 

 adrift in an open boat. After floating about for some days, 

 she landed on the distant shores of an island now called 

 Yezo, and there formed an attachment for a dog, the result 

 of the union being the first of the Aino people. 



Such a tradition possesses no value, and in all probability 

 it did not originate with the Ainos themselves, but with the 

 Japanese who sought to degrade them as much as possible. 

 Moreover, the Japanese origin of this tradition seems the 

 more probable, when we consider that they have endeavor- 

 ed to give the story a certain plausibility by tracing an im- 

 mediate connection between it and the word, Aino. Thus, 

 in Japanese, the word inu means a dog, and certain scho- 

 lars maintain that the word, Aino, is but a corruption of this, 

 it being originally applied in allusion to the supposed origin 

 of the people. Yet again, other scholars endeavor to make 

 the word a derivation ofai-no-ko, " an offspring of the middle," 

 as signifying a cross between a woman and a dog. 



The entire tradition loses whatever of value it may have 

 possessed, when we bear in mind that the Japanese occupa- 

 tion occurred about B.C. 600, and the histoiy of this latter 

 people, points most unmistakably to the occupation of the 

 country at that time by the Ainos. Moreover, if hard press- 

 ed for a reason for holding such a tradition, the Ainos usu- 

 ally reply with primative simplicity, " because the Japan 

 ese tell us so." The reluctance which the Ainos exhibit in 

 making this statement, is but a further evidence of the lin- 

 gering awe with which they regard their conquerors. 



That they owe their existence to a god, is also one of the 

 leading traditions of the Ainos ; but where they first appear 

 ed, they cannot say. 



Mr. Grriffis speaks of the word, Aino, as of rather modern 



1 See Canadian Record op Science, i. 228-236. 



