418 



REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



dwellings in the south, although they are numerous iu Yezo. This is 

 doubtless because all such ruins have been destroyed in the more popu- 

 lous island, where every available plot of ground has long been under 

 cultivation. 



The fact is not to be overlooked, however, that the idea of cave life 

 was familiar to the ancient Japanese. The well-known myth of the 

 sun-goddess, who retired into a cave and closed the entrance with a 

 stone, is significant of the truth of this assumption. It is not unlikely 

 that the idea came from China and that true cave life was never prac- 

 ticed in Japan. 



Fig. 6-t. 



There are still other people mentioned in the Japanese records, dis- 

 tinguished as Ebisu or hairy savages, who were contemporaneous with 

 the earthhiders, It is not difficult to recognize in these the ancestors 

 of the Ainos, who, are now confined to Yezo. Not only is the historic 

 evidence clear that the Ainos once lived iu the main island as far south 

 as Sendai, but we have numerous facts in support of the further con- 

 clusion that, in more ancient times, thev occupied the cpast as far south, 



