420 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



It would be a bold assumption indeed to suppose that the dwellers 

 in earth houses, the tsuchigumo, made the pottery. We have no evi- 

 dence of this further than the fact that here and there fragments of 

 pottery, and occasionally well-preserved vessels, are found about pits in 

 Yezo and Yeterof, which, as I shall endeavor to show, are probably the 

 ruins of a kind of pit-dwellings corresponding, in the opinion of the 

 present writer, to those of the traditional tsuchi-gumo. The pottery is 

 there, and it assuredly was uot made by the Japanese. It may be much 

 older than we think, older than the Aino occupancy; older than even 

 the traditions of the Japanese. Whoever were the people who made 

 it, they spread over the whole country from southern Kiushiu to the 

 bleak shores of Yezo and the adjacent islands. 



Who were the pit dwellers of Yezo? I have supposed them to be 

 the tsuchigumo of tradition, but our only knowledge concerning these 

 is found in the Japanese accounts, unreliable enough, but at the 

 same time not without some bearing on the question. For one would 

 scarcely expect such circumstantial and numerous accounts of meetings 

 and combats with dwellers in burrows or caves to be pure inventions. 

 The word "cave" translated means " apartment." They were not cave- 

 dwellers in the ordinary sense, for in nearly all the accounts of the peo- 

 ple they seem to have lived iu holes dug in the ground. We have the 

 less reason to doubt this, since it is known that the Smelenkur of Sag- 

 halin construct earth-covered dwellings on the sides of hills, not in auy 

 sense caves, and houses of another form will shortly be described which 

 may, with still more probability, represent the dwellings of the tsuchi- 

 gumo. 



Mr. T. W. Blakiston first brought prominently into notice certain re- 

 markable depressions or pits iu the ground which he had observed 

 in various parts of Yezo, and which he believed to be the remains of 

 human habitations. In the summer of 1888 1 made an extended journey 

 in the island, covering a distance of more than 800 miles on horseback, 

 visiting the Ainos and always looking for pits. The pits are numerous in 

 places, usually on elevated land near the coast, or overlookiugthe mouths 

 of rivers, presumably that the people might readily sight sboals of fish. 

 The island known as Bentenjima, which forms a breakwater to Nemuro 

 harbor, is covered with numerous pits. Plate lxxiv shows the town as 

 seen from the residence of Mrs. H. Carpenter, a most devoted missionary, 

 and the only foreign resident. The island is seen on the left. Just back 

 of the three sheds or storehouses bordering on the water, where the 

 bank is falling away, there is a small line of white, indicating the re- 

 mains of a shell-mound. It was at this spot that Prof. John Milne, in 

 1881, found some fragments of pottery, several arrow-heads, and one 

 complete vase. I was only able to find a few broken shells, not having 

 the means with me for digging. 



About 4 miles from Ncmuro, in a northeasterly direction, on a bluff 

 overlooking the sea, near the mouth of a small stream, there are seven 

 pits, approximately square in shape, varying in length from 10 to 20 



