434 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



Place-names. 



Japanese. 



Aino. 







The promontory. 



The bay near the promontory. 



Stream. 



The clift'by the stream. 



Dry river. 



The grassy plain, 



Long river. 



The stream from the lake. 



The distant island. 



Sand. 



Izumo 



Naki 







Nabari 



Sabe 



Sara 



Tanabe 







..do 



Rice-field name, tribe 



Tsushima 



Uda 











The distribution of names which are unquestionably of Aino origin, 

 can be traced through the main island, and through Shikoku and Kiu- 

 shiu, even into the extreme southern province of Osumi, and across the 

 sea in the islands of Iki and Tsushima. " The dawn of history shows 

 them (the Ainos) to us living far to the south and west of their present 

 haunts, and ever since then, century by century, we see them retreating 

 westwards under the pressure of the colonists from Europe." * * * 



Evidently the Japanese Government can not, with the best of inten- 

 tions, preserve the race much longer from extinction. If the Ainos once 

 inhabited southern Japan, as the evideuce of geographical place-names 

 seems to prove, and if they have gradually been driven northward, their 

 presence in the north of the main island within the historic period leads 

 to the supposition that the early Japanese were the aggressors. If this 

 were so, we would expect some allusion to the fact in ancient traditions 

 and literature. The Japanese records of events previous to the historic 

 period are exceedingly unsatisfactory, but it is significant that some of 

 the half-mythical personages bear Aino names. Thus Tomibiko, for 

 example, means nothing in Japanese, but the Ainos have the word tumi, 

 " of war," which, in combination with the Japanese biko or hiko, " prince," 

 gives us "Prince of war." The TJkashlare evidently the elders, from 

 the Aino word ekashi. Instances like these might be multiplied. 



According to Japanese records Japan was once inhabited by a race 

 of dwarfs, who lived in underground dwellings — "earth-spiders," they 

 were called. These were exterminated by the Japanese as the latter 

 spread over the country. There are also allusions to a hairy race of 

 savages called Yebisu, or Yemishi. This word is usually assumed to 

 designate the Ainos, with whom the Japanese must have come in con- 

 tact very early. It would appear, therefore, that the Japanese found 

 the country inhabited by two different races, the so-called cave-dwellers 

 and the Ainos, a supposition which seems not improbable in the light 

 of recent ethnographic studies. In the preceding paper ("The Pit-dwel- 

 lers of Yezo") the author has brought forward evidence to prove that 

 certain excavations in the ground, quite numerous in Yezo, are the 

 ruins of ancient dwellings, once inhabited by a people unlike the Ainos. 

 The Ainos have, in fact, a tradition concerning such a race of pit-dwel- 



