436 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



Plate lxxxi represents a portion of a large and very interesting col- 

 lection made up by M. l'Abbe Furet, of Hakodate. The specimens were 

 obtained from various localities in Yezo and from Awomori, on the main 

 island of Japan. It is scarcely within the province of this article to dis- 

 cuss this part of the subject at length, particularly since to do so would 

 require numerous references to Japanese pottery, and many additional 

 illustrations to present the subject clearly. Those who are already ac- 

 quainted with ancient Japanese pottery will immediately recognize that 

 these specimens are entirely different in form and decoration from any 

 found in Japanese graves. Professor Milne states, as a historical fact, 

 that the Ainos in the neighborhood of Nemuro "used flint instruments 

 and manufactured pottery until late in the last century." The basis of 

 this statement seems to be that Mr. Charles Maries saw in the houses 

 of Ainos, near Horoidzumi, clay vessels in appearance very like the 

 fragments from the sbcll-heaps, from which he concluded that the 

 Ainos at that time still made pots; and further, that a book published 

 in the year 1800 gives drawings and descriptions of pots at that time 

 manufactured by the Ainos. 



The evidence is not quite convincing. Professor Milne thinks the 

 Ainos gave up inakiug pottery because they could get it from the 

 Japanese. But, as far as my observation goes, they do not use much 

 pottery of any kind. Their implements are of wood, and if one occa- 

 sionally finds a Japanese tea-set in an Aino house, it will be about the 

 extent of their possessions of that kind of ware. 



The shell-heaps furnish still further evidence of the early occupancy 

 of Japan by a race certainly closely related to the Ainos. It is a pecu- 

 liarity of the latter that the humerus and the tibia are very much 

 flattened or platycuemic. Such bones have been found by Professor 

 Morse in the shell-heaps, with indications of cannibalism among the 

 people. 



A Japanese writer has recently published a description of two peculiar 

 huts still in existence iu Shonai, on the west coast of Japan, which he 

 believes may have been erected by the people who made the pottery of 

 the kitchen-middens.* 



If we may judge from the authority of old Japanese writings, and also 

 from other evidence, such, for example, as the discovery of indications 

 of cannibalism iu the shell-heaps by Professor Morse, and the cruel 

 modes of punishment brought forward by H. von Siebold, the Ainos 

 were once a fierce and warlike people. They are now gentle and 

 courteous in manner, and one can scarcely believe that they are de- 

 scendants of cruel savages. Only once, while I was alone among them 

 on the northeast coast, I had the misfortune to incur the displeasure 

 of the chief man of the village, the largest Aino I saw in all my travels. 



I had seen some of his people the day before, and had promised them 



* Y. Hashiba. Dwellers in pits still found at Shonai. Bulletin, of the Tokyo An-* 

 thropological Society, in (1868), 152, Printed in Japanese, 



