554 The Fabrication of Aino Cloth. [ August, 
find the prepared material very coarse, and the finished product 
correspondingly so. 
As a class, the Ainos are not yet susceptible to the demands of 
higher and increasing wants. Their desires are few, of a low 
order, and easily satisfied; and in the matter of clothing, it is 
sufficient for them to know and feel that their one garment satis- 
fies the demands of decency, that the material costs only the 
expenditure of time—which, to them, is nothing—and that the 
processes of preparation and fabrication are both simple and 
easily accomplished. Delicacy of touch, pliability, fine texture 
and a pure color are considerations which do not find place in the 
Aino mind, yet with an exhibition of the truly savage taste which 
delights in a display of rude and brilliant ornamentation, we find 
them expending great effort upon their garments to secure 
striking, if not altogether symmetrical and harmonious deco- 
ration. 
The collection and preparation of fiber, though properly be- 
longing to the women, is not unfrequently undertaken by the 
men in connection with their own peculiar work. Thus witha 
hunting expedition, which may last several days, they often com- 
bine the object of collecting bark, either for cloth or the manu- 
facture of ropes; while their visits to pools where the bark is 
macerating, will be combined with a search for their principal 
source of farinaceous food—lily bulbs. ; 
The bark is generally drawn from the standing tree. Three or 
four good blows with the heavy knife, which every man carries, 
suffice to permit a good hold with both hands, when by the exer- 
cise of a little skill, a strip of bark nearly a foot wide, is drawn 
off quite up to the branches, often a distance of twenty feet. If 
taken from the Ohiyo, it is macerated for about ten days in quiet 
pools of tepid water, such as are common about the borders of 
swamp lands. As soon as sufficiently macerated, the outer bark 
readily separates from the bast portion, when this latter is again 
split into long and broad strips, usually about ten in number. 
These are then dried slowly to prevent rendering the fiber brittle, 
after which they are stripped into threads having an average 
width of one-eighth of an inch. No twisting or other process 1S 
performed, but as soon as the threads (Af) have been made of 
the proper size, they are joined together by a simple square knot, 
and nicely wound in balls, five inches in diameter, which unwind 
