THE KURILSKY AINU 
37 
amongst the sand-dunes near the shore. The wood 
is of all sizes up to logs of 50 feet or more in length and 
a couple of feet in diameter, and gets piled up in places, 
leaving hollows beneath, which form natural shelters. 
Against these, and partly over them, sand gets 
drifted and blown; then follows a growth of grass, 
and there you have a rough sort of pit-dwelling 
constructed by Nature. It was easy to improve 
upon this, and this, I take it, is how the pit-dwelling 
originated. Thus the yurts of the Aleutian Islands, 
and those of the Kurils, could easily have been 
evolved independently, being but the natural out¬ 
come of circumstances. It may be said that this 
drift timber could have been used to erect log or 
boarded huts, but for such constructions the natives 
did not possess the necessary tools. 
This explanation of the probable origin of the pit- 
dwellings will not, however, account for their being 
found in the southern Kurils, Yezo, and Northern 
Japan. That they had a northern origin I have no 
doubt, and I can quite conceive that, when the Ainu 
penetrated to the central and northern Kurils, they 
were compelled to construct yurts to live in, there 
being no materials for making the kind of dwelling 
they inhabited in the south. Finding these yurts 
dry, warm, and cosy, in the severest weather, with 
no chance of getting blown down in a storm, 
flooded by heavy rains, or destroyed by fire, and, 
above all, constructed in a day or two at most, 
it is evident that the Ainu who had lived in them 
would, on their return south, construct similar 
dwellings for their winter-quarters, as being much 
more comfortable than their own style of house 
above-ground. The winters in Yezo and Northern 
