My
Room Is On The Village Street, And, As It Is Too Warm To Close The
Shoji, The Aborigines Stand Looking In At The Lattice Hour After
Hour.
A short time ago Mr. Von Siebold and Count Diesbach galloped up on
their return from Biratori, the Aino village to which I am going;
and Count D., throwing himself from his horse, rushed up to me with
the exclamation, Les puces!
Les puces! They have brought down with
them the chief, Benri, a superb but dissipated-looking savage. Mr.
Von Siebold called on me this evening, and I envied him his fresh,
clean clothing as much as he envied me my stretcher and mosquito-
net. They have suffered terribly from fleas, mosquitoes, and
general discomfort, and are much exhausted; but Mr. Von S. thinks
that, in spite of all, a visit to the mountain Ainos is worth a
long journey. As I expected, they have completely failed in their
explorations, and have been deserted by Lieutenant Kreitner. I
asked Mr. Von S. to speak to Ito in Japanese about the importance
of being kind and courteous to the Ainos whose hospitality I shall
receive; and Ito is very indignant at this. "Treat Ainos
politely!" he says; "they're just dogs, not men;" and since he has
regaled me with all the scandal concerning them which he has been
able to rake together in the village.
We have to take not only food for both Ito and myself, but cooking
utensils. I have been introduced to Benri, the chief; and, though
he does not return for a day or two, he will send a message along
with us which will ensure me hospitality.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXXVI
Savage Life - A Forest Track - Cleanly Villages - A Hospitable
Reception - The Chief's Mother - The Evening Meal - A Savage Seance -
Libations to the Gods - Nocturnal Silence - Aino Courtesy - The
Chief's Wife.
AINO HUT, BIRATORI, August 23.
I am in the lonely Aino land, and I think that the most interesting
of my travelling experiences has been the living for three days and
two nights in an Aino hut, and seeing and sharing the daily life of
complete savages, who go on with their ordinary occupations just as
if I were not among them. I found yesterday a most fatiguing and
over-exciting day, as everything was new and interesting, even the
extracting from men who have few if any ideas in common with me all
I could extract concerning their religion and customs, and that
through an interpreter. I got up at six this morning to write out
my notes, and have been writing for five hours, and there is
shortly the prospect of another savage seance. The distractions,
as you can imagine, are many. At this moment a savage is taking a
cup of sake by the fire in the centre of the floor. He salutes me
by extending his hands and waving them towards his face, and then
dips a rod in the sake, and makes six libations to the god - an
upright piece of wood with a fringe of shavings planted in the
floor of the room. Then he waves the cup several times towards
himself, makes other libations to the fire, and drinks. Ten other
men and women are sitting along each side of the fire-hole, the
chief's wife is cooking, the men are apathetically contemplating
the preparation of their food; and the other women, who are never
idle, are splitting the bark of which they make their clothes. I
occupy the guest seat - a raised platform at one end of the fire,
with the skin of a black bear thrown over it.
I have reserved all I have to say about the Ainos till I had been
actually among them, and I hope you will have patience to read to
the end. Ito is very greedy and self-indulgent, and whimpered very
much about coming to Biratori at all, - one would have thought he
was going to the stake. He actually borrowed for himself a
sleeping mat and futons, and has brought a chicken, onions,
potatoes, French beans, Japanese sauce, tea, rice, a kettle, a
stew-pan, and a rice-pan, while I contented myself with a cold fowl
and potatoes.
We took three horses and a mounted Aino guide, and found a beaten
track the whole way. It turns into the forest at once on leaving
Sarufuto, and goes through forest the entire distance, with an
abundance of reedy grass higher than my hat on horseback along it,
and, as it is only twelve inches broad and much overgrown, the
horses were constantly pushing through leafage soaking from a
night's rain, and I was soon wet up to my shoulders. The forest
trees are almost solely the Ailanthus glandulosus and the Zelkowa
keaki, often matted together with a white-flowered trailer of the
Hydrangea genus. The undergrowth is simply hideous, consisting
mainly of coarse reedy grass, monstrous docks, the large-leaved
Polygonum cuspidatum, several umbelliferous plants, and a "ragweed"
which, like most of its gawky fellows, grows from five to six feet
high. The forest is dark and very silent, threaded by this narrow
path, and by others as narrow, made by the hunters in search of
game. The "main road" sometimes plunges into deep bogs, at others
is roughly corduroyed by the roots of trees, and frequently hangs
over the edge of abrupt and much-worn declivities, in going up one
of which the baggage-horse rolled down a bank fully thirty feet
high, and nearly all the tea was lost. At another the guide's
pack-saddle lost its balance, and man, horse, and saddle went over
the slope, pots, pans, and packages flying after them. At another
time my horse sank up to his chest in a very bad bog, and, as he
was totally unable to extricate himself, I was obliged to scramble
upon his neck and jump to terra firma over his ears.
There is something very gloomy in the solitude of this silent land,
with its beast-haunted forests, its great patches of pasture, the
resort of wild animals which haunt the lower regions in search of
food when the snow drives them down from the mountains, and its
narrow track, indicating the single file in which the savages of
the interior walk with their bare, noiseless feet.
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