CHAPTER XX.
Ainu Habitations, Storehouses, Trophies, Furniture--Conservatism.
Ainu architecture is by no means elaborate, let alone beautiful; but though it is so simple, it is to a certain extent varied, differing according to the exigencies of climate and locality. Huts of one district vary from those of another not only in small details, but also in the whole shape; or if the shape is the same, the materials are different.
The principal characteristics of the Volcano Bay and Saru River huts is, that they have angular roofs and are thatched with tall reeds and arundinaria, while the huts up the Tokachi River are more often covered with bark, though in form they are almost identical with those others.
On the Kutcharo Lake, again, the huts are thatched with tall reeds like those of Volcano Bay, but the building itself has a totally different shape. The roof is semicircular, and each hut is in appearance like the half of a cylinder lying on its rectangular base.
On the north-east coast the huts have either roofs similar to the Kutcharo ones, or else the angle is very obtuse instead of being sharp, as with the Piratori or Volcano Bay huts.
In the Kuriles, at Shikotan, the Ainu have houses exactly similar to those at Piratori.
Setting aside the varieties of form, we shall now consider how the huts are built. A frame is first made by horizontally lashing at short intervals long poles to others at the angles of the roof. Often the roof is made first and lifted up bodily on the forked poles on which it rests. Then long reeds and arundinaria are collected in sufficient quantity to thatch the frame thickly on each side. Other poles or rafters are then placed over these reeds, and through them lashed tightly to the under frame, thus preventing the thatch from being blown or washed away. Care is taken to leave an opening for the door; and the small east window--usually the only one in Ainu huts--is cut out afterwards by means of a knife. Ainu huts have never more than one storey and never more than one room and a small porch. In districts where the climate is less severe the porch is often dispensed with. In building their habitations the hairy people make no attempt whatever at symmetry or beauty; all they aim at is to make themselves a shelter and nothing more.
There are no more professional architects than professionals of any other kind in the Ainu country. Each man is his own architect, builder, and carpenter. He may occasionally receive the help of a neighbour when he is building his hut, if all hands in the family are not sufficient to carry him through his work.
Each family has its own hut, which is used day and night by all the members. If one of the sons gets married he sometimes brings his bride to live in his father's hut, or else he goes to live in his bride's hut; but as the "hairy mother-in-law" is no better than other "mothers-in-law," the end of this arrangement is that generally the bridegroom has to build a habitation for himself and his better-half. Fortunately for him, he has to pay no ground-rent; nor has he to take a lease, nor pay the lawyer for an agreement, nor yet to buy the ground nor the materials on which and of which his not too luxurious abode is to be built. He chooses the site which is most suitable to him, and there he builds his hut as best he can; and no one is any the worse or the wiser for it. The "furnishing" is a matter of no consideration with the Ainu, as he prefers to live in an "unfurnished house." By instalments, however, as he finds his floor becoming rather damp, he provides himself with a few rough planks, which afford him comfortable sleeping accommodation; and during the winter, when fishing is not practicable, and he spends most of his day at home, he roughly carves for himself a moustache-lifter (the _Kike-ush-bashui_); a small paddle, the _Hera_ (which is used both to stir the wine and as an implement in weaving); a pestle and mortar carved out of the trunk of a tree; and, if he be a very ambitious person and fond of his wife, he will probably make her a weaving loom as well as two or three "water-jugs" if we may call them so--vessels made of bark bent into shape, and lashed so strongly as to be water-tight, and used for carrying water as needed.
A few wooden bowls, a wooden hook, which is suspended over the fire when bear-meat is smoked, occasionally a _Kinna_ (a mat), and a skin or two, are all the articles of furniture of Ainu manufacture which an Ainu can possess, though few of them possess so many. The Ainu hut has a fire-place in the centre, or rather, a fire is lighted in the centre of the hut. The fire is lighted with a flint and steel--a method learned from the Japanese--or by the friction of two sticks. The more civilised Ainu have now adopted matches. A hole in the angle of the roof acts as chimney, but unfortunately more in name than in practice.
Chairs, stools, sofas, beds, tables, etc., are all things unknown to the Ainu. While inspecting the hut it may be as well to see how the weaving-loom, the most complicated article of the Ainu household, is made and worked. There is a "yarn beam" (the _Kammakappe_), on which the "warp" of unwoven thread is wound and kept separated, and another "roll" by which the warp threads in the process of weaving are kept in tension between the two gratings. There then is the _Poro-usa_ (the "large grating"), through the intervals of which the warp threads pass, and the _Usa_, a similar but smaller grating placed on the other side of the roll.
The cloth is wound round a stick which rests on the lap of the weaver, and is kept in tension by means of her wrists; and at the same time the _Ahunkanitte_ (the "shuttle"), is passed between the two sets of warp threads carrying the transverse thread, or "woof," from one side of the cloth to the other and back again. This is then beaten up by means of a long shuttle like a netting mesh, which first draws the weft into its place, and is then used to beat it up. In some ways this form of loom is similar to that of India. The "netting mesh" is called _Atzis-Hera_. Finally, the _Pekoatnit_ is a bi-forked instrument for separating the threads.
It is needless to say that with this primitive and homemade loom it takes a very long time to weave a very short piece of cloth; but as time is not money with Ainu women, and patience is one of their virtues, it answers their purpose, and they wish for nothing better.
The thread used for manufacturing the cloth is made of the inner fibre of the _Ulmus campestris_ bark. At the beginning of the spring the elm bark is peeled off the trees and is put in water to soak and soften until the inner fibres can be separated, made into threads, and wound up round reeds. The material woven from these threads is very coarse and brittle, except in wet weather or when soaked in water, in which case clothes made of it cannot be worn out.
The weaving is usually plain, but sometimes a simple pattern of black parallel lines is woven in with the material. The natural colour of the elm-fibre thread is dark yellow, and the black lines are composed of the same thread stained.
The other contrivance in Ainu huts which strikes one as being simple but clever is the hook suspended over the fire. The rope is passed over a rafter. One end of it is fastened to the hook, the other, as shown in the illustration, to a piece of wood through which the hook has previously been passed.
Mat-making is closely allied to weaving, and is worked entirely on the same principle, but without the aid of any kind of machinery. The bulrushes are crossed and woven coarsely, and plaited flat. One of these mats is used in Ainu huts as a door--"the _Apa Otki_." A smaller one is hung over or by the window.
Naturally, Ainu huts are somewhat draughty. The imperfectness of the door and window-fittings, the large outlet for the smoke, besides the wind which finds its way through the thatched walls, make Ainu dwellings "ideal" to anyone wishing to "catch his death of cold." The Ainu do not much mind it.
The roof is low, and from it hang the winter provisions of dried salmon captured during the autumn. This gives an additional odour to the already strong scent of the hut--an "ancient fish-like smell," not redolent of the perfumes of Arabia. The smoke inside the hut is so dense when there happens to be a fire burning that one's eyes stream with involuntary tears, and one is nearly choked. When the days are short in winter the Ainu sometimes light their dwellings with a stick to which is fastened a piece of animal fat. It is hung up aloft, and when the lower end is lighted the fat slowly melting serves to feed the flame and keep this primitive lamp alight. Another mode of illumination is by firing a lighted piece of birch bark on a stick previously split at the upper end. The third way is by filling a large shell with fish-oil and burning in it a few strings of elm-fibre. None of these methods come much into use for everyday life, as, unlike the negroes, the Ainu are not fond of sitting up at night, except on extraordinary occasions; and when by chance they do sit up it is by the light of the fire only.
If a stranger stops for the night in an Ainu hut, he is made to sleep directly under the east window; but the family take good care to sleep all together on the north side, which is the most distant point from the door and the window. Occasional callers are received on the side nearest to the door.
The few Ainu who possess mats on which they sit during the day hang them up at night round the hut, probably to protect themselves from the liberal ventilation, which even those who are used to it find trying when a gale is blowing or the thermometer is very low.
There is no particular spot inside the hut set apart for meals, and the refuse is either thrown into a corner of the hut or flung outside the door and left there. It is difficult to say whether the inside or the outside of an Ainu hut is the dirtier. Heaps of stinking refuse are accumulated round the dwellings, and in summer-time these heaps are alive with vermin--mosquitoes, flies, _abu_, and black-flies. It is quite sufficient to move a step from the door to see a cloud of these noxious insects rise, and each one of them will have a bite at you.
Inside the house you are no better off. _Taikki_ (fleas) are innumerable, and of all sizes, not to mention other well-known but usually anonymous enemies of the human skin.
The first night I slept in an Ainu hut, though I was provided with insecticide powder, I was literally covered with bites. With my fondness for statistics I proceeded to count them, and only from my ankle to my knee I counted as many as 220. The rest of my body and my head were covered in the same proportion, but I gave up the attempt to ascertain the exact number--the task was too overwhelming. My skin, however, got so inflamed by these bites as to produce fever, which lasted two or three days. After that time I never again suffered to such an extent, perhaps owing to the fact that no free spot was left to attack, or may be from that curious process called acclimatisation.
The Ainu huts are built entirely above ground, and are used alike in winter and summer.
In olden times the hut was always destroyed at the death of its owner, or when abandoned; but in the former case the custom is seldom practised now, and in the latter they are merely left to decay.
It is singular that migrating Ainu, coming across an uninhabited hut, never live in it, but build a new one for themselves.
The Kurilsky Ainu until quite recently destroyed their huts when migrating from one island to another. They also burnt the huts of deceased persons. It is needless to say that the Ainu have no churches, no hotels, no hospitals, and no public buildings of any kind. The huts in villages are a little way from one another, and each hut has directly in front a separate storehouse, built on piles or posts so as not to be accessible to wolves, dogs, or rats. These are small structures, the architecture of which has the local characteristics of the habitations, with the exception that they are invariably on piles, while the habitations are on the ground. Clothes, furs, mats, and winter provisions of sea-weed are kept in these storehouses, and access to them is by means of a peculiar ladder. It is a mere log of wood, six or seven feet in length, pointed at one end, and with five or six incisions, which serve as steps, and remind me of the steps cut by an ice-axe in a glacier or on frozen snow. Natives go up and down these ladders with ease, even when carrying heavy weights on their heads; and good care is always taken to remove the ladder when leaving the storehouse. Women principally look after these storehouses, and seem to have the whole care and control of them. I have often seen an Ainu girl--for a storehouse could hardly hold more than one--sitting on the tiny door working at her lord and master's _Atzis_ robe. Hour after hour I have seen her sitting there, working patiently till the sun has set and the darkness has come. Her materials were then stowed away; the mat at the door was let down; the ladder descended and kicked away; and sadly singing in her soft falsetto voice, she retired into the dirt and dark of her habitation.
The storehouses stand about six feet above the level of the ground, and are generally on four, six, or eight piles. Upon each pile is placed a large square piece of wood turned downwards at the sides, so as not to be accessible to rats and mice. Upon these square pieces of wood rest horizontally four rafters, forming a quadrangle about eight feet square. The small storehouse has as a base this quadrangle, and is seldom high enough to allow of an adult to stand inside.
Storehouses are thatched like all other houses. On the upper Tokachi, however, they are covered with the bark of trees.
Next in connection with Ainu habitations comes the skull-trophy at the east end of the hut. This is on a parallel line to the hut wall, and only a few yards away from it, and is made of a number of bi-forked poles, upon which are placed the skulls of the bears, wolves, and foxes killed by the owner of the hut. The Ainu is proud of this trophy, and if the number of bear skulls is very large, he commands a certain amount of respect from his hairy brethren. There is nothing that Ainu admire more than courage, and there is nothing in the world that an Ainu desires more than to be thought brave. When he has gained this character a man becomes in a certain way the "lion" of the village. He embellishes his trophy with a _Nusa_ and _Inaos_ (willow wands with overhanging shavings--_see_ Chapter on Superstitions), and he always looks on it as an evidence of his manly glory. Besides this, many Ainu possess one or two live bears kept in cages. Bear hunters often secure one or more cubs, which they bring home and allow to live in the hut like one of the family or an Irishman's pig. These cubs are nursed along with and in the same manner as the children, and Ainu say that women often put them to the breast and suckle them like their own infants. Whether this is true or not I cannot say; but though I have never seen it, and therefore cannot vouch for it, it is not unlike Ainu women to do such a thing.
When the new-comers grow big and powerful enough to be dangerous, the men make a rough cage with logs of timber, placing them one over the other in a quadrangular shape, and lashing them strongly together. The bear is driven into the cage, which is then roofed over; and after a couple of years of confinement, during which it is fattened, poor Bruin is killed for a bear festival. In the lower part of the cage there is a small wooden tray by which food is served to the captive.
On the north-east coast of Yezo I have also seen smaller cages, in which foxes, eagles, or other animals are kept; and I always noticed the care which Ainu took to feed up the imprisoned animals. That "charity begins at home" is true even among the hairy people; for if they are kind to animals it is only for the sake of making a good meal of them on the first occasion that presents itself.
It may be as well to state that the Ainu have never been known to make pottery. What they have of the kind is imported and sold to or exchanged with them by the Japanese. If I were an Irishman I should say that real Ainu pottery is made of wood. Nevertheless, large shells are often used by them as drinking vessels where wooden bowls are not obtainable. It is a common occurrence in Ainu households that one bowl is used by several individuals, and a more common occurrence still that none of the bowls are ever washed or cleaned after having been used.
The small Ainu porch which stands frequently at the entrance of Ainu huts answers the purpose of a stackhouse, and in it is stored the firewood used in the house. The wooden mortar and the long pestle are kept in a corner under the porch. In the more civilised parts of Yezo these pestles and mortars are general, as the natives use them for pounding millet.
The pure Ainu live principally on animal food--fish and meat--sea-weed, and some kinds of roots and herbs, which they find on the mountains. Metallurgy is utterly unknown to the Ainu. Until of late years they possessed nothing made of metal. Their arrows had bamboo or bone heads; tin or iron cooking utensils they had none; and the blades of their knives were and are of Japanese origin. Some of these blades are very old, and were acquired by the Ainu in the battles which they fought against the Japanese; others have been got by barter-metal exchanged for skins of animals.
Furthermore, save the weaving-loom, the Ainu possess no machinery of their own make. This too, as we have seen, is but a very rude and simple kind of machine. The application of wind or water power to economise human labour is in no way known to them; thus they have no windlasses, no pumps, no bellows, no windmills, no waterwheels; neither have they any signs of the rudest form of machinery moved by manual power which they have imagined and made for themselves. Furthermore, they are very loth to accept those mechanical means of economising labour which are employed by their neighbours the Japanese.
The Ainu are very conservative, little as they may have to preserve. They show a great dislike to change or reform their habits and customs, or to improve themselves in any way. Worse they could certainly not be. They have no ancestral attachment which makes them unwilling to discard their rude practices for more civilised ways; but, acting according to their instincts, and not by their intelligence, they preserve customs which seem inconvenient and unpractical to us, which habit has rendered familiar and pleasant to them.
Various natives in other parts of the world show signs of an earlier state of civilisation, but the Ainu do not. They have never had a past civilisation, they are not civilised now, and what is more, they will never be civilised. Civilisation kills them. As a hog delights in filth, so the Ainu can only live in dirt, neglect, and savagery of personal habits. They are made that way, and they cannot help it. They are excluded from progress by an impassable barrier. They have many miseries in their life, but no greater misery could befall an Ainu than to be forced to lead a civilised existence. Even after they have been educated in Japanese schools, when they return home, in a short time they forget all they have learned, and discard their acquired civilisation for the old, free, untrammelled mountain life; the wild habits of the woods and sea-shore; the nakedness of summer and the stifling squalor of the one small dingy hut in winter; the uncombed hair and matted beard; the putrid flesh of salmon, and the vile compound they revel in till they get gloriously drunk and bestial.