183
DisasterMan
Japanese samurai swords and have holes and engravings on
the blade which the Japanese swords do not. Since the Ainu
are Stone Age culture, they apparently bartered furs, etc. with
somebody to get the swords.
The women's coat was of the characteristic Ainu cut with
smaller sleeves than Japanese kimonos, and decorated with a
sort of scroll work. The headband for women also has these
scrolls Fleur de Lys, convex diamonds, etc. on a piece of black
silk about two inches wide. The man's headband is two strips
of woven bark about an inch and a half wide fastened at the
back and fastened in the front with a carved wooden bear's
head sticking forward about two inches.
They wear straw or bark sandals with ties around the
ankles in summer and use sandals with soles of salmon skins
in winter in order not to slip on ice. Their mats of bark have
red and black strips inlaid to make patterns. They dip the mats
into a hot spring to set the color of the inserts. Their bows are
decorated with strips of dark red cherry bark wrapped for
about 5 turns spaced about 19 inches. The arrows were short
being only about 15 inches long and made of some wood with
bamboo front end of 4 inches with a bamboo point tied on.
They also used poisoned arrows. A dagger was made of bear
bone with bamboo point. They showed me a big log that had
a hollowed out space for grinding corn. Two men alternately
pound it with the end of a small log 4 inches in diameter and
2 feet long. The center of the small log is of small diameter for
a handgrip.
I wanted to fi nd out something which hasn't been recorded
thus far so I investigated Ainu folk dancing. The legends, the
religion and the animal worship have been very thoroughly
recorded by Batchelor who got old people to tell him in 1880
(70 years ago), the ancient tales. But being a missionary, he
wasn't interested in dancing. Naka Kawakami, the mother of
Hiroshi, was asked if she would show us some Ainu dances.
She was initially embarrassed and very shy, but fi nally
showed us fi ve dances. I wrote down their names and made