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Russell C. Coile
Then Naka insisted I put on her son's Ainu clothes and
have my picture taken with her. When I fi nally had to leave to
ski back to Ashahigawa and catch my train Naka walked the
two-miles into town with me to carry my carved bears. The
bear mask was a wall plaque about 12 inches in diameter and
the other carving was an angry bear leaning against a tree, all
carved out of one solid piece of walnut. Naka is such a sturdy
character I had to keep humping to keep up with her on my
skis. Downhill I was all right, naturally.
When I returned to Hawaii with the other members of
the Pacifi c Fleet Evaluation Group I was invited to present a
paper, "A Visit to an Ainu Village," before the Anthropological
Society of Hawaii on March 28, 1951. I hired a professional
Hawaiian hula dancer to perform the Ainu dances I had
taught her while I played the Ainu records. She had put on
Ainu tattoo makeup with ink on her face, wore the Ainu
clothes I had brought back to give to the Smithsonian, and
she wore some Ainu jewelry which I had borrowed from an
anthropologist at the Bishop Museum. During the question
and answer period after my lecture, I found out that two of
the Bishop Museum anthropologists had visited the same
Ainu village about 15 years earlier.
I presented the clothes I bought from the Ainu to the
U.S. National Museum of the Smithsonian (listed in the U.S.
National Museum 1959 Annual Report, pp 126-127, published
15 August 1959 by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
D.C.) I also donated a dozen or so recordings of Ainu folk
music which I obtained from the Folklore Section of the
Japanese Broadcasting Corporation to the Folk Music Division
of the Library of Congress.
Back to the War
We went back to Hawaii for another month to write up
and report on all that we had observed in our second tour
in Korea. Then back to Japan for our third tour. I was again
aboard Philippine Sea (CV-47) the fl agship aircraft carrier of
Task Force 77. There was a different Admiral aboard. John