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.