"As is well known, the hairiness of the Ainos marks them sharply off from the smooth-faced Japanese. No one can look at photographs of Ainos without admitting that the often-repeated comparison of them to bearded Russian peasants is much to the purpose. The likeness is much strengthened by the bold quasi-European features of the Aino contrasting extremely with the Japanese type of face."[298] "The expression of the face and the manner of showing courtesy are European rather than Asiatic," says Miss Bird, who has lived among these people; and she again remarks, on a later page, "I am more and more convinced that the expression of their faces is European."[299]
"The men are about the middle height,[300] broad-chested, broad-shouldered, 'thick-set,' very strongly built, the arms and legs short, thick, and muscular, the hands and feet large. The bodies, and specially the limbs, of many are covered with short bristly hair. I have seen two boys whose backs are covered with fur as fine and soft as that of a cat." "The 'ferocious savagery' of the appearance of the men is produced by a profusion of thick, soft, black hair, divided in the middle, and falling in heavy masses nearly to the shoulders. Out of doors it is kept from falling over the face by a fillet round the brow. The beards are equally profuse, quite magnificent, and generally wavy, and in the case of the old men they give a truly patriarchal and venerable aspect, in spite of the yellow tinge produced by smoke and want of cleanliness." "The beard, moustache, and eyebrows are very thick and full." "At a deep river called the Nopkobets," says the same writer, "we were ferried by an Aino completely covered with hair, which on his shoulders was wavy like that of a retriever, and rendered clothing quite needless either for covering or warmth. A wavy, black beard rippled nearly to his waist over his furry chest, and, with his black locks hanging in masses over his shoulders, he would have looked a thorough savage had it not been for the exceeding sweetness of his smile and eyes. The Volcano Bay Ainos are far more hairy than the mountain Ainos." Again—"These Lebungé Ainos differ considerably from those of the eastern villages, and I have again to notice the decided sound or click of the ts at the beginning of many words. Their skins are as swarthy as those of Bedaween, their foreheads comparatively low [the Aino forehead being in general remarkably high], their eyes far more deeply set, their stature lower, their hair yet more abundant, the look of wistful melancholy more marked, and two, who were unclothed for hard work in fashioning a canoe, were almost entirely covered with short, black hair, specially thick on the shoulders and back, and so completely concealing the skin as to reconcile one to the lack of clothing. I noticed an enormous breadth of chest, and a great development of the muscles of the arms and legs. All these Ainos shave their hair off for two inches above their brows, only allowing it there to attain the length of an inch." "Their voices were the lowest and most musical that I have heard, incongruous sounds to proceed from such hairy, powerful-looking men.... These, like other Ainos, utter a short, screeching sound when they are not pleased, and then one recognizes the savage."[301]
AN AINO PATRIARCH.
The picture of "An Aino Patriarch," which is here reproduced from Miss Bird's book,[302] does not enable one to fully realize the purest type of Aino; partly owing to the fact that the figure is clothed, and partly because this man appears to have belonged to one of the more modified sections of the race. However, as he is, he is not a very bad representative of the bearded dwarf, with disproportionately large head, so familiar in tradition; and that he is one of the race of "shaggy men," we know without fuller evidence. His beard does not fall down to his waist, like that of his kinsman who figures as a ferryman in the foregoing quotation; but the heavy moustache and beard, and the shaggy eyebrows, strongly characterize this living race as well as the legendary dwarfs. The latter are again and again referred to as "little old[303] men, with long beards"; and, indeed, in one of Grimm's tales ("Snow-White and Rosy-Red"), a dwarf has a beard so long that it gets caught in the trunk of a tree that has been felled. The artist who drew the picture of Barbarossa's dwarfs has not forgotten this marked traditional feature.[304] Such dwarfs are all remembered as possessed of supernatural powers, enchanters, magicians, etc.; and, conversely, the magicians (Gaelic druidhean) of early Britain are famous for their flowing beards.
An earlier Aino than those pictured by Miss Bird is that which Baron Nordenskiöld gives in his "Voyage of the Vega." With regard to it he says:—"The drawing is taken from a Japanese work, whose title, when translated, runs thus—'A Journey to the North Part of Japan (Yezo), 1804.'"
AINO OF 1804.