*"The Ainu and their Folk-lore," by Batchelor.
Evidently if such legends are to be credited, the existence of fairies must no longer be denied in Europe. Side by side with the total absence of all tangible relics may be set the fact that, whereas numerous place-names in the main island of Japan have been identified as Ainu words, none has been traced to any alien tongue such as might be associated with earlier inhabitants. Thus, the theory of a special race of immigrants anterior to the Yemishi has to be abandoned so far as the evidence of pit-dwelling is concerned. The fact is that the use of partially underground residences cannot be regarded as specially characteristic of any race or as differentiating one section of the people of Japan from another. To this day the poorer classes in Korea depend for shelter upon pits covered with thatch or strong oil-paper. They call these dwellings um or um-mak, a term corresponding to the Japanese muro. Pit-dwellers are mentioned in old Chinese literature, and the references to the muro in the Records and Chronicles show that the muro of those days had a character similar to that of the modern Korean um-mak [Aston]. We read of a muro being dug; of steps down to it; and we read of a muro big enough to hold 160 persons at one time. The muro was not always simply a hole roofed over: it sometimes contained a house having a wooden frame lashed together with vine-tendrils, the walls lined with sedges and reeds and plastered with a mixture of grass and clay. The roof was thatched with reeds; there was a door opening inwards, and a raised platform served for sleeping purposes. A dwelling closely resembling this description was actually unearthed near Akita in O-U, in 1807. Muro were used in ancient times by the highest as Well as the poorest classes. Susanoo is said by the Izumo Fudoki to have made for himself a muro; Jimmu's sort is represented as sleeping in a great muro, and the Emperor Keiko, when (A.D.82) prosecuting his campaign in Kyushu, is said to have constructed a muro for a temporary palace. "In fact, pit-dwelling in northern climates affords no indication of race."
CONCLUSION FROM HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
Thus the conclusion suggested by historical evidence is that the Japanese nation is composed of four elements: the Yamato; the Yemishi (modern Ainu); the Kumaso (or Hayato), and the Sushen. As to the last of these, there is no conclusive indication that they ever immigrated in appreciable numbers. It does not follow, of course, that the historical evidence is exhaustive, especially Japanese historical evidence; for the annalists of Japan do not appear to have paid any special attention to racial questions.
ENGRAVING: ANCIENT HANGING BELLS
ENGRAVING: FUTAMI-GA-URA (The Husband and Wife Rocks)
CHAPTER VI
ORIGIN OF THE NATION: GEOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RELICS
JAPAN'S CONNEXION WITH THE ASIATIC CONTINENT
THE group of islands forming Japan may be said to have routes of communication with the continent of Asia at six places: two in the north; two in the southwest, and two in the south. The principal connexion in the north is across the narrow strait of Soya from the northwest point of Yezo to Saghalien and thence to the Amur region of Manchuria. The secondary connexion is from the north-east point of Yezo via the long chain of the Kuriles to Kamchatka. The first of the southwestern routes is from the northwest of Kyushu via the islands of Iki and Tsushima to the southeast of Korea; and the second is from the south of the Izumo promontory in Japan, by the aid of the current which sets up the two southern routes. One of these is from the southwest of Kyushu via the Goto Islands to southeastern China; the other is from the south of Kyushu via the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa, and the Philippines to Malaysia and Polynesia. It has also been proved geologically* that the islands now forming Japan must at one time have been a part of the Asiatic continent. Evidently these various avenues may have given access to immigrants from Siberia, from China, from Malaysia, and from Polynesia.