Page:An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language).djvu/584

26 in which they are said to have lived, together with the exhibition of certain remnants of old pottery and such like things were too sure and certain proofs to be laid quietly aside by a new comer; and then lastly there were certain difficult place names whose meaning could not at that time be ascertained. In fact, like the famous missing link your aborigine could almost be seen and touched. But none of these foundations of orthodox belief will bear the light, and I have therefore, as in duty bound, abandoned them.

But to examine the matter briefly yet as thoroughly as space will allow. And first as regards the pits. They are here in Yezo in great numbers, so that one is constantly coming across them. The Ainu call them, i.e. “sites belonging to people who dwelt below ground,” and this equals “Pit-dwellers.” Another name they call them by is , i.e., “house sites of people who had earth houses.” Thus then we have the “Pit-dwellers” for certain. But who were they who dwelt in the pits? To come down to living present day examples of them we have them on the island of Shikotan. These people have two kinds of houses, one built on the Japanese model and the other on the pit model. The pits are only for winter use while the Japanese houses are used during the summer. These Ainu were brought down from an island in the Kurile group called Shimushir in the year 1885 by the Japanese Government, and they declare that their forefathers originally came from Saghalien. They were Greek Church Christians. There are also some Ainu at present inhabiting Saghalien who live in the same kind of pits during the cold weather. Hence we find that the Ainu are, some of them at least, actual “Pit-dwellers” to-day. I myself am a “Wood-house dweller,” for my house is made of wood; my brother in Africa is a “Stone house dweller;” his house being built of that material; another brother used to be a real “Cave dweller” for he, being a Royal Engineer, lived for some time in the Rock of Gibraltar; our mother must be a sort of mongrel for she is living in a house made of brick, wood, and plaster