Page:An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language).djvu/587

Rh can be made out of the appellation “Earth-spiders,” for it implies no more than what is meant by “pit-dwellers.” Ko-bito really means “little people,” “dwarfs”; but the Ainu, when speaking of these so-called “dwarfs” use the word Ko-bito, which is pure Japanese. I have never heard a real native Ainu name meaning “dwarfs” applied to them. In fact, I am of opinion that they have none. Were it not for the Japanese words Tsuchi-gumo and Ko-bito I find no grounds for supposing that the Ainu would speak of a race of dwarfs at all. But foregone conclusions are always hard to kill, so that it will be asked again, “but were there not the here and does not that mean the people of the Petasites plant?” Well; no it does not. cannot mean Petasites: it can only be translated by “under,” “beneath,” “below.” The full name is, “persons dwelling below,” the being a locative particle. And this it will be seen does not carry the idea of “Dwarfs” in it at all. But allowing for the sake of argument that did mean “people under the Petasites” even that would not dwarf them in the least. I myself stand nearly 5 ft. 8 and have scores of times not only walked but also ridden on pony back among the leaf-stalks of the Petasites without touching the blades. I wonder how big the ancient Japanese and Ainu must have been! For if because the ancient pit-dwellers could move among the stalks of the Petasites without touching their over-shadowing tops they were called “Dwarfs,” those who for this reason first applied this name to them must have been very Goliaths in stature!

Nor can anything be said for the third argument, viz., that resting on old kitchen middens and flint implements. For (a) when one meets with children—Ainu children—playing at making pottery out of soft clay and ornamenting their handiwork with