Page:An Ainu-English-Japanese dictionary (including a grammar of the Ainu language).djvu/588

30 patterns found on the samples dug up from the earth instead of with ordinary Japanese figures, (which ornamentation was done by means of grass and sticks); and (b) when one is emphatically told by the Ainu that their ancestors used to make pottery and use flint implements; and when (c) we moreover hear in old Ainu songs and traditions of Ainu stone armour and stone-headed spears and arrows, all faith in these things as proofs of a race here anterior to the Ainu finds no place in the mind.

Again, it was shown above that the Shikotan pit-dwellers are Ainu. There can be no doubt on this matter. Now, I have in my hands an Officially printed Report on Northern Chishima, i.e. on the Kuriles. In this report there are a number of photos of the people, their pits with the roofs on and the entrances plainly visible, and of their implements:—of implements still used by them when their photographs were taken. A list of the implements is also given and the division is as follows. (1) Stone implements:—Axes, hoes, knives, and stone staves. For some reason the arrow-heads seem to be left out although a photo of an example is given. (2) Bone instruments (whale bone):—Spears, hooks, needles, combs, mortars. (3) Earthenware:—Saucepans, basins, cups. The photos were taken in the 33rd year of Meiji (1900), and the report was made up the following year. Since this paragraph was written a very interesting work by Mr. R. Torii (in Japanese) on the Chishima Ainu has been placed in my hands. This book was published in July, 1903, and fully bears out what I have written. Both it and the Official Report above referred to independently and fully overthrow Mr. Romyn Hitchcock’s bold assertion. On reading Mr. Torii’s book I find that he has given some interesting comparative lists of Kurile and Yezo Ainu words and phrases. But this author does not appear to shine much as an Ainu philologist. Thus, for example, Mr. Torii gives Kurile, Yezo, for “cat”; and also Kurile , Yezo,  for “horse.” But neither these words are traceable to any known Ainu root. What are they then? On the very face of them they are Russian. Thus КожкаКошка [sic], “cat”; and Ложа∂ьЛошадь [sic], “a horse.”