Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/220

208 woven with a small hand-loom, which is held by the toes and a cord passing around the body. This loom is a very rough affair, but in all essential parts is similar to the hand-loom still to be seen in parts of the United States. • The cloth is very rough and hard, but extremely durable. The piece is narrow, but just suited to the one pattern of outer garment worn by men and women alike: this is something like the Japanese kimono, but higher in the neck, and has more shapely sleeves. It is a long, perfectly straight gown, reaches nearly to the feet, folds across the body, and is secured at the waist by a girdle similar to the Japanese obi, but much narrower and nothing like so elaborate. The Ainu are very fond of ornamenting this gown with broad stripes of blue cotton cloth (an inch or two wide), stitched on in geometrical figures with thread, which makes a contrast: these figures are usually put on the front corners, around the neck, on the yoke, and on the sleeves. A burial-robe, which I saw in the Ainu collection of the Satporo Museum, was made of the attush, tan-colored, and ornamented with stripes of Turkey-red (an inch and a quarter wide), stitched with black, and with dark-blue cotton cloth stitched with thread of a lighter shade. The design was straight or at right angles, only one or two slightly curved lines appearing in a most intricate pattern.

The durability of the Ainu coat, with a certain attractiveness about the trimming, makes it quite popular with the Japanese, and as soon as one lands on the island of Yezo the Ainu styles are seen. The sleeves of this coat are much more sensible than those of the Japanese, which are long and constantly flapping about the legs, whereas the Ainu fits rather snugly about the wrist. Like the Japanese, the Ainu married women wear an under-garment, or smock, of cotton cloth; usually this is merely a straight piece of cloth folded around the waist and loins. In winter the Ainu wear skin-clothing, and leggings and boots made of deerskin; the coast Ainu make boots of salmon-skin.

Girdles—or obi—are made of attush or elm-fiber. A woman's obi, which I have, is made of hemp. It is eight feet long and only two inches wide, coarsely woven of large thread, with narrow, dark-blue stripes on the edges and half-way between the edges and middle, and one broader stripe in the center with a light-blue median line. Near each end is a little bit of red as an added ornament. The Karafuto (Saghalien) Ainu women wear girdles made of leather, and ornamented with rings and Chinese cash, which they probably get from Mantchooria. The Ainu do not protect their heads and feet at all, except during the winter.

One of the most common things seen in an Ainu village is the tara, or strap used for carrying all manner of bundles, and