Basil Hall Chamberlain

“ The foxes, thought thus: "What is nicer even than treasures is the delicious food which human beings have. As we do not know what it is, let us go again and buy some more of it." So they again made treasures out of herbs. Then they again went down to that village. The mole was in a golden house—a large house. He was alone in it, having sent all the crows and the rest away. As the foxes entered the house and looked about them, they saw a very venerable god. The god spoke thus: "Oh! you foxes; because you had assumed human shape, you made all sorts of counterfeit treasures. ”

“ There were Panaumbe and Penaumbe. Panaumbe went down to the sea-shore, and walked up and down upon the sand. Then he saw a sea-lion in the water. He wanted to catch that sea-lion, and eat its flesh. So he called out to it: "Oh! Mr. Sea-Lion, if you will come here, I will pick the lice out of your head." The sea-lion was very glad to have the lice picked out of its head. So it swam to him. Then he pretended to pick the lice out of its head. But in reality he picked the flesh off its head, and the fat, and ate it. Then he said: "All the lice are picked off. You may go." ”

“ I am the bear-goddess. This husband of mine is the dragon-god. There is no one so jealous as he is. Therefore did I not look towards you, because I knew that he would be jealous if I looked towards you. Those treasures of yours are treasures which even the gods do not possess. It is because he is delighted to get them that he has taken them with him to counterfeit them and bring you mock treasures. So when he shall have brought those treasures and shall display them, you must speak thus: 'We need not exchange treasures. ”

“ It is then that fairy-tales come to the rescue. The Ainos would not suggest the idea themselves. To suggest ideas is not their habit. But they are delighted to follow it when suggested. Simply to repeat something which they have known by heart ever since the days of their childhood is not such an effort to their easily-tired brains as is the keeping up of a conversation with one who speaks their language imperfectly. ”

“ One day a wizard told a man whom he knew that, if any one were to climb a certain mountain-peak and jump off on to the belt of clouds below, he would be able to ride about on them as on a horse, and see the whole world. Trusting in this, the man did as the wizard had told him, and in very truth was enabled to ride about on the clouds. He visited the whole world in this fashion, and brought back a map which he had drawn of the whole world both of men and of gods. ”

“ A long, long time ago there was a rascal, who went to the mountains to fetch wood. As he did not know how to amuse himself, he climbed to the top of a very thick pine-tree. Having munched some rice he stuck it about the branches of the tree, so as to make it look like birds' dung. Then he went back to the village, to the house of the chief, and spoke thus to him: "I have found a place where a beautiful peacock has its nest. Let us go there together! Being such a poor man, I feel myself unworthy of going too near the divine bird. You, being a rich man, should take the peacock. ”

“ Meanwhile the puppy and the fox-cub played about in his room. But when they saw, after some time, that the man was really going to die, the fox-cub said to the puppy: "If our master dies, we shall die of hunger too; so we had better search for the charm." So they consulted as to the best way to search for it; and at last the fox-cub was struck by the idea that the ogre who lived at the top of the large mountain that stands at the end of the world might have stolen the charm and put it into his box. ”

“ After the sea-lion had swum a short way, it put its paw up to its head, in order to see whether the lice had really all been taken off. Then it felt that its flesh and fat were all gone, and that only the bones remained. So it was very angry, and swam back quickly towards the shore, to catch Panaumbe and kill him.
Panaumbe, when he saw the sea-lion pursuing him, ran inland towards the mountains. After running some time, he reached a place where the path divided. An old crow was perching on a tree there, and said: "Right or left! right or left! I see a clever man." ”

“ Even if you do kill me, it will do no good. So henceforward I will brew rice-beer for you, and set up the divine symbols for you, and worship you,—worship you for ever. In this way you will derive greater profit than you would derive from killing me. Fish, too, whenever I make a good catch, I will offer to you as an act of worship. This being so, the creatures called men shall worship you for ever. ”

“ Inasmuch as the little civilisation now possessed by the Ainos has in great measure been learnt from the Japanese, it is natural that their modern language should have picked up numbers of Japanese words, from the name of kamui which they give to their gods, down to the rice-beer or sake in which they seek continual drunkenness, now their main source of enjoyment. One purpose which their language serves is to prove how widely they once spread over the country now Japan, where place-names alone remain to indicate a former Aino population. ”

“ The axe, being a god, knew all that went on and the causes of everything; and it and the tray and the pestle used always to tell the boy everything. Thus, if any one was sick, he knew why the sickness had come, and how it should be treated. He was looked upon as a great soothsayer and wizard, who could turn death into life. This was because other people only saw him. They did not see his divine informants, the axe, the tray, and the pestle.
For this reason never throw away anything that has belonged to your ancestors. You will be punished by the gods if you do so. ”

“ You bad shark! I will cut the rope. But the tip of the harpoons, made half of iron and half of bone, shall remain sticking in your flesh; and you shall feel in your body the reverberation of the iron and the scraping of the bone; and on your skin shall grow the rasupa-tree and the shiuri-tree of which the spear-handle is made, and the hai-grass by which the tip of the harpoon is tied to the body of it, and the nipesh-tree of which the rope tying the harpoon itself is made, so that, though you are such a mighty fish, you shall not be able to swim in the water ”

“ So he did not notice the approach of the fox-cub, the dog, and the rat. So when they reached the ogre's house, the rat, with the help of the fox-cub, scooped out a passage under and into the house, by which all three made their way in. They then decided that it must be left to the rat to get hold of the charm by nibbling a hole in the box in which it was kept. Meanwhile the fox-cub assumed the shape of a little boy, and the puppy that of a little girl,—two beautiful little creatures who danced and went through all sorts of antics, much to the amusement of the ogre. ”

“ On and on ran the bear, and still the young fellow pursued it up heights and crags more and more dangerous, but without ever being able to [41] get near enough to shoot it with his poisoned arrows. At last, on a bleak mountain-summit, the bear disappeared down a hole in the ground. The young man followed it in, and found himself in an immense cavern, at the far end of which was a gleam of light. Towards this he groped his way, and, on emerging, found himself in another world. Everything there was as in the world of men, but more beautiful. There were trees, houses, villages, human beings. ”

“ The east wind is our husband. When the east wind blows, we all turn our buttocks towards it, and thus conceive children. Sometimes we bear male children. But these male children are killed and done away with when they become fit to lie with women. For that reason, this is a land which has women only. It is called woman-land. So when, brought by some bad god, you came to this land of mine, there were teeth in my vagina because it was summer, for which reason I did not marry you. ”

“ The Aino fairy-tales are not, as ours are, survivals from an earlier stage of thought. They spring out of the present state of thought. Even if not invented of recent years they fit in with the present Aino view of things,—so much so, that an Aino who recounts one of his stories does so under the impression that he is narrating an actual event. He does not "make believe" like the European nurse, even like the European child, who [4] has always, in some nook or corner of his mind, a presentiment of the scepticism of his later years. ”

“ But the boat in which the Aino was went on its voyage, and at last reached his native place, whereupon the sailors threw the Aino into the water. He thought he had been dreaming. Afterwards he came to himself. The boat and its sailors had disappeared—whither he could not tell. But he went to his house, and, falling asleep, dreamt a dream. He dreamt that the same old chief appeared to him and said: "I am no human being. I am the chief of the salmon, the divine fish. ”

“ Not all the charm of diction, not all the ingenious theories in the world, can for a moment be set in the balance against rigid exactness, even if some of the concomitants of rigid exactness are such as to spoil the subject for popular treatment. ”

“ You think this is a human village; but it is the village of me, your master the mole. It seems you constantly do all sorts of bad things. If you do so, it is very wrong; so do not assume human shape any more. If you will cease to assume human shape, you may henceforth eat your fill of these mulberries and grapes. You and your companions the crows may eat together of the mulberries and of all fruits at the top of the trees, which the crows cause to drop down. This will be much more profitable for you than to assume human shape. ”

“ What has happened is in no way your fault. Your beauty has caused a wicked fox to fall in love with you. It is he who has got into your vagina, and who speaks out of it, in order to prevent the approach of any ordinary mortal husband. He, too, it is who has lured you out here, to carry you away altogether. But do not allow yourself to become subject to his influence. I will give you some beautiful clothes, and [48] cause you to reach your house in safety. ”

“ The Ainos stand too low in the scale of humanity to have any notion of the civilised art of "making conversation." When, therefore, the fishing and the weather are exhausted, the European sojourner in one of their dreary, filthy seaside hamlets will find himself,—at least I found myself,—sadly at a loss for any further means of setting his native companions' tongues in motion. ”

“ If you will turn into a horse, we will go down to the shore." The fox came out. It was a big fox. The man said: "I have come already turned into a man. If you turn into a horse, it will not matter even if we are seen by other people." The fox shook itself, and became a large chestnut [lit. red] horse. Then the two went off together, and came to a very rich village, plentifully provided with everything. The man said: "I will sell this horse to anybody who wants one." As the horse was a very fine one, every one wanted to buy it. ”

“ There must be a large number of Aino fairy-tales besides those here given, as the chief tellers of stories, in Aino-land as in Europe, are the women, and I had mine from men only, the Aino women being much too shy of male foreigners for it to be possible to have much conversation with them. Even of the tales I myself heard, several were lost through the destruction of certain papers,—among others at least three of the Panaumbe and Penaumbe Cycle, which I do not trust myself to reconstruct from memory at this distance of time. ”

“ The innocent savage is not found in Aino-land, if indeed he is to be found anywhere. The Aino's imagination is as prurient as that of any Zola, and far more outspoken. Pray, therefore, put the blame on him, if much of the language of the present collection is such as it is not usual to see in print. Aino stories and Aino conversation are the intellectual counterpart of the dirt, the lice, and the skin-diseases which cover Aino bodies. ”

“ Even savage tribes under contact with civilised men are mostly in this intermediate state, and thus Professor Chamberlain's statement as to the place of folk-lore in the Aino mind, made, as it has been, under his personal scrutiny, is a document of real consequence. He satisfied himself that his Ainos were not making believe, like Europeans with nursery tales, but that the explanatory myths of natural phenomena are to them theorems of physical science, and the wonder-tales are told under the impression that they really happened. ”

“ Even in religion, the most conservative of all institutions, especially among barbarians, the Ainos have suffered Japanese influence to intrude itself. It is Japanese rice-beer, under its Japanese name of sake, which they offer in libations to their gods. Their very word for "prayer" seems to be archaic Japanese. A mediæval Japanese hero, Yoshitsune, is generally allowed to be held in religious reverence by them. The idea of earthquakes being caused by the wriggling of a gigantic fish under the earth is shared by the Ainos with the Japanese and with several other races. ”

“ In ancient days, an Aino chieftain of Iwanai went to sea in order to catch sea-lions, taking with him his two sons. They speared a sea-lion, which, however, swam off with the spear sticking in its body. Meanwhile a gale began to blow down from the mountains. The men cut the rope which was fast to the spear. Then their boat floated on. After some time, they reached a beautiful land. When they had reached it, a number of women in fine garments came down from the mountains to the shore. ”

“ One day there came,—none knew whence,—a man of divine appearance, whose name was unknown to all. He took up his abode with Okikurumi, and assisted the latter in all his labour with wonderful ability. He taught Okikurumi how to row with two oars instead of simply poling with one pole, as had been usual before in Aino-land. Okikurumi was delighted to obtain such a clever follower, and gave him his sister Tureshi [hi] in marriage, and treated him like his own son. For this reason the stranger got to know all about Okikurumi's affair, even the place where he kept his two treasures. ”