Neil Gordon Munro Prehistoric Japan

Chapter XV

The Prehistoric Races

p. 655 Fig. 412

A Group of Ainu

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Fig. 413

An Aged Ainu

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Fig. 414

An Ainu

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From time immemorial the Japanese islands have been occupied by a population carrying on that life cycle, which, from its comparatively rudimentary natures, has been called Primitive. These inhabitants, as certain remains testify, formerly possessed also the west and south, but were compelled to retreat by the pressure of the alien Yamato. The Ainu, sole survivors of the primitive inhabitants, now number about 15,000 in Yezo, 2000 in Saghalin and a few hundreds in the Kurile islands. This residue forms a race of fairly uniform characteristics, sufficiently so to distinguish them from other races, though they are a blend of two, or perhaps more, stocks.
They are generally supposed to be excessively hairy, a feature which is exaggerated by contrast with the Japanese. They are more hairy than the average European, Figs 412, 413 and 414*. But persons with heads of untrimmed hair, and aged people, whose bodies are naturally more hirsute than those of middle age, are apt to convey an undue impression of hairness. The hair of the Ainu is distinctly
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*The last kindly given by H.G. Ponting, whose artistic work has done much to bring the interesting scenic and social features of Japan to the notice of the West

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Before my dsicovery of skeletons at Mitsusawa, a few long bones from the primitive sites had been described by Koganei, but these did not furnish  sufficient data  for a comparative study of the neolithic and Ainu races. Much material relating to the primitive culture had, however, been gathered and gave rise to speculation. The presence of Ainu in the northern islands naturally suggested  an attempt to connect their culture with that of the shellmounds. But it was ascertained that the Ainu of Yezo did not make pottery, nor use the implements of stone which characterise the primitive sites. They also had a tradition that an alien folk of small stature, to which they had given the name of Koropok-guru or "dwellers below"  (and also the Japanese term Kohito or Kobito, meaning "little people, pigmies"), were responsible for the primitive sites of Yezo.
The Rev. J. Batchelor, who has resided many years in this island and knows the Ainu better than any one living, formerly accepted their story of the Koropok-guru and gave it publicity. As the result of a scholarly investigation into the place names of Yezo, which he had proved to be of Ainu origin, as Prof. Chamberlain did with some topographical names of the main island of Japan, Batchelor now favours the Ainu origin of the primitive sites in the north.
Prof. Tsuboi adopted this Koropok-guru theory and still upholds it. As he deservedly ranks as one of the highest authorities on Japanese archaeology, his advocacy of the view that the Ainu did not undergo a neolithic culture in Japan and that the shellheaps

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of an alien people and culture harmonized with the absense of pit dwelling, stone implements and pottery-making among the present Ainu of Yezo, and seemed to account for the presence of such remains throughout Japan.
  Numerous instances, however, could be brought forward to show that an attempted explanation of forgotten vestiges is one of the most common forms of myths which testify to the explanation tendency of mankind. Here, too, relies of the past have their descriptive names, embodying the essence of myth. We have Kitsune no kuwa, or fox hoe, the Raifu, or thunder axe, the Raitsui, or thunder club, the Raiko, or thunder pestle and the Tengu no meishigai, or rice-spoon of the Tengu. In the northern districts of Japan the Yamato dolmen is sometimes called Yezo no Iwaya, or stonehouse of Yezo (barbarian). In the province of Mutsu the ancient Yamato pottery (Iwaibe) is called Namban Yake, i.e. South Barbarian pottery.* The Ainu speak of dwarfs; ancient Japanese attributed the shell-heaps to giants.
The main points advanced against the Ainu origin of the primitive sites were that they did not make pottery, nor use stone implements and pit dwellings; the patterns of their wooden implements were supposed to exhibit little or no resemblance to those of the neolithic pottery. Later research, however, has proved that pit dwellings have been used by the Ainu of Saghalin and the Kuriles, that they have
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* T. J. Z. No. 10.

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in barter with the Japanese, it became a comparatively easy matter to make bowls of wood and to fashion other utensils and implements of this material. This could be carried on during the six months of snow, when pottery-making would be a difficult undertaking. Sei-net, or earthenware-body, is the Ainu term for the clay image, one of which, Fig. 146, was recognised as a "Divine image", while Sei-nima is an earthenware tray*. I received from an Ainu a broken piece of plate-like pottery which, he declared, had been made by his ancestors.
The tradition of the Yezo Ainu regarding the Koropok-guru is offset by one which credits themselves with the use of stone implements. The Rev. J. Batchelor has also informed me that an old Ainu term for tattooing incision was Anchi-piri, which means obsidian wound. The Kurile Ainu used implements of stone within the last hundred years, but iron has displaced them in Yezo for some two or more centuries and the decay of the neolithic culture began, in all probability, many centuries previously. That the "stone age" is recent in Yezo is shown by the fact that within the last thirty years, many axes and arrow-heads of stone have been found on the surface of the soil, or but slightly imbedded therein. An art like that of the neolithic tool-maker soon degenerates from contact with iron culture.
Some resemblance has been found between the harpoons of the primitive sites and those of the Eskimo. It might be thought that such correspondence extending, as Prof. Tsuboi maintains, to
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* Batchelor's Dictionary.

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of culture the stigma of unreliability. When, therefore, we find many localities where shellheaps exist bearing names traceable to Ainu roots, we can only assume that persons using the same language as the Ainu were formerly established in such places. Indeed we can scarcely insist on so much, for these roots might prove to be a heritage from a stock language common to the Japanese and Ainu. With regard to local names, however, we are assisted by the fact that Ainu place names are often descriptive of the locality. Ōmori, for instance, is generally supposed to be of Japanese origin, and to refer to a large wood or forest. But in suggesting that the name of this locality (which derives special interest from having been the firts shellmound in Japan to yield up its treasures to scientific research)* comes from two Ainu words 'O' "projecting" and Mori a "little hill", I am stating a topographical fact of much interest to a primitive people. A rising ground in the neighbourhood of the sea was of prime importance to the shell-mound builders. Here the village was safe from tidal waves and enjoyed a better strategical position than if built on the lower levels.
Supposing that the Koropok-guru were different from the Ainu but spoke their language or one akin to it, and left certain primitive vestiges in Japan, where have they gone? They have utterly vanished from human ken. In the Hokkaido, where some of Ainu still propound the pigmy theory which originated this discussion, no bones other than those of the Ainu have
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* To Professor Morse belongs the honour of being the pioneer of primitive archaeology in Japan. His excavation of his shell-mound was undertaken 30 years ago.

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to estimate the exact length and curvature of the missing portion: on my first measurement I made a possible index of 78.4 and a recent inspection inclined me to think that perhaps the index could be reduced still lower. It might, however, be advisable to retain the first one, or perhaps to regard the second as an alternative. These skulls had been repaired by myself with some assistance from Mr. Yagi, but having been sent to the Imperial University,* No. 6 was re-adjusted so that the index, though still dubious by reason of absence of the occipital bone, approaches (with the intention of giving the estimate least favourable to my opinion) stated. No. 4 having also been slightly readjusted, I make it a trifle more than my previous statement (78.6 instead of 78.4). These indices may now be taken as (1) = 75.8, (2) = 76.3, (3) = 78.4 (?) (4) = 78.6, (5) = 81.3 and (6) = 78.4 (?). Presuming the indices of Nos. 3 and 6 to be approximately correct, this would give an average for the six crania of about 78.1. According to the independent examination of Prof. Koganei the average is practically the same, viz. 78.4. The average for the four complete crania is about the same, viz. 78. While these indices are not inconsistent with the average given by Koganei for
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* These bones were forfarded to the Imperial University with the object of making a conjoint examination with Prof. Koganei. This has been unavoidably postponed and will form the subject of a separate treatise. I have therefore omitted detailed measurements, which are of little interest to the general reader. This delay is less to be regretted as I expect to get more material from my excavations. From his unparalleled collection and exhaustive analysis of their osteological remains, Prof. Koganei is the best authority on the physical anthropology of the Ainu. His concurrence in the opinion that the crania in question are of Ainu stock is therefore of considerable importance.

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features that I established the identity of the Japanese shellmound and Ainu crania and was led to the conclusion that they are of the same stock. In addition to his own extensive investigation, Prof. Koganei has given, in the work previously referred to, the results of observations on some Ainu skulls by Virchow, Tarenetzky and Kopernicki. The existence of this descriptive material greatly facilitated comparison between the primitive remains and the skeleton of the Ainu. It will be sufficient to give an outline of my preliminary examination. Prof. Koganei, who is at present carrying out an investigation of my specimens, has kindly drawn for me diagraphic outlines of No. 2 and of an ainu skull, which I have superimposed, Fig. 420. The comparison of two isolated crania, it will be understood, is only made by way of illustration. The same degree of correspondence is not found in all the specimens any more than among the ainu crania. There are some points of difference here which are not seen in others and vice versa.  Cranial uniformity is an ideal conception which is never quite realised. An almost constant feature, however, in these skulls, as in those of the Ainu is the prominence of the glabella and supersilliary ridges, G; the meagre denticulation too of the coronal and anterior saggital sutures, Fig. 415, is a common feature (though both present slight exceptions, No. 2) and so is a moderate development of the occipital protuberance and the superior curved line. There is a tendency to persistence of a frontal fissure, observe also in the Ainu skull.
In one case only, Figs. 416 - 7, was I able to nearly

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and perforation of the humerus, curvature of the ulna, channeled fibula, platycnemia of the tibia, Fig. 421 A, torsion of the femur with deep groove along the Linea Aspera (Femur a colonne) and tendency to a third trochanter.

There is a tendency to channeling of the tibia, Fig. 421 B. The average length of the femur (1 female and two males = 6 bones) is 388 Mm. Using the coefficient of Manouvrier (3.92) for the male femur under 392 Mm, we get about 151 Cm. for the stature of one, while the other, which is above this limit, comes to about 160 Cm., according to the tables supplied by this authority.* The female (using the co-efficient 3.87) works out at a trifle over 138 Cm. By this standard, the height is therefore approximately the same as that of the Ainu.
The participation of the Ainu in the primitive culture does not deber us from assuming of existence of other races. The probability of other people having co-existed with the Ainu in the remote past diminishes with the evidence of their former prevalence throughout Japan and the fact that they  fiercely resisted intrusion on their soil. But we cannot yet eclude the possibility that other races carried on a neolithic culture in Japan. Several
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* Mémoires de La Société d'Anthropologie 1893

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prepared to say what ethnological significance attaches to the word malay, though attempts ahve been made to unravel the racial elements which underlie this political association, which came into orginized from long after the Wado period, when the Yamato had become the Japanese nation. The true Malays are regarded as having a considerable preponderance of Mongolian with a certain proportion of negrito characters. Several tribes of Malaysia who are more or less mixed with the historical Malays are of Indonesian, i.e. of Caucasian, affinities. R. Numata is inclined to believe, on the strength of some resamblance in culture vestiges, that the Kumaso afterwards known in Japanese history as Hayato were of Dyak (? Dayak - T.M.) origin.* The word Kumaso is capable of several of several interpretations, but the simplest and best is that of Motoori who traced it to Kuma, a bear, and So, an abbreviation of Isao, meaning "strong men". Motoori thought that this name was bestowed on the people of southern Kyushu on account of their fierce and hardly character, but it might have been a totem name, translated, or adopted into Japanese. It may be a coincedence that the bear is the great totem of the Ainu, but it is worthy of mention that Ainu place names have been found in Kyushu.
  If a people from Malaysia inhabited Kyushu  previous to the influx of the Yamato, it is probable that they were still in their stone phase. The bronze weapons found in this island have not been indentified with a Malayan culture and probably were of con-
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* "Nihon Jinshu Shinron" (A New Opinion about the Japanese Race)

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ters, may be attributed to admixture either in Japan or elsewhere after the type had materialised. It is not impossible that the Negrito was mingled with Indonesian or mongolian elements, as in the case of the Igorot of Philippines, before arrival in Japan. The agricultural population of Japan presents superficial resemblances to the Igorot, and some of the customs carry a suggestion of a common culture.* An affinity of language has also been hinted at, but on inadequate grounds at present.† It is probable, however, that the Yamato were partly mixed with Mongolian blood before arrival in Japan, and that the importation of agricultural slaves from the mainland led to further admixture with this element. The leaders, if we may judge from the Caucasian and often Semitic physiognomy seen in aristocratic type of Japanese, were partly of Caucasic, perhaps Iranian, origin. Some support of this proportion is found in the Haniwa, which not seldom exhibit features inclined to the Caucasian, rather than to the Mongolian type (Character 12). These were the warriors, the conquerors of Japan, and afterwards the aristocracy, modifified to some extent by mimgling with a Mongoloid rank and file and by a considerable addition of Ainu, that is to say, of papasiatic (proto-Caucasian?), blood. A light skin was the ideal of yamato. There are marked allusions to arms "while as the paper mulberry bark", "Whiteness like roots", etc. in the ancient classics. Presumably from racial admixture, very light skins are often found
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* "The Bontoc Igorrot", by A. E. Jenks, pp. 40 aet seq. Eth. Survey Publications.
† "The Nabaloi Dialect", by O. Scheerer, p. 99. Eth. Survey Publications.