“Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand in the sea, And every wave with dimpled face, That leapt upon the air, Had caught a star in its embrace, And held it trembling there.”
The loneliness of Usu Bay is something wonderful—a house full of empty rooms falling to decay, with only two men in it—one Japanese house among 500 savages, yet it was the only one in which I have slept in which they bolted neither the _amado_ nor the gate. During the night the _amado_ fell out of the worn-out grooves with a crash, knocking down the _shôji_, which fell on me, and rousing Ito, who rushed into my room half-asleep, with a vague vision of blood-thirsty Ainos in his mind. I then learned what I have been very stupid not to have learned before, that in these sliding wooden shutters there is a small door through which one person can creep at a time called the _jishindo_, or “earthquake door,” because it provides an exit during the alarm of an earthquake, in case of the _amado_ sticking in their grooves, or their bolts going wrong. I believe that such a door exists in all Japanese houses.
The next morning was as beautiful as the previous evening, rose and gold instead of gold and pink. Before the sun was well up I visited a number of the Aino lodges, saw the bear, and the chief, who, like all the rest, is a monogamist, and, after breakfast, at my request, some of the old men came to give me such information as they had. These venerable elders sat cross-legged in the verandah, the house-master’s son, who kindly acted as interpreter, squatting, Japanese fashion, at the side, and about thirty Ainos, mostly women, with infants, sitting behind. I spent about two hours in going over the same ground as at Biratori, and also went over the words, and got some more, including some synonyms. The _click_ of the _ts_ before the _ch_ at the beginning of a word is strongly marked among these Ainos. Some of their customs differ slightly from those of their brethren of the interior, specially as to the period of seclusion after a death, the non-allowance of polygamy to the chief, and the manner of killing the bear at the annual festival. Their ideas of metempsychosis are more definite, but this, I think, is to be accounted for by the influence and proximity of Buddhism. They spoke of the bear as their chief god, and next the sun and fire. They said that they no longer worship the wolf, and that though they call the volcano and many other things _kamoi_, or god, they do not worship them. I ascertained beyond doubt that worship with them means simply making libations of _saké_ and “drinking to the god,” and that it is unaccompanied by petitions, or any vocal or mental act.