Comparing Ainu and Japanese people and customs

[Maciamo]

This is a comparson based on Isabella L. Bird's observations in her book Unbeaten Track in Japan.

Physical charcteristics

The Ainu :

- are very hairy, have soft black hair and whiter skin than the Japanese
- more heavily built than the Japanese
- have high foreheads, low cheeckbones and rounded skulls
- have deep-set eyes with double eyelids like European, light brown eyes, long eye-lashes and bushy eyebrows
- wide mouths and small, regularly shaped teeths
- straight and short noses with broad nostrils
- are more resistant to alcohol than the Japanese
- Ainu women are bustier than Japanese ones


Character and moral

The Ainu :

- very pudic (won7t change clothes in front of other people and won't go naked to a public bath)
- women display strong conjugal fidelity
- not very curious (about other ethnicities, cultures, technologies or ways of life)
- not commercal minded at all (don't try to sell and won't accept more money than what they think something is worth)
- very affectionate towards children
- like the Japanese, they are very kind and hospitable


Customs and Lifestyle

The Ainu :

- Ainu houses are bigger and better builtthan the Japanese ones. They have windows and whole in the roofs to let the smoke out.
- The Ainu all wear tattoos. Women get tattoed progressively from the age of 5 and cannot get married without decent tattoos around their mouths and and their arms and hands.
- The Ainu are mostly fishermen and hunter-gatherers who grow some millet. They eat a lot of fish as well as venison and, on special occasions, bear meat. They eat a lot of wild plants, herbs, seaweed and mushrooms.
- The Ainu are animists. Their religion is very similar to Shintoism, seeing divinities everywhere in nature and lacking a dogma or central authority. Even their word for god/deity, Kamoi, resembles closely the Japanese Kami.The main differnce is that the Ainu don't build shrines and have no priests. Ainu "religion" can be seen as a primitive form of Shintoism, probably unchanged since Jomon times.
- The Ainu do not work metals and only hunt with (poisoned) arrows made of wood and bone.