Volume 1

Faiths of man : a cyclopædia of religions / by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong.

  • Forlong, James George Roche, -1904.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Faiths of man : a cyclopædia of religions / by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/606 (page 52)
    Ai hast given me ” ; and prays for further blessings and protection, and for the favour of other gods of the nation.” Ai. Akkadian, and Turkish, for the moon (see A). ’Ain. An. En. A root for “ eye ” in many classes of language. In Semitic speech also a “ spring.” The Hindu Kua, or Kunti (“ well ”) is always represented as Gauri—a virgin or woman—more especially at hot, or intermittent, springs (connected with the Yoni, and the watery principle). In Semitic speech ’Ain is usually feminine. Aino. Ainu. The hairy aborigines of Japan, who immediately preceded the present ruling race; but Prof. B. H. Chamberlain (Professor of Philology Imp. Univ., Japan) thinks that they were preceded by, or contemporary with, a race of Malay-Polynesian origin. He supposes Aino speech to be “an earlier form than the Altaic (Turanian), of which traces appear in linguistic areas as widely separated as those of the Eskimo and Melanesian languages.” [They seem to present some Korean affinities, and the above would not prevent their being of Turanian origin.—Ed.] The Japanese use the word Aino as meaning “a mongrel between a man and a dog ” ; but Ainu simply means “ man,” and is the proper name of the race. They claim to have been once civilised, but that the Japanese stole, and destroyed, their sacred books in our 12th Century, driving them into the wild northern islands of Yeso (or Matsmai) Saghalien, and others of the Kurile group. They once peopled all the Japanese islands; but in 1890 only some 19,000 remained under Japanese rule, and a few thousands further north. Their language seems to have deeply affected that of their conquerors, and to have its root in that of the 'funguses (see Tunguse) — which is Turanian (see Prof. Hall’s memoir, Trubner, 1887, MacRitchie, and Batchelor’s Ainu; also Minings Inglorious Columbus, pp. 84-86). The Japanese call them Mo-Sin (“ hairy men ”), and the Chinese Mao-jin. The latter have long known them as dwelling in the Kurile, and Aleutian, islands, and in Kamtchatka. They are noticed in the Chinese Geography of Mountains and Seas about 200 to 300 B.c.; also in 759 A.c. when many visited China. They are covered with hair—but less so, it is said, than formerly—and are a “ mild-eyed melancholy people ” great hunters and fishers, and as such appearing at their best: they are at their worst when devouring the catch, for they are dirty and, now, very drunken. But they are kind, gentle, and sympathetic if well treated. Their worship is a fetishism, and they see spirits