descended from the North, tempted South by richer fisheries and a warmer climate, or urged on by successive immigration from the continent."1 Here Dr. Griffis seems, if I am not mistaken, to refer to the Ainus as "savages," and so repudiates his opinion as set forth in the preface. Many books have been written on the Ainus both by the Japanese and by foreigners; but such writers are satisfied with simply describing the Ainus as they are today. According to Professor Keane, the Ainu is one of the offshoots of the Homo Caucasicus. 3 I myself am inclined to support the view of the southern origin of the Ainu for three reasons. First, if the conquered Pigmies fled to the North, as Professor Koganei points out, it is not probable that the conquering Ainus came from the cold region, since it can hardly be imagined that the former dared to withdraw to the same place from which the latter came. Secondly, it seems most probable that the original home of the whole human race was in the region stretching from Java to southern England. In this region the development of the human species was slowly wrought out through the modifications of brain and form, which probably covered thousands of years. Thirdly, the shores of Japan

1 The Mikado's Empire, p. 27.

2

Among these foreigners Captains Bridgeford and Blackiston, Messrs. Ernest Satow and Savage Landor are conspicuous. Mr. Landor's work, Alone with the Hairy Ainu, is the result of a journey of some 4200 miles in Yezo, and contains the most elaborate description of the Ainus as yet published.

3 Professor Keane says: "Although now confined to Yezo, part of Sakhalin and the southern members of the Kurile Archipelago, their [Ainus'] territory appears to have formerly comprised a great part, if not the whole of Japan, besides large tracts on the opposite mainland. In the national traditions there was a time when they could look out on their watery domain, and exclaim: 'Gods of the Sea, open your divine eyes. Wherever your eyes turn, there echoes the sound of the Ainu speech,' a speech now current amongst scarcely 20,000 full-blood and half-caste survivors of this remote Asiatic branch of the Caucasic division. Despite the attempts of some writers to affiliate them to the surrounding Mongoloid peoples, their claim to membership with the Caucasic family is placed beyond doubt by a study of their physical characters."-Ethnology, p. 419.

4 Giddings, Elements of Sociology, p. 237.

4

1

are washed by the currents flowing from the Indian Ocean and the Malay peninsula which must have facilitated the migration of primitive man from the South to the North.

The primitive Ainus of Japan had perhaps emerged from the stone age when found by superior races. That they or another people of the same culture-stage inhabited Japan for a considerable period of time is demonstrated by the discovery of flint, arrows, spear-heads, hammers, chisels, scrapers, kitchen refuse, and various other relics, which have frequently been excavated. Buried for centuries, these relics appear as though recently brought from Yezo, where the Ainu are now slowly but surely disappearing.1 I cannot agree with Dr. Griffis' opinion that the basic stock of the Japanese people is Ainu, since it is clear that an overwhelming number of invaders again came from the South and in time drove the Ainus into the northern end of Japan. Again, it is improbable that the Ainus alone should have degenerated, while the Japanese have been ever thriving and progressing, if both races were descended from a common stock, as Dr. Griffis supposes.

$4. And so a third race, superior to the former ones both intellectually and physically, migrated to Japan from two different directions. The one came from the Asiatic Continent by way of Corea; the other, it seems, came from the islands in the southern ocean. It is generally assumed that the former landed at Idzumo, while the latter settled at Kiushu. glance at the map of Japan reveals the fact that the south

A

1 "One is generally struck in Ainuland by the number of old men and children, and by the almost entire lack of young fellows between the age of fifteen and thirty. This is due mainly to the great increase of mortality in children during the last two generations. The sadness which seems to oppress the Ainu and which we see depicted on the face of each individual is nothing but the outcome of this degeneration of the race. As a race the Ainu will soon be extinct. I dare say that in fifty years from now-probably not so long-not one of the hairy savages, who were once the masters of Saghalin, Yezo, the Kuriles, Kamschatka, and the whole of the northern Japanese Empire, will be left."-Landor, Alone with the Hairy Ainu, pp. 296-297.

eastern end of the crescent-shaped chain of our islands approaches the Asiatic continent at the southern end of Corea. Between these approaching points of Corea and Japan there lie two islands. Thus, it could not have been very difficult for adventurous continentals of ancient times to cross over the strait to Japan. Now, the continentals who landed and settled at Idzumo were in all probability Mongolians. The period of their first immigration is lost in the mists of prehistoric times.

Again, a map of the Pacific and Indian oceans reveals another very interesting fact. Japan occupies a striking position as to the ocean currents which flow up from the Indian Ocean and the Malay Peninsula. A branch of the great equatorial current of the Pacific, called the Kuro-Shiwo, or Black Stream, flows up in a westerly direction past the Philippines, Formosa, and the Riu-Kiu Islands, striking the southern point of Kiushu, and sometimes, in summer, sending a branch up into the Sea of Japan. "With great velocity it scours the east coast of Kiushu and the south of Shikoku; thence, with diminished rapidity, it envelopes both the groups of islands South of the Bay of Tokyo and Oshima; and, at a point a little North of the latitude of Tokyo, it leaves the coast of Japan and flows northeast toward the shores of America. With the variable winds, cyclones, and the sudden and continued rise of violent storms, for which the coasts of Eastern Asia are notorious, it is easily seen that the drifting northward from the Malay Archipelago of boats and men, and the peopling of the shores of Kiushiu, Shikoku, and the western shores of Hondo1 with men from the South and West must have been a regular and continuous process." Besides, there are numberless islands, small and large, which form a connecting link between Japan and India. Floating on the swift current, and guided by the islands, it seems but natural

1 Hondo is the name of the largest island of Japan, while Shikoku and Kiushiu are the names of smaller ones.

2 Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, p. 27.

that a branch of the Aryan race1 which peopled India should have drifted up to the southern part of Japan.

When branches of the Aryan stock went forth from their primitive home to the East, when they established themselves on the Punjab and spread over India, they became acquainted with a hard metal, probably iron or silver. They learned how to weave and saw; they began to wear clothes and eat cooked foods; and, what is of still more importance, they learned the art of ship-building. Those who landed at Kiushiu were beyond the stone age, and their swords, and spear and arrow heads were made of some hard metal. They were more intelligent and stronger than those who migrated from Corea. After a severe and incessant struggle, the former finally conquered the latter as well as other aborigines, and established a crude form of government about 660 B. C. The superiority of this race must have appeared marvellous to the conquered people, for they regarded the invaders as kami, which means god. Indeed the conquerors were looked upon as sacred, and were for a long time called by the name of kami. Moreover, this superior people invented, in time, phonetic or sound-carrying signs, in place of the ideograph,

The rapid reduction of primitive subsistence seems to have compelled the Indo-Aryans to constantly proceed toward the East. Sir W. W. Hunter, in his Indian Empire, says: "As their numbers increased, they pushed eastward along the base of the Himalayas, into what they afterwards called the Land of the Sacred Singers........ The growing numbers of the settlers, and the arrival of fresh Aryan tribes from behind still compelled them to advance," pp. 118-127.-Cf. Keene Cie, History of India, ch. I.

* Professor Rein is not thoroughly at home in the history of Japan when he says in his Japan that the Japanese only became acquainted with a written language, viz., the Chinese, in the third century of the Christian era. It is unanimously agreed by native scholars that Japan had some sort of phonetic characters before she came in contact with Chinese civilization. Our syllabic characters now in vogue are partly based upon the original phonetic signs, partly derived from Chinese hierogriphics. "The Chinese elements in the national speech [of Japan]," says Keane, "are all of comparatively recent date, and directly introduced since the dawn of the historic period. They lie entirely on the surface and in no way affect the inner structure of the language, which has had time to become differentiated into a very distinct and at present completely isolated form of speech. It is an extremely

which latter is the most characteristic mark of Mongolian civilization.1

2

From these data, fragmentary and crude as they are, I feel warranted in proposing the hypothesis that in the veins of the Japanese there is a considerable amount of Aryan blood. The process of evolution is indeed wonderful. Consider for a moment the origins of European nations. Starting from their birthplace, be it in Asia or Europe, one of the Aryan "offshoots founded the Persian kingdom; another built Athens and Lacaedemon, and became the Hellenic nation; a third went on to Italy, and reared the City on the Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant colony of the same race excavated the silver-ore of prehistoric Spain; and when we first catch sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall."3 The hypothesis of an Aryan migration into Japan is not more wonderful. It is consonant both with the genius of the Aryan stock and with the geographical configuration of the earth connecting India and Japan. Both eastward and westward the Aryans moved along open water routes. 4

soft and musical tongue, being in this respect fully on a level with the Italian, especially when spoken by ladies of the upper classes." Indeed the Japanese pronounciation is conspicuously different from the nasal sound of Chinese. The study of the Japanese races from a philological point of view is both important and interesting.-Cf. Keane's Asia, vol. I., pp. 477-8; Rein's Japan, p. 386.

1 W. J. Hoffman, The Beginnings of Writing, p. 180.

Cf. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, Pt. I., Ch. IV.

Hunter, The Indian Empire, p. 116.

4 Professor Keane fully recognizes the presence of the Caucasian element in the Japanese people. But his Caucasian theory is at variance with the Aryan hypothesis presented here, inasmuch as the former recognizes a Caucasian element in the Ainus. It may be that both Ainus and the newcomer who drove the Ainus into the North were branches of the Aryan stock. Professor Keane's theory is, therefore, not at bottom contrary to my hypothesis.-Cf. Keane's Ethnology, pp. 313-316; Keane's Man Past and Present, p. 286, p. 313.