Note 12 — Chapter XVII · Culture Mixing in Japan

Okikurumi is said to have worn ear-rings. He had therefore a solar connection. The Aryo-Indian hero, Karna, son of Surya, the sun-god, who emerged from an ear of his human mother, Princess Pritha, was similarly adorned at birth with ear-rings. The Ainu have from the earliest times considered it essential that they should all wear ear-rings, and the ears of males and females are bored in childhood. It was similarly a ceremonial practice in ancient Peru to bore the ears of Inca princes. Jacob objected to his wives wearing ear-rings, and buried those so-called “ornaments” with the gods of Laban under an oak at Shechem.12 Bracelets and “ear-ornaments” were similarly favoured as religious charms and symbols by the Ainu.