Note 512 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

The Ainu, though not inhabiting Siberia, may find a place here, as they live nearer to this than to any other group. Batchelor, describing the raids which the several divisions of the Ainu made on each other, says: “On such occasions the whole of the male population were murdered during sleep, whilst the women and children were carried off as slaves to work in the gardens, and were called usshui ne guru. The women however were kept as concubines”512. Landor refers to this and some other remarks of Batchelor’s and then adds: “From my own experience—and I may add I am the only foreigner who has seen these Tokachi, or as others call them, Tokapchi Ainu—I came to a conclusion very different from this. I found that not only were they not cannibals, but that, taken altogether, they were the most peaceable, gentle, and kind Ainu I came across during my peregrinations through the land of the hairy people”513. Hitchcock also describes the Ainu as peaceable. Speaking of some cruel punishments in vogue amongst them, he remarks: “H. von Siebold has supposed from these old customs, that the Ainos were once a savage and warlike people. They may have been so, as one might infer from Japanese tradition, but it seems to me unsafe to make the assumption on the grounds suggested by von Siebold. Their present character does not sustain it in any way”514. Some other describers of the Ainu we have consulted make no mention at all of slaves515. So we cannot arrive at a definite conclusion.