it in long curls. This object is dedicated to the god and erected as an offering. It is well-known in Japan outside the Ainu communities, from which the Japanese have learned its use. It is perhaps, as Sternberg suggests, a supernatural agent to carry to the god the prayers and offerings of his worshipper. Its use is also found among the Gilyaks and other adjacent peoples of north-eastern Asia, to whom it has probably spread from the Ainu. Similar objects are made use of by the Bagobo of the Philippines, the Kayan of Borneo, and the Garos of Assam. The Arunta of Central Australia also use such objects for decorative purposes in some of their sacred ceremonies; and some of the native tribes west of Port Lincoln in South Australia adorned themselves for one of their dances with them in their hair. This sporadic employment over a very wide area is curious, and demands further enquiry.
The Ainu believe in a future life; and those of Japan practise the cult of ancestors. But Mr. Torii does not mention this as part of the religion of the Kurile Ainu. His account of their religion has indeed many lacunae. This may be due to their being for many years under the influence of Russian Christianity. Yet he shows that despite their nominal conversion they had not wholly abandoned their paganism, but secretly continued to practise it. Their marriage was polygynous. Kracheninnikof, the Russian traveller of the eighteenth century, is quoted to prove that the husband only came to see his wife secretly by night: an interesting point which raises a suspicion of mother-right. On this question, however, no information is given. Little, in fact, is said as to social organization. Probably the Kurile Ainu are too few in numbers, and too near extinction to have any definite organization left. A few traditions are narrated, but the volume of folklore of all kinds that is given is small, perhaps because the native beliefs and customs are decadent; but Mr. Torii’s short stay in the islands may account for it. He, however, does record their animism, their creation-legends and several superstitions not without parallels elsewhere.
His principal interest seems to have been to establish the identity of the Kurile with the Japanese Ainu. This he does
