time and the ignorance of the very people who
preserve the tradition. As an illustration of this, I may cite the
instance of the dwarfs of Yesso, referred to in the following pages.
These people still survived as a separate community until the first
half of the seventeenth century, if not later. They occupied
semi-subterranean or "pit" dwellings, and are said to have been under
four feet in height. But, although the modern inhabitants of that island
still describe them, on the whole, in these terms, a new belief
regarding them has recently sprouted up in one corner. The Aino word
signifying "pit-dweller" is also not unlike the word for a burdock leaf.
It was known that those dwarfs were little people. Obviously, then,
their name must have meant "people living under burdock leaves" (instead
of "in pits"). And so, to some of the modern natives of Yesso, those
historical dwarfs of the seventeenth century "were so small that if
caught in a shower of rain or attacked by an enemy, they would stand
beneath a burdock leaf for shelter, or flee thither to hide."[4]

In that instance, we see before our eyes the whole process by which a
real race has been transformed into an unreal impossibility, within a
period of two centuries or so. Had the extinction (or modification by
inter-marriage or by the processes of evolution) of those Yesso dwarfs
taken place a thousand years earlier, the difficulty of identifying them
would have been greatly increased. After a race has once disappeared
from sight, the popular terms describing it must become more vague and
confused with every century. Thus, in a certain traditional Scotch story
there is mention of a number of "little black creatures with spades."
The description is delightfully comprehensive. It would be quite
applicable to a gang of Andaman coolies. On the other hand, if we
exclude the "spades," it might be applied to any "little black
creatures"--say a colony of tadpoles or of black-beetles. So that, when
a poet or an artist gets hold of a tradition which has reached this
stage of uncertainty, he may give the reins to his fancy, so long as he
portrays some kind--any kind--of "little black creatures."[5]

Before parting altogether from the Yesso dwarfs, notice may be taken of
a folk-tale containing an incident which obviously derives its
existence from them, or from a branch of their race. In Mr. Andrew
Lang's "Green Fairy Book" there is introduced a certain Chinese "Story
of Hok Le