sh
is the Ainos' staple food; they eat it both fresh and salted; bearskins
are their principal clothing; part of their taxes are paid in bear's
fat. The Aino men spend the autumn, winter and spring in hunting the
Bear. Yet we are told the Ainos "worship the Bear"; they apply to it the
name _Kamui_, which has been translated god; but it is a word applied to
all strangers, and so only means what catches attention, and hence is
formidable. In the religion of the Ainos "the Bear plays a chief part,"
says one writer. The Bear "receives idolatrous veneration," says
another. They "worship it after their fashion," says a third. Have we
another case of "the heathen in his blindness"? Only here he "bows down"
not to "gods of wood and stone," but to a live thing, uncouth, shambling
but gracious--a Bear.

Instead of theorizing as to what the Aino thinks and imagines, let us
observe his _doings_, his _dromena_, his rites; and most of all his
great spring and autumn rite, the _dromenon_ of the Bear. We shall find
that, detail for detail, it strangely resembles the Greek _dromenon_ of
the Bull.

As winter draws to a close among the Ainos, a young Bear is trapped and
brought into the village. At first an Aino woman suckles him at her
breast, then later he is fed on his favourite food, fish--his tastes are
semi-polar. When he is at his full strength, that is, when he threatens
to break the cage in which he lives, the feast is held. This is usually
in September, or October, that is when the season of bear-hunting
begins.

Before the feast begins the Ainos apologize profusely, saying that they
have been good to the Bear, they can feed him no longer, they must kill
him. Then the man who gives the Bear-feast invites his relations and
friends, and if the community be small nearly the whole village attends.
On the occasion described by Dr. Scheube about thirty Ainos were
present, men, women, and children, all dressed in their best clothes.
The woman of the house who had suckled the Bear sat by herself, sad and
silent, only now and then she burst into helpless tears. The ceremony
began with libations made to the fire-god and to the house-god set up in
a corner of the house. Next the master and some of the guests left the
hut and offered libations in front of the Bear's cage. A few drops were
presented to him in a saucer, which he promptly upset. Then the women
and girls danced round the cage, rising and hopping on their toes, and
as they d