Alone with the Hairy Ainu
Or, 3800 Miles on a Pack Saddle in Yezo and a Cruise to the Kurile Islands

A vivid account from 1893 of A. H. Savage Landor's adventures among the indigenous Ainu people of Northern Japan.

A. H. S. Landor (Author)

9781108049412, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 June 2012

346 pages, 93 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.44 kg

A. H. Savage Landor (1867–1925), the grandson of the author Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864), was born and educated in Florence. He abandoned his painting studies in Paris to travel around the world, and visited Asia, the Middle East and South America, supporting himself as he went by painting portraits of people he encountered. Landor became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1892, and a Member of the Royal Institution in 1897. This volume, first published in 1893, deals with his adventurous experiences among the indigenous Ainu, the 'hairy men' who lived in the northern 'home islands' of Japan and in Sakhalin, the island whose possession was disputed by Japan and Russia for two hundred years. Landor insisted on 'doing in Ainuland as the Ainu does'. He describes his journey through the Ainu territory and gives a detailed and ethnographically aware account of its people and their culture.

Preface
1. From Hakodate to Mororran
2. From Mororran to the Saru River
3. Up the Saru River
4. An Ainu festival
5. From the Saru River to Cape Erimo
6. From Cape Erimo to the Tokachi River
7. The Tokachi region
8. From the Tokachi River to the Kutcharo River
9. The Koro-pok-kuru
10. The Kutcharo River and Lake
11. From Akkesi to Nemuro
12. The Kurile Islands
13. On the east and north-east coast
14. Along the lagoons of the north-east coast
15. On the north-east coast
16. From Cape Soya to the Ishikari River
17. The Ishikari River
18. Nearing civilisation
19. Completing the circuit of Yezo
20. Ainu habitations
21. Ainu art
22. Ainu physiognomy
23. Movements and attitudes
24. Ainu clothes
25. Ainu music
26. Heredity
27. Physiological observations
28. The Ainu superstitions
29. Marital relations
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]