AINU, who are racially closely akin to, if not identical with, the Neolithic inhabitants of Japan (see JAPAN, Section, History) are now very reduced in numbers and live in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, in part of Saghalien, and have kinsfolk in the Ryukyu islands (q.v.). They are dwindling fast and are unable to compete with the advance of Japanese civilization. Physically they are probably the remains of an old Proto-Nordic popu lation once widely spread over Northern Asia, and are certainly the relics of a very old human stock. Their culture recalls in many ways stone age man and they have preserved the very earliest stage of agriculture, when the men are still hunt ers but the women have developed be yond the mere collecting stage and are beginning actually to plant crops.
The Ainu religion is closely akin to the animistic religion practised by various primitive peoples of northern Asia, and they are particularly liable to that pe culiar kind of religious ecstasy known as Arctic hysteria. One of their special cults is that of the bear. This animal is caught as a cub, and is carefully tended by the women who will even suckle it. At about three years old the bear is sacrificed with elaborate ceremony. In most of the Ainu villages, the special wooden cages in which the bears are kept can be seen. Prominent also in the villages are sticks which have been whittled (inao) and the shavings left on. The sticks are stuck in the ground and have a religious significance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-J. Batchelor, The Ainu (190I) ; G. Montandon, Bibliography.-J. Batchelor, The Ainu (190I) ; G. Montandon, Archiv. suisses d'anthrop. gen. 1921, IV.; L. H. D. Buxton, The East ern Road (1924), and The Peoples of Asia (1925). (L. H. D. B.)