ABSTRACT
The Aino house consists of a rude framework of timber supporting a thatched roof; the walls being made up of reeds and rush interwoven with stiffer cross-pieces. Within, there is a single room the dimensions of the house. Entering the house by the low door, one comes into a room so dark that it is with difficulty - one can see anything. The inmates light rolls of birch-bark that one may be enabled to see the interior; but every appearance of neatness and picturesqueness which the hut presented from without vanishes when one gets inside. The store-houses standing on four posts are referred to in the description of the Hachijo Islanders as well as in that of the Loochooans as resembling those constructed by the Ainos; yet these resemblances must not be taken as indicating a community of origin, but simply as the result of necessity.
