eastern side and there are two doors. Public buildings do
not exist, whether in the shape of inn, meeting-place or
temple. The furniture of their dwellings is exceedingly
scanty. They have no chairs, stools or tables, but sit on
the floor, which is covered with two layers of mats, one of
rush, the other of flag; and for beds they spread planks,
hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for
coverlets. The men use chop-sticks and moustache-lifters
when eating; the women have wooden spoons. Uncleanliness is
characteristic of the Ainu, and all their intercourse with the
Japanese has not improved them in that respect. The Rev. John
Batchelor, in his Notes on the Ainu, says that he lived in
one Ainu habitation for six weeks on one occasion, and for
two months on another, and that he never once saw personal
ablutions performed, or cooking or eating utensils washed.
Not having been at any period acquainted with the art of
writing, they have no literature and are profoundly ignorant.
But at schools established for them by the Japanese in recent
times, they have shown that their intellectual capacity is not
deficient. No distinct conception of a universe enters
into their cosmology. They picture to themselves many
floating worlds, yet they deduce the idea of rotundity from
the course of the sun, and they imagine that the ``Ainu
world'' rests on the back of a fish whose movements cause
earthquakes. It is scarcely possible to doubt that this fancy
is derived from the Japanese, who used to hold an identical
theory. The Ainu believe in a supreme Creator, but also in a
sun-god, a moon-god, a water-god and a mountain-god, deities
whose river is the Milky Way, whose voices are heard in
the thunder and whose glory is reflected in the lightning.
Their chief object of actual worship appears to be the bear.
Miss Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop) writes: ``The peculiarity
which distinguishes their rude mythology is the worship
of the bear, the Yezo bear being one of the finest of his
species. But it is impossible to understand the feelings
by which this cult is prompted, for although they worship
the animal after their fashion and set up its head in their
villages, yet they trap it, kill it, eat it and sell its
skin. There is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more
of the feeling which prompts worship than the inanimate
forces of nature, and the Ainos may be distinguished as
bear-worshippers, and their greatest religious festival or
saturnalia as the Festival of the Bear.... Some of their rude
chants are in praise of the bear, and their highest eulogy on
a man is to compare him to a bear.'' They have no priests by
profession. The village chief performs whatever religious
ceremonies are necessary; ceremonies confined to making libations
of wine, uttering short prayers and offering willow sticks
with wooden shavings attached to them, much as the Japanese
set up the well-known gohei (sacred offerings) at certain
spots. The Ainu gives thanks to the gods before eating, and
prays to the deity of fire in time of sickness. He thinks
that his spirit is immortal, and that it will be rewarded
hereafter in heaven or punished in hell, both of which places
are beneath the earth, hell being the land of volcanoes;
but he has no theory as to a resurrection of the body or
metempsychosis. He preserves a tradition about a flood
which seems to be the counterpart of the Biblical deluge, and
about an earthquake which lasted a hundred days, produced the
three volcanoes of Yezo and created the island by bridging
the waters that had previously separated it into two parts.
The Ainu are now governed by Japanese laws and judged by
Japanese tribunals, but in former times their affairs were
administered by hereditary chiefs, three in each village,
and for administrative purposes the country was divided into
three districts, Saru, Usu and Ishikari, which were under the
ultimate control of Saru, though the relations between their
respective inhabitants were not close and intermarriages were
avoided. The functions of judge were not entrusted to these
chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat
in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not
exist, nor was imprisonment resorted to, beating being
considered a sufficient and final penalty, except in the
case of murder, when the nose and ears of the assassin were
cut off or the tendons of his feet severed. Little as the
Japanese and the Ainu have in common, intermarriages are
not infrequent, and at Sambutsu especially, on the eastern
coast, many children of such marriages may be seen.
Doenitz, Hilgendorf and Dr B. Scheube, arguing from a minute
investigation of the physical traits of the Ainu, have concluded
that they are Mongolians; according to Professor A. H. Keane
the Ainu ``are quite distinct from the surrounding Mongolic
peoples, and present several remarkable physical characters
which seem to point to a remote connexion with the Caucasic
races. Such are a very full beard, shaggy or wavy black or
dark-brown hair, sometimes covering the back and chest; a
somewhat fair or even white complexion, large nose, straight
eyes and regular features, often quite handsome and of European
type. They seem to be a last remnant of the Neolithic
peoples, who ranged in prehistoric times across the northern
hemisphere from the British Isles to Manchuria and Japan.
They are bear-worshippers, and have other customs in common
with the Manchurian aborigines, but the language is entirely
different, and they have traditions of a time when they were
the dominant people in the surrounding lands.'' It should be
noted finally that the Ainu are altogether free from ferocity or
exclusiveness, and that they treat strangers with gentle kindness.
See Rev. John Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore
(London, 1901); Romyn Hitchcock, The Ainos of Japan
(Washington, 1892); H. von Siebold, Uber die Aino
(Berlin, 1881); Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop), Korea and her
Neighbours (1898); Basil Hall Chamberlain, Language,
Mythology and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan viewed in
the Light of Aino Studies and Aino Fairy-tales (1895).
AIR, or ASBEN, a country of West Africa, lying between
15 deg. and 19 deg. N. and 6 deg. and 10 deg. E. It is within the
Sahara, of which it forms one of the most fertile regions.
The northern portion of the country is mountainous, some
of the peaks rising to a height of 5000 ft. Richly wooded
hollows and extensive plains are interspersed between the
hills. The mimosa, the dum palm and the date are abundant.
Some of the plains afford good pasturage for camels, asses,
goats and cattle; others are desert tablelands. In the less
frequented districts wild animals abound, notably the lion
and the gazelle. The country generally is of sandstone or
granite formation, with occasional trachyte and basaltic
ranges. There are no permanent rivers; but during the rainy
season, from August to October, heavy floods convert the
water-courses in the hollows of the mountains into broad and
rapid streams. Numerous wells supply the wants of the people
and their cattle. To the south of this variegated region
lies a desert plateau, 2000 ft. above sea-level, destitute of
water, and tenanted only by the wild ox, the ostrich and the
giraffe. Still farther south is the fairly fertile district of
Damerghu, of which Zinder is the chief town. Little of the
soil is under cultivation except in the neighbourhood of the
villages. Millet, dates, indigo and senna are the principal
productions. The great bulk of the food supplies is brought from
Damerghu, and the materials for clothing are also imported. A
great caravan annually passes through Air, consisting of several
thousand camels, carrying salt from Bilma to the Hausa states.
Air was called Asben by the native tribes until they were
conquered by the Berbers. The present inhabitants are for
the most part of a mixed race, combining the finer traits
of the berbers with negro characteristics. The sultan of
Air is to a great extent dependent on the chiefs of the
Tuareg tribes inhabiting a vast tract of the Sahara to the
north-west. A large part of his revenue is derived from
tribute exacted from the salt caravans. Since 1890 Air has
been included in the French sphere of influence in West Africa.
Agades, the capital of the country, which has a circuit of 3 1/2
m., is built on the edge of a plateau 2500 ft. high, and is
supposed to have been founded by the Berbers to serve as a
secure magazine for their extensive trade with the Songhoi
empire. The language of the people is a dialect of Songhoi.
In former times Agades was a place of great traffic, and had
a population of about 50,000. Since the beginning of the 16th
century the prosperity of the town has, however, gradually
declined. F. Foureau, who visited Agades in 1899, stated that
more than half the total area was deserted and ruinous. The
houses, which are built of clay, are low and flat-roofed;
and the only buildings of importance are the chief mosque,
which is surmounted by a tower 95 ft. high, and the sultan's
residence, a massive two-storied structure pierced with small
windows. The chief trade is grain. The great salt caravans
pass through it, as well as pilgrims on their way to Mecca.
AIR (from an Indo-European root meaning ``breathe,'' ``blow''),
the atmosphere that surrounds the earth; aer, the lower thick
air, being distinguished from aither, With the development
of analytical and especially of pneumatic chemistry, the air
was recognized not to be one homogeneous substance, as was
long supposed, and different ``airs,'' or gases, came to be
distinguished. Thus oxygen gas, at the end of the 18th
century, was known as dephlogisticated air, nitrogen or
azote as phlogisticated air, hydrogen as inflammable air,
carbonic acid gas as fixed air. The name is now ordinarily
restricted to what is more accurately called atmospheric
air--the air we breathe--the invisible elastic fluid which
surrounds the earth (see ATMOSPHERE.) Probably the sense
of atmosphere or environment led (though this is disputed
by etymologists) to the further use of the word ``air'' to
mean ``manner'' or ``appearance''; and so to its employment
(cf. Lat. modus) in music for ``melody.'' (See ARIA.)
AIRAY, HENRY (1560?-1616), English Puritan divine, was
born at Kentmere, Westmorland, but no record remains of the
date of either birth or baptism. He was the son of William
Airay, the favourite servant of Bernard Gilpin, ``the apostle
of the North,'' whose bounty showed itself in sending Henry
and his brother Evan (or Ewan) to his own endowed school,
where they were educated ``in grammatical learning,'' and
were in attendance at Oxford when Gilpin died. From Wood's
Athenae we glean the details of Airay's college attendance.
``He was sent to St Edmund's hall in 1579, aged nineteen or
thereabouts. Soon after he was translated to Queen's
College, where he became pauper puer serviens; that is, a
poor serving child that waits on the fellows in the common
hall at meals, and in their chambers, and does other servile
work about the college.'' His transference to Queen's is
perhaps explained by its having been Gilpin's college, and
by his Westmorland origin giving him a claim on Eaglesfield's
foundation. He graduated B.A. on the 19th of June 1583,
M.A. on the 15th of June 1586, B.D. in 1504 and D.D. on
the 17th of June 1600--all in Queen's College. ``About the
time he was master'' (1586) ``he entered holy orders, and
became a frequent and zealous preacher in the university.''
