ch have year by year been made more stringent, have somewhat
interfered with the sporting proclivities of the people. Nets and fish
traps are now forbidden, and fishing for the most part is effected by
means of a spear or harpoon, either from the shore or from the
somewhat primitive canoes used by the people. Poisoned arrows were
once largely used for the purpose of capturing game, but they are now
forbidden by law. Originally the _modus operandi_ in hunting was to
set a trap with one of these arrows placed in it, and drive the game
on to the same. The head of the arrow was only loosely fastened, and
broke, leaving the poison inside even if the animal managed to pull
out the shaft. The bear is found in Yesso, and that animal has entered
very largely into every phase of Aino life, somewhat circumscribed
though this is. That animal was, or used to be, the objective point of
Aino festivals, and seems, to some extent at any rate, to have had a
part in their crude religious ideas. Bears, are, however, becoming
rare in Yesso, and the Japanese Government, which is paternal even in
regard to the fauna of the islands, has from time to time interfered
with many venerable Aino customs.

The religion of this interesting race is almost as mysterious as
everything else appertaining to it. The Ainos have no idols and no
temples, and their religious rites are of a decidedly simple nature.
They, however, seem to believe in an infinity of spirits inhabiting
various and varied things, and their pantheon is seemingly a crowded
one. I have said seemingly, because the beliefs of a people such as
this are difficult to get at, and even when one has got at them almost
impossible to comprehend. One writer has termed the religion of the
Ainos, "a very primitive nature-worship," and their gods "invisible,
formless conceptions." Such definitions do not convey much
information. Nature-worship is a vague description and "invisible,
formless conceptions" of the deity or deities are not confined to the
Ainos. Possibly, like all peoples but little advanced or developed
mentally, their religious conceptions are of the vaguest and have
assumed no definite shape. A fear of the unknown, a blind groping in
the dark are, mayhap, all that the Aino possesses in reference to the
spiritual world.

Although the religion of the Aino when living is somewhat
incomprehensible his religious ceremonies in reference to the dead are
of a somewhat elaborate nature. After