Literature is indebted to the Rev. John Batchelor for that which is, probably, the most readable book that has ever been published about these interesting people; from a scientific standpoint, however, this work is greatly lacking. Many ethnologists and anthropologists considered the Ainu autochthonic to Japan; I am forced to conclude from the evidence, however, that he is an emigrant, and that he came originally from North China or East Siberia. Be he emigrant or indigene, one thing is certain, namely, that he has been an inhabitant of the Japanese Archipelago for thousands of years. The oldest book in the Japanese language has this in it anent the Ainus: "When our august ancestors descended from heaven in a boat, they found upon this island several barbarous races, the most fierce of whom were the Ainu."[G] [G] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 13. The Ainu is probably the purest type of primitive man in existence. I had been led to believe by the work of Miss Bird[30] that these people were on a par with the Australians, and that they had no religious ideas whatever. (Vogt seems to advance this conclusion also,[31] while De Quatrefages[32][H] appears to have omitted this people from his tabulation. Peschel places them among the Giliaks on the Lower Amoor, and the inhabitants of the Kurile Islands.[33] These tribes are mixed nature, devil, and phallic worshipers.) Batchelor, however, shows very clearly that these people _do_ have a religion, and that this religion is highly developed. [30] Bird: _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan_. [31] Vogt: _Lectures on Man_. [32] De Quatrefages: _The Human Species_. [H] De Quatrefages, in his _Hommes Fossiles_, places the Ainus anthropologically among the Primeval Teutons! [33] Peschel: _The Races of Man_, p. 388. Their chief god, or rather goddess (for the Ainus regard the female as being higher than the male as far as gods are concerned), is the sun.[34] Like the Peruvians, they regard the sun as the Creator, but they are unlike them in the fact that they think that they cannot reach the goddess by direct appeal. She must be addressed through intermediaries or messengers. These messengers, the goddess of the fire, the goddess of the water, etc., are in turn addressed through the agency of _inao_, or prayer-sticks. This intermediary idea is curiously like some practices of the Roman Catholic church, or, rather, of communicants, who get the saints to carry their petitions to God. [34] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 89.