Alone with the Hairy Ainu; Or, 3800 Miles on a Pack Saddle in Yezo and a Cruise to the Kurile Islands

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

Publisher: London: John Murray Publication date: 1893 Subjects: Ainu Hokkaido (Japan) -- Description and travel Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, History

198 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1940

About the author

Arnold Henry Savage Landor (1865 – 26 December 1924) was an English painter, explorer, writer, and anthropologist. Landor wrote in an often witty style.

wikipedia

Reviews

[James Calbraith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main part, Savage's own retelling of his journey around Hokkaido, is a fantastic read. At times terrifying, often hilarious. Riding a pony through the cold wastelands, Savage strongly resembles a hobbit, combining a Victorian tenacity with reckless curiosity.

The second part is a harder read, a wade through prejudices of the era and misguided anthropological theories of a man who is by no means a scholar. Still, the illustrations are very valuable, and it remains a good source of early Ainu knowledge, once you learn how to distinguish between Savage's opinion and fact.

[Andy Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well. It's a bit of a mess but not without a good deal of interest. A Victorian adventurer and artist challenges himself to a walk, mostly with a donkey across thousands of miles of Japanese territory much untrod by Westerners to meet remote Ainu natives. He overcome injury, some testing challenges and provides lots of observations of Ainu life and the geography. It is to his credit that the lone Englishman seems very brave and determined, less so that he can sometimes be pretty disrespectful to the locals, seldom to their face but certainly in his recorded observations, recounting the occasional shrine desecration or putting a native in place with some pomposity. The anthropological observations are no doubt of huge value to an anthropologist but far too detailed for the average reader of an adventure yarn - chapter after chapter even after the main journey is finished. And these observations are often tainted by racist language and metaphor.

[MMF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forgive me if I can't remember when I first read this. 2014? Maybe? Ish?

So first off, this is a product of its time. Really, a lot. Landor has a lot of casually racist attitudes typical of the 19th century and is just not the most culturally sensitive guy.

In a lot of ways though, he's fairly progressive. He dives right in and lives like the locals do, sleeps in their fleas and eats their food. And the whole thing is written like the private diary of a sort of crazy man, just casually recounting the insane things he decides to do.

It's also an interesting account of Hokkaido in the time period, and of... well, honestly, the twilight days of a mostly vanished culture. It's informative, entertaining and kind of sad.

[Eskil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have few doubts about Landor's observations pf many things. Unfortunately he calls the Ainu the lowest form of humans, comparing them most often to monkeys and dogs. This wouldn't be an out of place for an Englishman today, I'm sure, but for someone who wished to be taken seriously it only harms his credibility. I'm sure he did circumnavigate Hokkaidō, and he might have visited the South Kuriles, but he's a rotted dog cunt and I only wish someone who wasn't a wannabe colonizer could have written what is in large part an interesting enough book.

[Sicofonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not explicitly, this book is kind of divided in two parts. The first is a sort of travelogue, where Landor describes his whole journey around the island of Hokkaido (called Yezo back then). It is an archetypal recollection of anecdotes, mishaps and also the hardships he had to go thru on the way. His encounters with the several Ainu tribes who populated the island are also told.
The second part of the book deals with the Ainu people, his customs, culture and traits. I think it was written from an anthropologist point of view, but being an amateur one, Landor's account might look vague as his conclusions on several aspects of the Ainu seemed shallow to me.
The book itself is very well written, it is easy to follow and Landor makes use of a fine sense of humour (bordering sarcasm at times). All of these qualities make the book a worthwhile read.

One thing that I cannot forgive is the fact that Landor addresses the Ainu as "savages" all the time. He looks at them from the Western society pedestal, regarding them as an inferior race in nearly every respect. Literally. Having read some other books from XIX century explorers, I think this was the common feeling towards other backwards people in the past. However, I find this to be disrespectful and completely unnecessary in any ethnographic work.

[DaveD · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rating is for the first part of the book, which documents Landor's journey around Hokkaido. The fact that I currently live in Hokkaido and have been to many places mentioned helped to make the book more alive for me. It was interesting and humorous at times. I also felt you could see the imperfect human that Landor was through many aspects such as his perceptions of the Ainu, ideas of how areas of land 'should' be used from a European perspective, a brief sexcapade with an Ainu woman near Lake Saroma, sheer willpower to survive after breaking his foot and stealing food to eat when refused food and shelter by villagers among other things.

I glazed over the second part, finding it not very interesting past the amazing illustrations. Having just read through Jon Bachleor'S book on the Ainu, I've had my fill of what people from the 1900'S felt in terms of anthropology towards the Ainu.

[Adam Marquis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lordie do I love me some circa-1900's arrogant travelogues. Highlights include:

1) The author holds down a hermit in order to make an unsolicited and unannounced attempt to measure his skull. When the hermit fights back, the author assumes that man is just crazy.

2) He details his sex with an Ainu woman. But dear reader, he's only telling you this so he can document, anthropologically, the weird stuff she did in bed.

God bless the British.

[Charles Harries · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly it's possible I thought that this was so good because I live in Hokkaido and I know the places he's talking about. Also admittedly the last part, the anthropological study, seems like he was making it up a little bit.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is an utterly hilarious travelogue of Hokkaido by our priggish Victorian guide. It reads almost like a picaresque written by Jack Vance and is extremely entertaining and on occasion enlightening.

The second half is a bunch of BS period specific faux-anthropology best left avoided.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read to be sure. The author's clear racism and braggadocio liven up the read in a sad sort of way. It is a snapshot of European mentality at the turn of the last century.

[Cris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un gran libro de viaje. Narra con un estilo clásico y ahora quiero conocer más de los Ainu.