Several distinctive features in cooking agricultural products among the Ainu used to be as follows : grains were cooked usually as a gruel, and added to their main food, that is, fish and flesh. On festive occasions, however, grains were boiled, and served in a heap in wooden bowls. They also used grains for making unrefined sake and millet cakes. Both of them were believed to be indispensable for their festival dishes. They made two soups, one from a mixture of beans and vegetables, the other from a meat stock. The former were boiled and served as substitute for ordinary food or taken between regular meals. We notice the existence of the same cooking practices in ancient Japan. At that time grains were known to be cooked generally as a gruel and to constitute the usual food. On such special occasions as festivals, on the other hand, grains were boiled and served in wooden bowls, just as described above. And when they held the party of worshipping their deities, they made sake from grains and everyone gave himself up to drinking. They also made dumplings from grains, and offered them to the deities. From the above statement, we can assume, a great antiquity of Ainu culture, not only in their method of cultivation, but also in their techniques of cooking agricultural products. We notice clearly among them some of the characteristic features of Japanese agriculture before the Nara and Heian Epochs (A. D. 7-10 centuries, ca.)

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Kijiya is a traditional craftsman who makes bowls and cups of wood with a lathe. They believe themselves to be descendants of a noble blood (Prince Ono-no-miya Koretaka-shinno). Their camp consists of from 3 to 5 families. They erect their primitive working-hut in the mountains, where they make their wooden products. They make their living by exchanging their own products with the agricultural products of peasants in the area. They lead a nomadic life, because they have to remove their residence as soon as big trees suitable for making their products have become scarce around their residence. Their family is patrilineal, their marriage patrilocal. In ordinary relations, however, they make no distinction between their matrilineal and patrilineal kinsmen. Members of both sexes are trained in their traditional craftsmanship since childhood. Women as well as men use a handaxe, and it is especially a wife's duty to turn a lathe. As they believed in olden days that the technique of lathe turning was too difficult for girls not belonging to their professional group to master, young men never thought of marrying such girls. Thus they tended to be endogamous. Group-consciousness and integrity are very strong among them, and they feel that ordinary peasants and various craftsmen other than kijiya belong to different status or caste than theirs. They also cherish a belief in their own god. About 50 years ago they suffered a drastic change in their way of life, and many of them have settled down and chosen to live as peasants since then. But those people who decided to continue their traditional way of life employed a water-wheel as a means for turning their lathe. This adoption of new power has enabled them to produce much more products than before. Inasmuch as the help of wives was no longer necessary for turning a lathe, they were now in a position to devote themselves wholly to domestic affairs and childrearing. Gradually the kijiya entered into close relationships with their neighboring people. Some of them began to think about marriage with outside peoples. In a village, however, where we undertook our field research, we observed their age-old endogamous custom still prevalent, atleast up to very recent years. This custom continues not so much, we suppose, because of any strong group cohesion as because of a great gap existing between them and their neighbours in marriage customs and value attitudes in general. For example young people of kijiya are accustomed to obey their parents' will when choosing their partners, whereas their peasant neighbours choose wives indepeneent of their parents' will.

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