(Tokyo Imperial Palace side on a holiday night) An Old Story of the "Ainu" People
(Une vieille histoire de la "aïnou" peuple)
Once there lived a poor husband and wife.
As they were so poor that the husband put on shorter clothes and the wife wore only a little longer clothes than the husband's.
They were members of the honorable Ainu tribe, indigenous people traditionally and mostly living in Hokkaido Island, the most northern Island of Japan.
The Ainu people were and may be still different from other Japanese living in the south in that they have not adopted the rice culture based on which the traditional and mainstream Japanese civilization was established, since rice cropping had been introduced into the southern Japanese islands 3500 years ago, namely an era between Abraham and Moses.
The wife worked in a field to grow vegetables but could get only poor harvests. The husband went on a hunt but could get only poor games.
So, one day the wife went out to a wild field to pick wild herbs in vain; yet she happened to find two crows chatting on a tree. She could understand their words and grasp the meaning, since she had special ability unique to the Ainu people.
A crow from a coast area asked another crow from a mountain area, "How about people in the mountains?"
Another crow said, "As the wife of the village head dug out and taken all the roots of lilies to make them her own foods, the God of Fields could not enjoy His favorite food, roots of lilies. So, the God of Fields in His anger brought harm on the village. People now cannot get any harvests and games. They should apologize to the God of Fields by offering 'Inaw' to Him."
( http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8A%E3%82%A6 )
Having heard this conversation, the poor wife went back home to tell her surprise to her husband.
So, they went out to the village in the mountain but found that the head of the village was sick and ill due to the sacred harm.
The husband said to his wife, "As you put on better clothes than mine, you should tell the village head what you heard from the crows."
So, the wife entered the house of the village head to tell the secret of the disaster that recently covered the whole region.
The village head understood the situation and ordered his men to make 'Inaw' to offer to the God of Fields; the wife of village head also repent and prayed to the God of Fields.
Then, soon after, the village head got well and people got abundant harvests in fields and many games in hunt again.
So, the village head provided the poor couple with many valuable things useful to make their life easy and well-off.
Indeed, the pious Ainu people could once understand conversations of animals.
Truly, they were living in reverence for, harmony with, and awe of various Gods who had been governing the nature even before the mainstream Japanese occupied Hokkaido Island, the most northern Island of Japan.
(Note: Inau or Inaw is an Ainu term for a ritual wood shaving stick...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inau
)* * *
Now, Japanese are busy buying or enjoying "beaujolais nouveau," fresh French wine.
( http://www.printemps-ginza.co.jp/style/french/index.html)
I also got one with a blueberry juice in the bottle of new wine, though it is not a root of a lily.
(I may check it, say, on this Sunday night, since I am yet a busy man.
And, the night is still bottomless for blasphemous acts of ungrateful villains here and there, since once just roots of lilies, if not ginkgo nuts, became a sacred issue.)
"...It is because you don't know the Scriptures or God's power..."
(Ihr kennt weder die heiligen Schriften, noch wisst ihr, was Gott in seiner Macht vollbringt.)