Ainos, Or Ainns(i. e., men), tribes inhabiting Saghalien, Yesso, and the Kurile islands, and various adjacent regions, partly under Japanese and partly under Russian jurisdiction, the latter being generally called Kuriles. Tradition says that the Japanese were originally Ainos, and only became a distinct race by intermarrying with Chinese. The Ainos are dilferent from other Mongolian tribes, and in their more vigorous physical formation assimilate to some extent to the Caucasian type. Though armed and painted like savages, they are inotiensive and hospitable, but shy of Japanese and Russians, especially on the coasts of the Saghalien islands, which they formerly occupied exclusively, and where the Gilanes tribe at present inhabit the N. part. The extravagant stories of travellers caused the Ainos in the Kurile islands to be designated as the hairy Kuriles, though their bodies are not particularly hairy and their beards seldom longer than 5 or 6 inches. They are pagans, and sacrifice the first of the animals they kill, generally bears, to their idols. They are polygainists, groups of 10 to 12 families living together in miserable huts, with a chief for each group. They support themselves by fishing and hunting.

The Aino language is divided into several dialects, and is regarded by Siebold as somewhat connected with the Japanese, but this opinion is not generally entertained. It is polysyllabic, has an alphabet of 47 letters, and is written in four different sets of characters, one of them, the Katakana, being sometimes called the writing of men, and another, the Kiragena, that of women. August Pfizmaier published a description of it (Vienna, 1852), and a vocabulary (1854).