Ainu Mythology Early non–Mongoloid inhabitants of the islands now called Japan, the non–Japanese-speaking Ainu were subjugated by the Japanese beginning in the early ninth century. The few Ainu who remain live in the northern islands. The essential dualism of Ainu mythology is expressed by a supreme deity in Heaven and evil deities who live in the world below. There is a fire goddess who presides over a kind of Last Judgment and there is a creation story that resembles the one in the Japanese Nihongi (see Nihongi ). In this story a bird is sent down to earth to dry out some of the mud in the primordial slush so that islands can be formed for the ...