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251hairiness, Cavalli-Sforza sites Alexeev’s 1979 work on Siberian peoples. Alexeev notedthat there are some isolated Mongoloid groups that who show hairiness, althoughAlexeev (like Cavalli-Sforza himself) believed that North Asia was initially populated byCaucasoid groups, and considered hairiness as the possible substratum of the Caucasoidpopulations. To summarize Ainu problem, Cavalli-Sforza concludes: “It seemsreasonable to discard the myth of a Caucasoid origin of the Ainu” (Cavalli-Sforza et al.,1994:232). In the light of the presence of vocal polyphony, absolutely unique in EastAsian region, I would not rush to discard the possibility of European (Caucasoid)connections of Ainu. Of course, for the comprehensive discussion of the historical andethnic origins of Ainu people all the elements of their biology and culture must be takeninto consideration. I hope that the unique (for the whole East Asian region) tradition ofAinu vocal polyphony will be seriously taken into consideration in this discussion.Case Study #10Southeast Asian PolyphonyNovember 14 th 1986 was the last day of the international conference ontraditional polyphony in Georgia. The conference was working in the foyer of the big hallof the “House of Creative Recreation of Composers” built by Soviet government in thepicturesque mountain resort Borjomi. Oscar Elschek was leading the last session. Idelivered my paper on the origins of vocal polyphony, where I extensively talked aboutthe correlation between the geographic distribution of the physical features of differentpopulations and the vocal polyphony. I was very happy how the paper with such acontroversial content was received. After the session was formally closed, anethnomusicologist from Nalchik (capital city of Kabardino-Balkaria in North Caucasia),Tamara Blaeva approached me. “Joseph Mindievich, you mentioned in your paper thatthere is no polyphony in East Asia, including Vietnam, right?” “That’s right. I have nodata about polyphony from that region” I answered. “My husband is Vietnamese. He is amusician, composer, and I know from him that there is a tradition of vocal polyphony inVietnam. He has recorded examples, and I can send you them if you are interested.”What can you say? I always disliked the most unscholarly (in my opinion) saying“the exception proves the rule”, but the situation looked for exactly this kind of the “lastresort for the bad theory”. At that moment I had no idea about the presence of vocalpolyphony in Vietnam. [By the way, this information is not easy to find out even today.For example, special Garland encyclopedia article on Vietnamese minorities does notmention the tradition of vocal polyphony.] The only thing I could recall in that verymoment on November 14 th , 1984 about Vietnam, was the article I read in the centralRussian anthropological journal “Soviet Ethnography” on the odontology (populationresearch of the teeth) of the population of Vietnam. I remembered that one of the mainconclusions of the article was that the population of the mountainous central and northernparts of Vietnam was very different and must have had different origin from the mainethnic group – the Viets. “Tell me, please”, I asked Tamara Blaeva, who was waiting formy reply, “is this polyphony in Vietnam is distributed among the populations of theCentral and North Vietnam mountains?” She looked at me with a great surprise “How do