Ainu people
Encyclopedia
The , also called Aynu, Aino (アイノ), and in historical texts Ezo (蝦夷), are indigenous
people or groups in Japan
and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language
and related varieties
and lived in Hokkaidō
, the Kuril Islands
, and much of Sakhalin
. Most of those who identify themselves as Ainu still live in this same region, though the exact number of living Ainu is unknown. This is due to confusion over mixed heritages and to ethnic issues in Japan
resulting in those with Ainu backgrounds hiding their identities. In Japan, because of intermarriage over many years with Japanese, the concept of a pure Ainu ethnic group is no longer feasible. Official estimates of the population are of around 25,000, while the unofficial number is upward of 200,000 people.
and Satsumon
cultures. In 1264, Nivkh people reported to the Yuan Dynasty
of the Mongol Empire
that Ainu invaded the land of Nivkh, resulting in battles between Ainu and the Yuan Dynasty. Active contact between the Wajin (the ethnically Japanese) and the Ainu of Ezochi (now known as Hokkaido
) began in the 13th century. The Ainu were a society of hunter-gatherers, who lived mainly by hunting and fishing, and the people followed a religion based on phenomena of nature.
During the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) the Ainu became increasingly involved in trade with Japanese who controlled the southern portion of the island that is now called Hokkaido. The Bakufu government granted the Matsumae clan
exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu in the Northern part of the island. Later the Matsumae began to lease out trading rights to Japanese merchants, and contact between Japanese and Ainu became more extensive. Throughout this period Ainu became increasingly dependent on goods imported by Japanese, and suffered from epidemic diseases such as smallpox. Although the increased contact brought by trade between the Japanese and the Ainu contributed to increased mutual understanding, sometimes it led to conflict, occasionally intensifying into violent Ainu revolts, of which the most important was Shakushain's Revolt
(1669–1672).
The turning point for Ainu culture was the beginning of the Meiji Restoration
in 1868. A variety of social, political and economic reforms were introduced by the Japanese government, in hope of modernising the country in the Western style, and included the annexation of Hokkaido. Sjöberg quotes Baba’s (1980) account of the Japanese government's reasoning:
In 1899, the Japanese government passed an act labeling the Ainu as former aborigines, with the idea they would assimilate—this resulted in the land the Ainu people lived on being taken by the Japanese government, and was from then on under Japanese control. Also at this time, the Ainu were granted automatic Japanese citizenship, effectively denying them the status of an indigenous group.
The Ainu were becoming increasingly marginalized on their own land—over a period of only 36 years, the Ainu went from being a relatively isolated group of people to having their land, language, religion and customs assimilated into those of the Japanese. In addition to this, the land the Ainu lived on was distributed to the Wajin who had decided to move to Hokkaido, who had been encouraged by the Japanese government of the Meiji era to take advantage of the island’s abundance of natural resources, and to create and maintain farms in the model of western industrial agriculture. This development was termed Kaitakushi. As well as this, factories such as flour mills and beer breweries and mining practices resulted in the creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines, during a development period that lasted until 1904. During this time the Ainu were forced to learn Japanese, required to adopt Japanese names and ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing.
The 1899 act mentioned above was replaced in 1997—until then the government had stated there were no ethnic minority groups. It was not until June 6, 2008 that Japan formally recognised the Ainu as an indigenous group (see Official Recognition, below).
Intermarriages between Japanese and Ainu were actively promoted by the Ainu to lessen the chances of discrimination against their offspring. As a result, many Ainu are indistinguishable from their Japanese neighbors, but some Ainu-Japanese are interested in traditional Ainu culture. For example, Oki
, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument tonkori
. There are many small towns in the southeastern or Hidaka
region where full-blooded Ainu may still be seen such as in Nibutani
(Ainu
: Niputay). Many such children live in Sambutsu especially, on the eastern coast.
Their most widely known ethnonym
is derived from the word ainu, which means "human" (particularly as opposed to kamui, divine beings), basically neither ethnicity nor the name of a race, in the Hokkaidō dialects of the Ainu language
; Emishi
(Ebisu) and Ezo
[endzo] (Yezo) (both ) are Japanese terms, which are believed to derive from another word for "human", which otherwise survived in Sakhalin Ainu as enciw or enju. Today, many Ainu dislike the term Ainu because it had once been used with derogatory nuance, and prefer to identify themselves as Utari (comrade in the Ainu language). Official documents use both names.
, and urging an end to discrimination against the group. The resolution recognised the Ainu people as "an indigenous people with a distinct language, religion and culture", and rescinded the law passed in 1899.
Though the resolution is historically significant, Hideaki Uemura, professor at Keisen University
in Tokyo and a specialist in indigenous peoples' rights, commented that the motion is "weak in the sense of recognizing historical facts" as the Ainu were "forced" to become Japanese in the first place.
. One of their Yukar
Upopo, or Ainu legends, tells that "The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came."
Ainu culture as it is known today dates from around the year 1200, and recent research suggests that it originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture
with the Satsumon, one of the ancient Japanese cultures. Their economy was based on farming, as well as hunting, fishing and gathering.
Full-blooded Ainu are lighter skinned than their Japanese neighbors and have more body hair. Many early investigators proposed a Caucasian
ancestry, although recent DNA tests have not shown any genetic similarity with modern caucasian
Europeans. Ainu men have abundant, wavy hair and often have long beards. In the book of "Ainu life and legends" by author Kyōsuke Kindaichi (published by the Japanese Tourist Board in 1942) contains the physical description of Ainu : Many Ainu people have wavy hair, but some straight black hair. Very few of them have wavy brownish hair. Their skins are generally reported to be light brown. But this is due to the fact that they labor on the sea and in briny winds all day. Old people who have long desisted from their outdoor work are often found to be as white as western men. The Ainu have broad faces, beetling eyebrows, and large sunken eyes, which are generally horizontal and of the so-called European type. Eyes of the Mongolian type are hardly found among them.
Genetic testing of the Ainu people has shown them to belong mainly to Y-haplogroup D2
. Y-DNA haplogroup D2 is found frequently throughout the Japanese Archipelago
including Okinawa. The only places outside of Japan in which Y-haplogroup D is common are Tibet
and the Andaman Islands
in the Indian Ocean.
In a study by Tajima et al. (2004), two out of a sample of sixteen (or 12.5%) Ainu men have been found to belong to Haplogroup C3
, which is the most common Y-chromosome haplogroup among the indigenous populations of the Russian Far East
and Mongolia
. Hammer et al. (2006) have tested a sample of four Ainu men and have found that one of them belongs to haplogroup C3. Some researchers have speculated that this minority of Haplogroup C3 carriers among the Ainu may reflect a certain degree of unidirectional genetic influence from the Nivkhs
, a traditionally nomadic people of northern Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland, with whom the Ainu have long-standing cultural interactions.
Based on analysis of one sample of 51 modern Ainus, their mtDNA lineages have been reported to consist mainly of haplogroup Y
(11/51 = 21.6% according to Tanaka et al. 2004, or 10/51 = 19.6% according to Adachi et al. 2009, who have cited Tajima et al. 2004), haplogroup D
(9/51 = 17.6%, particularly D4(xD1)), haplogroup M7a
(8/51 = 15.7%), and haplogroup G1
(8/51 = 15.7%).
Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup Y is otherwise found mainly among Nivkhs
, and with lower frequency among Tungusic peoples
, Koreans, Mongols
(including Kalmyks and Buryats
), Chinese
, Japanese, Central Asia
ns, South Siberian Turkic peoples (e.g. Tuvans
, Todjins, Soyots
), Koryaks
, Alyutors
, Itelmens
, Taiwanese aborigines
, Filipinos
, Indonesia
ns, and Malaysians. MtDNA Haplogroup D is found frequently throughout East Asia and Central Asia, and is also common in some populations of North Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Americas; in addition, it has been found with low frequency in some populations of Europe and Southwest Asia. Haplogroup M7a has been found elsewhere mainly among Japanese and Ryukyuans, and with lower frequency among Udegeys, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos
, Taiwanese aborigines
, Buryats
, Central Asia
ns, and Waars
of the Jaintia Hills
in Meghalaya
, India. MtDNA Haplogroup G has been found most frequently among indigenous populations of easternmost Siberia, but it is also common among some populations of East Asia, Central Asia, the Altai-Sayan region of southern Siberia, and the sub-Himalayan region.
A recent reevaluation of cranial traits suggests that the Ainu resemble the Okhotsk more than they do the Jōmon. This agrees with the reference to the Ainu culture being a merger of Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures referenced above.
After a new wave of immigration, probably from the Korean Peninsula some 2,300 years ago, of the Yayoi people, the Jōmon were pushed into northern Japan. Genetic data suggest that modern Japanese are descended from both the Yayoi and the Jōmon.
in what is now Cape Lopatka
. The island of Hokkaido was known to the Ainu as Ainu Moshir, and was formally annexed by the Japanese at the late date of 1868, partly as a means of preventing the intrusion of the Russians, and partly for imperialist reasons.
According to the Russian Empire Census
of 1897, 1446 persons in the Russian Empire reported Ainu language as their mother tongue, 1434 of them in Sakhalin Island.
The southern half of Sakhalin was acquired by Japan as a result of the Russo-Japanese War
of 1904–05, but at the end of World War II in 1945, the Soviets declared war on Japan and took possession of the Kuril islands and southern Sakhalin. The Ainu population, as previously Japanese subjects, were "repatriated" to Japan.
According to the 2002 Russian Federation census, no responders gave the ethnonym Ainu in boxes 7 or 9.2 in the K-1 form of the census, though some still might exist.
The only Ainu speakers remaining (besides perhaps a few partial speakers) live solely in Japan. There, they are concentrated primarily on the southern and eastern coasts of the island of Hokkaidō.
Due to intermarriage with the Japanese and ongoing absorption into the predominant culture, there are no truly Ainu settlements existing in Japan today. The town of Nibutani
(Ainu
: Niputay) in Hidaka area (Hokkaido prefecture) has a number of Ainu households and a visit to some of the Ainu owned craft shops close to the Ainu museums (there are two of them in Nibutani) is an opportunity to interact with the Ainu people. Many "authentic Ainu villages" advertised in Hokkaido such as Akan
and Shiraoi
are tourist attractions and provide an opportunity to see and meet Ainu people.
The Ainu language is significantly different from the Japanese language in its syntax, phonology, morphology, and vocabulary. Although there have been attempts to show that they are related, modern scholars have rejected that the relationship goes beyond contact, such as the mutual borrowing of words between Japanese and Ainu. In fact, no attempt to show a relationship with Ainu to any other language has gained wide acceptance, and Ainu is currently considered to be a language isolate
.
Words used as prepositions in English (such as to, from, by, in, and at) are postpositional in Ainu; they come after the word that they modify. A single sentence in Ainu can be made up of many added or agglutinated sounds or morphemes that represent nouns or ideas.
The Ainu language has had no system of writing, and has historically been transliterated by the Japanese kana
or the Russian Cyrillic. Today, it is typically written in either katakana or Latin alphabet. The unwieldy nature of the Japanese kana with its inability to accurately represent terminal consonants has contributed to the degradation of the original Ainu. For example, some words, such as "Kor" (meaning "to hold"), are now pronounced with a terminal vowel sound, as in "Koro".
Many of the Ainu dialects, even from one end of Hokkaido to the other, were not mutually intelligible; however, the classic Ainu language of the Yukar
, or Ainu epic stories, was understood by all. Without a writing system, the Ainu were masters of narration, with the Yukar and other forms of narration such as the Uepeker (Uwepeker) tales, being committed to memory and related at gatherings, often lasting many hours or even days.
. Never shaving after a certain age, the men had full beard
s and moustache
s. Men and women alike cut their hair
level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, trimmed semicircularly behind. The women tattoo
ed their mouth
s, and sometimes the forearm
s. The mouth tattoos were started at a young age with a small spot on the upper lip, gradually increasing with size. The soot deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark was used for color. Their traditional dress
was a robe spun from the inner bark of the elm tree, called attusi or attush. Various styles of clothing were made, and consisted generally of a simple short robe with straight sleeves, which was folded around the body, and tied with a band about the waist. The sleeves ended at the wrist or forearm and the length generally was to the calves. Women also wore an undergarment of Japanese cloth.
Modern craftswomen weave and embroider traditional garments that command very high prices. In winter the skins of animals were worn, with leggings of deerskin and in Sakhalin, boots were made from the skin of dogs or salmon
. Both sexes are fond of earring
s, which are said to have been made of grape
vine in former times, as also are bead necklaces called tamasay
, which the women prized highly.
Their traditional cuisine consists of the flesh of bear
, fox
, wolf, badger
, ox
or horse
, as well as fish
, fowl
, millet
, vegetable
s, herb
s, and root
s. They never ate raw fish or flesh; it was always boiled or roasted.
Their traditional habitations were reed-thatched huts, the largest 20 ft (6 m) square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the center. There was no chimney, only a hole at the angle of the roof; there was one window on the eastern side and there were two doors. The house of the village head was used as a public meeting place when one was needed.
Instead of using furniture, they sat on the floor, which was covered with two layers of mats, one of rush, the other of a water plant with long sword shaped leaves (iris pseudacorus, whose English names include "water-flag"); and for beds they spread planks, hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for coverlets. The men used chopsticks when eating; the women had wooden spoon
s. Ainu cuisine
is not commonly eaten outside Ainu communities; there are only a few Ainu-run restaurants in Japan, all located in Tokyo or Hokkaidō, serving primarily Japanese fare.
The functions of judgeship were not entrusted to chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not exist, nor did the community resort to imprisonment. Beating
was considered a sufficient and final penalty. However, in the case of murder, the nose and ears of the culprit were cut off or the tendons of his feet severed.
), rabbit
, fox
, raccoon dog
and other animals. Ezo deer were a particularly important food resource for the Ainu as were salmon
. They also hunted sea eagles such as white-tailed sea eagles, raven and other birds. The Ainu hunted eagles to obtain their tail feathers, which they used in trade with the Japanese. The Ainu hunted with arrows
and spear
s with poison-coated points. They obtained the poison
, called "surku", from the roots and stalks of aconites
. The recipe for this poison was a household secret that differed from family to family. They enhanced the poison with mixtures of roots and stalks of dog's bane, boiled juice of Mekuragumo, Matsumomushi, tobacco
, and other ingredients. They also used stingray stingers or skin covering stingers. They hunted in groups with dogs. Before the Ainu went hunting, for animals like bear in particular, they prayed to the god of fire and the house guardian god to convey their wishes for a large catch, and safe hunting to the god of mountains.
The Ainu usually hunted bear during the time of the spring thaw. At that time bears were weak because they had not fed at all during long hibernation. Ainu hunters caught hibernating bears or bears that had just left hibernation dens. When they hunted bear in summer, they used a spring trap loaded with an arrow, called an "amappo".
The Ainu usually used arrows to hunt deer. Also they often used traps, including spring traps loaded with arrows. Also, they drove deer into a river or sea and shot them with arrows. For a large catch, a whole village would drive a herd of deer off a cliff and club them to death.
The most important is grandmother earth (fire), then kamui of the mountain
(animals), then kamui of the sea (sea animals
), lastly everything else. They have no priests by profession.
The village chief performs whatever religious ceremonies are necessary; ceremonies are confined to making libation
s of rice beer, uttering prayers
, and offering willow
sticks with wooden shavings attached to them. These sticks are called inaw (singular) and nusa (plural).
They are placed on an altar used to "send back" the spirits of killed animals. Ainu ceremonies for sending back bears are called Iomante
. The Ainu people give thanks to the gods before eating and pray to the deity of fire in time of sickness
. They believe their spirits are immortal
, and that their spirits will be rewarded hereafter by ascending to kamui mosir (Land of the Gods).
The Ainu believe the bear
is very special because they think the bear is the mountain kamuys way of delivering the gift of bear hide and meat to the humans.
Some Ainu in the north are members of the Russian Orthodox Church
.
called "sapanpe" for important ceremonies. Sapanpe was made from wood fiber with bundles of partially-shaved wood. This crown had wooden figures of animal gods and other ornaments on its center. Men carried an "emush" (sword) secured by an "emush at" strap to their shoulders.
Women wore a "matanpushi" (embroidered headband) and "ninkari" (earrings).
Ninkari was a metal ring
with a ball. Women wore it through a hole in the ear. Matanpushi and ninkari were originally worn by men. However, women wear them now. Furthermore, aprons called "maidari" now are a part of women's formal clothes. However, some old documents say that men wore maidari. Women sometimes wore a bracelet called "tekunkani."
Women wore a necklace called "rekutunpe," a long, narrow strip of cloth with metal plaques. They wore a necklace that reached the breast called a "tamasay
" or "shitoki," usually made from glass balls. Some glass balls came from trade with the Asian continent. The Ainu also obtained glass balls secretly made by the Matsumae Clan.
. The average number of families was four to seven, rarely reaching more than ten. In the early modern times, the Ainu people were forced to labor at the fishing grounds of the Japanese. Ainu kotan were also forced to move near fishing grounds so that the Japanese could secure a labor force. When the Japanese moved to other fishing grounds, Ainu kotan were also forced to accompany them. As a result, the traditional kotan disappeared and large villages of several dozen families were formed around the fishing grounds.
Kotan houses were made of cogon grasses, bamboo grass, bark
s, etc. The length lay east to west or parallel to a river. A house was about seven meters by five with an entrance at the west end that also served as a storeroom. The house had three windows, including the "rorun-puyar," a window located on the side facing the entrance (at the east side), through which gods entered and left and ceremonial tools were taken in and out. The Ainu have regarded this window as sacred and have been told never to look in through it. A house had a fireplace near the entrance. The husband and wife sat on the fireplace's left side (called "shiso") . Children and guests sat facing them on the fireplace's right side (called "harkiso"). The house had a platform for valuables called "iyoykir" behind the shiso. The Ainu placed "shintoko"(hokai) and "ikayop" (quivers) there.
Outbuildings included separate lavatories for men called "ashinru" and for women called "menokoru", a "pu" (storehouse) for food, a "heper set" (cage for young bear), and drying-racks for fish and wild plants. An altar "nusasan" faced the east side of the house (rorunpuyar). The Ainu held such ceremonies there as "lyomante," a ceremony to send the spirit of a bear to the gods.
The age of marriage was 17–18 years old for men and 15–16 years for women, who were tattoo
ed. At these ages, both sexes were regarded as adults.
When a man proposed to a woman, he visited her house, ate half a full bowl of rice handed to him by her, and returned the rest to her. If the woman ate the rest, she accepted his proposal. If she did not and put it beside her, she rejected his proposal. When a man became engaged to a woman or they learned that their engagement had been arranged, they exchanged gifts with each other. He sent her a small engraved knife, a workbox, a spool and other gifts. She sent him embroidered clothes, coverings for the back of the hand, Ieggings, and other handmade clothes. According to some books, many yomeiri marriages, in which a bride went to the house of a bridegroom with her belongings to become a member of his family, were conducted in the old days.
For a yomeiri marriage, a man and his father would bring betrothal gifts to the house of a woman, including a sword, a treasured sword, an ornamental quiver, a sword guard, and a woven basket (hokai). If the man and woman agreed to marry, the man and his father would bring her to their house or the man would stay at her house for a while and then bring her to his house. At the wedding ceremony, participants prayed to the god of fire. Bride and bridegroom respectively ate half of the rice served in a bowl, and other participants were entertained.
The worn-out fabric of old clothing was used for baby clothes because soft cloth was good for the skin of babies and worn-out material protected babies from gods of illness and demons due to these gods' abhorrence of dirty things. Before a baby was breast-fed, he/she was given a decoction of the endodermis of alder and the roots of butterburs to discharge impurities. Children were raised almost naked until about the ages of four to five. Even when they wore clothes, they did not wear belts and left the front of their clothes open. Subsequently they wore bark clothes without patterns, such as attush, until coming of age.
Newborn babies were named ayay (a baby's crying), shipo, poyshi (small excrement), shion (old excrement), etc. Children were called by these "temporary" names until the ages of two to three. They were not given permanent names when they were born. Their tentative names had a portion meaning "excrement" or "old things" to ward off the demon of ill-health. Some children were named based on their behavior or habits. Other children were named after impressive events or after parents' wishes for the future of the children. When children were named, they were never given the same names as others.
Men wore loincloth
s and had their hair dressed properly for the first time at age 15–16. Women were also considered adults at the age of 15–16. They wore underclothes called mour and had their hair dressed properly and wound waistcloths called raunkut, ponkut, etc. around their bodies. When women reached age 12–13, the lips, hands and arms were tattooed. When they reached age 15–16, their tattoos were completed. Thus were they qualified for marriage.
. This theory is based largely on skeletal and cultural evidence among tribes living in the western part of North America and certain parts of South America
.
It is possible that North America had several peoples among its early settlers—these relatives of the Jōmon being one of them. The best known evidence that may support this theory is probably Kennewick Man
.
Genetic mapping studies by Cavalli-Sforza have shown a sharp gradient in gene frequencies centered in the area around the Sea of Japan
, and particularly in the Japanese Archipelago
, that distinguishes these populations from others in the rest of eastern Asia and most of the American continent. This gradient appears as the third most important genetic movement (in other words, the third principal component of genetic variation) in Eurasia (after the "Great expansion" from Africa
, which has a cline centered in Arabia and adjacent parts of the Middle East
, and a second cline that distinguishes the northern regions of Eurasia, and particularly Siberia
, from southerly parts of the continent), which would make it consistent with the early Jōmon period, or possibly even the pre-Jōmon period.
Most Hokkaido Ainu and some other Ainu are members of an umbrella group called the Hokkaido Utari Association
. It was originally controlled by the government to speed Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation-state
. It now is run exclusively by Ainu and operates mostly independently of the government.
Other key institutions include The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC), set up by the Japanese Government after enactment of the Ainu Culture Law in 1997, the Hokkaido University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies established in 2007, as well as museums and cultural centers. Ainu people living in Tokyo have also developed a vibrant political and cultural community.
watershed in southern Hokkaido. The dams were part of a series of development projects under the Second National Development Plan that were intended to industrialize the north of Japan. The planned location for one of the dams was across the valley floor close to Nibutani
village, the home of a large community of Ainu people and an important center of Ainu culture and history. In the early 1980s when the government commenced construction on the dam, two Ainu landowners refused to agree to the expropriation of their land. These landowners were Kaizawa Tadashi and Kayano Shigeru
—well-known and important leaders in the Ainu community. After Kaizawa and Kayano declined to sell their land, the Hokkaido Development Bureau applied for and was subsequently granted a Project Authorization, which required the men to vacate their land. When their appeal of the Authorization was denied, Kayano and Kaizawa's son Koichii (Kaizawa died in 1992), filed suit against the Hokkaido Development Bureau.
The final decision denied the relief sought by the plaintiffs for pragmatic reasons—the dam was already standing—but the decision was nonetheless heralded as a landmark victory for the Ainu people. In short, nearly all of the plaintiffs' claims were recognized. Moreover, the decision marked the first time Japanese case law acknowledged the Ainu as an indigenous people and contemplated the responsibility of the Japanese nation to the indigenous people within its borders. The decision included broad fact-finding that underscored the long history of the oppression of the Ainu people by Japan's majority, referred to as "Wajin" in the case and discussions about the case. The legal roots of the decision can be found in Article 13 of Japan's Constitution, which protects the rights of the individual, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The decision was issued on March 27, 1997, and because of the broad implications for Ainu rights, the plaintiffs decided not to appeal the decision, which became final two week later. After the decision was issued, on May 8, 1997, the Diet passed the Ainu Culture Law and repealed the Ainu Protection Act—the 1899 law that had been the vehicle of Ainu oppression for almost one hundred years. While the Ainu Culture Law has been widely criticized for its shortcomings, the shift that it represents in Japan's view of the Ainu people is a testament to the importance of the Nibutani decision. In 2007 the 'Cultural Landscape along the Sarugawa River
resulting from Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement' was designated an Important Cultural Landscape
. A later action seeking restoration of Ainu assets held in trust by the Japanese Government was dismissed in 2008.
More recently, a panel was established in 2006, which notably was the first time an Ainu person was included. It completed its work in 2008 issuing a major report that included an extensive historical record and called for substantial government policy changes towards the Ainu.
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
people or groups in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
and related varieties
Ainu languages
The Ainu languages were a small language family spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. They are alternately considered a...
and lived in Hokkaidō
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
, the Kuril Islands
Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands , in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater...
, and much of Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
. Most of those who identify themselves as Ainu still live in this same region, though the exact number of living Ainu is unknown. This is due to confusion over mixed heritages and to ethnic issues in Japan
Ethnic issues in Japan
- Demographic :About 1.6% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign nationals. Of these, according to 2008 data from the Japanese government, the principal groups are as follows....
resulting in those with Ainu backgrounds hiding their identities. In Japan, because of intermarriage over many years with Japanese, the concept of a pure Ainu ethnic group is no longer feasible. Official estimates of the population are of around 25,000, while the unofficial number is upward of 200,000 people.
History
Ainu culture dates from around 1200 CE and recent research suggests that it originated in a merger of the OkhotskOkhotsk culture
The Okhotsk culture is an archeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk : the Amur River basin, Sakhalin, northern Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka...
and Satsumon
Satsumon culture
The is a post-Jomon partially agricultural archeological culture of northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido that has been identified as the Emishi, as a Japanese-Emishi mixed culture, as the incipient modern Ainu, or with all three synonymously. It may have arisen as a merger of the Yayoi–Kofun and...
cultures. In 1264, Nivkh people reported to the Yuan Dynasty
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
of the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...
that Ainu invaded the land of Nivkh, resulting in battles between Ainu and the Yuan Dynasty. Active contact between the Wajin (the ethnically Japanese) and the Ainu of Ezochi (now known as Hokkaido
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
) began in the 13th century. The Ainu were a society of hunter-gatherers, who lived mainly by hunting and fishing, and the people followed a religion based on phenomena of nature.
During the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) the Ainu became increasingly involved in trade with Japanese who controlled the southern portion of the island that is now called Hokkaido. The Bakufu government granted the Matsumae clan
Matsumae clan
The was a Japanese clan which was granted the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension all of Japan, from the Ainu 'barbarians' to the north. The clan was originally known as the Kakizaki clan who settled...
exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu in the Northern part of the island. Later the Matsumae began to lease out trading rights to Japanese merchants, and contact between Japanese and Ainu became more extensive. Throughout this period Ainu became increasingly dependent on goods imported by Japanese, and suffered from epidemic diseases such as smallpox. Although the increased contact brought by trade between the Japanese and the Ainu contributed to increased mutual understanding, sometimes it led to conflict, occasionally intensifying into violent Ainu revolts, of which the most important was Shakushain's Revolt
Shakushain's Revolt
was an Ainu rebellion against Japanese authority on Hokkaidō between 1669 to 1672. It was led by Ainu chieftain Shakushain against the Matsumae clan, who represented Japanese trading and governmental interests in the area of Hokkaidō then controlled by the Japanese .The war initially began as a...
(1669–1672).
The turning point for Ainu culture was the beginning of the Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
in 1868. A variety of social, political and economic reforms were introduced by the Japanese government, in hope of modernising the country in the Western style, and included the annexation of Hokkaido. Sjöberg quotes Baba’s (1980) account of the Japanese government's reasoning:
‘ … The development of Japan's large northern island had several objectives: First, it was seen as a means to defend Japan from a rapidly developing and expansionist Russia. Second … it offered a solution to the unemployment for the former samurai class … Finally, development promised to yield the needed natural resources for a growing capitalist economy.’
In 1899, the Japanese government passed an act labeling the Ainu as former aborigines, with the idea they would assimilate—this resulted in the land the Ainu people lived on being taken by the Japanese government, and was from then on under Japanese control. Also at this time, the Ainu were granted automatic Japanese citizenship, effectively denying them the status of an indigenous group.
The 1899 act mentioned above was replaced in 1997—until then the government had stated there were no ethnic minority groups. It was not until June 6, 2008 that Japan formally recognised the Ainu as an indigenous group (see Official Recognition, below).
Oki (musician)
, known professionally as OKI, is an Ainu Japanese musician, from Kanagawa Prefecture. He studied industrial arts at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. His father, Bikki Sunazawa, was a renowned wood sculptor. Oki uses the tonkori, an Ainu stringed instrument, in his...
, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument tonkori
Tonkori
The is a plucked string instrument played by the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, northern Japan and Sakhalin. It is unfretted and has between three and five strings, which are not stopped but instead played "open." The instrument is believed to have been developed in the Karafuto region of Sakhalin.The...
. There are many small towns in the southeastern or Hidaka
Hidaka Subprefecture
is a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan. The west side of the Hidaka mountains occupies most of the area. Hidaka is sparsely populated and has many of Hokkaidō's natural resources...
region where full-blooded Ainu may still be seen such as in Nibutani
Nibutani
The Nibutani , Niputay in Ainu, district is part of the town of Biratori in Hokkaidō, Japan, a particularly large proportion of the population of which is of the indigenous Ainu ethnicity. It is the site of the Nibutani Dam, and the hometown of Shigeru Kayano. Nibutani is also the site of two Ainu...
(Ainu
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
: Niputay). Many such children live in Sambutsu especially, on the eastern coast.
Their most widely known ethnonym
Ethnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
is derived from the word ainu, which means "human" (particularly as opposed to kamui, divine beings), basically neither ethnicity nor the name of a race, in the Hokkaidō dialects of the Ainu language
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
; Emishi
Emishi
The constituted a group of people who lived in northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region. They are referred to as in contemporary sources. Some Emishi tribes resisted the rule of the Japanese Emperors during the late Nara and early Heian periods...
(Ebisu) and Ezo
Ezo
is a Japanese name which historically referred to the lands to the north of Japan. It was used in various senses, sometimes meaning the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and sometimes meaning lands and waters further north in the Sea of Okhotsk, like Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands...
[endzo] (Yezo) (both ) are Japanese terms, which are believed to derive from another word for "human", which otherwise survived in Sakhalin Ainu as enciw or enju. Today, many Ainu dislike the term Ainu because it had once been used with derogatory nuance, and prefer to identify themselves as Utari (comrade in the Ainu language). Official documents use both names.
Official recognition
On June 6, 2008, a bi-partisan, non-binding resolution was approved by the Japanese Diet calling upon the government to recognize the Ainu people as indigenous to JapanIndigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
, and urging an end to discrimination against the group. The resolution recognised the Ainu people as "an indigenous people with a distinct language, religion and culture", and rescinded the law passed in 1899.
Though the resolution is historically significant, Hideaki Uemura, professor at Keisen University
Keisen University
is a private women's college in Tama, Tokyo, Japan, established in 1988. The university is linked to the Keisen School for Young Women, founded in 1929 by Michi Kawai, the National Secretary of the Young Women's Christian Associations of Japan.- Philosophy :...
in Tokyo and a specialist in indigenous peoples' rights, commented that the motion is "weak in the sense of recognizing historical facts" as the Ainu were "forced" to become Japanese in the first place.
Origins
The Ainu have often been considered to descend from the Jōmon-jin people, who lived in Japan from the Jōmon periodJomon period
The is the time in Japanese prehistory from about 14,000 BC to 300 BC.The term jōmon means "cord-patterned" in Japanese. This refers to the pottery style characteristic of the Jōmon culture, and which has markings made using sticks with cords wrapped around them...
. One of their Yukar
Yukar
are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers....
Upopo, or Ainu legends, tells that "The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came."
Ainu culture as it is known today dates from around the year 1200, and recent research suggests that it originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture
Okhotsk culture
The Okhotsk culture is an archeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk : the Amur River basin, Sakhalin, northern Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka...
with the Satsumon, one of the ancient Japanese cultures. Their economy was based on farming, as well as hunting, fishing and gathering.
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
ancestry, although recent DNA tests have not shown any genetic similarity with modern caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
Europeans. Ainu men have abundant, wavy hair and often have long beards. In the book of "Ainu life and legends" by author Kyōsuke Kindaichi (published by the Japanese Tourist Board in 1942) contains the physical description of Ainu : Many Ainu people have wavy hair, but some straight black hair. Very few of them have wavy brownish hair. Their skins are generally reported to be light brown. But this is due to the fact that they labor on the sea and in briny winds all day. Old people who have long desisted from their outdoor work are often found to be as white as western men. The Ainu have broad faces, beetling eyebrows, and large sunken eyes, which are generally horizontal and of the so-called European type. Eyes of the Mongolian type are hardly found among them.
Genetic testing of the Ainu people has shown them to belong mainly to Y-haplogroup D2
Haplogroup D (Y-DNA)
In human genetics, Haplogroup D is a Y-chromosome haplogroup. Both D and E lineages also exhibit the single-nucleotide polymorphism M168 which is present in all Y-chromosome haplogroups except A and B, as well as the YAP unique-event polymorphism, which is unique to Haplogroup...
. Y-DNA haplogroup D2 is found frequently throughout the Japanese Archipelago
Japanese Archipelago
The , which forms the country of Japan, extends roughly from northeast to southwest along the northeastern coast of the Eurasia mainland, washing upon the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean...
including Okinawa. The only places outside of Japan in which Y-haplogroup D is common are Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
and the Andaman Islands
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
in the Indian Ocean.
In a study by Tajima et al. (2004), two out of a sample of sixteen (or 12.5%) Ainu men have been found to belong to Haplogroup C3
Haplogroup C3 (Y-DNA)
In human genetics, Haplogroup C3 is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup mainly found in indigenous Siberians, Kazakhs and Mongolians. Haplogroup C3 is the most widespread and frequently occurring branch of the greater Haplogroup C...
, which is the most common Y-chromosome haplogroup among the indigenous populations of the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
and Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
. Hammer et al. (2006) have tested a sample of four Ainu men and have found that one of them belongs to haplogroup C3. Some researchers have speculated that this minority of Haplogroup C3 carriers among the Ainu may reflect a certain degree of unidirectional genetic influence from the Nivkhs
Nivkhs
The Nivkh are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the region of the Amur River estuary in Russia's Khabarovsk Krai. Nivkh were mainly fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders...
, a traditionally nomadic people of northern Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland, with whom the Ainu have long-standing cultural interactions.
Based on analysis of one sample of 51 modern Ainus, their mtDNA lineages have been reported to consist mainly of haplogroup Y
Haplogroup Y (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup Y is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Distribution:Haplogroup Y has been found in approximately 66% of Nivkhs and approximately 20% of Ainus. However, this haplogroup also has been found in approximately 2% of Koreans, and in South Siberian and...
(11/51 = 21.6% according to Tanaka et al. 2004, or 10/51 = 19.6% according to Adachi et al. 2009, who have cited Tajima et al. 2004), haplogroup D
Haplogroup D (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup D is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Origin:Haplogroup D is believed to have arisen in Asia some 48,000 years before present. It is a descendant haplogroup of haplogroup M.-Distribution:...
(9/51 = 17.6%, particularly D4(xD1)), haplogroup M7a
Haplogroup M (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup M is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. An enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, the macro-haplogroup M, like its sibling N, is a descendant of haplogroup L3....
(8/51 = 15.7%), and haplogroup G1
Haplogroup G (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup G is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Origin:Haplogroup G is a descendant of haplogroup M. Haplogroup G is divided into subclades G1 and G2a, which represent the Koryaks and Itelmen.-Distribution:...
(8/51 = 15.7%).
Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup Y is otherwise found mainly among Nivkhs
Nivkhs
The Nivkh are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the region of the Amur River estuary in Russia's Khabarovsk Krai. Nivkh were mainly fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders...
, and with lower frequency among Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples
Tungusic peoples are the peoples who speak Tungusic languages. The word originated in Tunguska, an ill-defined region of Siberia.-Peoples:Tungusic peoples are:*Evenks*Evens*Jurchens *Manchu*Negidals...
, Koreans, Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
(including Kalmyks and Buryats
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...
), Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
, Japanese, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
ns, South Siberian Turkic peoples (e.g. Tuvans
Tuvans
Tuvans or Tuvinians are Turkic peoples living in southern Siberia. They are historically known as one of the Uriankhai, from the Mongolian designation...
, Todjins, Soyots
Soyots
The Soyot people live in Russia. According to the 2002 census, there were 2769 Soyots in Russia. Their extinct language was of Turkic type and basically similar to the Tuvans, but they live in the Oka Region of Buryatia. Their language has been reconstructed and a textbook has been published...
), Koryaks
Koryaks
Koryaks are an indigenous people of Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, who inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea to the south of the Anadyr basin and the country to the immediate north of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the southernmost limit of their range being Tigilsk. They are akin to the...
, Alyutors
Alyutors
The Alyutors are an ethnic group who lived on the Kamchatka and Chukotka peninsulas of the Russian Far East. Today most of them live in the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. The name also occurs as Olyutorka, a settlement where many of the Alyutors used to live...
, Itelmens
Itelmens
The Itelmen, sometimes known as Kamchadal, are an ethnic group who are the original inhabitants living on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family, but it is now virtually extinct, the vast...
, Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
, Filipinos
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
ns, and Malaysians. MtDNA Haplogroup D is found frequently throughout East Asia and Central Asia, and is also common in some populations of North Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Americas; in addition, it has been found with low frequency in some populations of Europe and Southwest Asia. Haplogroup M7a has been found elsewhere mainly among Japanese and Ryukyuans, and with lower frequency among Udegeys, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
, Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
, Buryats
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...
, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
ns, and Waars
War language
War , War-Jaintia or Amwi is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken by about 16,000 people in Bangladesh and 12,000 people in India....
of the Jaintia Hills
Jaintia Hills district
Jaintia Hills is an administrative district in the state of Meghalaya in India. The present district was created in 22 February 1972 and occupies an area of 3819 km². It has a population of 295,692 , of which a vast majority is rural. The district headquarters are located at Jowai...
in Meghalaya
Meghalaya
Meghalaya is a state in north-eastern India. The word "Meghalaya" literally means the Abode of Clouds in Sanskrit and other Indic languages. Meghalaya is a hilly strip in the eastern part of the country about 300 km long and 100 km wide, with a total area of about 8,700 sq mi . The...
, India. MtDNA Haplogroup G has been found most frequently among indigenous populations of easternmost Siberia, but it is also common among some populations of East Asia, Central Asia, the Altai-Sayan region of southern Siberia, and the sub-Himalayan region.
A recent reevaluation of cranial traits suggests that the Ainu resemble the Okhotsk more than they do the Jōmon. This agrees with the reference to the Ainu culture being a merger of Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures referenced above.
After a new wave of immigration, probably from the Korean Peninsula some 2,300 years ago, of the Yayoi people, the Jōmon were pushed into northern Japan. Genetic data suggest that modern Japanese are descended from both the Yayoi and the Jōmon.
Geography
The Ainu were distributed in the northern and central islands of Japan, from Sakhalin island in the north to the Kuril islands and the island of Hokkaidō and Northern Honshū, although some investigators place their former range as throughout Honshū and as far north as the southern tip of the Kamchatka PeninsulaKamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
in what is now Cape Lopatka
Cape Lopatka
Cape Lopatka is the southernmost point of Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, with the rural locality of Semenovka at its southernmost point. Cape Lopatka lies about north of Shumshu, the northernmost island of the Kuril Islands...
. The island of Hokkaido was known to the Ainu as Ainu Moshir, and was formally annexed by the Japanese at the late date of 1868, partly as a means of preventing the intrusion of the Russians, and partly for imperialist reasons.
According to the Russian Empire Census
Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....
of 1897, 1446 persons in the Russian Empire reported Ainu language as their mother tongue, 1434 of them in Sakhalin Island.
The southern half of Sakhalin was acquired by Japan as a result of the Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
of 1904–05, but at the end of World War II in 1945, the Soviets declared war on Japan and took possession of the Kuril islands and southern Sakhalin. The Ainu population, as previously Japanese subjects, were "repatriated" to Japan.
According to the 2002 Russian Federation census, no responders gave the ethnonym Ainu in boxes 7 or 9.2 in the K-1 form of the census, though some still might exist.
The only Ainu speakers remaining (besides perhaps a few partial speakers) live solely in Japan. There, they are concentrated primarily on the southern and eastern coasts of the island of Hokkaidō.
Due to intermarriage with the Japanese and ongoing absorption into the predominant culture, there are no truly Ainu settlements existing in Japan today. The town of Nibutani
Nibutani
The Nibutani , Niputay in Ainu, district is part of the town of Biratori in Hokkaidō, Japan, a particularly large proportion of the population of which is of the indigenous Ainu ethnicity. It is the site of the Nibutani Dam, and the hometown of Shigeru Kayano. Nibutani is also the site of two Ainu...
(Ainu
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
: Niputay) in Hidaka area (Hokkaido prefecture) has a number of Ainu households and a visit to some of the Ainu owned craft shops close to the Ainu museums (there are two of them in Nibutani) is an opportunity to interact with the Ainu people. Many "authentic Ainu villages" advertised in Hokkaido such as Akan
Akan, Hokkaido
was a town located in Akan District, Kushiro Subprefecture, Hokkaidō.As of September 30, 2004 it had an estimated population of 6,518 and an area of 739.25 km²...
and Shiraoi
Shiraoi, Hokkaido
is a town located in Shiraoi District, Iburi, Hokkaidō, Japan. As of 31 May 2008, the town had a population of 20,371 The town was established in 1867 by the feudal lords of Sendai. Most of the area of the town is forested and parts lie within the Shikotsu-Tōya National Park.-History:Shiraoi like...
are tourist attractions and provide an opportunity to see and meet Ainu people.
Language
Today, it is estimated that fewer than 100 speakers of the language remain, while other research places the number at fewer than 15 speakers – the language has been regarded as “endangered”. As a result of this the study of the Ainu language is limited and is based largely on historical research.The Ainu language is significantly different from the Japanese language in its syntax, phonology, morphology, and vocabulary. Although there have been attempts to show that they are related, modern scholars have rejected that the relationship goes beyond contact, such as the mutual borrowing of words between Japanese and Ainu. In fact, no attempt to show a relationship with Ainu to any other language has gained wide acceptance, and Ainu is currently considered to be a language isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
.
Words used as prepositions in English (such as to, from, by, in, and at) are postpositional in Ainu; they come after the word that they modify. A single sentence in Ainu can be made up of many added or agglutinated sounds or morphemes that represent nouns or ideas.
The Ainu language has had no system of writing, and has historically been transliterated by the Japanese kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
or the Russian Cyrillic. Today, it is typically written in either katakana or Latin alphabet. The unwieldy nature of the Japanese kana with its inability to accurately represent terminal consonants has contributed to the degradation of the original Ainu. For example, some words, such as "Kor" (meaning "to hold"), are now pronounced with a terminal vowel sound, as in "Koro".
Many of the Ainu dialects, even from one end of Hokkaido to the other, were not mutually intelligible; however, the classic Ainu language of the Yukar
Yukar
are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers....
, or Ainu epic stories, was understood by all. Without a writing system, the Ainu were masters of narration, with the Yukar and other forms of narration such as the Uepeker (Uwepeker) tales, being committed to memory and related at gatherings, often lasting many hours or even days.
Culture
Traditional Ainu culture was quite different from Japanese cultureCulture of Japan
The culture of Japan has evolved greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period to its contemporary hybrid culture, which combines influences from Asia, Europe and North America...
. Never shaving after a certain age, the men had full beard
Beard
A beard is the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck of human beings. Usually, only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. However, women with hirsutism may develop a beard...
s and moustache
Moustache
A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair style grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.-Etymology:...
s. Men and women alike cut their hair
Hair
Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....
level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, trimmed semicircularly behind. The women tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ed their mouth
Mouth
The mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food andsaliva. The oral mucosa is the mucous membrane epithelium lining the inside of the mouth....
s, and sometimes the forearm
Forearm
-See also:*Forearm flexors*Forearm muscles...
s. The mouth tattoos were started at a young age with a small spot on the upper lip, gradually increasing with size. The soot deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark was used for color. Their traditional dress
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
was a robe spun from the inner bark of the elm tree, called attusi or attush. Various styles of clothing were made, and consisted generally of a simple short robe with straight sleeves, which was folded around the body, and tied with a band about the waist. The sleeves ended at the wrist or forearm and the length generally was to the calves. Women also wore an undergarment of Japanese cloth.
Modern craftswomen weave and embroider traditional garments that command very high prices. In winter the skins of animals were worn, with leggings of deerskin and in Sakhalin, boots were made from the skin of dogs or salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
. Both sexes are fond of earring
Earring
Common locations for piercings, other than the earlobe, include the rook, tragus, and across the helix . The simple term "ear piercing" usually refers to an earlobe piercing, whereas piercings in the upper part of the external ear are often referred to as "cartilage piercings"...
s, which are said to have been made of grape
Grape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
vine in former times, as also are bead necklaces called tamasay
Tamasay
A tamasay is a bead necklace worn by Ainu women for special occasions.The necklace is called a shitoki if it has a medallion. They are made with large glass beads the Ainu obtained through trading with Chinese merchants. The Ainu also obtained glass beads secretly made by the Matsumae Clan...
, which the women prized highly.
Their traditional cuisine consists of the flesh of bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
, fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, wolf, badger
Badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are nine species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...
, ox
Ox
An ox , also known as a bullock in Australia, New Zealand and India, is a bovine trained as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals more tractable...
or horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
, as well as fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, fowl
Fowl
Fowl is a word for birds in general but usually refers to birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl and the waterfowl...
, millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
, vegetable
Vegetable
The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
s, herb
Herb
Except in botanical usage, an herb is "any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume" or "a part of such a plant as used in cooking"...
s, and root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s. They never ate raw fish or flesh; it was always boiled or roasted.
Their traditional habitations were reed-thatched huts, the largest 20 ft (6 m) square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the center. There was no chimney, only a hole at the angle of the roof; there was one window on the eastern side and there were two doors. The house of the village head was used as a public meeting place when one was needed.
Instead of using furniture, they sat on the floor, which was covered with two layers of mats, one of rush, the other of a water plant with long sword shaped leaves (iris pseudacorus, whose English names include "water-flag"); and for beds they spread planks, hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for coverlets. The men used chopsticks when eating; the women had wooden spoon
Spoon
A spoon is a utensil consisting of a small shallow bowl, oval or round, at the end of a handle. A type of cutlery , especially as part of a place setting, it is used primarily for serving. Spoons are also used in food preparation to measure, mix, stir and toss ingredients...
s. Ainu cuisine
Ainu cuisine
Ainu cuisine is the cuisine of the ethnic Ainu in Japan. The cuisine differs markedly from that of the Wajin, or ethnic Japanese. Ainu cuisine, for instance, does not prepare raw meats like sashimi instead preferring to boil, roast or cure meat...
is not commonly eaten outside Ainu communities; there are only a few Ainu-run restaurants in Japan, all located in Tokyo or Hokkaidō, serving primarily Japanese fare.
The functions of judgeship were not entrusted to chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not exist, nor did the community resort to imprisonment. Beating
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
was considered a sufficient and final penalty. However, in the case of murder, the nose and ears of the culprit were cut off or the tendons of his feet severed.
Hunting
The Ainu hunted from late autumn to early summer. The reasons for this were, among others, that in late autumn, plant gathering, salmon fishing and other activities of securing food came to an end, and hunters readily found game in fields and mountains in which plants had withered. A village possessed a hunting ground of its own or several villages used a joint hunting territory (iwor) . Heavy penalties were imposed on any outsiders trespassing on such hunting grounds or joint hunting territory. The Ainu hunted bear, Ezo deer (a subspecies of sika deerSika Deer
The Sika Deer, Cervus nippon, also known as the Spotted Deer or the Japanese Deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to various other parts of the world...
), rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
, fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, raccoon dog
Raccoon Dog
The raccoon dog , also known as the magnut or tanuki, is a canid indigenous to east Asia. It is the only extant species in the genus Nyctereutes...
and other animals. Ezo deer were a particularly important food resource for the Ainu as were salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
. They also hunted sea eagles such as white-tailed sea eagles, raven and other birds. The Ainu hunted eagles to obtain their tail feathers, which they used in trade with the Japanese. The Ainu hunted with arrows
Arrows
Arrows Grand Prix International was a British Formula One team active from to . For a period of time, it was also known as Footwork.-Origins :...
and spear
Spear
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head.The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...
s with poison-coated points. They obtained the poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
, called "surku", from the roots and stalks of aconites
Aconitum
Aconitum , known as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, Devil's helmet or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the buttercup family .-Overview:These herbaceous perennial plants are chiefly natives of the mountainous parts of the...
. The recipe for this poison was a household secret that differed from family to family. They enhanced the poison with mixtures of roots and stalks of dog's bane, boiled juice of Mekuragumo, Matsumomushi, tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, and other ingredients. They also used stingray stingers or skin covering stingers. They hunted in groups with dogs. Before the Ainu went hunting, for animals like bear in particular, they prayed to the god of fire and the house guardian god to convey their wishes for a large catch, and safe hunting to the god of mountains.
The Ainu usually hunted bear during the time of the spring thaw. At that time bears were weak because they had not fed at all during long hibernation. Ainu hunters caught hibernating bears or bears that had just left hibernation dens. When they hunted bear in summer, they used a spring trap loaded with an arrow, called an "amappo".
The Ainu usually used arrows to hunt deer. Also they often used traps, including spring traps loaded with arrows. Also, they drove deer into a river or sea and shot them with arrows. For a large catch, a whole village would drive a herd of deer off a cliff and club them to death.
Religion
The Ainu are traditionally animists, believing that everything in nature has a kamuy (spirit or god) on the inside. There is a hierarchy of the kamui.The most important is grandmother earth (fire), then kamui of the mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
(animals), then kamui of the sea (sea animals
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
), lastly everything else. They have no priests by profession.
The village chief performs whatever religious ceremonies are necessary; ceremonies are confined to making libation
Libation
A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today....
s of rice beer, uttering prayers
Prayers
is an anime set in the year 2014 where the young of Japan have rebelled against the government for segregating Shibuya and declared themselves to be independent of Japan...
, and offering willow
Willow
Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...
sticks with wooden shavings attached to them. These sticks are called inaw (singular) and nusa (plural).
They are placed on an altar used to "send back" the spirits of killed animals. Ainu ceremonies for sending back bears are called Iomante
Iomante
is the name of an Ainu ceremony. The word literally means "to send something/someone off", and generally refers to the Ainu brown bear sacrifice. However, in some Ainu villages, it is a Blakiston's Fish Owl, rather than a bear, that is sacrificed. In Japanese, the ceremony is known as or,...
. The Ainu people give thanks to the gods before eating and pray to the deity of fire in time of sickness
Illness
Illness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...
. They believe their spirits are immortal
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
, and that their spirits will be rewarded hereafter by ascending to kamui mosir (Land of the Gods).
The Ainu believe the bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
is very special because they think the bear is the mountain kamuys way of delivering the gift of bear hide and meat to the humans.
Some Ainu in the north are members of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
.
Ornaments
Men wore a crownCrown (headgear)
A crown is the traditional symbolic form of headgear worn by a monarch or by a deity, for whom the crown traditionally represents power, legitimacy, immortality, righteousness, victory, triumph, resurrection, honour and glory of life after death. In art, the crown may be shown being offered to...
called "sapanpe" for important ceremonies. Sapanpe was made from wood fiber with bundles of partially-shaved wood. This crown had wooden figures of animal gods and other ornaments on its center. Men carried an "emush" (sword) secured by an "emush at" strap to their shoulders.
Women wore a "matanpushi" (embroidered headband) and "ninkari" (earrings).
Ninkari was a metal ring
Ring (jewellery)
A finger ring is a circular band worn as a type of ornamental jewelry around a finger; it is the most common current meaning of the word ring. Other types of metal bands worn as ornaments are also called rings, such as arm rings and neck rings....
with a ball. Women wore it through a hole in the ear. Matanpushi and ninkari were originally worn by men. However, women wear them now. Furthermore, aprons called "maidari" now are a part of women's formal clothes. However, some old documents say that men wore maidari. Women sometimes wore a bracelet called "tekunkani."
Women wore a necklace called "rekutunpe," a long, narrow strip of cloth with metal plaques. They wore a necklace that reached the breast called a "tamasay
Tamasay
A tamasay is a bead necklace worn by Ainu women for special occasions.The necklace is called a shitoki if it has a medallion. They are made with large glass beads the Ainu obtained through trading with Chinese merchants. The Ainu also obtained glass beads secretly made by the Matsumae Clan...
" or "shitoki," usually made from glass balls. Some glass balls came from trade with the Asian continent. The Ainu also obtained glass balls secretly made by the Matsumae Clan.
Housing
A village is called a "kotan" in the Ainu language. Kotan were located in river basins and seashores where food was readily available, particularly in the basins of rivers through which salmon went upstream. A village consisted basically of a paternal clanClan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
. The average number of families was four to seven, rarely reaching more than ten. In the early modern times, the Ainu people were forced to labor at the fishing grounds of the Japanese. Ainu kotan were also forced to move near fishing grounds so that the Japanese could secure a labor force. When the Japanese moved to other fishing grounds, Ainu kotan were also forced to accompany them. As a result, the traditional kotan disappeared and large villages of several dozen families were formed around the fishing grounds.
Kotan houses were made of cogon grasses, bamboo grass, bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
s, etc. The length lay east to west or parallel to a river. A house was about seven meters by five with an entrance at the west end that also served as a storeroom. The house had three windows, including the "rorun-puyar," a window located on the side facing the entrance (at the east side), through which gods entered and left and ceremonial tools were taken in and out. The Ainu have regarded this window as sacred and have been told never to look in through it. A house had a fireplace near the entrance. The husband and wife sat on the fireplace's left side (called "shiso") . Children and guests sat facing them on the fireplace's right side (called "harkiso"). The house had a platform for valuables called "iyoykir" behind the shiso. The Ainu placed "shintoko"(hokai) and "ikayop" (quivers) there.
Outbuildings included separate lavatories for men called "ashinru" and for women called "menokoru", a "pu" (storehouse) for food, a "heper set" (cage for young bear), and drying-racks for fish and wild plants. An altar "nusasan" faced the east side of the house (rorunpuyar). The Ainu held such ceremonies there as "lyomante," a ceremony to send the spirit of a bear to the gods.
Life of Ainu
The Ainu people had various types of marriage. A child was promised in marriage by arrangement between his or her parents and the parents of his or her betrothed or by a go-between. When the betrothed reached a marriageable age, they were told who their spouse was to be. There were also marriages based on mutual consent of both sexes. In some areas, when a daughter reached a marriageable age, her parents let her live in a small room called tunpu annexed to the southern wall of her house. The parents chose her spouse from men who visited her.The age of marriage was 17–18 years old for men and 15–16 years for women, who were tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ed. At these ages, both sexes were regarded as adults.
When a man proposed to a woman, he visited her house, ate half a full bowl of rice handed to him by her, and returned the rest to her. If the woman ate the rest, she accepted his proposal. If she did not and put it beside her, she rejected his proposal. When a man became engaged to a woman or they learned that their engagement had been arranged, they exchanged gifts with each other. He sent her a small engraved knife, a workbox, a spool and other gifts. She sent him embroidered clothes, coverings for the back of the hand, Ieggings, and other handmade clothes. According to some books, many yomeiri marriages, in which a bride went to the house of a bridegroom with her belongings to become a member of his family, were conducted in the old days.
For a yomeiri marriage, a man and his father would bring betrothal gifts to the house of a woman, including a sword, a treasured sword, an ornamental quiver, a sword guard, and a woven basket (hokai). If the man and woman agreed to marry, the man and his father would bring her to their house or the man would stay at her house for a while and then bring her to his house. At the wedding ceremony, participants prayed to the god of fire. Bride and bridegroom respectively ate half of the rice served in a bowl, and other participants were entertained.
The worn-out fabric of old clothing was used for baby clothes because soft cloth was good for the skin of babies and worn-out material protected babies from gods of illness and demons due to these gods' abhorrence of dirty things. Before a baby was breast-fed, he/she was given a decoction of the endodermis of alder and the roots of butterburs to discharge impurities. Children were raised almost naked until about the ages of four to five. Even when they wore clothes, they did not wear belts and left the front of their clothes open. Subsequently they wore bark clothes without patterns, such as attush, until coming of age.
Newborn babies were named ayay (a baby's crying), shipo, poyshi (small excrement), shion (old excrement), etc. Children were called by these "temporary" names until the ages of two to three. They were not given permanent names when they were born. Their tentative names had a portion meaning "excrement" or "old things" to ward off the demon of ill-health. Some children were named based on their behavior or habits. Other children were named after impressive events or after parents' wishes for the future of the children. When children were named, they were never given the same names as others.
Men wore loincloth
Loincloth
A loincloth is a one-piece male garment, sometimes kept in place by a belt, which covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks.-History and types:Loincloths are being and have been worn:*in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted...
s and had their hair dressed properly for the first time at age 15–16. Women were also considered adults at the age of 15–16. They wore underclothes called mour and had their hair dressed properly and wound waistcloths called raunkut, ponkut, etc. around their bodies. When women reached age 12–13, the lips, hands and arms were tattooed. When they reached age 15–16, their tattoos were completed. Thus were they qualified for marriage.
American continent connection theory
In the late 20th century, speculation arose that people of the group related to the Jōmon may have been one of the first to settle North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. This theory is based largely on skeletal and cultural evidence among tribes living in the western part of North America and certain parts of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
.
It is possible that North America had several peoples among its early settlers—these relatives of the Jōmon being one of them. The best known evidence that may support this theory is probably Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, USA, on July 28, 1996...
.
Genetic mapping studies by Cavalli-Sforza have shown a sharp gradient in gene frequencies centered in the area around the Sea of Japan
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
, and particularly in the Japanese Archipelago
Japanese Archipelago
The , which forms the country of Japan, extends roughly from northeast to southwest along the northeastern coast of the Eurasia mainland, washing upon the northwestern shores of the Pacific Ocean...
, that distinguishes these populations from others in the rest of eastern Asia and most of the American continent. This gradient appears as the third most important genetic movement (in other words, the third principal component of genetic variation) in Eurasia (after the "Great expansion" from Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, which has a cline centered in Arabia and adjacent parts of the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, and a second cline that distinguishes the northern regions of Eurasia, and particularly Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, from southerly parts of the continent), which would make it consistent with the early Jōmon period, or possibly even the pre-Jōmon period.
Institutions
Hokkaido Utari Association
The is an umbrella group of which most Hokkaidō Ainu and some other Ainu are members. Originally controlled by the government with the intention of speeding Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation state, it now operates independently of the government and is run exclusively by...
. It was originally controlled by the government to speed Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
. It now is run exclusively by Ainu and operates mostly independently of the government.
Other key institutions include The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC), set up by the Japanese Government after enactment of the Ainu Culture Law in 1997, the Hokkaido University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies established in 2007, as well as museums and cultural centers. Ainu people living in Tokyo have also developed a vibrant political and cultural community.
Litigation
On March 27, 1997, the Sapporo District Court decided a landmark case that, for the first time in Japanese history, recognized the right of the Ainu people to enjoy their distinct culture and traditions. The case arose because of a 1978 government plan to build two dams in the Saru RiverSaru River
Saru River is a river in Hokkaidō, Japan.The Saru River rises in the Hidaka Mountains and empties into the Pacific. The Nibutani Dam is situated on the Saru River, at Nibutani village. The construction of this dam was the subject of famous domestic litigation, producing the first ever Japanese...
watershed in southern Hokkaido. The dams were part of a series of development projects under the Second National Development Plan that were intended to industrialize the north of Japan. The planned location for one of the dams was across the valley floor close to Nibutani
Nibutani
The Nibutani , Niputay in Ainu, district is part of the town of Biratori in Hokkaidō, Japan, a particularly large proportion of the population of which is of the indigenous Ainu ethnicity. It is the site of the Nibutani Dam, and the hometown of Shigeru Kayano. Nibutani is also the site of two Ainu...
village, the home of a large community of Ainu people and an important center of Ainu culture and history. In the early 1980s when the government commenced construction on the dam, two Ainu landowners refused to agree to the expropriation of their land. These landowners were Kaizawa Tadashi and Kayano Shigeru
Shigeru Kayano
was one of the last native speakers of the Ainu language and a leading figure in the Ainu ethnic movement in Japan.- Early life :...
—well-known and important leaders in the Ainu community. After Kaizawa and Kayano declined to sell their land, the Hokkaido Development Bureau applied for and was subsequently granted a Project Authorization, which required the men to vacate their land. When their appeal of the Authorization was denied, Kayano and Kaizawa's son Koichii (Kaizawa died in 1992), filed suit against the Hokkaido Development Bureau.
The final decision denied the relief sought by the plaintiffs for pragmatic reasons—the dam was already standing—but the decision was nonetheless heralded as a landmark victory for the Ainu people. In short, nearly all of the plaintiffs' claims were recognized. Moreover, the decision marked the first time Japanese case law acknowledged the Ainu as an indigenous people and contemplated the responsibility of the Japanese nation to the indigenous people within its borders. The decision included broad fact-finding that underscored the long history of the oppression of the Ainu people by Japan's majority, referred to as "Wajin" in the case and discussions about the case. The legal roots of the decision can be found in Article 13 of Japan's Constitution, which protects the rights of the individual, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The decision was issued on March 27, 1997, and because of the broad implications for Ainu rights, the plaintiffs decided not to appeal the decision, which became final two week later. After the decision was issued, on May 8, 1997, the Diet passed the Ainu Culture Law and repealed the Ainu Protection Act—the 1899 law that had been the vehicle of Ainu oppression for almost one hundred years. While the Ainu Culture Law has been widely criticized for its shortcomings, the shift that it represents in Japan's view of the Ainu people is a testament to the importance of the Nibutani decision. In 2007 the 'Cultural Landscape along the Sarugawa River
Saru River
Saru River is a river in Hokkaidō, Japan.The Saru River rises in the Hidaka Mountains and empties into the Pacific. The Nibutani Dam is situated on the Saru River, at Nibutani village. The construction of this dam was the subject of famous domestic litigation, producing the first ever Japanese...
resulting from Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement' was designated an Important Cultural Landscape
Cultural Landscapes of Japan
Landscapes which have evolved together with the way of life and geocultural features of a region, and which are indispensable for understanding the lifestyle of the Japanese people, are recognized by the government of Japan as under article 2, paragraph 1, item 5 of the Law for the Protection of...
. A later action seeking restoration of Ainu assets held in trust by the Japanese Government was dismissed in 2008.
Governmental advisory boards
Much national policy in Japan has been developed out of the action of governmental advisory boards, known as shingikai/審議会 in Japanese. One such committee operated in the late 1990s, and its work resulted in the 1997 Ainu Culture Law. This panel's circumstances were criticized for including not even a single Ainu person among its members.More recently, a panel was established in 2006, which notably was the first time an Ainu person was included. It completed its work in 2008 issuing a major report that included an extensive historical record and called for substantial government policy changes towards the Ainu.
Formation of Ainu political party
A group of Ainu activists in Hokkaido announced the formation of a political party for the Ainu on October 30, 2011. The Ainu Association of Hokkaido reported that Kayano Shiro, the son of the former Ainu leader Kayano Shigeru, will head the party. Their aim is to contribute to the realization of a multicultural and multiethnic society in Japan, along with rights for the Ainu.;Subgroups
- Hokkaido Ainu (the predominant community of Ainu in the world today) – A Japanese census in 1916 returned 13,557 pure blooded Ainu in addition to 4,550 multiracial individuals.
- Tokyo Ainu (a modern age migration of Hokkaido Ainu highlighted in a documentary film released in 2010, http://www.2kamuymintara.com/film/top.htm)
- Tohoku Ainu (from Honshū, no officially-acknowledged population exists) – 43 Ainu households scattered throughout the Tohoku region were reported during the 17th century. There are people who consider themselves descendants of Shimokita Ainu on the Shimokita PeninsulaShimokita PeninsulaThe Shimokita Peninsula is the remote northeastern cape of the Japanese island of Honshū, stretching out towards Hokkaidō. Administratively the area is a part of Aomori Prefecture....
, while the people on the Tsugaru PeninsulaTsugaru PeninsulaThe is a peninsula in Aomori Prefecture, at the northern end of Honshū island, Japan. The peninsula projects north into the Tsugaru Strait separating Honshū from Hokkaidō. The western coast is on the Sea of Japan, while on its eastern coast are Aomori Bay and Mutsu Bay...
are generally considered as Yamato people but may be descendants of Tsugaru Ainu after cultural assimilation.
- Sakhalin Ainu – Pure blooded individuals may be surviving in Hokkaido. From both Northern and Southern Sakhalin, a total of 841 Ainu were relocated to Hokkaido in 1875 by Japan. Only a few in remote interior areas remained, as the island was turned over to Russia. Even when Japan was granted Southern Sakhalin in 1905, only a handful returned. Japanese census of 1905 counted only 120 Sakhalin Ainu (down from 841 in 1875, 93 in Karafuto and 27 in Hokkaido). Russian census of 1926 counted 5 Ainu, while several of their multiracial children were recorded as ethnic Nivkh, Slav or Uilta.
- North Sakhalin – Only 5 pure blooded individuals were recorded during the 1926 Russian Census in Northern Sakhalin. Most of the Sakhalin Ainu (mainly from coastal areas) were relocated to Hokkaido in 1875 by Japan. The few remained (mainly from remote interior) were mostly married to Russians as can be seen from the works of Bronisław PiłsudskiBronisław PiłsudskiBronisław Piotr Piłsudski , brother of Józef Piłsudski, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who conducted outstanding research on the Ainu ethnic group, which then inhabited Sakhalin Island, but now live mostly on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, with only a small minority left on...
. - Southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) – Japanese rule until 1945. Japan evacuated almost all the Ainus to Hokkaido after the WW2. Isolated individuals might have remained in Sakhalin. In 1949, there were about 100 Ainu living in Russian Sakhalin.
- North Sakhalin – Only 5 pure blooded individuals were recorded during the 1926 Russian Census in Northern Sakhalin. Most of the Sakhalin Ainu (mainly from coastal areas) were relocated to Hokkaido in 1875 by Japan. The few remained (mainly from remote interior) were mostly married to Russians as can be seen from the works of Bronisław Piłsudski
- Northern Kuril Ainu (no known living population) – Also known as Kurile in Russian records. Were under Russian rule till 1875. First came under Japanese rule after the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875). Major population was on the island of ShumshuShumshuShumshu , is the northernmost island of Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The name of the island is derived from the Ainu language meaning “good island”. It is separated from Paramushir by the very narrow Second Kuril Strait in the northeast , its northern...
, with a few others in islands like ParamushirParamushirParamushir , is a volcanic island in the northern portion of Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean. It is separated from Shumshu by the very narrow Second Kuril Strait in the northeast , from Antsiferov by the Luzhin Strait to the southwest, from Atlasov in the...
. Altogether they numbered 221 in 1860. They had Russian names, spoke Russian fluently and were Russian Orthodox in religion. As the islands were gifted to the Japanese, more than a hundred Ainu fled to Kamchatka along with their Russian employers (where they were assimilated in to the Kamchadal population). Only about half remained under Japanese rule. In order to derussifyRussificationRussification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
the Kurile, the entire population of 97 individuals were relocated to ShikotanShikotanShikotan, in Russian , Japanese , or シコタㇴ), is one of the bigger islands of the Kuril Islands, which are controlled by Russia. It is one of the four southernmost islands which Japan maintains a claim for...
in 1884, given Japanese names and children were enrolled in to Japanese schools. Unlike the other Ainu groups, the Kurile failed to adjust to their new surroundings and by 1933 only 10 individuals were alive (plus another 34 multiracial individuals). The last group of 20 individuals (including a few pure bloods) were evacuated to Hokkaido in 1941, where they vanished as a separate ethnic group soon after.
- Southern Kuril Ainu (no known living population) – Numbered almost 2,000 people (mainly in Kunashir, IturupIturupIturup is the largest island of the South Kuril Islands. It is the northernmost island in the southern Kuril/Chishima islands, and though it is presently controlled by Russia, Japan also claims this island...
and UrupUrupUrup is an uninhabited volcanic island near in the south of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Its name is derived from the Ainu language word for salmon trout.-Geography and climate:...
) during the 18th century. In 1884, their population had decreased to 500. Around 50 individuals (mostly multiracial) who remained in 1941 were evacuated to Hokkaido by the Japanese soon after WW2. The last of the tribe, Tanaka Kinu died in Hokkaido in 1973.
- Kamchatka Ainu (no known living population) – Known as Kamchatka Kurile in Russian records. Ceased to exist as a separate ethnic group after their defeat in 1706 by the Russians. Individuals were assimilated in to the Kurile and Kamchadal ethnic groups. Last recorded in 18th century by Russian explorers.
- Amur Valley Ainu (probably none remain) – a few individuals married to ethnic Russians and ethnic Ulchi reported by Bronisław Piłsudski in early 20th century. Only 26 pure blooded individuals were recorded during the 1926 Russian Census in Nikolaevski Okrug (present day Николаевский районNikolayevsky District, Khabarovsk KraiNikolayevsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur . District's population:...
Nikolaevskij Region/District). Probably assimilated in to the Slavic rural population. Although no one identifies as Ainu nowadays in Khabarovsk KraiKhabarovsk KraiKhabarovsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Russian Far East. It lies mostly in the basin of the lower Amur River, but also occupies a vast mountainous area along the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The administrative center of the krai is the...
, there are a large number of ethnic Ulch with partial Ainu ancestry.
See also
- Ainu musicAinu musicAinu music refers to the musical traditions of the Ainu people of northern Japan.Genres include the oldest, yukar , which is a form of epic poetry, and upopo, in which "the second contrapuntal voice had to imitate the musical formula in the first contrapuntal voice , at an interval much shorter...
- Ainu-kenHokkaido (dog)The is a breed of dog. Other names for the breed include Ainu-ken and Seta. In Japan, its name is sometimes shortened to Dō-ken. The Hokkaido is native to the prefecture of the same name in Japan.-Appearance:...
- AteruiAteruiwas the most prominent chief of the Isawa band of Emishi in northern Japan. The Emishi were an indigenous peoples of North Japan, who were considered hairy barbarians by their Japanese conquerors....
- Bronisław PiłsudskiBronisław PiłsudskiBronisław Piotr Piłsudski , brother of Józef Piłsudski, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who conducted outstanding research on the Ainu ethnic group, which then inhabited Sakhalin Island, but now live mostly on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, with only a small minority left on...
- BurakuminBurakuminare a Japanese social minority group. The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō, the Ryukyuans of Okinawa and Japanese residents of Korean and Chinese descent....
- Constitution of JapanConstitution of JapanThe is the fundamental law of Japan. It was enacted on 3 May, 1947 as a new constitution for postwar Japan.-Outline:The constitution provides for a parliamentary system of government and guarantees certain fundamental rights...
- Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesDeclaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesThe United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007....
- EmishiEmishiThe constituted a group of people who lived in northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region. They are referred to as in contemporary sources. Some Emishi tribes resisted the rule of the Japanese Emperors during the late Nara and early Heian periods...
- Ethnic issues in JapanEthnic issues in Japan- Demographic :About 1.6% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign nationals. Of these, according to 2008 data from the Japanese government, the principal groups are as follows....
- Ethnocide
- Hiram M. Hiller, Jr.Hiram M. Hiller, Jr.Hiram M. Hiller, Jr. , was an American physician, medical missionary, explorer, and ethnographer. He traveled in Oceania and in South, Southeast, and East Asia, returning with archeological, cultural, zoological, and botanical specimens and data for museums, lectures and publications...
- Human rights in Japan
- Indigenous peoplesIndigenous peoplesIndigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
- Kennewick ManKennewick ManKennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, USA, on July 28, 1996...
- List of ethnic groups
- MatagiMatagiThe matagi are traditional winter hunters of the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, most famously today in the Shirakami-Sanchi forest between Akita and Aomori. They hunt deer and bear, and their culture has much in common with the bear cult of the Ainu...
- Nibutani DamNibutani Damis a dam on the Saru River in Hokkaidō, Japan, which stands at Nibutani in Biratori town, Saru District. Work on the dam began in 1990. It was completed in March 1997, despite objections from the local Ainu people.-Controversy:...
- NivkhsNivkhsThe Nivkh are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the region of the Amur River estuary in Russia's Khabarovsk Krai. Nivkh were mainly fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders...
- Ryūkyū independence movementRyukyu independence movementThe or Republic of the Ryūkyūs is a movement for the independence of Okinawa and the surrounding islands , from Japan. The movement emerged in 1945, after the end of the Pacific War...
- Ryukyuan people
- Kayano ShigeruShigeru Kayanowas one of the last native speakers of the Ainu language and a leading figure in the Ainu ethnic movement in Japan.- Early life :...
- ShogunShogunA was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
- Yamato peopleYamato peopleis a name for the dominant native ethnic group of Japan. It is a term that came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the residents of the mainland Japan from other minority ethnic groups who have resided in the peripheral areas of Japan, such as the Ainu, Ryukyuan, Nivkh, Ulta, as...
- YukarYukarare Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers....
External links
- Rare Japanese Video Featuring Ainu
- The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi
- Smithsonian Institution
- Hokkaido Utari Kyokai
- Sapporo Pirka Kotan Ainu Cultural Center
- Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Ainu in Samani, HokkaidoSamani, Hokkaido, is a town located in Samani District, Hidaka, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 5,466 and a density of 15.84 persons per km2...
- Ainu-North American cultural similarities
- Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (centers located in Sapporo and Tokyo)
- Hokkaido University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies
- Ainu Lineage
- The Boone Collection
- Nibutani Ainu Cultural Museum (in Japanese)
- Ainu Komonjo (18th & 19th century records) – Ohnuki Collection
- Article in The Christian Science Monitor, June 9, 2008
- Aino Folk-Tales, Chamberlain, B. H.Basil Hall ChamberlainBasil Hall Chamberlain was a professor of Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during the late 19th century. He also wrote some of the earliest translations of haiku into English...
Folk-Lore Society, 1888. (Members edition, without expurgation)