Ainu people
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The are an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaido which is north of Honshu in Northern Japan, the Kuril Islands, much of Sakhalin, and the southernmost third of the Kamchatka peninsula. The word "ainu" means "human" (particularly as opposed to "kamui," i.e., divine beings) in the Ainu language; Emishi, Ezo or Yezo (蝦夷) are Japanese terms; and Utari, ウタリ, (meaning "comrade" in Ainu) is now preferred by some members. There are most likely over 150,000 Ainu today, however the exact figure is not known.
Origins
The origins of the Ainu are uncertain. Some commentators believe that they derive from an ancient proto-Mongoloid stock that may have occupied parts of Central and East Asia before the Han expansion (see Jomon people). Various other Mongoloid indigenous peoples, from the Ryukyus to the Taiwanese are also thought to be related to them. The Ainu people have a legend that says, "The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came" [[Citing sources citation needed]].The prevailing mythology in Japan has been of the Ainu as a race of "noble savages," a proud but reclusive culture of hunter-gatherers. This mythology became a useful defense for the Japanese expropriation of Ainu lands. In fact, the Ainu were also farmers as well as hunter gathers from the earliest centuries of the Common Era.[NOVA Online - Island of the Spirits - Origins of the Ainu]
North American Connection
In the late 20th Century, much speculation arose that the Ainu may have been one of the first groups to settle North America. This theory is based largely on skeletal and cultural evidence among tribes living in the western part of North America and certain parts of Latin America. It is quite possible that North America had several peoples among its early settlers--the Ainu being one of them, perhaps even the first. The most well known instance supporting this theory is probably Kennewick Man.Genetic mapping studies by Cavalli-Sforza have shown a pattern of genetic expansion from the area of the Sea of Japan towards the rest of eastern Asia and the American continent. This 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 the African continent, 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 regions to the south), which would make it consistent with the early Jomon period."The synthetic maps suggest a previously unsuspected center of expansion from the Sea of Japan but cannot indicate dates. This development could be tied to the Jomon period, but one cannot entirely exclude the pre-Jomon period and that it might be responsible for a migration to the Americas. A major source of food in those pre-agricultural times came from fishing, then as now, and this would have limited for ecological reasons the area of expansion to the coastline, perhaps that of the Sea of Japan, but also father along the Pacific Coast" "The History and Geography of Human Genes" p253, Cavalli-Sforza ISBN 0691087504
History
At first, contact with the Japanese people was friendly and both were equals in a trade relationship. However, eventually the Japanese started to dominate the relationship, and soon established large settlements on the outskirts of Ainu territory. As the Japanese moved north and took control over their traditional lands, the Ainu often gave up without resistance, but there was occasional resistance as exemplified in wars in 1457, 1669, and 1789, all of which were lost by the Ainu. Japanese policies became increasingly aimed at assimilating the Ainu in the Meiji period, outlawing their language and restricting them to farming on government-provided plots. Ainu were also used in near-slavery conditions in the Japanese fishing industry. The island of Hokkaido was called Ezo or Ezo-chi during the Edo period. Its name was changed to Hokkaido during the Meiji Restoration as part of the programme to "unify" the Japanese national character under the aegis of the Emperor, thus reducing the local identity and autonomy of the different regions of Japan.As Japanese citizens, the Ainu are now governed by Japanese laws and judged by Japanese tribunals, but in the past, their affairs were administered by hereditary chiefs, three in each village, and for administrative purposes the country was divided into three districts, Saru, Usu and Ishikari, which were under the ultimate control of Saru, though the relations between their respective inhabitants were not close and intermarriages were avoided. The functions of judge were not entrusted to these chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat in judgement upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not exist, nor was imprisonment resorted to, beating being considered a sufficient and final penalty, except in the case of murder, when the nose and ears of the culprit were cut off or the tendons of his feet severed. Intermarriages between Japanese and Ainu are not infrequent, and at Sambutsu especially, on the eastern coast, many children of such marriages may be seen.
Today, many Ainu dislike the term Ainu and prefer to identify themselves as Utari (comrade in the Ainu language). In official documents both names are used.
Geography
For historical reasons (primarily the Russo-Japanese War), nearly all Ainu live in Japan.There is, however, a small number of Ainu living on Sakhalin, most of them descendants of Sakhalin Ainu who were evicted and later returned. There is also an Ainu minority living at the southernmost area of the Kamchatka Peninsula and on the Kurile Islands. However, 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 Hokkaido.
Due to intermarriage with the Japanese and ongoing absorption into the predominant culture, few living Ainu settlements exist. Many "authentic Ainu villages" advertised in Hokkaido are simply tourist attractions.
Language
The Ainu language is significantly different from Japanese in its syntax, phonology, morphology, and vocabulary. Although there have been attempts to show that they are related, the vast majority of modern scholars reject that the relationship goes beyond contact, i.e., 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.Culture
Traditional Ainu culture is quite different from Japanese culture. Never shaving after a certain age, the men had full beards and moustaches. Men and women alike cut their hair level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, but trimmed it semicircularly behind. The women tattooed their mouths, arms, clitorides, and sometimes their foreheads, starting at the onset of puberty. The soot deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark was used for colour. Their traditional dress is a robe spun from the bark of the elm tree. It has long sleeves, reaches nearly to the feet, is folded round the body, and is tied with a girdle of the same material. Women also wear an undergarment of Japanese cloth. In winter the skins of animals were worn, with leggings of deerskin and boots made from the skin of dogs or salmon. Both sexes are fond of earrings, which are said to have been made of grapevine 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, vegetables, herbs, and roots. They never ate raw fish or flesh, but always either boiled or roasted it. Their traditional habitations were reed-thatched huts, the largest 20 ft. square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the centre. There was no chimney, but 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 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 spoons. Ainu cuisine is not commonly eaten outside Ainu communities; there are only a few Ainu restaurants in Japan, all located in Tokyo and Hokkaido.Religion
- For more information see Ainu creation story.
Some Ainu in the north are members of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Sport
The Ainu excel at many competitive physical activities. Due to their taller physical build, the Ainu have outshone the ethnic Japanese in typically Western sports like baseball, football (soccer), and track and field events. This has engendered much resentment from the ethnic Japanese but the athletic feats of the Ainu people are still celebrated throughout Asia nonetheless (Fitzhugh, 364-366).Institutions
There are many different organizations of Ainu trying to further their cause in many different ways. There is an umbrella group of which most Hokkaido Ainu and some other Ainu are members, called the Hokkaido Utari Association, originally controlled by the government with the intention of speeding Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation-state but which now operates mostly independently of the government and is run exclusively by Ainu.
Subgroups
- Tohoku Ainu (from Honshu, no known living population)
- Hokkaido Ainu
- Sakhalin Ainu
- Kuril Ainu (no known living population)
- Kamchatka Ainu
- Amur Valley Ainu (probably none remain)
See also
- Ethnic issues in Japan
- Yukar
- Ainu music
- Honshu
- Hokkaido
- Sakhalin
- Kuril Islands
- Kamchatka peninsula
- Shogun
- Kennewick Man
- Iomante
- Ainu-ken
Notes
References
- Article on the Ainu in Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity.
- Kayano, Shigeru. Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir (1994). Translated by Kyoko Selden and Lili Selden. Foreword by Mikiso Hane. Transitions--Asia and Asian America series. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
External links
- [The Ainu Museum]
- [Smithsonian Institute]
- [Nippon Utari Kyokai]
- [Ainu-North American cultural similarities]
- [Spirit Cave Man May Rewrite Continent's History]
- [Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture]
- [Ainu Lineage]
- [The Boone Collection]
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