Ainu people

Ainu
Group of Ainu people, 1904 photograph.
Total population
50,000 people with half or more Ainu ancestry 150,000 Japanese people with some Ainu ancestry (some estimates on the number of Japanese with some Ainu blood range as high as 1,000,000; the exact number is unknown) Pre-Japanese era: ~50,000, almost all pure Ainu
Regions with significant populations
Japan  Russia
Language(s)
Ainu is the traditional language. According to research by Alexander Vovin, in 1996 only 15 fluent speakers remained, and the last speaker of the Sakhalin dialect had died in 1994. Most Ainu today are native speakers of the Japanese or Russian language. (Note that the Aini language spoken in China is unrelated). *Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X.
Religion(s)
Animism, some are members of the Russian Orthodox Church

Ainu (アイヌ, Ainu^? IPA: /ʔáınu/) (also called Ezo in historical texts) are an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaidō, northern Honshū, the Kuril Islands, much of Sakhalin, and the southernmost third of the Kamchatka peninsula. Their most widely known ethnonym is derived from the word aynu, which means "human" (particularly as opposed to kamuy, i.e., divine beings) in the Hokkaidō dialects of the Ainu language; Emishi, Ezo or Yezo (蝦夷) are Japanese terms, which are believed to derive from the ancestral form of the modern Sakhalin Ainu word enciw or enju, also meaning "human". The term Utari (ウタリ, Utari^?) (meaning "comrade" in Ainu) is now preferred by some members of this minority. There are most likely over 150,000 Ainu today, however the exact figure is not known as many Ainu hide their origin or, in many cases, are not even aware of it, as their parents have kept it from them so as to protect their children from racism.

Origins

Ainu are considered Jomon-jin, natives to Japan from the Jomon period. "The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came" is told in one of their Yukar Upopo (Ainu legends).^[1]

Ten thousand years ago, the Jomon people inhabited the Japanese Archipelago. About 2,500 years ago, the Yayoi people came from the Chinese continent. The two cultures mixed in the archipelago. The Ainu people were gradually displaced to the North (Hokkaido) and the South (Ryukyu), keeping however their own antropological and religious identity.

The Ainu were farmers as well as hunter-gatherers from the earliest centuries of the Common Era.^[2]

Ainu ceremonial dress. British Museum.

Full-blooded Ainu are mostly fair-skinned and Caucasian in appearance, with the men generally having dense hair development. This caused many early investigators to propose a Caucasian ancestry, although recent DNA tests have found no traces of Caucasian ancestry. Genetic testing of the Ainu people has shown them to belong mainly to Y-haplogroup D.^[3] The only places outside of Japan in which Y-haplogroup D is common are Tibet and the Andaman Islands.^[4] About one in eight 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. 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, with whom the Ainu have long-standing cultural interactions.^[5] According to Tanaka et al. (2004), their mtDNA lineages mainly consist of haplogroup Y (21.6%) and haplogroup M7a (15.7%).

Some have speculated that the Ainu may be descendants of a prehistoric race that also produced indigenous Australian peoples. In Steve Olson's Book, Mapping Human History, page 133, he describes the discovery of fossils dating back 10,000 years, representing the remains of the Jōmon, a group whose facial features more closely resemble those of the indigenous peoples of New Guinea and Australia. After a new wave of immigration, probably from the Korean Peninsula, some 2,300 years ago, of the Yayoi people, the pure-blooded Jōmon were pushed into northern Japan. Genetic data suggest that modern Japanese are descended from both the Yayoi and the Jōmon.

American continent connection

Ainu man, circa 1880.

In the late 20th century, much speculation arose that people of the group ancestral to the Ainu may have been one of the first 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 best-known instance supporting this theory is probably Kennewick Man.

Groundbreaking 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 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 Jōmon period, or possibly even the pre-Jōmon period.^[6]

History

After initial contact with the immigrants, large settlements gradually spread into Ainu territory by the newcomers. As the Japanese moved north and took control over Ainu lands, the Ainu often gave up without resistance, with some occasional wars in 1457, 1669, and 1789, where the Ainu were defeated. (Notable Ainu revolts include Shakushain's Revolt and the Menashi-Kunashir Battle.) 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 and as labor in the Japanese fishing industry. As the Japanese government encouraged immigration of ethnic Japanese to populate Hokkaido, the Ainu became increasingly marginalised in their own land. The population was greatly reduced due to hardship and diseases introduced by the inmigrant Japanese. 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 program 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.

Ainu bear sacrifice. Japanese scroll painting, circa 1870.

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 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. 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. There are many small towns in the southeastern or Hidaka region where full-blooded Ainu may still be seen such as in Nibutani. In Sambutsu especially, on the eastern coast, many children of such marriages may be seen.

Today, many Ainu dislike the term Ainu because of a common derogatory pronunciation of the word in Japanese (A! Inu!, which means "Ah! A dog!" in Japanese) and prefer to identify themselves as Utari (comrade in the Ainu language). In official documents both names are used.

Geography

The Ainu were distributed through the islands of the Pacific Northwest. From Sakhalin island in the north to the Kurile islands and the island of Hokkaido and Northern Honshu, although some investigators place their former range as throughout honshu and as far North as the southern tip of Kamchatka. 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 due to greed. For historical reasons (primarily the Russo-Japanese War), nearly all Ainu live in Japan. At the end of WWII, the Soviets declared war on Japan and took possession of the Kurile islands and the southern half of Sakhalin Island. The Ainu population as previously Japanese subjects were "repatriated" to Japan.

There are, 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 Hokkaidō.

Due to intermarriage with the Japanese and ongoing absorption into the predominant culture, there are no truly Ainu settlements existing today. The town of Nibutani in Hidaka 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 a rewarding opportunity to interact with the Ainu people. Many "authentic Ainu villages" advertised in Hokkaido such as Akan and Shiraoi are tourist attractions but provide an opportunity to see and meet Ainu people.

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. The Ainu language is polysynthetic, and attempts have been made to relate Japanese, Korean and Ainu via an early proto-Ainu language. Words used as prepositions in English such as: to, from, by, in, and at are postpositional in Ainu and come after the word that they modify. A single sentence in Ainu can be made up of many added or agglutinated sounds or morphemes which 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 and now Latin alphabets by investigators. The unwieldy nature of the Japanese kana with its inability to accurately represent terminal consonants has contributed to the degradation of the original Ainu, with such words as "Kor" (meaning to hold), being pronounced now with a terminal vowel sound, "Koro", in many Japanese Ainu dialects, as distinct from the Kurile or Sakhalin Ainu. 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.

Culture

Flag of the Ainu people, designed by Bikki Sunazawa in 1973. Cerulean blue stands for sky and sea, white for snow and red for arrow which is running in the snow beneath Hokkaido's sky. [1].

Traditional Ainu culture was 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, and sometimes the forearms. 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 which 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 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. (6 m) square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the center. 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-run restaurants in Japan, all located in Tokyo and Hokkaidō, serving primarily Japanese fare.

Religion

For more information see Ainu creation myth.

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 kamuy. The most important is grandmother earth (fire), then kamuy of the mountain (animals), then kamuy 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 libations of rice beer, uttering prayers, and offering willow sticks with wooden shavings attached to them. These sticks are called inau (singular) and nusa (plural). They are placed on an altar used to "send back" the spirits of killed animals. 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 kamuy mosir (Land of the Gods).

Some Ainu in the north are members of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Institutions

In March, 1997, the Ainu were recognized by a Japanese court as an indigenous and minority people. Until that date Ainu issues did not matter in the sphere of public policy. There was a limited outcry when one of the largest traditional Ainu villages, the upriver town of Nibutani on the Saru River, was dammed, with the land expropriated from its Ainu owners and flooded in part in order to form a reservoir that would service industrial development on the coast of Hokkaido. Although eventually ruled illegal, the dam remained, even though its original purpose was never fulfilled. As signers to the United Nations Treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which was signed by Japan in 1979, the Japanese had been forced to face the issue that the Ainu were indeed indigenous and minority peoples, which supported the Ainu in their pursuit of their rights to their distinct culture and language. 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 Honshū, no known living population)^{[citation needed]}
• Hokkaido Ainu
• Sakhalin Ainu
• Kuril Ainu (no known living population)
• Kamchatka Ainu (extinct since pre-historic times)^{[citation needed]}
• Amur Valley Ainu (probably none remain)^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Ethnic issues in Japan
  • Ryukyuan people
  • Yamato people
• Ethnocide
• Human rights in Japan
• List of ethnic groups
• Yukar
• Ainu music
• Honshū
• Hokkaidō
• Sakhalin
• Kuril Islands
• Kamchatka peninsula
• Shogun
• Kennewick Man
• Iomante
• Ainu-ken

Notes

References and further reading

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• Batchelor, John. The Ainu and Their Folklore. London, 1901. "On the Ainu Term `Kamui"
• Carl Etter, Ainu Folklore: Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan (1949), Kessinger Publishing Co (2004), ISBN 978-1417976973(2004)
• Fitzhugh, W., Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, =University of Washington Press, 2004, ISBN 0-295-97912-7
• Honda Katsuichi, Ainu Minzoku, Asahi Shimbun Publishing Co. Ltd., 1993 (in japanese)
• Ichiro Hori, Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change, University of Chicago Press, (1974), ISBN 978-0226353340
• Junko Habu, Ancient Jomon of Japan, Cambridge University Press, (2004), ISBN 978-0521776707
• 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.
• M. Tanaka et al.: Mitochondrial Genome Variation in Eastern Asia and the Peopling of Japan. Genome Research 2004 14: 1832–1850, [2]
• Siddle, Richard. Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan. London: Routledge, 1996.
• Walker, Brett. The Conquest Of Ainu Lands.
• Article on the Ainu in Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity.

External links

• The Ainu Museum
• Smithsonian Institute
• Hokkaido Utari Kyokai
• Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Ainu in Samani, Hokkaido
• 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
• Sea-Girt Yezo: Glimpses at Missionary Work in North Japan, by John Batchelor 1902 account of life and Anglican missionary work on Hokkaidō
• Yukar Net (Japanese)
• History of Bronislaw Piotr Pilsudski – Polish Ainu researcher form the beginning of XX-th century(Polish)(English)(Russian)(Japanese)(Lithuanian)ru-sib:Айны

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