Libmonster ID: JP-1562
Author(s) of the publication: A. B. SPEVAKOVSKY

The Ainu are a small people currently living in the north of the Japanese archipelago, on the island of Hokkaido. Their total number is approximately 16 thousand people, and the Ainu proper (without Japanese admixture as a consequence of marital relations, especially frequent over the past century), make up less than 1 . The Ainu are one of the oldest aboriginal ethnic groups in the Far Eastern region. The initial stages of their history date back to the VI-V millennium BC. The cultural traditions of this era reached the developed Neolithic (IV-I millennium BC) and were called "dzemon" (rope pattern; according to the ornaments characteristic of ceramics of that time).

Most reliably, the identity of the aboriginal population of Japan is determined by archaeological and anthropological data. Until about the turn of our era, when the migration flows that later formed the Japanese people began to enter Japan from the mainland, the territory of the archipelago was inhabited by native speakers of the Jomon culture, whose economic basis was in the coastal zone of sea St. John's wort and fishing, in mountain and forest areas - hunting, as well as gathering, in particular marine mollusks, about as evidenced by the shell heaps. Ainu hunters and fishermen lived in characteristic semi-underground dwellings. In general, these occupations and cultural features were preserved among the Ainu until the 20th century. The monuments of Dzemon have also been recorded by archaeologists in the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. In addition, the former area of settlement of the Ainu included the south of Kamchatka; until the beginning of the XX century, the Ainu lived in the lower reaches of the Amur River, surrounded by Tungus-Manchurian and Paleoasiatic populations. This circumstance, which is a large collection of historical, archaeological, anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic facts, sharply refutes the anti-scientific conjectures of some modern Japanese publicists who are trying to somehow justify militaristic claims to foreign territories. Increased interest in Ainu Westerners-

1 Ethnographic description of the Ainu people. In: Conference on the Preservation of Ainu Culture, Vol. 1, Tokyo, 1969, p. 6 (in Japanese). See also: Vasilevsky R. S. Po sledam drevnykh kul'tury Hokkaido. Novosibirsk. 1981; Cherevko K. E. How the islands of coastal North-East Asia were settled. - Problems of the Far East, 1978, N 1.

page 180

Ropei and Japanese scholars showed a little more than a century ago, especially after the bourgeois Meiji Revolution, "which opened Japan to Western Europe and America and ended the country's isolation. Over the past century, the Ainu people have been given more space in the scientific literature than many other ethnic groups in the Far East. This is due to the uniqueness of their culture, which includes a number of unique traditions. The distinctiveness of Ainu culture, many features of which are characterized as southern, can be traced in all its elements, starting with the material sphere and ending with beliefs and rituals. Their dances, ornaments and wood carvings are very bright. Ainu folklore with a wide variety of genres and plots is particularly distinguished - one of the most developed in comparison with the folklore traditions of other small peoples of the Far East. D. L. Filip" spoke of the Ainu epic even as "the richest and most interesting of the existing ones"2 . Finally, the sharp difference between the anthropological type of the Ainu, which not only stands out among the ethnic communities of the Far Eastern area, but generally occupies a special place in the racial typology of the globe, draws attention to itself. The same applies to the Ainu language, which is not included in any of the language families and is isolated in the world classification.

Researchers have put forward many hypotheses and theories of the Ainu ethnogenesis. There are four main groups of theories: Europeoid, Mongoloid, southern origin, and Aboriginal origin. The largest number of followers and the most detailed reasoned development was received by the southern theory, which considers the ancestors of the Ainu to be natives of Southeast Asia and the adjacent islands of the Pacific Ocean .3 However, there is no definitive clarity on the origin of the Ainu people. There is even a paradoxical situation: as new material accumulates, the problem becomes more and more complex. If we consider the Ainu culture as a whole, then at first glance it consists of borrowed elements that are interpreted as southern. Borrowings in the adjacent territories include those that are inherent in the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia (sled dog breeding, flat-bottomed plank boats, sliding skis, winter clothing and shoes, tools and methods of hunting sea and taiga animals, etc.) and partly Russian (widespread and beneficial influence since the end of the XVIII century) .4 Such elements of material culture as swinging clothes made of oak fibers, an Indonesian-style loom, a baby's cradle, cooking poison and ways of applying it to arrowheads, ornaments, find analogies in the southern regions of Asia and the Pacific islands. There are parallels in traditional social organization, religious beliefs, and folklore. First of all, this applies to the cult of inau - frozen sticks or simply shavings, which are considered as intermediaries between people and deities or as sacrificial objects. Similar items were distributed in Japan and Indochina. Indonesia and other areas 5, although convergence of the phenomenon characteristic of a certain stage of development cannot be excluded. A number of southern (as well as northern) elements can be traced in the cult of the bear6 . The similarity is found when comparing the folklore of the Ainu and Maori, as well as-

2 Philippi D. L. Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans: the Epic Tradition of the Ainu. Princeton - Tokyo. 1979, p. 21.

3 Shternberg L. Ya. Gilyaks, Orochi, Golds, Negidals, Ainu. Khabarovsk. 1933, p. 555-595; Cheboksary N. N. Osnovnye prinipsipy antropologicheskikh klassifikatsii [Basic principles of anthropological classifications]. In: The origin of man and the ancient settlement of mankind, Moscow, 1951, pp. 315, 319; Levin M. G. Etnicheskaya antropologiya i problemy etnogeneza narodov Dalnego Vostoka [Ethnic anthropology and problems of ethnogenesis of the peoples of the Far East]. - Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, new series, 1958, vol. 36, p. 291; Alekseev V. P. Geografiya chelovecheskikh ras. M. 1974, p. 277-282; Kabo V. R. Ainu problem in a new perspective. - Soviet Ethnography, 1975, N 6; Koganei Y. Zur Frage der Abstammung der Aino und ihre Verwandschaft mit anderen Volkern. - Anthropologischer Anzeiger, 1927, Bd. 4, Hf. 3.

4 Golovin V. M. Notes of the fleet of Captain Golovin on his adventures in captivity at the Japanese in 1811, 1812, 1813. Khabarovsk. 1972; Shternberg L. Ya. Uk. soch., pp. 559-561; Smolyak A.V. On mutual cultural influences of the peoples of Sakhalin and some problems of ethnogenesis. In: Ethnogenesis and ethnic History of the peoples of the North, Moscow, 1975, pp. 68-77.

5 Schuster C. The Ainu Inao: Some Comparative Considerations. In: Proceedings. VIIIth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Vol. III. Tokyo - Kyoto. 1968.

6 Vasiliev B. A. Medvezhy prazdnik [The Bear Festival], Sovetskaya etnografiya, 1948, No. 4.

page 181

same ifugao. For example, in Polynesian mythology, the Oceanic hero Maui resorts to hitting the Sun to slow it down .7 A similar legend is found among the Ainu 8 .

The southern theory is also supported by some anthropological data, although contradictory, which allowed a number of researchers to attribute the Ainu to the Australoid, or Oceanic, race. By several craniometric indicators, the Ainu are associated with Polynesians and Melanesians .9 The study of the suborbital sutures of the facial part of the skull brings the Ainu closer to the Indonesians. It has been suggested that the Australian Aborigines and Ainu descended from the general population in Asia in the Upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic .10 This point of view is close to the opinion of N. N. Cheboksary and M. G. Levin, based on the similarity of Ainu skulls and craniological material from Indochina 11 .

According to the linguistic research of some authors, the Ainu language shows some similarities with the Malayo-Polynesian languages, especially in the field of phonetics and morphology. However, the question of the place of the Ainu language in the linguistic classification is not sufficiently developed, so that the named relationship cannot be considered proven, especially since the grammatical structure of the Ainu language is sharply different from Austronesian.

Strong ties between ancient Japan and neighboring regions with Southeast Asia have been noted by archaeologists. They can be traced back to ancient times, as can be seen when comparing the stone inventory of the Far East and Southeast Asia as the original area of cultural impulses. Tools of the pre-ceramic culture of Japan "protozemon" are comparable to the stone products of the Hoabin culture of Indochina 12 . Subsequent epochs also provide similar analogies .13 An interesting rite of burial in vessels, widespread at the end of the first millennium BC. e. This type of burial is noted in Indochina, Japan and Primorye. The Ainu ancestors of Sakhalin recorded the fact of the same burial 14 .

However, in the Ainu culture, their anthropological type and linguistics, there are parallels with the culture of the indigenous population of Siberia, which can hardly be attributed to the influence of the latter. Until recently, the Evenks of the Northern Baikal region used wood and bone baits for ice fishing. They resemble stone fish from Neolithic sites in the Baikal region15 . Identical fish were found in Neolithic shell heaps in Japan 16 . During the excavation of the Verkholensky burial ground, new figures were found, one of which almost coincides with the figure from the shell pile near Neda in Japan 17 . Ice fishing with bait among the Evenks (with a hut over the ice hole and a prison) is similar to the method of winter fishing among the Ainu 18 . They, like the Evens and Evenks, used a spear with a removable hook for fishing salmon breeds. Wu tung-gu-

7 Luomala K. Voice of the wind. Polynesian myths and Songs, M. 1976, p. 7, 114; Tales and legends of Maori, M. 1981, p. 47-48.

8 Torii R. Etudes archeologiques et ethnologiques. Ainou des I'es Kouriles. - Journal of the College of Science Imperial University of Tokyo, 1919, Vol. 42, art. 1, p. 268.

9 Kozintsev A. G. Statistical data on the problem of the origin of the Ainu craniological type. In: Rasogeneticheskie protsessy v etnicheskoi istorii [Rasogenetic processes in Ethnic History], Moscow, 1974. A Comparative Osteological Study of the Ainu and Australian Aborigines. - Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1967, N 10.

10 Yamaguchi B. Op. cit., p. 32.

11 Cheboksary N. N. Osnovnye napravleniya rasovoi differentiatsii v Vostochnoy Azii [Main directions of racial differentiation in East Asia]. - Proceedings of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, new series, 1947, vol. 2; Levin M. G. Uk. soch.

12 Maringer J. Eine faustkeilartige Gerate von Gongenyama (Japan) und die Frage des japanischen Palaolithikums. - Anthropos, 1956, Vol. 51, fasc. 1 - 2, S. 190 - 195; ejusd. Some Stone Tools of Early Hoabinhian Type from Central Japan. - Man, 1957, Vol. 57, art. 1 - 17, p. 3.

13 Okladnikov A. P. The distant past of Primorye. Vladivostok. 1959, p. 36, 82; his. The Soviet Far East in the light of the latest achievements of archeology. - Voprosy istorii, 1964, N 1, p. 50; his. Neolithic of the Far East. In: Istoriya Sibiri [History of Siberia], Vol. 1, L. 1968, p. 145; Andreeva Zh. V., Pronina G. I. The Far East in the Early Iron Age. - Ibid., p. 265; et al.

14 Shternberg L. Ya. Uk. soch., p. 582.

15 Levin M. G. Evenki Severnogo Pribaikal'ya [Evenks of the Northern Baikal Region]. - Sovetskaya etnografiya, 1936, N 2; it is the same. Ethnographic parallels to the Neolithic figures of fish. - Ibid., 1939, N 2; Okladnikov A. P. Kamennye ryby. - Soviet Archeology, 1936, N 1.

16 G Groot G. J. Prehistory of Japan. N. Y. 1951.

17 Ibid., PI. XXXVIa; Okladnikov A. P. Verkholensky burial ground-a monument of ancient culture of the peoples of Siberia. Novosibirsk. 1978, pp. 255, 259, Tables 7, 11.

18 Archive of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AIE) K-1, op. 1, N 787, l. 32.

page 182

This tool is called "marik" or "mare"for co-speaking ethnic groups. The Ainu term is "marek" 19 . Marak also existed among the Hokkaido Ainu, who had no contact with the ethnic groups of the Amur Region and Sakhalin. The possibility of Paleoasians and Tunguso - Manchus entering Hokkaido cannot be completely denied .20 However, episodic connections could not have had a significant impact on the Ainu culture. Convergent appearance of such a specific tool is unlikely. The same applies to other Ainu weapons - the spear and the bone part of the harpoon tip, in which the iron point is fixed - kite. In the Tunguso-Manchu languages, the spear is called "gida".

The spiritual culture of the Ainu and Tungus-speaking peoples of Siberia also has a lot in common. Among the Ainu and Evenki, the spirit of the hearth is an old woman, to whom each family member could contact directly and daily. There is no need to talk about borrowing such ideas in the field of spiritual culture, although it should be remembered that the allocation of the hearth fire as a family spirit and its anthropomorphization are an indicator of the degree of social development. Among the Evenks and Evens, there were beliefs that a person should not undress outside their home, even in good weather, so that the spirits of the area would not get angry and send misfortune .21 The same is true for the Ainu: adults were afraid that the sky would not see them in the nude .22 The Ainu, like the Tungusic-speaking population of Siberia, had similar ideas about the corpse of a person who died in an accident and was found by other people. The Evens buried such a corpse at the place of discovery, erecting a log cabin over it, covered with logs from above .23 The Ainu also buried the corpse at the place where it was found 24 . In both cases, the deceased was tabooed, and the announcement of the discovery of the corpse and the funeral were accompanied by magical actions. These analogies deserve further research.

Among the Evenks and Evens, the idea of the birth of a person from a tree became widespread, which was reflected in legends and legends. The Evenki folklore records a legend about the hero Kodakchon, who was given birth to a large hollow tree 25 . Among the Evens of the Okhotsk coast, there is still a legend about a baby found by hunters in a hollow tree: he later became the ancestor of the nation26 . Another legend tells about a girl who lived in a tree and became the wife of the main character of the story after he split the trunk with an arrow .27 Similar motifs are found in Ainu folklore: the sons of trees were the legendary heroes Okikurumi, born of an elm tree; Poiyaumbe, born from the Atni tree; Ainurakkur, who is the first mythical ancestor of the Ainu, and others .28 In the oral folk tradition of the Ainu, as well as among the Evens, there is a moment of ritual archery in the sacred birch tree 29 . The Ainu also have connections that can be identified with the extreme north-east of Asia when considering the bone harpoons of the ancient Beringomorsk culture .30 The materials of the Onkoromanai site in Hokkaido are of particular importance.

Along with the classification of the Ainu as an Australoid race, anthropological data show that the Ainu skull features differ from the southern groups and show an irreducible similarity to the Mongoloids. 31 The complex of serological (blood composition) features contrasts the Ainu with Australians, Micronesians and Melanesians and

19 Batchelor J. An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary. Tokyo. 1926, p. 227. In Japanese, the name of a fishing jail is "mori", which is obviously also related to"marek".

20 Gusinde M., Sano C. Stone Circles in Northern Japan. - Anthropos, 1960, Vol. 55, fasc. 3 - 4, pp. 444, 451 - 454.

21 AIE, K-l, op. 2, N 1159, l. 58.

22 Ratzel F. Narodovedenie [Folk Studies], vol. II, St. Petersburg, 1903, p. 700.

23 AIE, K-1, op. 2, N 1061, l. 35.

24 Arutyunov S. A. Ainu. In: Peoples of East Asia, Moscow, 1965, p. 950.

25 Istoricheskiy fol'klor evenkov [Historical folklore of the Evenks], Moscow, 1966.

26 AIE, K-1, op. 2, N 1061, l. 53.

27 Zolotarev A.M. New data on Tunguses and lamuts of the XVIII century. - Marxist Historian, 1938, book 2 (66), p. 75.

28 Nevsky N. A. Ainu folklore, Moscow, 1972, pp. 23, 26.

29 Dobrotvorsky M. M. Ainu-Russian dictionary. Kazan. 1875, p. 424.

30 Arutyunov S. A., Sergeev D. A. Problemy etnicheskoi istorii Beringomorya [Problems of ethnic history of the Bering Sea Region]. Moscow, 1975, pp. 184-191.

31 Cheboksary N. N. Basic principles; Benevolenskaya Yu. D. World distribution of the occipital-parietal index. In: Sovremennye problemy i novye metody v antropologii [Modern Problems and new Methods in Anthropology], L. 1980.

page 183

brings them closer to the Japanese and Chinese 32, and craniological (cranial) the Ainu type approaches even more northern populations. The similarity between the Ainu and Neolithic inhabitants of the Baikal region is noted 33 . It is possible that the original type from which the Oceanians and Ainu evolved was located in East Asia (not necessarily in the southern regions). The settlement of Polynesia, in particular, was carried out later than the appearance of the Japanese archipelago Praain-carriers of the Jomon culture .34 The Ainu have odontological (dental) parallels with the North American Indians and Peruvians, 35 and the Ainu skulls are close to the Native American ones. This suggests the presence of common ancestors of the Ainu and Americanoids, which are similar in appearance to the Neolithic population of the Baikal region36 . We should add that the Ainu people are close to Indo-Europeans in terms of their finger patterns and partly in terms of the biochemical index of their blood.

Recent anthropological studies have yielded results that contradict the Southern theory: the study of the facial region of the skull, in particular the posterior-zygomatic fissure, showed that the Ainu occupy the first place in the world in terms of the occurrence of this trait. This feature is valuable for identifying distinguishing features. The northern Mongoloids - Evens, Evenks, Nivkhs, Nanais, Mongols, etc. - are closest to the Ainu in this respect. If the frequency of this trait among the Amur peoples could have increased as a result of recent mestizoization with the Ainu, then this is excluded in relation to the Evenks and Mongols. The Ainu are also close to most groups of Siberian and Arctic Mongoloids in terms of the frequency of occurrence of the basal-maxillary suture, which is lower than that of the Australo-Oceanic people (the results of research are presented based on the yet unpublished works of A. G. Kozintsev).

The Ainu language is not related to any of the languages of the surrounding peoples and has no genetic relationship at all. A distant relationship with the incorporating languages of the Paleo-Asians and Amerindians is outlined, as can be seen in the study of the archaic style of the Ainu epic, which is characterized by the incorporation of semantic elements by verbs .37 However, the syntax of the Ainu language is similar to Japanese and all Altaic languages. At the same time, they have significant morphological differences 38 . Noteworthy are the terms of the Ainu kinship system, which are comparable to those of the Tungusic-speaking ethnic groups. Kinship terminology is interesting because it represents the oldest lexical fund. The basis for the convergence of individual Tungus-Manchu and Ainu lexical elements is the interpretation of the morphological structure of the Tungus-Manchu word by means of the Ainu language. The Ainu score is peculiar: by twenties (for example, 90 is denoted as "five twenty without ten").

Thus, the materials of related sciences allow us to note that the Ainu culture finds analogies in different regions of the vast region. The same applies to the Ainu anthropological type, which connects northern and southern features. But nowhere in the world is there a people who show commonality with the Ainu in all or most of their characteristics. Based on this, it can be assumed that the initial formation of the Proto-Ainu community was carried out in the regions of Asia, possibly adjacent or even included in the area of formation of the North Asian Mongoloids, and then continued on the northern islands of the Pacific basin in conditions of relative isolation; this influenced the specifics of the Ainu culture and anthropological type. It is also possible that the ancestors of the Ainu may have shared common ancestors with the Oceanians on the territory of the Asian continent. In the Far East, in the Neolithic period, the Praain came into contact with the ancestors of the Paleo-Asians and Tungus-Manchus, who came from the west. 39 To the Ainu Ancestral Islands

32 Omoto K., Misawa S. The Genetic Relations of the Ainu. In: The Origin of the Australians. - Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1976, N 6.

33 Kozintsev A. G. Uk. soch., p. 240.

34 Ibid., p. 241.

35 Bird sell J. B. The Problem of the Early Peopling of the Americas as Viewed from Asia. In: The Physical Anthropology of the American Indians. N. Y. 1949; Hanihara R. Dentition of the Ainu and the Australian Aborigines. In: IX'th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Chicago. 1973.

36 Kozintsev A. G. Uk. soch., p. 240.

37 Kindaichi K. Study of the Ainu language. Tokyo, 1960, pp. 318-323 (in Japanese).

38 Arutyunov S. A. Uk. soch., p. 953.

39 Questions of the appearance of the Tungus-Manchu ancestors in the Far East in the Neolithic period were developed by a number of authors: Okladnikov A. P. Tungus-Manchu problem and archeology. - History of the USSR, 1968.

page 184

They could have penetrated through Sakhalin, later settling the Kuril Ridge, Hokkaido, Honshu, etc. In Southern Kamchatka, the Ainu were partially assimilated with the Itelmen, and in Sakhalin-with the Nivkhs. Obviously, it is no accident that in ancient times the island of Hokkaido was called Watarishima-the island of transition 40 . Since the Pacific coast was a natural migration route for the ancient population, this may explain the anthropological similarity of the Ainu with some Indian communities.

The Ainoidic groups may have been captured by one of the migration flows with which they reached the Americas. The latter was inhabited by "already mixed streams of some East Asian people, which included both Mongoloid and Australoid (probably related to the Ainu) elements" 41 . In this respect, rock carvings of the Lower Amur and Northwestern America are of interest: the latter closely resemble petroglyphs near Sheremetyevo, Sakachi-Alyan, and others .42 Hence, perhaps, the analogies in the culture of the Paleoasiats and the Ainu. According to the Japanese archaeologist R. Torii, the tattoo and some hairstyles were borrowed by the Chukchi and Eskimos from the Ainu. In the past, he believed, the Ainu had close ties with the Koryaks .43 If we take into account the point of view according to which the Koryaks, before reaching the Sea of Okhotsk, were in contact with the indigenous peoples of the Lower Amur, among which, obviously , were the Ainu, 44 then we can agree with the arguments of the Japanese scientist.

The ancestors of the Ainu came to Hokkaido at a very remote time. Harpoons for hunting sea animals found there are 7 thousand years old and are associated with the original species of Early Jain harpoons45 . There is reason to believe that the Praain lived in ancient times and in the continental regions of the Far East. This is evidenced by the data of ancient written sources about the Sushen, Yilou, Wuji, Mohe and other tribes - a number of consecutive ethnic groups connected by a common origin and identified with the Tungus-Manchus 46 , although some elements of the Sushen and Yilou culture have other features: clothing made of bast wood, the use of poison for arrowheads during hunting and military operations., burial of human remains in clay vessels 47 . The Ainu, in contrast to the Tunguso-Manchus and Paleoasiatic peoples, made extensive use of bast wood and grass to make clothing. Strong poisons of plant origin used in hunting were available in the Far East only among the Ainu 48 . It is possible that Sushen and Yilou may have included a Proto-Jain component 49 . The other part of the Praain, displaced by the Tungus-Manchus and not assimilated by them, formed the second wave of immigrants, who penetrated from the continent to the islands and encountered the ancestors of the Ainu, who settled here earlier and received the name "koropokguru"in the legends .50 The descendants of the Proto - Jain group on the continent that was not absorbed by the Tungus-Manchus were the Kusho, who lived in the lower reaches of the Amur River in the VIII-X centuries.

No. 6; same name. Archeology yesterday, today, tomorrow. - Voprosy istorii, 1968, N 5; Vasilevich G. M. Evenki, L. 1969, p. 40; Smolyak A.V. Problemy etnogeneza tungusoyazychnykh narodov Nizhni Amura i Sakhalina [Problems of ethnogenesis of Tungusic-speaking peoples of the Lower Amur and Sakhalin]. In: Ethnogenesis of the peoples of the North, Moscow, 1980, pp. 182-183; et al.

40 Takekuma T. Aborigines of the island of Hokkaido - "Ainu". - Bulletin of Asia, Harbin, 1923, N 51, p. 330.

41 Debets G. F. The origin of the American man according to the data of anthropology. In: Peoples of America, vol. II, Moscow, 1959, p. 23.

42 Okladnikov A. P. Petroglyphs of the Lower Amur, L. 1971; Okladnikova E. A. Pisanitsy Tikhookhanskogo korega Severnoi Ameriki i Sibiri [Writings of the Pacific coast of North America and Siberia]. In: Traditional Cultures of Northern Siberia and North America, Moscow, 1981, p. 89.

43 Torii R. Op. cit. pp. 87 - 88, 149 - 153.

44 Arsenyev V. K., Titov E. I. Life and character of the peoples of the Far Eastern Region. Khabarovsk - Vladivostok. 1928, p. 36; Zolotarev A.M. Uk. soch.; Vdovin I. S. Ocherki etnicheskoi istorii koryakov [Essays on the Ethnic History of the Koryaks].

45 Otsuka K. Harpoons of the Ainu. - Communications of the State Museum of Ethnography, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, N 4, p. 779 (in Japanese).

46 Peoples of East Asia, M.-L. 1965, p. 672-673; Vorob'ev M. V. Jurcheni i gosudarstvo Jin, M. 1975, p. 23-24, 360.

47 Catalog of mountains and Seas, Moscow, 1977, p. 98, 187; Bichurin N. Ya. Collection of information about the peoples who lived in Central Asia in ancient times, Part II, Moscow, l. 1950, p. 24, 70.

48 Shternberg L. Ya. Uk. soch., p. 566; Arutyunov S. A. Uk. soch., p. 943.

49 Noteworthy is the opinion of the Japanese scholar K. Kume, who considered the Edzoain to be one of the ethnic divisions of the "Shukushin", i.e., Sushen (Kume K. Ancient history of Japan. Tokyo. 1905, pp. 765-767, in Russian). Rather, it should be about the Mohe, the descendants of the Sushen.

50 Torii R. Op. cit., pp. 125 - 132, 282.

page 185

Written sources refer to the ancestors of the Ainu since the 1st century A.D. Chinese chronicles refer to the Maozhen, the "hairy people" of the northern Pacific islands51 . At the beginning of the eighth century, Chinese sources mention the Kusho (Kusho-bo)people who lived in the lower reaches of the Amur River .52 In the Japanese chronicles, information about the Ainu is found in the Nihonseki chronicle (720 AD), where they are called "emishi" (Ebisu), i.e. "barbarians" (eastern savages)53 . Stories about the natives of Mutsu province (IX c.) tell about the skillful hunting of the Ainu in the open sea on dugouts, the use of poisonous arrows, and the ability of Ainu women to make fabrics from bast fibers. 54 Most of the subsequent Japanese news about the Ainu is of a military nature, describing expeditions to capture the Ainu lands and conquer the indigenous inhabitants of the Japanese islands. In these records, the Ainu were referred to as" ezo " (with the same meaning as before). In contrast to these names, local Ainu groups had their own names - "enju-utara", "soya-utara", "chuvka - utara", etc., meaning "people". In their prayers and oral histories, the Ainu referred to themselves as "entiu." 55 The word "Ainu", translated as "man", was not a self-designation and appeared only at the end of the XIX century.

During the feudal era, there were constant clashes between the Ainu and the Japanese. The capture of the Ainu lands was accompanied by a ruthless extermination of the indigenous inhabitants. Until recently, in the north of Honshu Island, you could see piles of bones of Ainu people who died during the Japanese invasion .56 As Ainu resistance increased as the Japanese advanced north, the Japanese rulers sent large armies against the Ainu and established special border garrisons; fortresses were laid to fight the indigenous population. So, in 776, a squad of 4 thousand people moved against him, in 780 - twice 3 thousand, and so on. 57 In 788, the military commander, who led the Japanese army already in 52 thousand people, fought with the Ainu for a year, but unsuccessfully, and retreated. Emperor Saga issued a special decree in 811 on how to deal with the aborigines. Two major Ainu liberation movements of the eleventh century were referred to in Japanese history as the "First Nine Years' War "and the"Subsequent Three Years' War. " 58
Military campaigns and sometimes peaceful contacts of the Ainu with Japanese peasants fleeing from feudal oppression to the border areas, with supporters of feudal lords defeated in internecine wars and hiding from their opponents in the Ainu territories influenced the life of the Ainu people. Japanese and Ainu connections in northeastern Honshu contributed to the formation of samurai characteristics. These include the "hara-kiri" rite, or more precisely, "seppuku "(cutting open one's stomach by a valiantly dying hero), the Ainu equivalent of which is the identical"pere" rite. Borrowed from the aborigines, it then became widespread in the military class of the Japanese.

From the 15th century until the Meiji Revolution, the final stage of Ainu enslavement continued. Japan's policy towards them remained the same. The leading role in the conquest and seizure of aboriginal lands passed to the Matsumae feudal clan, which began the colonization of Ezo Island (Hokkaido). The 400-year history of this clan in the northern archipelago has been a continuous chain of punitive expeditions and extermination wars against the Ainu population .59
The first of these wars was launched by the Japanese in 1457 against the Ainu led by Kosyamain. At that time, the Ainu were still a strong enemy for the Japanese colonists in southern Hokkaido, which the samurai sometimes even feared to meet in open battle. The invaders resorted more often to subterfuges, treachery, and breaking promises made before. The Ainu chieftains, however, revered the customs of hospitality, repeatedly accepted invitations to visit the camps of opponents for negotiations and died in ambushes. So, in 1515, the second ruler of the Matsumae clan, Takeda, made peace with the Ainu, who were preparing to storm the Japanese Tokuyama castle, and invited their leaders, the Seyakoji brothers, to the fortress, ostensibly to show jewelry. Ainu people

51 AIE, K-1, op. 1, N 787, l. 3.

52 Narody Sibiri [Peoples of Siberia], Moscow, 1956, p. 784.

53 Geographical and Ethnographic Review of Japan, vol. 14. Tokyo. 1930, p. 122 (in Russian).

54 Ibid., pp. 122-123.

55 Batchelor J. The Ainu. Tokyo. 1926, p. 1.

56 Pozdneev D. Materials on the history of Northern Japan and its relations to the mainland of Asia and Russia. 1909, p. 61.

57 Ibid., Vol. I. Yokohama. 1909, p. 5.

58 Ibid., pp. 6-7.

59 Ibid., vol. II, p. 61.

page 186

they were planted near the boards tied with ropes in the form of a grid, which served as a fence. Suddenly they were pinned down by this grating and killed 60 . Often, the Japanese resorted to getting Ainu leaders drunk, attracting people who were at enmity with representatives of other clans to their side, and so on.

Among the most significant Ainu revolts are the movements of 1525, 1529 (under the leadership of Tanasyagashi), 1536 (under the leadership of Tarikonna), 1643, 1653, 1662. All of them were depressed. In 1669-1672, the organizer of the Ainu uprising was the Shakuxiain (Xiusen), who enjoyed great authority among the indigenous population. This movement kept the Matsumae feudal lords in suspense for a long time and was suppressed only at the cost of great efforts. In the decisive battle, the Japanese used cannons and rifles against the Ainu armed with bows and arrows. The dead were so numerous that it was' impossible to count ' them . Shakuxiain was tricked into joining the Japanese and hacked to pieces. His name has always remained in the memory of the Ainu people. He is still revered as a folk hero in Hokkaido. The last local action of the Ainu was the uprising of 1789, in which only 200 people took part.

The conquered Ainu were taxed with tribute. The system of "savage civilization" was applied to them, which meant attracting representatives of the local ethnic group to backbreaking hard work. On a large scale, the Ainu were plundered by merchants and tax collectors, and soldered together. The Japanese brought massive diseases to the Ainu people, especially measles and smallpox. Many Ainu people died during smallpox epidemics in 1658, 1698, and 1780. In the 19th century, about 20 thousand Ainu remained. The loss of their territories and colonial oppression gave rise to the breakdown of the traditional structure of ancient society and the degradation of culture.

In 1876, by a special decree, the Ainu were equated with the Heimin, i.e. the common people (peasants, townspeople, merchants) - the lowest category of Japanese society. Officially, the Ainu were considered part of the Japanese nation63 . But this did not bring the Ainu any relief. Their feudal exploitation was replaced by capitalist exploitation. The Ainu were no longer engaged in traditional occupations such as hunting and fishing, many of the former tools and techniques of which were banned by the government (poisoned arrows, traps, traps, etc.), and now they could only work as day laborers for landowners, in construction work, and in the handicraft industry. 64 Their labor was paid at an extremely low price and in kind, mostly with rice and vodka.

Attempts by the Ainu people to improve their lives through negotiations and petitions were unsuccessful. In one of the petitions that elected representatives of the Ainu people of Hokkaido addressed to the authorities, they asked for the return of land taken from Matsumae .65 The request was ignored, but the original Ainu territories were sold to immigrants from other islands of Japan or distributed among representatives of the administration of the island, which officially began to be considered the" new border " of the empire. At the end of the XIX century. Japanese expansion to the north has intensified. After Hokkaido, the greedy eyes of the Japanese invaders turned to the Kuril Islands, which came under Japanese rule in 1875. The Kuril Ainu were taken to Shikotan Island, where they almost all became extinct. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Ainu people of Southern Sakhalin were also forcibly Japanized. Their culture, which was previously beneficially affected by the culture of Russia, has suffered damage. Former privileges also disappeared (even Catherine II released the "furry Kuril" from taxes by a special decree).

The consequences of the Japanese migration to Hokkaido were also terrible for the Ainu economically. The population of wild deer was destroyed, forests were cut down, undergrowth was burned, permanent fishing nets were installed along the coasts and near the mouths of rivers, and deep-sea fishing with large trawls began in the open sea. Demoralization gripped the Ainu 66 . They were isolated in reservations. Discrimination against the Ainu continued to exist in all spheres of life. They were accepted only for hard and dirty work, and admission to higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation.-

60 Ibid., p. 69.

61 Ibid., p. 97.

62 Peng F. C. C. Geiser P. The Ainu: the Past in the Present. Hiroshima. 1977, p. 8.

63 Takakura Sh. The Ainu of Northern Japan: a Study of Conquest and Acculturation. - Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1960, Vol. 50, pt. 4, pp. 4,81.

64 AIE. K-l, op. 1, N 787, l. 17.

65 Sutherland J. The Ainu People of Northern Japan. - The Journal of the Polinesian Society, 1948, Vol. 14.

66 Philippi D. L. Op. cit, p. 15.

page 187

these establishments were exceptional.

Most Ainu now live in the Saru River basin (Hidaka District, Hokkaido). As a result of long-term assimilation and acculturation, it is now difficult to distinguish Japanese from Ainu by language or cultural characteristics. But, of course, the anthropological features inherent in the representatives of the Ainu ethnic group are preserved. Most experts consider the Ainu language to be practically dead. Many old people and young people do not know it. 30 years ago, only 20 people owned it in Hokkaido .67 It has fallen out of use even in family circulation. Traditional Ainu culture has also lost its identity. Its elements are found only in special centers where the Ainu are used for the purposes of the tourism industry.

In tourist centers, on a certain month and day of the year, as it is recorded in the prospectuses and commemorative calendars, you can see ancient Ainu rituals and dances, hear songs accompanied by folk instruments. Many tourists to Hokkaido are attracted by kumamatsuri-a bear festival. For TV viewers, it is reproduced in all the details except for the ritual killing of a bear. Other tourist attractions include marimomatsuri, the Marimo seaweed festival from October 12 to 14 on the lake. Akan. It consists of displaying the seaweed and re-immersing it in water 68 . This holiday is a combination of various Ainu celebrations with a display of ancient relics, in particular swords. For tourists, the Ainu make a lot of souvenirs: carved wood products (previously the Ainu did not sell them), textiles, embroidery. In some villages, for example, Nibutani on the Saru River, handicraft workshops are organized for this purpose. However, even here, the Japanese are taking bread away from the Ainu, releasing the most popular souvenirs by the flow method.

The disappearance of elements of the Ainu culture led to the fact that the question of their preservation was raised publicly in Japan. As a result, interest in the Ainu people has increased somewhat, the number of books dedicated to them has increased, documentaries about their life have appeared, and a number of societies for the study of the Ainu cultural heritage have emerged. Among the latter is the Association for the Preservation of Ainu Spiritual Culture. Many Ainu themselves began to play an active role in preserving folk art and traditional folklore. Thus, Ayn S. Kayano (born in 1926 in the village of Ayn. Nibutani) started publishing the collected materials on folklore of the Saru River region, and he is also the director of the Ainu Culture Museum in his native village 69 .

Perhaps such events will help preserve what little of the cultural heritage of the Ainu people, one of the most interesting peoples of the world, still remains today, and will help in solving the problems of the history of this ethnic group.

67 Hattori Sh. An Ainu Dialect Dictionary. Tokyo. 1964, p. 8.

68 Japanese holidays. Tokyo, 1967, p. 171 (in Japanese).

69 Philippi D. L. Op. cit, p. 16.

page 188


© elib.jp

Permanent link to this publication:

https://elib.jp/m/articles/view/AINU-PEOPLE

Similar publications: LJapan LWorld Y G


Publisher:

Haruto MasakiContacts and other materials (articles, photo, files etc)

Author's official page at Libmonster: https://elib.jp/Masaki

Find other author's materials at: Libmonster (all the World)GoogleYandex

Permanent link for scientific papers (for citations):

A. B. SPEVAKOVSKY, AINU PEOPLE // Tokyo: Japan (ELIB.JP). Updated: 25.01.2025. URL: https://elib.jp/m/articles/view/AINU-PEOPLE (date of access: 10.02.2025).

Found source (search robot):


Publication author(s) - A. B. SPEVAKOVSKY:

A. B. SPEVAKOVSKY → other publications, search: Libmonster JapanLibmonster WorldGoogleYandex

Comments:



Reviews of professional authors
Order by: 
Per page: 
 
  • There are no comments yet
Related topics
Publisher
Haruto Masaki
Yokohama, Japan
18 views rating
25.01.2025 (16 days ago)
0 subscribers
Rating
0 votes
Related Articles
SEN KATAYAMA AS A HISTORIAN
Catalog: History 
11 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
A. I. KRUSHANOV. VICTORY OF SOVIET POWER IN THE FAR EAST AND TRANSBAIKALIA (1917-APRIL 1918)
Catalog: History Bibliology 
11 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
THOMAS HUBER. THE REVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF MODERN JAPAN
11 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
POLITICAL EXILE IN SIBERIA AT THE END OF THE XVIII-BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY. SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Catalog: History 
12 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
M. I. SVETACHEV. Imperialist intervention in Siberia and the Far East (1918-1922)
Catalog: History Bibliology 
16 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
KURILORUSSIA
16 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
ONCE AGAIN ABOUT TSUSHIMA
Catalog: History 
17 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
VICTORY IN THE FAR EAST
17 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
STRENGTHENING OF NEOCONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES OF BOURGEOIS AUTHORS IN JAPAN
17 days ago · From Haruto Masaki
A. A. ISKENDEROV. TOYOTOMI HIDEYOSHI
Catalog: History Bibliology 
17 days ago · From Haruto Masaki

New publications:

Popular with readers:

News from other countries:

ELIB.JP - Japanese Digital Library

Create your author's collection of articles, books, author's works, biographies, photographic documents, files. Save forever your author's legacy in digital form. Click here to register as an author.
Library Partners

AINU PEOPLE
 

Editorial Contacts
Chat for Authors: JP LIVE: We are in social networks:

About · News · For Advertisers

Digital Library of Japan ® All rights reserved.
2023-2025, ELIB.JP is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map)
Preserving the Japan heritage


LIBMONSTER NETWORK ONE WORLD - ONE LIBRARY

US-Great Britain Sweden Serbia
Russia Belarus Ukraine Kazakhstan Moldova Tajikistan Estonia Russia-2 Belarus-2

Create and store your author's collection at Libmonster: articles, books, studies. Libmonster will spread your heritage all over the world (through a network of affiliates, partner libraries, search engines, social networks). You will be able to share a link to your profile with colleagues, students, readers and other interested parties, in order to acquaint them with your copyright heritage. Once you register, you have more than 100 tools at your disposal to build your own author collection. It's free: it was, it is, and it always will be.

Download app for Android