Japan Finally Recognizes Ainu as Indigenous Peoples

Always appreciate your interest, azzay, and thanks for the flag. 

I congratulate the original AINU inhabitants of Japan for their recognition as an indigenous people by the late-comer, non-Ainu Japanese occupiers of their land. While congratulating them on this occasion, I also await the next logical move on behalf of the Japanese Government -- that the geographically, linguistically, historically, and culturally removed indigenous OKINAWANS on the distant southern islands be given the same recognition.

Seeing how both the AINU to the North, and the OKINAWANS to the South had their lands forcibly annexed by the belligerent, war-mongering YAMATO clans, it is high time that the Ministry of Education stops telling their own people that all current citizens of Japan are "one homogeneous race and culture" (and promulgating such ridiculous fallacies to the world).

That a modern-day global power such as Japan would continue to believe in such myths as a result of an unfounded "Superiority Complex" (that has long been debunked by non-Japanese who have to deal with their historical fairy-tales on a regular basis), is a matter of amazement to those familiar with the situation. Again, congratulations to the AINU. One down, and one to go.

And after that, automatic Japanese Citizenship to all those of "Korean Descent" who are born in Japan as descendants of those residents who had their Japanese Citizenship stripped from them after WW2, based on more of the same politico-racial prejudices that stand out as a true mark of the YAMATO Japanese policies, even in the 21st Century.

Other than these minor details, I love Japan.

The concert of Oki Ainu Dub Band left me interesest in knowing more about their culture, tradicions and above all music.

They got the crowd deep into their music, loved the way how they connected the reggae, dub, electronic into the acustic tradicions of the Ainu people.

Photos took place during Festival de Músicas do Mundo de Sines, 2007.

kutequatekessa has contributed a photo to this story.

I have an interest in the Ainu culture and congratulate PEP on his story. 
I visited the Sapporo Pirka Kotan, Ainu Culture Promotion Center Sapporo in Hakkaido, Japan around Feb 2007 <a href="http://www.city.sapporo.jp/shimin/pirka-kotan/en/">www.city.sapporo.jp/shimin/pirka-kotan/en/</a>

According to a 1999 Hokkaido local government survey, there are approximately 23,767 Ainu people living in Hokkaido and about 5000 in the Kanto area. However, very few of these individuals speak any Ainu language or practice the traditional way of life. Cheung’s paper entitled “Ainu culture in transition” discusses the history and culture of the Ainu, and examines the social transformations that have taken place within this society since the enactment of the Ainu New Law in 1997, and the intervention of some innovative institutions aimed at supporting and revitalizing Ainu culture. It also presents material from ethnographic fieldwork interviews that reveal how some Ainu consider their cultural traditions and identity in Japan. (Chueng SCH Futures Volume 35, Issue 9, November 2003, Pages 951-959)

Genetic testing of the Ainu people has shown that they belong mainly to Y-haplogroup D. The only places outside of Japan in which Y-haplogroup D is common are Tibet and the Andaman Islands of India. 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.

Met while we were visiting family in Sapporo, Hokkaido, this was the first time that I had heard of the Ainu and I had no idea that the local Japanese were not the indigenous people of the area. This picture was taken at a dance performance as part of the Yosakai festival just outside of Sapporo.

Kelmon has contributed a photo to this story.

I met the lovely Ainu lady in the picture at the Ainu culture center outside of Jozankei in Hokkaido, Japan. She demonstrated the use of the "jews harp" used by Ainu women to "speak the unspoken love they have for a man". She was very interesting and a great cultural asset for the Ainu people.

The Ainu, the original Japanese, exist now only in the northern island of Hokkaido where their eradication finally came to a halt during the last century and where the mix of genealogy through inter-marriage has begun to water-down their unique culture. Still proud of their history, the old ways are passed on to the young in the hope that their memory will not be lost forever.

Kurt E Nebel has contributed a photo to this story.

Taken at the Shiraoi Ainu Museum, also known as Porotokotan, in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, Japan.

Karla Steffen has contributed a photo to this story.

locket479 has contributed a photo to this story.

Ainu Tattoos & Cultural Information : http://www.larskrutak.com/articles/Ainu/index.html

The Japanese Government made tattooing illegal for Ainu people even though some still did & do it in secret. The Ainu exclusively decorated their bodies, preferably the faces of the women by performing something called "Nuye" or "Sinuye", the Ainu synonym for tattooing (polynesian 'tatauing'). The body art was both an expression of religious feelings as well as a status symbol of grown-up and married women. According to a legend, a deity descended from heaven and explained to all the women that every women without a tattoo who married a man is committing a big sin and she won't find salvation after death. On the contrary, as a punishment she would be tattooed in hell in just one treatment.

From there on, earthly tattoos were indispensable for Ainu women. The procedure was conducted by specialists over years and was done by rubbing charcoal dust in the with sharp little knives. The carved skin giving young girls a black-blue looking, sideways pointed line tattooed around their mouth called "Anci-Pini". The picture was supplemented
with sinuous lines in around the eyebrows and extensive ornaments on arms and forearms. The women also received a tomb stone as a magic mark in their armpit which helped averting the crisis she will face in the age of 19, 33 and 37.

The Ainus were tattooed on the face as well as the back of the hands and arms. The tattoos were done around the lips, cheeks, the forehead or the eyebrows.  There are several motivations for Ainu tattooing: cosmetic purposes, tribal purposes, sexual maturity, religious purposes and adornment. Although only the Ainu women's tattoos were mentioned
in most cases, it was also reported that the men were tattooed in some regions (Takayama; 1969, Yoshioka; 1996).

Ainu girls were first tattooed when they were 10 to 13 years old. Some women started when they were 5 or 6 years old. Their tattoos were completed by the time they reached marriageable age.  The patterns of the Ainu tattoos are related to their tribal clothing. For women, the tattoos symbolized their spiritual strength.

Tosabayashi (1948) presents the study on the patterns of the Ainu tattoo in detail. He mentions that the patterns of the tattoos are similar to the chastity belt that the Ainu women wore, and that Ainu tattoos symbolize virtue or purity. The Ainu tattoo is also used for protection from the atrocities committed by other tribes.

The Ryukyu tattoos, on the other hand, were done on only the back of the hands, including the fingers, the wrists and the knuckles. There are no examples of  facial tattoo (Glacken, 1955). Tattooing is not practiced in every Ryukyu island. In some parts, both men and women got tattooed, but in others, only women had tattoos. In other parts of Ryukyu, no
one was tattooed. The age at which tattooing began was different, depending on the areas of the Ryukyu islands or generation (Yoshioka, 1996).  The Ryukyu tattooing symbolized religious beliefs, sexual maturity, indication of marriage, body adornment, distinction of sex, and tribal customs. Glacken (1955) reports that the purpose of the Ryukyu women's
tattooing was to prevent being carried off to brothels in Japan. Kidnappings were frequent occurrences in the Ryukyu history and the Ryukyu people knew that the Japanese disliked tattooed women (Haring, 1969).

There are examples of therapeutic tattooing among the Ainu and the Ryukyu. It was believed that tattoos would heal the affected parts (Yoshioka, 1996). This is different from the medical tattoos, but more likely to be magical.

The Ainu are an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin Island (Formerly 'Karafto' (Japanese) just north of Hokkaido an enormous island taken by the Russians at the end of WWII). There are most likely over 150,000 Ainu today; however the exact figure is not known as many Ainu hide their origin due to racial issues in
Japan. In many cases, surviving Ainu may not be even aware of their ancestry, as their parents and grandparents kept their descent private in order to protect their children from social problems.

The most widely known ethnonym of 'Ainu' is derived from the word Aynu, which means "human" (particularly as opposed to kamuy, 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. DNA records show that the Ainu are a mainly a mix of Mongolian & Indian (India). The earliest records of the colonization of Japan are ceramic findings from the Jomon culture (earliest Ainu) from about 4.500 BC. They obviously were derived from the Ainu who are considered the natives of Japan. From around 300 BC until about 300 AD, immigrants from Mongolia and Malaysia came, followed by the Chinese culture and scripture through Korea. In the 6th century Buddhism and Confucianism reached the country from China. Together with their tradition, the people of the Ainu, were finally displaced by the colonization of the northern island Hokkaido, the Ainu's main settlement area.

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. Even today, Ainu capture and sacrifice bear cubs in ritual ceremonies. 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).

It is said that the Samurai are descendants of the Ainu –or, that they were the result of intermarriage of Ainu and early Chinese invaders who remained in Japan. They entered upper classes by becoming Samurai.

This is the story of all cultural responses to more powerful invaders. e.g. the Roman Empire expansion into Europe and N. Africa.

And, seen today in the homogenization of cultures through global consumerism.  Fortunately, the artists keep their cultural impulses alive.

英語はわからないので日本語で(･∀･)ｹﾞﾍﾗﾍﾗ
北海道の白老にて撮りました

sapporo has contributed a photo to this story.