Ashiri rera
Takumi Fujiwara
who is she
She was born in 1946 at Biratori-chou, Saru (district), Hokkaido, a place with beautiful nature and rich Ainu traditions.
Her name Ashiri Rera means "new wind" in Ainu language, and her Japanese name is 山道康子 (Yamamichi Yasuko).
She has been an Ainu activist since the age of 15.
At the age of 15, she began working on ethnic issues, environmental protection activities, and peace activities. While running an Ainu folk craft store in Nibutani, she founded the "Association for the Protection of the Saru River" in 1979, and in 1989 established the "Yamamichi Ainu Language School," which also served as a free school (closed in 2009). At the same time, she started the "Ainu Mosiri 10,000 Year Festival" during the Obon season. She has visited indigenous peoples around the world, including Native Americans and Aborigines, and as a shaman, has performed rituals in various places to promote exchange.
WHat is Ainu:
Ainu people are originally hunter and gatherers that are indigenous to Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. They obtained furs and seafood by themselves and got rice, cotton, lacquerware, and ironware from Japanese people.
They use Ainu language, which is now in serious danger of extinction, which there is only 10 people that can speak it fluently (2007, UNESCO)
In the mid 19 centuries, the Japanese government assimilated Ainu people into Japanese citizens without their consent where Ainu people were forced to speak Japanese, forced to give all their land to Japanese government, hunting, gathering, and finishing was banned, forced to change their name to a Japanese name.
In2019 , the New Ainu Law was established to promote policies for realizing a society in which the pride of Ainu People is respected.
In 2019, the number of Ainu people was 13,118 according to Hokkaido government and is keep on decreasing.
What is the motivation
It is my dad she clearly states.
My father was smart, but he couldn't become the teacher he wanted to be, so he lived by burning charcoal.
It wasn't until she entered junior high school in Hiratori that her world changed. She was verbally abused and ostracized by her peers, and at first, she could not understand what was happening, but gradually she realized that it was because she was Ainu. It was around that time that her refusal to go to school started little by little.
There is one thing that she still remembers vividly. When she was in the first year of junior high school, on a gravel slope on my way out of school, I slipped and fell because my feet were caught in a rope, unaware of a trap set by the upperclassmen. She scraped her knee and bleed a lot, and the skirt of her school uniform was stained with mud and blood. On her way home from school that day, her mother had told her to stop by my father's hospital room where he was hospitalized for heart valve disease. She didn't want her parents to know that she had been bullied into sliding down a hill, so she went to the hospital with the dirty part of my skirt around her back. She was enjoying spending time with my father, eating watermelon and melon that he had given me, but when she put her hand on the door handle to leave, her father, seeing her tattered skirt stained with blood and mud, said, "Don't run away from that! He shouted, even though he could barely speak.
The next day, her father passed away. His last words to her were, "If you give in to bullying, you are running away from yourself and from your country. I thought it meant "charanque" (Ainu word that means talk it out).
Up until that point, she didn't want to hear or be spoken bad things. She didn't want to hear them, and she didn't want to see the people who were saying them. When she heard her father's words, "Don't run away," I realized that she needs to change.
After that, she stopped running away and started wearing a matanpsi (an Ainu headband) all the time and appearing in public with pride. While most Ainu children stop going to school by the third semester of their first year of junior high school, she attended the graduation ceremony of her junior high school wearing a matanpsi. She attended the graduation ceremony of her junior high school wearing a matanpsi, and was told, "If you wear that bowl, we won't let you graduate. If you take it off, we will give you a diploma.
In the Ainu villages, many Ainu who could not read were tricked into believing that they were renting and their land was taken away. She also saw people who lost their homes and drowned in alcohol. Since such unreasonable things were happening on a daily basis, she felt a sense of crisis that the Ainu people would perish if things continued as they were, and she spoke up as an activist at the age of 15.
Why is she important
A mother of 50 children
I have raised 50 children, and I am concerned about how far the spirit of helping each other will penetrate into everyone and whether we will be able to survive on this earth. It may not be the end of the world, but I hope that we can pass on the idea of living with the spirit to our children's generation.
Teaches
In order for people to know about the Ainu, it is important to pass on Ainu culture through activities such as yukara (epic poem) storytelling in Japanese and Ainu languages. However, I believe that the most important thing is for people to know the truth. The Japanese people are a composite race with Ainu, Korean, Chinese, and Mongolian blood in their veins. The Ainu problem is a Japanese problem. Not knowing or being indifferent is the same as being racist. Clarifying the true history and knowing it properly will lead to a world without racism. I hope that by standing on the front lines, we can make people know the truth, even if only a little, and lead to a world without racism. I will continue to fight until the day I die to make that happen.
Connects with other Indigenous community
She has visited indigenous peoples around the world, including Native Americans and Aborigines, and as a shaman, has performed rituals in various places to promote exchange.