Research Report for Cycle 1

What to know to live with

Ainu culture and people

i. My Starting Story

Since I was born in Hokkaido, I have been familiar with Ainu people compared to others. In my school special classes, Ainu people came to told us traditional way they live, such as music, and so on. After growing up, I learned they were the “minority”, and there were some systems to protect them. But my friends from other than Hokkaido, their value to Ainu is different from me. Even though we all are Japanese, some think Ainu exist in textbooks, not in real. It may lead Ainu culture disappear. So, I researched situation and looked for how to hand down its next generation.

ii. What is Ainu?

Ainu is an ethnic group which were mainly indigenous to Hokkaido, the Kuril Island, and much of Sakhalin. In recent years the number of Ainu people is no longer certain.

iii. Toujisha Voices

Shinobu Sugiura

“I’ve decided not to get married with Ainu people. I don’t want my children to be bullied because of their roots, like me.”

Rie Kayano

“When I was a little child, I enjoyed my Ainu culture. But in my school life, I was teased because of the roots. So, I became to rarely tell it.”

iv. History

From Japan’s point of view

1869 Legislation during 明治 period, A policy was adopted to force Ainu people to assimilate and become Japanese. Japanese government banned the use of the Ainu language in public places, and prohibited many cultural practices of Ainu, including traditional hunting and fishing. These plans were “development 開発” for them.

From Ainu’s point of view

By the beginning of 明治, Japanese merchants traveled to Yezo to trade goods. In fact, that industry relied on Ainu people’s forced labor. They were made to hunt animals and make fertilizer from them just to transport to Honshu. These acts were “invasion 侵略” for them.

At then, Ainu people lived as hunter gatherers in family groups. They used to hand down their culture and developed their spiritual beliefs.

But it was destructed by Japan’s intervention. Adult Ainu men were forced to work as labors and many were carted off. Young women even those who had already married were forced to live as mistress for Japanese men. It led families and communities of Ainu were devastated.

v. Comparison with Native American people

Ainu people and native American people gathered on the Harvard University campus for the Harvard Native Students Association’s annual powwow in 2001. In their talks, some similarities and differences emerged. Let me introduce two of them.

Both of them were suffered by stereotypes from others. They were often seen such as lazy, uneducated, barbaric. As for Ainu people, this perception is due to the fact that Ainu and Japanese values are completely different. While Japanese people are materialistic and always seek advancement, Ainu people try to live with nature and worship Ainu gods which is called Kamuy.

In contrast, While Native American people have their own reservation:居留地, Ainu people don’t have it. This is because there are a lot of mixed blood people between Ainu and Japanese, so makes it difficult to claim land as own.

The areas colored blue is Native American’s reservation.

vi. Ainu language preservation

I. What is Ainu language

According to Hokkaido University in 2019, there are only 10 native speakers who speak Ainu fluently. This means Ainu language is critically endangered based on UNESCO indicators.

Its mysterious beginnings

Ainu language is known as “language isolate” because it is unrelated to any other language. The fact makes it difficult to determine where the Ainu language originated and where its speakers came from.

Current education

The public-school curriculum basically ignores Ainu language, other than a simple mention of it as a language that used to be spoken. It means there is no mention of it as a language that is an earlier form.

Shizue Ukaji, an Ainu liberation activist

“It will be difficult to maintain Ainu culture without Ainu-related schools. The language is the foundation of culture.”

II. Necessity of Ainu language

Some people claim social Darwinism, saying that language loss is mostly same as species loss. Both are the simple fact of life on ever-evolving planet.

However, we can counter to that argument by this way of thinking: language is conduits of wisdom. Language itself is often the only way to convey the wisdom of the past because writing system is developed just recently. Languages contain an accumulated body of knowledge including about geography, zoology, mathematics, navigation, astronomy, pharmacology, botany, metrology and more.

Take Cherokee language whose speakers inhabited the southern Appalachia Mountain for example. That language words exit for every berry, stem, frond and toadstool in the region. They convey what kind of properties the objects have, whether it’s edible, poisonous or it has some medical value.

In the case of Ainu language, オオヨモギ is called ノヤ(noya) in Ainu language. The Ainu people boiled and used it as food, and also made a cough supplement and insect repellent, treatment for various diseases. For its various medical properties and unique fragrance, it was called カムイノヤ(神ノヤ: god of noya). As upper, Ainu language’s word itself express how オオヨモギ is useful for human.

vii. Ainu people and culture in Tokyo

According to an Ainu organization working in the metropolitan area estimation in 2018, at least 5000 to 10000 people live in the metropolitan area.

Let me explain one of Ainu people who lives in Tokyo and contribute to the promotion of Ainu culture, Teruyo Usa. She runs a restaurant named “ハルコロ”(ハル means food, コロ means have: hopes to be rich with much of food) that serves Ainu cuisine, and also work to share the culture of Ainu people through song, dance, and embroidery. It is considered the only Ainu restaurant other than Hokkaido.

According to a survey conducted by Cabinet Office in 2011, Ainu people of those who indicated that they are currently working, 9/142 respondents indicated that their work utilizes Ainu culture like wood carving and knitting. And the rest of them work in unrelated to Ainu culture, such as office workers, actors, chefs, furniture makers, surveyors, and so on.

viii. Summary

As for culture, we need special treatment for Ainu like language school or legislation, to transmit the culture. But as for people, we should engage normally with Ainu people as human beings. I think this way of thinking could be used to think about issues regarding other minority groups.

As a discussion question for my presentation, Jain explained how Korean education curriculum define to teach North-Korean language. Following that, we can come up with a new way to preserve Ainu language, like add it to Japanese class(国語), not just establishing language school.