The Ainu of Japan: The History, Culture, and Discrimination Against this Aboriginal Group

The Ainu (ì´n¡) are aborigines of Northern Japan. Estimates vary on the age of Ainu people and culture, but it reached its height in the 13th and 14th centuries. Today, it is close to extinction.

Centuries of oppression, racism, and forced assimilation policies have contributed to the annihilation of the Ainu culture. Modern socialization and the fear of marginalization has led recent generations to deny their Ainu identity. Urban Ainu in particular face problems of alcoholism, homelessness, and violence.

The Ainu People – Culture, Appearance, and Homeland

"Ainu" means "human." They live by hunting, fishing, farming, and selling crafts to tourists. They have an animistic spirituality that regards all things, including inanimate objects, imbued with life and spirit.

Ainu are heavily bearded and have thick wavy hair. Their mix of European and Asian physical traits contrasts so sharply from other indigenous peoples of Asia that their origin is uncertain. Some theories hold they are of Caucasian descent; others think their distinct features are a result of isolation that allowed them to remain racially unchanged.

The Japanese chronicles "Kojiki" and "Nihonsyoki" refer to them as descendants of an ancient people called Emishi. Today the term Ainu is used to denote the indigenous people of Hokkaido in Japan and Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, in Russia.

Spirituality, Death and Afterlife in Ainu Culture

The Ainu people regard death as the separation of soul and body. The body remains in this world and the soul goes to the other world where it is met by ancestors. The other world is underground, and a mirror image of this one, with the same structure but reversed space and time.

Souls stay in one world until they are ready to return to the other. Then they are reborn back into this world. All living creatures repeat this eternal shifting between the two worlds.

There is no distinction of Heaven and Hell, but the souls of extremely bad persons may be rejected by their ancestors. A shaman is summoned to convince the ancestors to accept the soul. Extraordinary attachments to or profound grudges against this world can cause the deceased to cling to strongly to this world. Again a shaman is called, to convince the recalcitrant soul to let go.

The Beginning of the Threat to Ainu Culture

The threat to Ainu culture began in earnest in the 15th century when Hokkaido came under the control of the Bakufu shogunate seeking to prevent Russian advances into Southern Japan. The shoganate instituted trade policies that favored the wajin (Japanese who emigrated to Hokkaido) and exploited the Ainu.

The Ainu resisted, fighting numerous skirmishes and battles, the most notable being the Battle of Kosyamain in 1457, the Battle of Syaksyain in 1669, and the Battle of Kunasiri-Menasi in 1789. The Ainu lost each time and fell increasing under Japanese control.

Ainu population decreased drastically between 1822 and 1854, due in large part to infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, venereal disease, and cholera. Forced labor practices and the breakup of families also contributed heavily to the population decline.

The Ainu in the Menji Era

During the Meiji era (1868-1912), without any formal treaties or negotiations, the Japanese government confiscated Ainu land as "ownerless" and offered it to settlers as homesteads.

It also adopted a policy of forced assimilation, banning the Ainu from hunting and fishing and forcing them to take up farming. Ainu language and customs were prohibited. Children were forced to attend schools where only Japanese was spoken. In 1869 Ezochi (Land of the Ainu) was formally renamed Hokkaido. The following year, the modern family register system identified the Ainu as being Japanese.

In 1899, the government enacted the Hokkaido Aborigine Protection Act, ostensibly to protect the Ainu people. However, the real purpose of the act was to legitimatize its assimilation policies. The act designated the Ainu as "kyudojin" (former aborigines with derogatory connotations). Under the act, each Ainu family was given a small plot of land for agriculture, but by this time the best land was already occupied by Japanese farmers. Many Ainu farmers lost the land parcels because they didn't have the experience to cultivate it.

Ainu Culture after WWII and Democratization

The democratization of Japan and the implementation of the present Constitution in 1946 sparked a renewed movement to restore Ainu rights. The Ainu people, as Japanese nationals, became entitled to equal protection by law. They formed organizations advocating their rights and seeking to protect their cultural heritage, the largest being the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, founded in 1946.

Submitting to pressure from these organizations and international opinion, Japan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, in 1979. Article 27 stipulates that in those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.

However, Japan has officially stated that no such ethnic minorities exist in Japan. Only in 1991, in a report to the United Nations did Japan publicly recognize the Ainu as an ethnic minority. This admission did little, as the Japanese government still refused to recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people.

The Act on the Encouragement of Ainu Culture

On March 27, 1997, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Ainu people, the Sapporo District Court ruled that the Ainu should be granted recognition as an indigenous people of Japan and entitled to the protection of their distinct culture.

Partly as a response to the court's decision, the Diet (Congress) passed the "Act on the Encouragement of Ainu Culture and the Diffusion and Enlightenment of Knowledge on Ainu Tradition" on May 8, 1997, Japans' first legislation acknowledging the existence of an ethnic minority in the country. The Act advocates research on Ainu culture, provides opportunities to study the Ainu language and supports preservation of Ainu customs and traditions.

As big a step as the Act is, it can only be regarded as the first toward addressing the needs of the Ainu culture. The Act does not include any apology or deliberation on past assimilation or discrimination policies. Although the Bill provides financial support for traditional dance, crafts, and learning the Ainu language, many feel that the Japanese government is still ignoring the Ainu’s basic problems.

The new law does not mention any form of recognition or protection of indigenous rights. It provides no guarantee or dispensation for allowing the Ainu to live their traditional culture or incorporate it into their daily lives. Some see the Act as the government's arrogant attempt to define Ainu culture as "the language and 'cultural properties' such as music, dance, crafts." It also does not take into account the Ainu living outside of Hokkaido.

Ainu Culture and Discrimination Today

The basic perception of the Japanese government and the people of Japan is that there is no ethnic problem. Little about the Ainu are taught in Japanese schools. The image of traditional Ainu culture held by most Japanese consists almost entirely of tourist trade Ainu villages, "ethnic" performances, commercialized woodcarvings and other such "folk art" objects.

Yet discrimination against the Ainu is still a problem. In July, 1998, in a statement to the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations the Ainu International Network stated that the Ainu continue to be thought of and treated as a "barbaric" minority in Japan.

The authors went on to say that the Ainu people "oppose any international convention or domestic law which holds an assimilationist program as its basic orientation, and believe that the rights to control our own economic, social, cultural and other aspects of development as much as possible, to stand equal based on our own institutions, and to mutually cooperate with the national society should be recognized."