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W. Fitzhugh rwd Chisato O. Dubreuil

Arctic Studies Center

National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution in association with

University of Washington Press

This publication has been prepared with the generous financial assistance of Nippon Foundation, Japan-United States Friendship Commission, and Japan Foundation.

/W

FfMTH

Copyright ©1999 Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ainu. Spirit of a Northern People was produced by Perpetua Press, Los Angeles Letitia O'Connor and Sherri Schottlaender, editors Dana Levy, designer

Manufactured in China by Toppan Printing Company

Ainu Spirit of a Northern People is published in association with an exhibition of the same title organized by the Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and circulated by the Office of Special Exhibits of that institution between 1 April 1999 and 1 April 2001

Bibliography, Index

I. Fitzhugh, William W., 1 943 — II Dubreuil, Chisato O., 1957 — III. National Museum of Natural

History (LI S.)

Library of Congress catalogue no. 99-64360

ISBN 0-96734290-2 (paperback)

ISBN 0-295-97912-7 (cloth)

The paper in this book meets the guildelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Pro¬ duction Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources

Editors' Notes

( 1 ) Spelling Readers may note inconsistency in the presentation of some Ainu terms, personal names, and geographic place-names. This is because Amu language has three geographic dialects — from Hok¬ kaido, the Kuriles, and Sakhalin — and many subdialects with marked variation in terminology and pro¬ nunciation Because Ainu was a spoken and not a written language, early field workers, lacking dictio¬ naries, transcribed Ainu terms and names as best they could. We have systematized many spellings, but in some cases terms remain as originally recorded

(2) Collection Repositories: In the interest of efficiency, the owners of materials illustrated in this book are given in abbreviated form in the captions. A key for their translation may be found in the credits on page 405.

(3) Authors: Contact information for Ainu and Japanese authors should be obtained from Chisato Dubreuil; for others, from William Fitzhugh.

(4) Illustrations: Requests for reproduction rights and materials for Ainu-e illustrations should be made directly to the institutions who own them Reproduction rights for other objects illustrated in this vol¬ ume should be obtained from owning institutions, but rental of images other than Ainu-e may be ar¬ ranged with the Arctic Studies Center.

Front Cover Illustrations A series of ikupasuy, prayer sticks, used by Ainu men to transmit prayers to their gods during ritual ceremonies, from the Brooklyn Museum of Art (see fig. 42. 10). Photograph by Susan Einstein, For other cover images (left to right) see figs. 47. 15a (Bikky Sunazawa mask), 46.2 (Ainu elder with ikupasuy and tuki), 45. 1 2 (Ainu robe) ,41.1 ( Ainu-e illustration of crane dance), p. 29 (Ainu-e chieftain), 55.2 (contemporary ritual).

Back Cover Illustration: Kamuy. Spirit of the Ainu ( 1 998), made for the exhibition by Ainu textile artist, Noriko Kawamura. Photograph by Don Hurlbert.

(3- 1 FT

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART I

Theories of Ainu Origins

PART II

Historic

Period

PART III

Ainu "Discovery": Collectors, Museums, and the Public

J

0

e

PART IV

Ainu Mosir: Land, Spirits, and Culture

Jiro Sasamura, Ainu Association of Hokkaido /7 Shigeru Kayano, Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum /7

Ainu Ethnicity: A History /9 William W. Fitzhugh, Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution

1 . Ainu Origin Theories /29

S. A. Arutiunov, Institute of Ethnology, Moscow

2. Ainu Homelands: Natural History from Ice Age to Modern Times /32 Yugo Ono, Hokkaido University

3. Prehistoric Hokkaido and Ainu Origins / 39

Kiyoshi Yamaura, Rikkyo University, and Hiroshi Ushiro, Historical Museum of Hokkaido 4 Ainu Ties with Ancient Cultures of Northeast Asia /47 Toshihiko Kikuchi, Hokkaido University

5. Ancient People of the North Pacific Rim: Ainu Biological Relationships with Their Neighbors /52 Hajime Ishida, University of the Ryukyus 6 Ainu Language: Features and Relationships /57 Suzuko Tamura, Waseda University

7. Ainu History: An Overview /67 Richard Siddle, University of Sheffield

8 Early Ainu Contacts with the Japanese /74 Isao Kikuchi, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College

9 Ainu-e: A Historical Review /79 Toshikazu Sasaki, Tokyo National Museum

10. Trading Brokers and Partners with China, Russia, and Japan /86 Shiro Sasaki, National Museum of Ethnology 1 1. Tourism, Assimilation, and Ainu Survival Today /92 Kazuyoshi Ohtsuka, National Museum of Ethnology 12. The Ainu and the Early Modern Japanese State, I 600-1 868 /96 David L. Howell, Princeton University 1 3. Foreign Contagions, Ainu Medical Culture and Conquest / 1 02 Brett L. Walker, Yale University

14. From Assimilation to Indigenous Rights: Ainu Resistance Since 1869 / 1 08 Richard Siddle, University of Sheffield

15. Ainu and Northwest Coast Peoples: A Comparison /I 16

Motomichi Kono, independent researcher, and William W, Fitzhugh, Smithsonian Institution

16. The European Image of the Ainu as Reflected in Museum Collections / 1 25 Josef Kreiner, University of Bonn

17. The St. Petersburg Ainu Collections / 1 32 Shinko Ogihara, Chiba University

18. Ainu Collections in North America: Documentation Projects and the Frederick Starr Collections / 1 36 Yoshinobu Kotani, Nagoya University

19. Romyn Hitchcock and the Smithsonian Ainu Collection /1 48 Chang-su Houchins, Smithsonian Institution

20. Batchelor, Starr, and Culin: The Brooklyn Museum of Art Collection / 1 55 Amy Poster, The Brooklyn Museum of Art

21. An Enthusiastic Quest: Hiram Hiller and Jenichiro Oyabe in Hokkaido, 1901 /1 62 Adria H. Katz, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

22. From Snowshoe to "Corn Mortars": Early Ainu Collections at the American Museum of Natural History / 1 68 Laurel Kendall, American Museum of Natural Histoiy

23. Japanese Ainu Collections /1 76

Nobukatsu Aoyagi, Asahikawa City Museum, and Koji Deriha, Historical Aluseum of Hokkaido

24. The Ainu Museum Foundation /1 83 Shigeki Akino, The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi

25. The Ainu in Ethnographic Films / 1 87 Kazuo Okada, Tokyo Cinema Shinsha

26. Kamuy. Gods You Can Argue With /1 93 Hisakazu Fujimura, Hokkai Gakuin College

27. The Ainu Ecosystem / 1 98 Hitoshi Watanabe, University of Tokyo

28 Foods of Choice /202

Toshihiro Kohara, Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Center

( ,.n. • ,

PART V

Even Without a Word for Art...

PART VI

Ainu Present and Future

29. Technology, Settlement and Hunting Rituals /208 Hans Dieter Olschleger, University of Bonn

30. The Ainu on Whales and Whaling /222

Masami Iwasaki-Coodman, Hokkai Gakuin College and Masahiro Nomoto, The Ainu Museum at Sbii 3 1 Home and Settlement: Cbise and Kotan / 227 Masahiro Nomoto, The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi

32. Village Work: Seasons and Gender Roles /2 34 Mitsunori Keira and Tomoko Keira, Yay Yukar Park

33. Ainu Sociality /240

Emiko Ohnuki -Tierney, University of Wisconsin-Madison

34. Ainu Children's Play /246

Miyuki Muraki, The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi

35. Spirit-Sending Ceremonies /248 Shigeki Akino, The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi

36. The Archaeology of lyomante /256 Hiroshi Utagawa, University of Tokyo

37. Ainu Shamanism /261

Kan Wada, Otaru University of Commerce, edited by Igor Krupnik, Smithsonian Institution

38. Life and Death /268

Hisakazu Fujimura, Hokkai Gakuin College

39. Mythology and Animal Tales /274 Shinko Ogihara, Chiba University

40. Yukar: Epics of Heroes /278 Mie Oginaka, independent researcher

41 To Live is to Sing /282

Kazuyuki Tanimoto, Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Center

42. Ainu Art: The Beginnings of Tradition /287 Chisato O. Dubreuil, Smithsonian Institution

43. Saranip and Tenki. Ainu Basketry and North Pacific Affinities /301

Nelson Graburn, University of California, and Molly Lee, University of Alaska-Fairbanks

44. A Personal Rebirth through Traditional Ainu Basketry /309 Nobuko Tsuda, Ainu Association of Hokkaido

45. Clothing and Ornamentation /3 1 3

Mari Kodama, The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi and Hakodate City Museum

46. Ikupasuy: It's Not a Mustache Lifter! / 327

Fosco Maraini, ethnologist, edited by David Dubreuil, Smithsonian Institution

47. Ainu Journey: From Tourist Art to Fine Arts /3 35 Chisato O. Dubreuil, Smithsonian Institution

48. Shishirimuka: A Saru River Tale / 355 Koichi Kaizawa, Farmer and Ainu Cultural Leader

49. Ainu in the International Arena / 359 Kelly L. Dietz, Cornell University

50. The Ainu Shinpo: A New Beginning /3 66 Teruki Fsunemoto, Hokkaido University

5 1 Beyond the Ainu Shinpo: An Ainu View /369 Jiro Sasamura, Ainu Association of Hokkaido

52. Ainu Language: Present and Future /371 Hiroshi Nakagawa, Chiba University

53. Itaomachip. Reviving a Boat-Building and TradingTradition /374 Kazuyoshi Ohtsuka, National Museum of Ethnology

54 The Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum /3 77 Hideki Yoneda, Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum 55. The Heart Fuchi Conveyed /379 Tomoko Keira, Yay Yukar Park

Checklist of Artifacts Illustrated in This Volume /382

List of Illustrations / 389

Bibliography /393

Credits /405

Acknowledgments /407

Index /4 1 0

Preface

ON BEHALF OF THE Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, I would like to ex¬ press gratitude to the people who have visited and will visit the exhibition.

We, the Ainu, have lived in the northern part of the Japanese islands — from northern Tohoku on Honshu and Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands — since ancient times. We spoke the Ainu language, which is completely different from the Japanese language, and have cultivated our own distinctive culture. In early times our an¬ cestors nurtured our culture through a strong re¬ spect for, and interaction with, the environment, and through trading with the Chinese, Koreans, and Russians, the northern indigenous peoples of Asia and Alaska, and of course with the Yamato race (ancestors of the majority of Japanese today).

Although we had many disputes with the Japanese goverment in the past, it is time to look forward. Today we mainly live in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. While surveys con¬ ducted by the Hokkaido government put the Ainu population at 24,000, there are several tens of thousands of Ainu who don't claim to be Ainu because of the fear of discrimination, or who were not included in the government survey be¬ cause they live in other parts of Japan.

Many Ainu have been economically disadvantaged due to our ethnic and social background. Today, however, many Ainu have begun to feel pride and confidence in their cul¬ tural identity. Like the Indians of North America, we are trying to preserve and gain re¬ spect for our traditional culture and to achieve social and economic independence.

The purpose of this exhibition is to present excellent Ainu ethnographic collections from the various museums of North America. The exhibition will also present the revived oceangoing itaomachip, the canoe Ainu used for trading, and the Ainu house, chi se, which was the scene of many spiritual rituals, including the most important Ainu ceremony, the sacred iyomante (bear-sending ceremony). Although many aspects of Ainu traditional life, ceremony, and spiritual culture are described, the reader should understand that this is not dead cul¬ ture,- contemporary Ainu art is therefore fea¬ tured to demonstrate the creative strength of the Ainu spirit as an indicator of a "living" cul¬ ture. We hope museum visitors and readers of this volume from all over the world will enjoy and understand the Ainu voices of the past, present, and future.

JlRO S AS AM LIRA

Executive Director, Ainu Association of Hokkaido

I WAS BORN in a country of the Ainu — Nibutani Village, which is the basin of the Shishirimuka. I had parents whose names were: Arekainu (father) and Hatsume (mother). As it happens, the exhibition will be held in the far away country. 1 am very honored and thankful that I will be able to send my words to the exhi¬ bition. 1 also wish and pray that your exhibition will be successful, without any accidents, and will bring you to a successful conclusion.

yaykurekarapa

kani anakne ainu mosir itak=an yakka Sisirmuka pe truoroke pipaus kotan

koapamaka p ku = ne ruwe ne. ona ku = nu wa Arekainu unu ku=nu wa Hatsume sekor

rekorpa utar ne a ruwe ne. kunine ne wa tuyma mosir ta an marapto

kurkasike un koytakeciw ku=ki easkay hi ramossi wano ku=yairayke kor

Shigeru Kayano

Director, Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum

7

m		^rar ,•**•> iCUEa
		1 1

Ainu

Ethnicity:

A History

William W. Fitzhugh

1.1 Man and Woman of Shari

The Smithsonian's Romyn Hitchcock was one of the first Westerners to con¬ duct ethnographic research among the Ainu, whom he visited in 1888. In addi¬ tion to acquiring contemporary artifacts, linguistic data, folklore, and historical information, he conducted archaeologi¬ cal excavations and made a photo¬ graphic record of Ainu people in the Kuriles and Hokkaido. He photographed this elderly couple outside their home in Shari, Hokkaido. (NAA 28-380)

1.2 Blessing Ritual

In the past Ainu traveled throughout their corner of the world as traders, and in the modern era Ainu people have joined other indigenous peoples far from their homelands in northern Japan to educate the world commu¬ nity about their ancient traditions. Here, Masahiro Nomoto, David Dubreuil, and Chisato Dubreuil con¬ duct a ceremony to the god of the tree through Fuchi, the fire goddess. They blessed with inaw and sake a yellow cedar log Nomoto used to build a boat for this exhibition.

< ISHU RETSUZO (PORTRAITS OF EZO

Chieftains)

Hakyo Kakizaki, a member of the Matsumae clan that ruled Hokkaido as a fiefdom of the Tokugawa regime, began painting portraits of Ainu chief¬ tains in 1783. The first to be com¬ pleted was a portrait of Tobu (fig. 9.6). Kakizaki’s portraits are among the fin¬ est works in the Ainu-e genre, techni¬ cally and artistically. The Ainu they de¬ pict are dressed in silk robes imported from the Asian continent and have a near-regal demeanor and attitude of authority. Some scholars (Takakura 1960:10) have questioned the authen¬ ticity of these images as accurate de¬ pictions of eighteenth-century Ainu leaders, noting that the twelve chiefs who are depicted had been loyal sup¬ porters of the Matsumae during the Ainu revolt of 1789; they surmise that the paintings and the garments the chieftains wear were a reward for their loyalty. (Y. and M. Kitao Collection)

THE NATIVE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN JAPAN (who also formerly inhabited the Kurile Islands, southern Sakhalin, and part of northern Honshu) call themselves "Ainu," meaning "people" or "hu¬ mans" in their language. Today Hokkaido re¬ mains the only homeland of the Ainu people, most of whom live in small villages scattered in different areas of this island. The size of the current Ainu population lies somewhere be¬ tween 25,000 and 50,000, with the lower figure representing the census count of those who identify themselves as Ainu. The discrepancy reflects the feeling of many Ainu that they must conceal their ethnic identity to escape discrimi¬ nation and social stigma. Although this gulf of discrimination is slowly closing, Ainu children continue to be harassed by their Japanese class¬ mates, and discrimination exists in many other areas of social and professional life,- for these rea¬ sons, throughout this century many Ainu parents have not revealed their ethnic identity even to their children.

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People is an effort to broaden understanding about Ainu history, cul¬ ture, and contemporary life in North America and among English-language readers. Most people in North America and Europe today are ignorant of Ainu history or culture. Few of the public visitors to the Smithsonian we surveyed about the Ainu knew anything about this culture and its people. Those who volunteered informa¬ tion mostly misidentified Ainu as American Indi¬ ans or Eskimos or thought they were extinct. Most who recognize the word "Ainu" knew it only as a four-letter answer to the popular cross¬ word puzzle clue, "a northern native people of Japan." The causes of ignorance are many,- they include a lack of English-language literature, the absence of museum presentations and exhibi¬ tions, a paucity of Ainu scholars outside Japan, and infrequent European and American visita-

1.2

i.i

tion to Hokkaido. This exhibition and book

seek to redress the lack of information by pre¬ senting a traveling exhibition together with an illustrated compendium on Ainu history, culture, arts, and modern affairs. We have been motivated especially by the fact that, due to Ainu efforts and political and social changes in Japan, Ainu culture is beginning to experience transforma¬ tion and renewal,- as it emerges from this pain¬ ful period, it heeds to be recognized for its his¬ torical tenacity, for the beauty of its art and literature, and for the important message that its religion and philosophy, which call for spiri¬ tual balance between humans and nature, bring to the wider world at a critical moment in human history (fig 1.2).

In 1 868, a year after the United States pur¬ chased Alaska from Russia, a political upheaval in Japan brought to power a progressive govern¬ ment known as the Meiji Restoration. Modern¬ ization was a major goal of the new administra¬ tion, and one of its first acts was to give Ezo, Japan's large, undeveloped northern island a new name, Hokkaido. Access to Ezo had previously been controlled by the Japanese Matsumae clan, under charter from the Tokugawa Shogunate. With the Meiji Restoration, control reverted to Tokyo,- foreigners were permitted entry,- and Japanese citizens were encouraged to emigrate to exploit Hokkaido's natural resources. The re¬ sulting northern land rush flooded the island with newcomers and brought a new way of life to a huge territory that until then — except for the Matsumae enclave and a few Japanese fish¬ ing stations — had been the sole province of the native Ainu people (fig. LI). The Meiji govern¬ ment and most Japanese immigrants saw Ainu adherence to their traditional life as an obstacle to progress, and policies were instituted to force

I/AINU ETHNICITY

9

1.3 Traditional and Modern Ainu Territories

Like many other indigenous peoples around the world, the Ainu lost lands, resources, and independence to larger nations that absorbed them. This map shows changes to Ainu territo¬ ries between 1400 and 1945: parts of northern Honshu were lost to Japanese expansion, while the Kurile Islands and south¬ ern Sakhalin were lost to Russia. Hokkaido, with a population of between 25,000 and 50,000 Ainu, is the only remaining home¬ land for Ainu people today.

rapid Japanese colonization and "civilize" the Ainu. Within a few years most Ainu lands, re¬ sources, and native rights had been taken away, and in 1 899 these actions were codified in a "pro¬ tection act" whose actual intent was to terminate Ainu culture and force assimilation into Japanese society (Siddle 1996).

Meiji policies brought a harsh new reality to Ainu life, which had already suffered three hundred years of military defeat, territorial loss, political and economic subjugation, and social discrimination at the hands of Russians and Japanese. Nevertheless, despite these losses, Ainu people and culture survived the twentieth century and in 1997 were rewarded by the pas¬ sage of a new piece of legislation, the Ainu Shinpo, which for the first time provided posi¬ tive support for Ainu culture and language.

Geography

In the nineteenth century, before Ainu territo¬ ries began to be absorbed by Russia and Japan, Ainu mosir (the world of humans) comprised a huge territory stretching from central Sakhalin Island and the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula to the northern Tohoku region in northern Honshu, and the Ainu population must have been considerable (fig. 1.3). Although scholars have described the Ainu as having a single language and culture, the Ainu before 1850 occupied such different ecological habitats and had such varied adaptations and linguistic dialects (Hattori 1964,- Nakano and Kobayashi 1967, Kodama 1972,- Ohnuki -Tierney 1976a) that they were essentially three distinct territo¬ rial subcultures or cultures. Among the Ainu living in Hokkaido today, this variation has

INTRODUCTION / W. FITZHUCH

1.4 Villagers of Shikotan,

Kurile Islands

Kurile Islanders were successful mari¬ time hunters and traders who ranged between Hokkaido and Kamchatka. Af¬ ter the Treaty of St. Petersburg settled claims between Japan and Russia by giving the Kuriles to Japan and Sakha¬ lin to Russia, the northern Kurile Ainu were resettled in the southern Kuriles, and Sakhalin Ainu were removed to Hokkaido. The final blow came in 1945 when the Soviet Union took the Kuriles and expelled its remaining Ainu popula¬ tion as well as the returned refugees who had moved back to Sakhalin from Hokkaido. (NAA 72-9183)

contributed to marked contrasts in speech, vocabulary, oral history, artifact styles, and ceremonial life (as well as politics), for in addi¬ tion to regional divisions among Hokkaido Ainu one also finds the descendants of Kurile and Sakhalin Ainu. Despite these differences, all Ainu living in Hokkaido are participating in a lively cultural renaissance.

Formerly Ainu occupied all of the islands in the Kurile chain, where they lived as mari¬ time hunters and fishermen in sod-covered pithouses until 1875 when the northern Kurile (Chishima) islanders were resettled in Shikotan (Hitchcock 1891a, Landor 1 893, • Takakura 1 955,- Siddle 1 996 and this volume) after the Kuriles were obtained by Japan from Russia in exchange for Sakhalin (fig. 1.4). Although the Kurile Ainu had a small, dispersed population, they occupied a vast region and shifted season¬ ally between winter villages on the larger islands and summer hunting and fishing camps on the smaller islands. Because the central and northern Kuriles lacked wood, Kurile Ainu traded sea-

1.4

mammal hides and thong, falcon feathers, and other maritime products with Hokkaido and Sa¬ khalin Ainu and Japanese traders in exchange for forest and industrial products from Japan and Manchuria. Like the Aleuts, who inhabited the Alaskan Island chain that now carries their name and who suffered drastic population losses at the hands of Russian traders in such maritime prod¬ ucts as sea otter pelts, Kurile Ainu also lost popu¬ lation and territory to Russian and Japanese in¬ truders intent on the lucrative sea otter trade. When Russia took the southern Kuriles in 1945, the remaining Kurile Ainu were resettled in Eastern Hokkaido and the unique aspects of their social and cultural identity were gradually subsumed within the Ainu traditions of north¬ eastern Hokkaido.

The Sakhalin Ainu (fig. 1.5) also once had an extensive territorial base. Early in the historical era they occupied much of the island of Sakhalin, but by the nineteenth century Ainu villages were found primarily in southern Sakhalin (Ohnuki-Tierney 1974, 1976a). The

1.5 Ainu of Sakhalin

Living near the border between Japan, Russia, and Manchuria (China), Sakha¬ lin Ainu have had a tumultuous history. They shared Sakhalin with Nivkhi and Orok, traded with mainland Oroch and Ui’ta, and used their intermediate posi¬ tion between the continent and the Japanese islands to their advantage. Their culture and physical type reflects Siberian influence and Okhotsk heri¬ tage. (NAA 98-10370)

Sakhalin Ainu were considerably influenced by the Manchurian-dominated cultures of the lower Amur River and by the Russians (fig. 1.6). Their houses were log constructions,- they had greater access to manufactured materials from the conti¬ nent than did Hokkaido and Kurile Ainu,- and their subsistence and spiritual beliefs, reflecting boreal forest conditions and traditions, were more like those of Siberian peoples than of Hokkaido Ainu. In 1945 the Sakhalin Ainu were forced from southern Sakhalin by the Russians and were resettled in Hokkaido.

The Hokkaido Ainu, whose population of about 15,000 represented less than 7 percent of the total number of people, 226,200, living in Hokkaido in 1888 (Hitchcock 1891b), were the largest of the Ainu subgroups. Great diversity marked the Ainu populations within this region, in part because each group responded to ex¬ tremely different environmental conditions, and in part due to varying influences of Japan in southern Hokkaido and continental influences in northern Hokkaido. Environmental gradients

Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988,- see also Fitzhugh and Chaussonnet 1994,- Chaussonnet 1995) ex¬ plored similarities and differences in the history, culture, and art of native groups living around the northern rim of the Pacific and adjacent Bering and Chukchi Seas (fig. 1.7). Of these northern cultures, one — the Ainu — was excluded for po¬ litical reasons: Crossroads was organized under a bilateral arrangement with the Soviet Union, which did not want its political history involving the seizure of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin and the expulsion of Ainu peoples aired broadly to the public. Crossroads proceeded, but the ab¬ sence of the Ainu left a conspicuous gap in our roster of North Pacific peoples.

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People corrects this omission. Our work has grown out of an eight- year collaboration that began in 1990 with discus¬ sions between curators in American museums and a team of Japanese scholars, organized by Yoshinobu Kotani, who were inventorying American Ainu objects and archival documents.

1.6 Sea-Lion Hunters of Moneron Island, Sakhalin

In addition to hunting and fishing in the interior of the islands they inhab¬ ited, Ainu hunted sea mammals until such productive enterprises were pro¬ hibited by the Japanese in order to reserve these resources for them¬ selves. Oral history suggests that early Ainu hunted whales, seals, and sea lions with floats and toggling har¬ poons similar to those of Eskimo technology. Sea-mammai products like thong (hide rope), oil, and dried meat were valuable trade commodi¬ ties. Stomachs (seen drying here) were often used as containers to store renderered fat. (NAA 98-10364)

here were extreme: arctic sea ice and northern sea mammals are present in winter on Hokkaido's Sea of Okhotsk coast, whereas temperate ocean con¬ ditions and swordfish are found on its Pacific and southern coasts (Nakano and Kobayashi 1967,- Ohnuki-Tierney 1976a,- Ono, this volume). Their homelands in Hokkaido offered inhabitants a di¬ verse coastal ecology of long sandy beaches, salmon rivers, and lowland and highland forests with temperate and boreal tree species and many different types of flora and fauna. By comparison with the Kuriles and Sakhalin, Hokkaido was a continent unto itself. Its proximity to Honshu, Sakhalin, and the Maritime Territory of the Amur offered even more resources, although acquiring them required delicate negotiations with power¬ ful neighbors.

A Celebration of Ainu Culture

In 1988 the National Museum of Natural History opened a special exhibition featuring the tradi¬ tional cultures of the North Pacific region from Vancouver Island to the Amur River and Sakhalin.

During this multiyear survey, which eventually identified more than 3,200 Ainu specimens in North America (Kotani, this volume), curators of several museums holding the largest collections, including the American Museum of Natural His¬ tory, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, decided to cooperate on an exhibition that would highlight these "rediscovered" Ainu collections.

The idea of a special Ainu exhibition in North America was an exciting prospect for many reasons. First, there was the beauty of Ainu material culture, whose distinctive and unique styles incorporated elements of Japanese and Asian Amur River traditions. Our interest was also sparked by the fact that the North American collections had never been viewed or studied as a corpus from which to draw broader understandings about Ainu history, culture, and art. For reasons peculiar to Ainu studies in North America, none of these collections, ex¬ cept for the Smithsonian's, had been published

l i

I / AINU ETHNICITY

i.7 Native Peoples of the Greater North Pacific

Despite differences in cul¬ ture and history, peoples and cultures of the greater North Pacific re¬ gion have more in com¬ mon with each other than with the cultures and peoples of adjoining re¬ gions to the south.

1.8 Ainu Documentation Team Japanese and Ainu scholars inventoried Ainu collections in North America dur¬ ing the early 1990s, discovering more than 3,200 specimens. An earlier sur¬ vey in Europe revealed 5,700 objects. With recent inventories in Russia, the total tally outside Japan is more than 13,000, which is about one-third the number of Ainu specimens held by Japanese museums. Here the team inspects Romyn Hitchcock’s Ainu col¬ lection of 1888 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

scientifically and none had been used for a major exhibition. Only a few of the two dozen collec¬ tions unearthed by the Japanese Ainu Collection Documentation Project had ever been taken out of their storage cabinets, and none, as of 1990, had received conservation treatment.

There were other important reasons for doing an Ainu show. Although European and North American inventory projects had pro¬ duced new scholarly information (see edited volumes, Kreiner 1993, 1996) and, in Europe and Japan, three exhibitions (Kreiner and Olschleger 1987,- Ohtsuka 1993; Munro 1994), North Americans knew almost nothing about the Ainu. Gathering a team of Japanese and American scholars and museum curators, we quickly began to see the exhibition as more than a display of old Ainu collections and archival materials,- rather, we thought it important to present the unexhibited traditional collections in the broader context of Ainu history, archaeol¬ ogy, traditional ethnology, modern life, and arts with an emphasis on Ainu culture as a living tra¬ dition. The American team was especially inter¬ ested in having Ainu people participate in the curatorial work. Fortunately, Chisato Dubreuil, a woman of Ainu ancestry who had recently com¬

pleted a master's degree in native art history at the University of Washington in Seattle, joined the project. Chisato had a deep interest in Ainu culture and knew many Ainu cultural leaders and artists in Japan. In addition to her background and Ainu community contacts, she brought ex¬ pertise in modern Ainu art. With her assistance we were able to reconnect the museum objects with modern Ainu art and the living tradition of Ainu people today.

In the fall of 1 995 Chisato joined our project as coordinator (later to become co-cura- tor) together with her husband, David Dubreuil, an American Indian (Mohawk/FJuron) who be¬ came our project manager, fund-raiser, and advi¬ sor, and we began communicating with Ainu or¬ ganizations and communities in Hokkaido and discussing the project directly with Ainu artists and cultural leaders. As our work progressed, the advice of Ainu civic, cultural, and artistic leaders added an important new dimension to the views of Japanese, American, and European scholars on the project team, and many of them contrib¬ uted important chapters to this book.

Presentation

Over the course of two years during which the curatorial team inspected collections in Washing¬ ton, Philadelphia, New York, and Brooklyn, and held seminars and workshops with Ainu experts (fig. 1.8), the concept of ethnicity emerged as the intellectual core of the project. In the early stages of our work, as we pored over the beautiful but dusty remnants of Ainu tradition in museums, "ethnicity" seemed a fairly academic issue, but once Chisato and David Dubreuil and the Ainu community became involved in the process, the living tradition of Ainu art and culture enlivened our study and gave a broader purpose to what had previously been an esoteric enterprise. Sud¬ denly the meaning of the objects and archival materials was transformed from "specimen" into "treasure," from nameless photographic images into someone's grandmother or grandfather, and

12

INTRODUCTION / W. F1TZHUGH

1.10

1.9, 1.10 AiNU Design Ainu express their unique cultural lin¬ eage in their distinctive implements, clothing, and art. The language of Ainu design is understood as “Ainu" because its motifs follow an Ainu de¬ sign grammar. Similarities in the de¬ sign system are seen in this carved wooden platter, collected by General Horace Capron in 1875 whife on a U.S. development mission in Hok¬ kaido, and a detail from a retarpe (nettle-fiber) robe. (NMNH 19415; BMA 12.690)

the show took on a living dimension. The "un¬ known" North American collections began to re¬ connect with their Hokkaido past. We became something more than curators inquiring into a re¬ mote culture and began to understand how these materials could contribute to the Ainu cultural renewal underway in Japan.

In time, the concept of ethnicity as it relates to "Ainu-ness" at different periods in history and from different thematic perspectives became the organizing principle behind Ainu: Spirit of a North¬ ern People. Unlike other past exhibitions that have emphasized spiritualism or diversity, the central theme in Ainu is the development and expression of a culture's identity over centuries of time. The book presentation combines scholarly essays and Ainu community views illustrated by museum col¬ lections and informed by archival materials, in¬ cluding ethnographic photographs and historical illustrations of the Ainu painted by Japanese art¬

ists ( Aimi-e ). The material is organized along two different dimensions: informational (or thematic) perspectives and chronological horizons. On one hand the question "What is Ainu?" explores Ainu ethnicity through the perspectives of an¬ thropology, geography, history, spiritualism, art, and community life. The question "How has be¬ ing Ainu changed?" explores Ainu ethnicity as it has evolved through a sequence of chronological or historical "horizons" recognizable in archaeol¬ ogy, history, traditional ethnology, and contem¬ porary life. It is difficult enough to organize a book in two dimensions, but we also ask the reader to consider the data provided here in a third dimension — space — because historically the Ainu have had diverse origins and great re¬ gional variation.

Fifty-five articles organized in six sections present an overview of the evolving Ainu tradi¬ tion, raising questions and summarizing the current state of knowledge about each topic. Part I (chapters 1-6) includes essays on anthro¬ pological theories about Ainu origins, historical geography and environment, biological theo¬ ries and relationships, and linguistics. Part II (chapters 7-15) discusses the history of Ainu culture and its relationship with the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Ainu's northern trading partners as seen in historical records and Ainu-e illustrations painted over a several-hundred- year period (fig. 1.1 1). Part III (chapters 16—25) provides a view of Ainu as they were perceived by museum collectors and anthropologists, who preserved Ainu material culture and pho¬ tographic images in museum collections in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan (fig. 1.12). Part IV (chapters 26-41) is an ethno¬ graphic outline summarizing the Ainu belief system, including the ritual sending ceremonies and shamanism, as well as aspects of its lifeways — the technologies of hunting, fishing, and procuring food — and its forms of perfor¬ mance art ( yukar [epic stories], song, and dance). Part V (chapters 42—47) is devoted to Ainu arts of the nineteenth and twentieth cen¬ turies — notably textiles, basketry, woodcarv¬ ing, and modern art. Part VI (chapters 48-55) takes up issues of contemporary social, politi¬ cal, and cultural change,- chronicles changing relations between the Ainu and the modern Japanese state,- and includes personal state¬ ments by Ainu cultural leaders.

The "Ainu Enigma”

Other than a lack of specific knowledge of the Ainu, our informal survey of visitor attitudes revealed something else about this cross-sec¬ tion of our museum public: those visitors who knew something about the Ainu spoke about bear festivals and racial origins. Museum cura¬ tors a century ago had been lured to Hokkaido

I / AINU ETHNICITY

13

L12 Prayer Stick

Ainu men used a prayer stick ( ikupasuy ) in rituals for the gods. Early observers often referred to these sacred objects as "mustache lifters" because the Ainu also used them to hold up their long mustaches when drinking sake during these rituals. This ikupasuy decorated with five flying birds was collected by Benjamin Smith Lyman, an American geologist dispatched to Hokkaido from the University of Massa¬ chusetts between 1871 and 1881 to help develop Hokkaido's mineral re¬ sources. (NMNH 22261)

1.11 Bringing the Bear to Iyomante

Ainu-e, literally "Ainu illus¬ trations,” are a major source of information about early Ainu life and customs. Some, dating as early as the thirteenth century, depict people who can be recognized ethnically as Ainu. Most Ainu-e were painted in the eighteenth and nine¬ teenth centuries, such as this illustration from Scenes from Ezo Island by Teiryo Kodama show¬ ing Ainu exercising the bear before the iyomante ceremony. While its style is lively and the image depicts Ainu clothing relatively accurately, negative Japanese atti¬ tudes toward the Ainu are clearly conveyed by the use of such stylistic features as bulging eyes, hirsute bodies, and somewhat simian features. (HML)

by similar fascinations. The "Ainu enigma" had been a popular scholarly puzzle that tantalized nineteenth-century explorers, museum collec¬ tors, and anthropologists researching the origin and spread of human "races."

Europeans have had a long history of in¬ terest in the Ainu, beginning with Dutch and Jesuit contacts in the Dejima (Nagasaki) trade entrepot in the seventeenth century and con¬ tinuing with the early nineteenth-century work of Europe's premier (and first) Japanologist, Philipp von Siebold, whose multivolume opus, Nippon, brought knowledge of Japan to the Western world for the first time (Kreiner 1993 and this volume). After Commodore Matthew Perry, with his I 854 visit, forced the Japanese to lift their exclusionary ban on foreign travel within their archipelago, Europeans and Ameri¬ cans began to visit Hokkaido, both as tourists and for official reasons. They discovered the na¬ tive Ainu culture in drastic decline and were convinced that the Ainu would not survive more

about the Ainu's striking dress, elaborate ceremo¬ nial life, and unusual physical appearance sparked the interest of American scholars and museum directors. The long flowing beards, hirsute bod¬ ies, large stature, deep-set eyes, facial features (which most foreigners thought resembled Caucasoids more than Mongoloids), and striking lip tattoos worn by women made Ainu appear very different from other Asian populations. Al¬ though it is unclear where the idea originated, by 1868 Albert Bickmore, President of the American Museum of Natural History, was in the habit of commenting on the bearded "Aryan appearance" of the Ainu, and in the decades before 1900 this idea had become a major focus of public interest in the Ainu (Bickmore 1868,- Baelz 1900,- Arutiunov, Ishida, this volume). Earlier the ro¬ mantic European notion of the Ainu as the repre¬ sentative of the "noble savage," more so even than the American Indian, had captured public imagination. For the next four decades, most of the large natural history museums in eastern

than a few decades. This view was also held by the Japanese, whose official policies were di¬ rected to hasten assimilation (Hitchcock 1891b: 433). The views of these visitors reflected their awareness, and sometimes their experience, of In¬ dian cultures of the American West, which were also thought to be on the verge of extinction. Among the early visitors to the Ainu was the in¬ trepid Englishwoman Isabella Bird, who wrote a book about her 1878 experiences (Bird 1881,- Dubreuil, this volume). Others came during the 1 870s as representatives of the United States gov¬ ernment, which had pledged technical assistance to the new Meiji government for the develop¬ ment of Hokkaido's natural resources (Kotani, this volume).

Reports by these travelers and officials

North America sent collectors to Hokkaido to gather Ainu objects, study its culture and popula¬ tion, and make photographic records of this "pe¬ culiar" people (figs. 1. 13,1.1 4).

To Western eyes the exotic nature of the Ainu was reinforced by their many curious cus¬ toms and beliefs. Their practice of capturing, raising, and killing bears for ceremonial pur¬ poses before sending their spirits home to the god world with gifts and prayers seemed brutal to those who did not understand its religious meaning,- their most sacred artifacts, ikupasuy (fig. 1. 12), were insensitively labeled "mustache- lifters",- their technology was described as among the most "primitive" in the world (Hitchcock 1891b: 432),- and to top it off, early anthropologists tended to see the Ainu as an ob-

14

INTRODUCTION / W. FITZHUCH

1.13

collected for the Smithsonian in 1888, spoke for many holding these views:

Formerly, it is said, the Ainos [sic] were subject to a powerful and wealthy chief, who lived at Piratori and received tribute from all the Ainos in the land. This is related by the Ainos themselves. . . They number among their household treasures old Japanese swords and curios, which have been handed down from past generations. They now use Japanese knives instead of stone implements and metal arrow-heads in place of flint. But it is scarcely a century since they emerged from the stone age, and otherwise they have not passed beyond it.

We have here a remarkable instance of the close association of two distinct races, one superior and powerful, the other de¬ graded and weak, working together day by day, living in contiguous villages, in¬ termarrying more or less, and yet, after a century of such intimacy, as distinct in their character, habits of life, superstitions and beliefs as though they had never come together. The Aino has not so much as learned to make a reputable bow and arrow, although in the past he has had to meet the Japanese, who are famous ar¬ chers, in many battles. It is a most remark¬ able example of the persistence of distinct types together, when the conditions are apparently favorable for the absorption of

1.13 Ainu and the “Caucasoid Hypothesis”

This Ainu elder, dressed in a ceremo¬ nial robe with a woven sword carrier over his shoulder and wearing a head¬ dress decorated with wood shavings (inaw-kike), epitomizes the image of the “Caucasoid” race that was pro¬ moted when Europeans first gained access to the Ainu. Although scholars no longer claim Aryan ancestry for the Ainu, their biological history is still elusive and differs from that of recent Mongoloids like Japanese, Ko¬ reans, and Chinese. Most specialists now believe the Ainu are a remnant of an ancient Paleo-Asian population that occupied parts of the Japanese archipelago before the ethnic popula¬ tion now dominant in Japan arrived.

1.14 A Queer People

On 15 March 1890, with this quizzical title the Washington Evening Star an¬ nounced the opening of a Smithsonian Ainu exhibit based on Hitchcock’s 1888 collections. In those days, racial and cultural differences fascinated the American public and were trumped up in the media, which sensationalized anthropological “discoveries.”

ject of geographic curiosity — "an island of Caucasoids in a sea of Mongoloids" (Fdarrison 1954: 278) — rather than as a culture worthy of respect on its own terms. All of these views, in¬ cluding those of well-informed local observers like John Batchelor, who lived almost sixty years with the Ainu (Batchelor 1892), are now recog¬ nized as being based on superficial or flawed an¬ thropological reasoning.

Few of these collectors were trained in eth¬ nology or anthropology, which were embryonic sciences until the late 1890s, and they brought a variety of interests and biases to their work. The idea of systematic museum collecting had barely begun, and the interrelation between cultural subsystems (e.g. , archaeology, ethnology, linguis¬ tics, physical anthropology, and folklore) was not understood. The museum strategy that dominated these efforts was twofold: to gather and record data from vanishing "exotic" peoples and to present it in displays and exhibitions to a public that had become voracious in its appetite for non- Western curiosities. The museum and exposition displays that followed carried a clear message: as a culture (and in part, as people) the Ainu, like the American Indian and native peoples in many other areas of the world colonized by Europeans, would soon become extinct. Romyn Fditchcock, who

A QUEER PEOPLE,

They Live in the Kuriles and North¬ ern Japan.

BY SOMETH' HITCHCOCK.

r“S.> E who In distant lands leaves the beaten paths and seeks for adven¬ ture or discovery, may often And either nearer than he thinks. The far East ia not all un¬ known, yet it teems with unstudied prob¬ lems of the deepest interest to those who will bat think of them and pass bat a few steps beyond the nar¬ row bounds of tbe foreign settlements. Tbe small group of Islands known as Japan is inhabited by a people ef unknown origin. Wo are content to speak of them as Japanese, and for oar present pur¬ pose it is not required to know more concern¬ ing them. Bat scattered along the coasts from tbe north as far as to the extreme southern end of Kinsfain, there are found traces of a different people, who must have occupied the country in prehistoric times.

Be cent explorations have led to tbe conclu- iion that these aborigines are representatives of a race known as Ainos, who are dow con¬ fined to tbe island of Yezo, in the north of Japan.

1-14

l/AIN LI ETHNICITY

15

1.16

1.15 Twined Basket

Ainu used the bark of the Japanese elm to make a strong fiber ( ohyo ) that was woven into baskets or, with the aid of a backstrap loom, a durable cloth (attush) that was the basis for Hokkaido Ainu clothing. Both types of Ainu baskets — woven baskets (saranip) and coiled bas¬ kets (tenki, present only in the Kuriles) — are similar to Alaskan Eskimo and Aleut basketry forms. (AMNH 70.2.932)

1.16 “All the World’s a Stage”

Anthropologist Frederick Starr brought a group of Hokkaido Ainu to the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Both Starr and photogra¬ pher Jesse Tarbox Beals documented the experiences of the Ainu in St. Louis. As “live” exhibits, Ainu demonstrated arts and technology while living in an Ainu house on the fairgrounds. Here Shutratek weaves a grass mat while her shy daughter hides from the visitors. (NAA 98-10289)

one by the other. The Ainos, being unable to affiliate more closely with the Japanese, remain distinct and apart, and are therefore doomed to extinction from the face of the earth (Hitchcock 1891b: 432-33). Hitchcock had heard of a more glorious Ainu past from Ainu oral history but understood their decline only as a social evolutionary failure in the face of more advanced civilizations. The case of the Ainu was also instructive to Americans who saw the Ainu in much the same light as they saw the American Indians, whose societies also seemed to be vanishing as the nineteenth-century American frontier advanced. The decline of the Ainu may even have been seen by some as justifi¬ cation for the righteousness of Western colonial policies supported by notions of social superior¬ ity and technological progress.

A considerable number of these early trav¬ elers, scientists, and museum collectors pub¬ lished scientific reports (Bickmore 1868,- Morse I 879,- Bird 1881,- Hitchcock 1891a, b,- see also

works by Batchelor, Chamberlain, Munro, and others in bibliography). These publications and results of anthropological collecting that ap¬ peared in museum exhibits, expositions, and me¬ dia accounts reinforced the popular idea that the Ainu would soon cease to exist. Despite the trappings of contemporaiy social bias, popular accounts by travelers read as stark pronounce¬ ments on the desperate, impoverished situation of the people they met and villages they visited, of discrimination practiced by Japanese officials, and of the need for medical attention and schooling. By this time many Ainu had already been displaced from coastal villages and prime agricultural lands and forests that were coming under cultivation by Japanese farmers and American-trained foresters.

Where scholars first ventured, the media soon followed, sensationalizing Ainu presenta¬ tions at expositions and museum exhibitions. The first such presentation took place in Europe (Vienna 1873), and others soon followed in North America, at the Smithsonian in the 1890s and elsewhere, reaching a climax in North America in the living Ainu village (fig. 1. 16) pre¬ sented at the 1904 Louisiana Exposition in St. Louis (Starr 1904; VanStone 1993,- Breitbart 1997). One of the more egregious titles of this era appeared on a book written by A. Henry Savage Landor ( 1 893), Alone with the Hairy Ainu. Or 3,800 Miles on a Pack Saddle in Yezo and a Cruise to the Kurile Islands. Once beyond its provocative and objectionable tone, however, the book con¬ tains useful early descriptions of the Ainu and their lands.

While North American museums could not resist the allure of the "mysterious Ainu," most institutions found themselves conflicted by their obligations to publish and curate Ainu collections they had acquired. Because Ainu culture was considered a native society and not an Asian "high civilization," Ainu collections held by fine art museums tended to be ne¬ glected until recently. Further, Japan was far from North America, and the staffs of North American natural history and anthropology museums gave priority to their growing collec¬ tions of North American Indian materials. Be¬ cause the primary motivation for building Ainu collections was tied more closely to public curi¬ osity, institution building, and world fair exposi¬ tions than to scholarly research, most of the Ainu collections gathered between 1885 and 1920 soon went off display and were relegated to deep storage. In those natural history muse¬ ums where Ainu exhibits remained, they were sensationalized with descriptions of the "enig¬ matic" or "disappearing" Ainu, and in most North American museums Ainu collections did indeed "disappear" into the curatorial void for most of the twentieth century.

16

INTRODUCTION / W. FITZHUGH

0 5 cm

1.18 - - - J

1.18 Early Ainu Art

Some of the earliest artifacts with ethnic Ainu designs come from the Bibi-8 site near the modern-day Chitose Airport. Among the well-pre¬ served wooden finds were a paddle bearing images of killer whales and engraved spiral designs (known to Ainu as morew) similar to patterns embroidered on Ainu garments, (after Ohtsuka 1993)

1.17 Population History Model

Marked physical differences between the Ainu and Ryukyu people (who live at the southern end of the Japanese archipelago) and the Japanese and other Asian peoples have raised puz¬ zling questions about their biological histories. Kazuro Hanihara believes Jomon to be the ancestral culture of Ainu, Ryukyu, and Japanese peoples, but sees Honshu Jomon as influ¬ enced by Yayoi migrants with a more Mongoloid physical type who arrived more recently in Japan, (after Hanihara 1991)

Theories of Ainu Origin

The dominant informational perspective on Ainu culture that emerged from these early de¬ cades of museum collecting is that of anthropol¬ ogy, which, during the past century, explored the "Ainu enigma" from the vantage points of physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and ethnology (H. Watanabe 1972). Despite a century of study, however, surprisingly little progress has been made in achieving definitive conclusions about Ainu origins — the very ques¬ tion that stimulated scholarly interest in the Ainu in the first place, even before it became possible for foreigners to conduct field studies in Hokkaido. Other scholars update the inquiry into these issues in Part 1, but a cursory review in this introduction may help the reader find topics of particular interest.

First there is the issue of "racial" or what is now generally known as "biological" origins (fig. 1 17). Who are the Ainu, and how and where did their physical type develop? Are they derived from Mongoloid, Australoid, or Caucasoid populations, and what is the signifi¬ cance of their physical differences from other East Asian populations like the Japanese, Kore¬ ans, Chinese, or northeast Siberians who, while each population is physically distinct, resemble each other more than any of them resembles the Ainu? Although Europoid or Aryan origins were stressed early on, modern biological stud¬ ies have converged toward the consensus that the Ainu represent descendants of relatively undifferentiated East Asian tipper Paleolithic populations whose gene pool remained geo¬ graphically isolated for thousands of years dur¬ ing which the development of more special¬ ized Mongoloid features took place in mainland East Asia (Kozintsev 1993,- Arutiunov, Ishida, this volume). It is therefore likely that older Ainu populations were once more distinct from Japanese and Amur River populations with whom they have been mixing increasingly during recent millennia and centuries. The question still remains whether Ainu ancestry might include eastern Siberian or East Asian populations or their ancestors, who moved into the Americas at the end of the Ice Age. Ar¬ chaeological evidence from Alaska and the rest of the Americas suggests that the earliest peoples to enter the Americas were not members of a single homogeneous group but carried dif¬ ferent cultural traditions originating from north¬ ern, central, and southern maritime sectors of northeast Asia (Mochanov 1980,- Hoffecker, Power, and Goebel 1993).

Equally perplexing issues have arisen with regard to Ainu linguistic affiliations. These theo¬ ries are as diverse and wide-ranging as those proposed for biological ties and include Indo- European, Austronesian, Altaic, Chinese, and

even North American Indian and Eskimo rela¬ tionships (Tamura, this volume). The difficulty in determining linguistic origins has much to do with problems in reconstructing and tracing linguistic change over thousands of years, dur¬ ing which linguistic borrowing can obscure even dominant strains of heritage and ancestry. Contact and interchange with Japanese over two thousand or more years makes this particu¬ lar relationship hard to decipher. Scholars no longer seriously consider Indo-European ties, but Altaic and Austronesian links, as well as ties to North Pacific and American Indian languages, are still being discussed. The word "unknown" still remains the most cogent summary that most Ainu linguists can agree on.

One line of inquiry that was initially pur¬ sued as a means of determining Ainu cultural ori¬ gins has effectively been removed from the table. In the early years of anthropology it was believed that ethnology — the study of living cultures and its material, behavioral, and social forms — could offer insights into the deep his¬ tory of cultures. This approach was taken at the turn of the century by the Russian ethnologist Leo Shternberg and others who believed that similarities between Ainu material culture and customs and those of southeast Asian and Austronesian peoples pointed toward a southern origin of Ainu culture (reviewed in Arutiunov, this volume). However, anthropologists today generally consider ethnological parallels, trait-list comparisons, folklore, and other types of etho- logical data as incapable of providing reliable evidence for reconstaicting cultural history, believing these data to be too malleable and susceptible to borrowing or reinvention, be¬ sides being impossible to verify. Ultimately, the problem for ethnological reconstruction is the lack of chronological depth, because ethnologi¬ cal evidence exists only within the range of written or oral history.

It is for this reason that archaeological re-

Paleolithic

1.17

I / AINU ETHNICITY

17

1.19 Ainu Chieftain

This Ainu-e (-e means picture in Japa¬ nese) is one of a series of Ainu chief¬ tains painted in the late 1700s by the Japanese artist Hakyo Kakizaki. Kakizaki had access to Ainu chiefs who came to the Matsumae seat for trade and official visits. His illustrations have great artistic and ethnographic merit and also reveal Japanese curiosity, repulsion, and fear of the Ainu. This chieftain, Nishikomake, has dressed to impress his Japanese overlords by wearing a valuable Santan silk robe over his Ainu retarpe (elm-bark) garment. (Y. and M. Kitao Collection)

search has come to the fore as the primary his¬ torical method for researching cultural origins (Utagawa 1989,- T. Kikuchi 1988,- Yamaura and Ushiro, and S. Sasaki, this volume). In this field, some of the earliest scientific shell-mound exca¬ vations conducted in the 1870s by Heinrich von Siebold in Omori, Edward Morse in Tokyo Bay, and Romyn Hitchcock (1891a) in the Kuriles and Hokkaido provided a foundation for mod¬ ern archaeological studies by Japanese archae¬ ologists by suggesting for the first time ties be¬ tween living Ainu people and the prehistoric Jomon culture of Japan. Today there is nearly complete agreement that Ainu origins lie with the Jomon culture, which occupied much of the Japanese archipelago throughout the Holocene and persisted in an evolved form in Hokkaido until circa A.D. 500. On Honshu, Jomon culture was replaced by the forerunners of the modern Japanese state about 2,000 years ago, while in Hokkaido it was replaced by Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures, which, however, retained el¬

ements of the Jomon tradition. Most archaeolo¬ gists see Satsumon as the most likely immediate ancestor of modern Ainu culture in northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido, while Satsumon-influenced Okhotsk culture, a north¬ ern culture, is believed to be the source of Sa¬ khalin and Kurile Ainu culture (fig. 1.17).

Despite progress in understanding the broader cultural outline described above, much work is needed to fill the conspicuous gap from about A.D. 1000 to 1400 that exists between ar¬ chaeological evidence and historic Ainu peoples. This is the crucial period in the emer¬ gence of Ainu culture, and its study has proved difficult because of the near "invisibility" of ar¬ chaeological evidence dating to this period. Fol¬ lowing the previous period in which Satsumon and Okhotsk cultures are recognizable archaeologically by their distinctive pithouses and settlement types, ceramic traditions, midden deposits, and art forms, the subsequent shift to surface dwellings, short-term occupations, lack of middens, replacement of ceramics and stone tools by metal vessels and iron implements ob¬ tained by trade, use of wood rather than more durable ceramics or bone, and abandonment of most types of figurative art resulted in a major reduction in archaeological traces. So far, only a few sites, such as the Chitose Airport site near Sapporo, contain artifacts with Ainu-like designs (fig. 1. 1 8) documenting the transition between earlier archaeological horizons and "Ainu" as known ethnologically (Ohtsuka 1993: 19—20).

Today the "Ainu enigma" continues to elicit speculation and controversy, not least among Ainu who are actively participating in the search and do not hesitate to express their own ideas about their origins as a non-Japanese ethnic people. It is fair to say that proprietorship of "the Ainu problem" no longer lies exclusively with non- Ainu historians, archaeologists, and anthropolo¬ gists,- Ainu are also joining the scholarly ranks and are participating in public debates over such issues as the appropriateness of studying Ainu human-skeletal remains and the ownership of ar¬ chaeological finds. The social and political issues connected with "when Ainu became Ainu" and "who the Ainu are" are rapidly becoming as com¬ plex politically as the studies are scientifically.

Ainu Ethnicity as Historical Process

Hitchcock's interest in Ainu history was not shared by many other museum collectors or early anthropologists. The latter, who in any case could not read Japanese, were more con¬ cerned with comparing Ainu culture and physi¬ cal type with other known groups than with poring over archival records for information about the Ainu, who first appear in Japanese his-

INTRODUCTION / W. F1TZHUGH

1.20

1.20 Making It Ainu

Creating objects with a distinctive Ainu character from iocal and foreign materials is typical of Ainu cultural production. This smoking kit collected by E. Odium in Shana, the Kuriles, is a modernized version of the traditional form (see fig. 1.21) but includes such traditional elements as the large blue glass bead and a bearskin pouch. (ROM 888.6.13)

1.21 Traditional Tobacco Box This old tobacco box made in tradi¬ tional Ainu fashion displays the fine carving done by men to adorn their most treasured possessions; it was collected in Okotsonai by Frederick Starr in 1904. Tobacco boxes were often inlaid with antler, especially in Sakhalin, but in this piece the inlay is ivory, a northern trade item. Men wore their smoking gear at their belts. An old Ainu story tells of a man defending himself from a bear attack using only his sturdy pipe holder and tobacco box. (BMA 12.661)

torical accounts in the seventh century. Never¬ theless, the oral history Ainu people presented to Hitchcock about their once-powerful status as a regional power linking northern Japan with the Asian coast is now more accessible and is the subject of numerous presentations in Part II This history presents a surprising new view (considering previous stereotypes of the Ainu as a forest-dwelling people) of the Ainu as a mari¬ time-based trading power whose political and social organization bore little resemblance to the Ainu lifestyle encountered by late-nineteenth- century visitors and scholars (Harrison 1 954, Howell 1994, 1995, and this volume). An in¬ kling of this past is suggested in the Ainu-e por¬ traits of Ainu chieftains painted by Hakyo Kakizaki between 1783 and 1800 (fig. 1.19), which show Ainu leaders as powerful figures who, almost until the end of the eighteenth century, waged war, governed their people, managed lu¬ crative trading empires between the Asian main¬ land and Japan, and conducted their business as local sovereigns. The details of this Japanese-Ainu contact history were first made available to En¬ glish readers in Shinichiro Takakura's important work, The Ainu of Northern Japan: A Study in Concjuest and Acculturation (I960).

Essays in Part II of this volume document the history of Ainu relations with the Japanese at different points in time,- they also illustrate the importance of northern cultural and economic ties to the Ainu, the gradual eclipse of Ainu ca¬ pabilities in the face of growing Russian and Japanese competition, and adverse effects on the Ainu from changes in market forces, weap¬

onry, and shipping technology that forced them to take a subservient position when their south¬ ern neighbors grew more powerful and advanced into northern Honshu and eventually into Hok¬ kaido. In the meantime, spurred by the threat of Russian imperial advances, the Tokugawa Shogunate began to take a more active role in promoting its national interests by placing its undefended northern territories under political control. Ainu resisted and attempted to maintain their independence using military means,- but in each case — for instance, Shakushain's War of 1669, and lastly, the battle of Kunashiri-Menashi in 1789 — the Ainu lost more and more until they were forced to submit in every respect to the central government's interests operating through the Matsumae seat at Hakodate in southwestern Hokkaido. By the eighteenth century the Ainu had lost direct control over almost all of their former territories and resources, with the excep¬ tion of fur and other products of the forest. By this process the Ainu lost a major portion of their subsistence-resource base, their external economic opportunities, and, with the spread of introduced diseases (Walker, this volume), much of their demographic base. Other essays in this volume (Siddle and Part VI) carry this changing historical image of the Ainu forward into the late twentieth century, with a storyline that follows the same basic trend toward denouement.

Making It Ainu

The Ainu did not lose control of their culture or their symbols and trappings of Ainu ethnicity. Despite losses to Russia and Japan, the Ainu were not powerless in the face of their declining economic and political fortunes. Rather, history reveals that they utilized a vari¬ ety of techniques and resources to maintain in¬ dependence, deal effectively with neighbors, and reaffirm cultural identity: while they suf-

I / AINU ETHNICITY

19

1.22 Woman with Weaving Instrument

Frederick Starr collected a volume of Ainu-e during one of his trips to Japan, and after his death his widow donated it to the Smithsonian. In this image from Curious Sights of Ezo Island, painted by Shimanojo Murakami in 1799, a tat¬ tooed Ainu woman wearing beaded necklaces and holding a weaving shuttle is shown. (NMNH 392,023-25)

fered increasingly negative rates in their trade exchanges with Japanese and mainland Santan traders, Ainu continued to manage independent trade into the late eighteenth century (S. Sasaki, this volume). The Kakizaki paintings clearly document the results of accumulated power and wealth, but Ainu-e show that underneath the prestigious Santan silk overgowns they wore for formal occasions were traditional bark-cloth ( attusb ) leggings decorated in Ainu patterns (fig. 1.19),- they also carried Ainu knives, pipe holders, tobacco cases, bows, and other implements decorated with Ainu designs.

The political decline of the Ainu can be attributed to strategic, structural, and organiza¬ tional circumstances. Given the geography of Ainu territories, dependence on natural renew¬ able maritime and forest resources, limitations enforced by the lack of industrial technologies, a low and dispersed population base, and other factors, it was inevitable that the Ainu would eventually be forced to relinquish regional power and accept a new political and economic reality. Hokkaido, the Kuriles, and Sakhalin were rich in natural products, but once the Ainu had become engaged in trade with the expand¬ ing regional powers in Manchuria, Japan, Korea, and Russia, their dependence on industrial prod¬ ucts ensnared them in the economic mesh of ex¬ panding nations and they could no longer main¬ tain a favorable trade balance. Iron products, rice for food and sake, cotton fabric for cloth¬ ing, lacquerware, Japanese knives, axes, hoes, swords, and a host of other goods had become indispensable to Ainu identity and survival. The Ainu gradually became inextricably linked to the Japanese economic system, and to a lesser extent, in northern regions, were dependent on Manchuria and Russia for silk, glass, brass, and other products Nevertheless, even as opportu¬

nities for renegotiating these relationships with other societies diminished, the goods and mate¬ rials received were put to use in creating private and public manifestations of Ainu culture.

One aspect of external relationships has recently been illuminated by a new type of ar¬ chaeological evidence: charred seeds and husks. Ethnography and historical data describe the Ainu diet for several centuries as based on hunt¬ ing, fishing, and foraging (Kohara, this volume). Intensive agriculture was not practiced, al¬ though small homestead gardens produced po¬ tatoes, millet, and various legumes. Rice was not grown locally even though it was an important supplement and was used later in ritual contexts as sake and rice cakes. It has been supposed that the modern Ainu diet faithfully represented the economic activities of early Ainu, or pre-Ainu peoples like the Satsumon, who probably were also Ainu. However, new data from tenth-cen¬ tury Satsumon sites (Crawford and Yoshizaki 1987,- Crawford and Takamiya 1990,- Crawford 1 992) reveal a much wider assemblage of culti- gens of local, Japanese, and continental origin, including various strains of rice. These finds have been interpreted as indicating that Satsumon people were more agriculturally ori¬ ented than the historic Ainu and may have had a larger and more stable population base, more extensive political organization, and greater military capabilities. If so, the Ainu economy and settlement patterns may have developed their more nomadic characteristics since Satsumon times to obtain fur and other forest products to exchange for Japanese trade goods, foods, and tobacco (figs. 120, 1.21). Changes in domestic architecture favoring surface building over pithouse winter dwellings would also fit the pattern of the shift from Satsumon to Ainu culture in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. These and other changes are consistent with the increased economic specialization that came as Ainu dependence upon the Japanese market economy intensified

The Ainu practice of incorporating for¬ eign elements — be they foods, materials, styles, symbols, or words and concepts — into the social and spiritual heart of its culture and "making them Ainu" by redefining them in an Ainu way is both a striking and a curious feature of Ainu culture. Even an informal inventory of Ainu material culture reveals a welter of goods and concepts obtained through trade, political and social contacts, or replication of foreign goods. Many such objects, materials, and ideas are seen in Ainu-e paintings (fig. 1.19). Japanese swords were an important part of a man's formal attire and had important ritual functions in exor¬ cism and curing ceremonies. In its Ainu adapta¬ tion, the sword had to be worn across the back rather than at one's side (Japanese fashion) and

20

INTRODUCTION / ¥ FITZHUGH

1.24 Maxim with Bead and Bear As with their smoking gear, men deco¬ rated their knives and sheaths with highly individualistic carvings that ad¬ vertised both the value they placed on these possessions as well as their artistic skill. Despite their great diver¬ sity, such designs fall within an Ainu design universe that includes such foreign elements as the use of glass beads and netsuke-like ornaments, in this case, a bear, a rarity in nonritual Ainu art. (MPM N17058)

was tethered with a specially woven halter and strap (fig. 12.1). Lacquer cups and saucers ( tuki ) of Japanese manufacture became a principal ob¬ ject in the offering of sake (also imported) with Ainu prayers to the gods, together with the completely original and distinctive Ainu ikupasuy (prayer stick,- Maraini, this volume), while large lacquer containers were regarded as family trea¬ sures that were displayed in the sacred corner of the house and were believed to host gods of their own. Inaw, the shaved sticks that symbolize birds and help deliver human prayers to the gods, resemble the sacred shavings of Japanese Shinto ritual and Siberian concepts of birds as spirit-helpers,- even words central to Ainu reli¬ gion like kamuy (deity), nomi (prayer), onkami (worship) are thought to have Japanese origin (Kindaichi 1944, 1993: 238-39,- Obayashi 1997: 9,- Tamura, this volume). Among many other items central to Ainu identity were glass beads (obtained first from the Manchurian and Russian trade, then from Japan, and finally secretly manufactured in Hakodate for the Ainu trade),- bronze and copper medallions, beads, wire, and small ornaments,- silk robes from Manchuria and cotton garments from Japan,- and many other materials and objects. Using a variety of design styles (Dubreuil, Kodama, this volume) the Ainu combined and refashioned these foreign materi¬ als or gave them new social or ritual purposes, making them distinctively Ainu. This ability to create Ainu-ness out of foreign materials is a re¬ markable feature of Ainu culture. While one's attire may have been nearly exclusively of foreign origin, it still maintained an unmistakably Ainu ethnic character. In this way style and ceremony have been central to the changing, evolving defi¬

nition of Ainu-ness. Even as their territories di¬ minished and population declined, their material world expanded and incorporated increasing amounts of foreign imports, redefined as Ainu.

Ainu Ethnicity in Spirit and Art

Despite — or perhaps because of — economic and political setbacks, the Ainu maintained strength in the parts of their lives that contin¬ ued to identify them as Ainu: their formal clothing,- their woven baskets and sword straps,- their yukar, storytelling, and music,- their prayers to the gods, offered with tuki (sake cup and sau¬ cer), ikupasuy (prayer stick), and maw (shaved sticks that serve as messengers to the gods),- and their social and ceremonial events, of which the iyomante and other spirit-sending ceremonies (described here by Watanabe, Akino, and Lltagawa) are the core element of traditional Ainu social identity. Watanabe believed that sending back the spirit of a captive bear to the god's world, with all the elaborate ritual that it entails, was the essential core of Ainu identity,- Utagawa believes the iyomante is the institution that helped Ainu culture survive centuries of economic and political oppression.

In traditional Ainu belief every living thing, every being whether animate or inani¬ mate, is a god and a visitor to earth from the god world (Fujimura, this volume). These gods spend time on earth and make their bodies — their material forms — available to people for food, timber to build houses, grass to make mats, and elm bark for weaving attush clothing. People are meant to use these godly gifts but must do so with respect, and after using them, must return the spirit to the god world with a ritual spirit-sending ceremony. The most elabo¬ rate sending ceremonies are reserved for the chief Ainu deities — bears, owls, and foxes — but even spirits of small animals like songbirds or seemingly inconsequential objects like a bro¬ ken kettle or knife may have its spirit sent off to the god world with a special prayer, an inaw, and ritual observances. Ainu believed that were these rituals to be denied, the earth would soon become barren and lifeless, for the gods would no longer be willing to visit to offer their material bodies, and life would not regenerate.

In this way Ainu pay respect to all worldly be¬ ings and treat them as living entities, as partners in human existence. Modern Ainu reaffirm these beliefs in traditional ceremonies as well as in private prayers during their daily lives. This Ainu philosophy of reverence and partnership with nature is worth reflecting upon today as we contemplate the hubris of mankind's de¬ structive relationship with planet Earth.

The Ainu spirit is also evident in the exu¬ berance of its artistic expression, not only in the design of clothing and the creativity of its liter-

21

1,26 Eskimo Spirit Carving

Faces of spirits and spirit-helpers are common motifs in ancient and ethno¬ graphic art of the Bering Sea Eskimos. This beastly semihuman image from a harpoon counterweight excavated at the 1,500-year-old Ekven site on the Russian side of Bering Strait is thought to represent the spirit-controller of ani¬ mals. Nearly identical images appear on nineteenth-century Bering Sea Eskimo harpoons, suggesting an unbroken 2,000-year tradition of art and belief. (MAE 6479-9-208)

1.23 Nanai Motif

Ainu traded with the Nanai of the lower Amur River area and knew their cos¬ tume designs. Nanai fishskin robes carry embroidery showing beastlike images that resemble ancient Chinese t'ao-t'ieh designs. Cryptic ‘‘faces,’’ some resembling owls — the Ainu god of the village — occasionally appear in Ainu art, but Ainu, like their Amur neighbors, say these images are only decorative and do not represent animals, gods, or other beings. (MAE 313-18/7)

1.25 Morew Pattern

This detail from an attush (elm-bark) apron displays the spiral designs known to Ainu as morew and the embroidered “thorns’’ that protect the spiral's corners. Both motifs are thought to have powers that protect one’s back. They are found near openings and edges of garments and such vulnerable areas as turns in the design where evil gods can gain en¬ try. Ainu yukar (oral tales) refer to these designs as “flaming borders” and assert that they give ancient heroes power and protection from their enemies.

1.26

ary tradition but in the everyday production of Ainu woodcarvers and artisans. Traditionally, religious beliefs prohibited carving or using im¬ ages of animals or humans, for Ainu believed that this would bring danger or bad luck. Ainu carvers and seamstresses today deny (Dubreuil, this volume) — as Nanai and Nivkhi seamstresses of the lower Amur denied in 1 900 (Laufer 1902) — that their carvings and clothing decora¬ tions contain images of animals or beasts (figs.

1.23, 1.25); except in the special case of human dolls (nipopo) traditionally used in Sakhalin for healing and shamanism and carvings of animals (especially bears and fish) on ikupasuy used by men for sending ceremonies, the Ainu did not use hu¬ man or animal representations in their art. Debate even exists among the Ainu about statements by some Ainu seamstresses that the spikes appended to "turns" in Ainu morew (spiral) patterns (fig.

1.25) represent "thorns" that protect the wearer's back and other vulnerable spots of one's clothing (neck, shoulders, and garment margins) from evil spirits. Suffice it to say that Ainu garment artists have employed a complex set of spiri¬

tual concepts behind their creations, even though many of these concepts are not verbalized or accessible to outsiders.

Perhaps the most ex¬ plicit acknowledgment of spiritual involvement in women's art is found in the sacred woven belts and straps (fig. 31.10) that women wore as personal amulets to safe¬ guard virtue and fertility,- similar beliefs may have been incorporated in the wearing of beaded necklaces and metal medallions, for such belief was common among Siberian tribes from whom many of these adornments were ob¬ tained. Similar protective powers were inherent in the woven strap and harnesses ( emusbat ) used to hold a man's sword (fig. 7.2). In the days when Ainu traders braved dangers abroad and fought enemies at their doorstep, a man's sword was a treasured weapon,- later, after the sword became more important as a ceremonial object than as a weapon, its harness still retained great spiritual power and was used for exorcism and for healing. Even if we never know their precise meanings, the patterns and imagery Ainu artists use give spiritual meaning, life, and power to many forms of their material culture.

Ainu men had an equally complex and spiritually rich domain that centered around their role as woodcarvers. Men produced all manner of objects from wood, using axes, knives, and chis¬ els. In addition to serving functional purposes, knives, tobacco boxes, food-serving implements, trays, containers, and weaving implements were also decorated with complex carved patterns ranging from geometric to floral and abstract de-

22

INTRODUCTION / W. FITZHUCH

1.27 Sealskin Boots

Like other North Pacific peoples, the Ainu of Sakhalin Island utilized sea mammals for food, oil, and many types of clothing. Sealskin boots were more durable and waterproof than any other type of footgear until the invention of rubber and were usually worn with grass insulation. This pair, collected from Sakhalin before 1893, seems never to have been used.

(FMC 32104)

1.28 Kurile Needlecases

This group of tubular needlecases ornamented with whale-tail forms was collected from the Kurile island of Shikotan in 1875 or 1893 by Alexander Agassiz. Kurile Ainu arti¬ facts are quite rare. The form and designs on these needlecases, like Kurile basketry traditions, are similar to Alaskan Eskimo styles, suggesting northern contacts. (PMC 51631)

signs. While all of these items became objects of great interest to museum collectors, decorated bowls and trays became important in the growing Ainu tourist-art trade. Some of the objects ob¬ tained by the first Americans and Europeans who traveled in Hokkaido after 1868 show little or no use or patina, suggesting that market art was al¬ ready an established feature of Ainu economic life (see Dubreuil, this volume). This skill, seen both in carving and artistic expression, is best demon¬ strated in the carving of ikupasuy, the sacred prayer sticks employed by men for sending their prayers to the gods (Maraini, this volume). Here, and only here, men indulged their creativity in a wide range of subject matter, including the only culturally sanctioned representations of animals and objects otherwise forbidden in the Ainu artistic repertoire.

Ainu as a Northern People

Ainu artistry in woodcarving and garment de¬ sign continues to attract the attention of anthro¬ pologists and art historians and has been one of the features of Ainu culture, like bear ceremoni¬

1.27

1.28

alism (Hallowell 1926), that suggested north¬ ern cultural continuities into Siberia and around the North Pacific rim. While some design sys¬ tems and motifs originated from contact with Japanese, Korean, or other East Asian groups, the fundamental design of most Ainu art is most closely related to northern styles. The use of spiral or meander ( morew ) patterns and of the "Escher-like" positive-negative image-shifting approaches is basic to Ainu traditional textile art; it is also a dominant pattern in the tradi¬ tional clothing styles of the Nanai, Nivkhi, and Oroch peoples of the lower Amur River region (fig. 1.23). The stylistic Ainu-Amur connections are quite direct and are observable geographi¬ cally as style gradients. Similar systems (includ¬ ing transformation and cryptic animal-based art) underlie the ethnographic art of Northwest Coast cultures and prehistoric Eskimo art (fig. 1.26) of the Bering Sea (Fitzhugh 1988, 1993). Similar masked images are also sometimes found in Ainu art, where owls (the protecting deity of the Ainu village) seem to peer out from carved platters and textile designs. Future ar¬ chaeological work will eventually determine if such designs are related to the widespread North Pacific art tradition (which seems to be manifest also in Chou and Shang art) that is based on spiritual transformation, hunting magic, and ceremonialism. A more specific ar¬ gument for Ainu connections to the north may be seen in comparisons of Ainu and southwest Alaskan Eskimo coiled and twined basketry, which are nearly identical (Graburn and Lee, this volume), as well as needlecases and a few other objects (fig. 1.28). Some of these similari¬ ties may have been inherited by Ainu artists through traditions of the Okhotsk culture, while others, like coiled basketry, may result from more recent historical contacts, for in¬ stance, between the Ainu and Aleut hunters brought from Alaska by Russian fur traders (Shubin 1994).

These are some examples of the material manifestations of northern cultural influence or

I / AINU ETHNICITY

23

1.30 Sea Otter

Takeki Fujito, one of the finest modern Ainu artists, calls himself kumahori (“bear carver”) and prides himself on his naturalistic renditions of bears and other animals. Although as hunters the Ainu were astute as observers of na¬ ture, they did not make representations of animals, except in certain ritual con¬ texts, until the twentieth century, when the production of tourist art became necessary for economic survival.

(Takeki Fujito Collection)

heritage in Ainu culture. Similar features of cer¬ emonial traditions include the first salmon cer¬ emony that is common to both Ainu and most Northwest Coast Indian cultures (Kono, this volume), and a host of spiritual and social cus¬ toms that Ainu share with other native peoples of the lower Amur River and eastern Siberia, in¬ cluding shamanism, the feeding of spirits and spirit figures, dog sacrifice, use of nipopo (human figurines) and other amulets, and other tradi¬ tions. Many of these beliefs are expressed more prominently among the Sakhalin Ainu than among the Hokkaido Ainu due to the Sakhalin Ainu's closer relations with Asian mainland cul¬ tures and the Hokkaido Ainu's proximity to Honshu. More far-reaching ethnological com¬ parisons between Ainu and Athabascan cultures have also been made.

Because the Ainu have been excluded from their former northern territories for much of the past two hundred years, this northern strain in Ainu culture has weakened and is less obvious today than it was in earlier times. The Ainu living in Hokkaido also have not been immune to erosion of their former maritime subsistence and traditions. Losses re¬ sulting from competition with the Japanese for coastal resources and living space have been continual since the fifteenth century, such that by the mid-twentieth century few Hokkaido Ainu had direct experience with their former life as seal, sea lion, whale, and swordfish hunt¬ ers. Today this aspect of their life is known only through Japanese historical sources, Amu-e, Ainu memory culture, and their oral history genre known as yukar (Iwasaki-

Goodman and Nomoto, Oginaka, this volume). These northern and maritime traditions are mostly absent from the object record in North American museums, which primarily represent Hokkaido Ainu who lived in forest and river set¬ tings,- this perspective differs radically from the usual Western image of the Ainu as described in ethnographic accounts since the 1 860s (Batchelor 1892,- H. Watanabe 1973,- Hilger 1971).

Transitions: Forests, Bears, and Modern Art

The final section of this book (Part V and VI) brings into focus the more recent history of Ainu in Hokkaido in articles by historians, art¬ ists, leaders, and elders discussing modern events, political resistance, cultural preservation and rejuvenation, and cultural visions. This cen¬ tury was no easier on the Ainu than others had been, for it coincided with their total subservi¬ ence to Japanese administration, beginning with the passage of the Former Hokkaido Aborigines Protection Act of 1899. This act was meant to promote rapid Ainu assimilation into Japanese society (Siddle, this volume) and imposed harsh and restrictive conditions on Ainu existence and cultural expression. Ainu were forced to attend segregated schools, were refused access to game and fish, and could not participate as regular members of Japanese society.

The results were variable. Although the Ainu population did not become extinct as Hitchcock and others had predicted, neither did it grow dramatically,- by today's official count the Ainu population has grown by only 10,000 since 1 886. During these years many of those born to Ainu abandoned their impoverished vil¬ lages and moved to the rapidly growing cities where they attended high schools and universi¬ ties, took jobs, and melted into the larger Japa¬ nese population. Women married Japanese men and disguised their Ainu backgrounds in the hope that their children would escape the stigma of discrimination against Ainu that was prevalent among Japanese in Hokkaido and elsewhere in Japan.

Those who remained Ainu expressed their ethnicity in different ways. Some maintained Ainu traditions as subsistence or small-scale farmers, hunters, trappers, and fishermen who continued to practice the Ainu religion and customs,- they held periodic bear ceremonies, buried their dead in the Ainu way, and engaged in traditional carving and weaving for home consumption. But as Hokkaido began to fill with Japanese immigrants and cities began to grow in the late 1800s, economics forced the Ainu to develop new sources of income. Some Ainu earned money from harvesting timber (Kayano 1994), while others, began to replicate decorative wood platters or other material -culture

24

INTRODUCTION / W. FITZHUCH

1.29 Ki-men (Woodem Masks) Abandoning such traditional Ainu sub¬ jects as bears and introducing new forms — like masks in the series Ki- men, which were not part of Ainu tra¬ dition — Bikky Sunazawa explored Ainu themes and designs in media ranging from jewelry to monumental wood sculpture. He was among the first of the Ainu artists whose work tran¬ scended tourist art, forcing the estab¬ lishment to recognize Ainu fine art.

He also used his art to fight for Ainu political rights. (HOVO)

items for collectors and the growing numbers of tourists attracted to Japan's new "wild north," whose attractions included the Ainu themselves (Dubreuil, this volume). As tourist centers in Asahikawa, Akan, Shiraoi, and elsewhere began to develop, a new industry and a new trade took form providing seasonal income for Ainu who carved, sewed garments, and performed Ainu rituals and dances for the public, first in their villages for those visitors interested in truly rustic adventures and later in prepared sites that advertised Ainu attrac¬ tions and catered especially to tourists (Nomoto, Ohtsuka, Dubreuil, this volume). By the end of the twentieth century acting as a "museum" Ainu had become an established profession and the sales of Ainu crafts had become an important economic activity for some families.

Essays in Part VI document changing con¬ ditions in the twentieth century as Ainu re¬ sponded to these new opportunities. On the one hand, tourism itself demanded a new definition of Ainu culture as a conscious form of living his¬ tory and culture, but on the other, it was artifi¬ cial and reenacted for the public, with Ainu-ness marketed as a commodity, a fact that disturbed many Ainu who preferred to maintain their cul¬ ture in a more private manner.

Art in particular allowed twentieth-century Ainu to express their beliefs and ethnicity while producing income. Art also created internal co¬ hesion for Ainu people, just as it had in earlier periods. As Ainu carvers began to transfer their skills from persona! objects to mass-produced tourist art — especially their signature bear carvings — they laid aside long-held prohibitions against the representation of animals and people

for secular purposes. New economic and artis¬ tic opportunities were created that eventually led to the transformation of Ainu art from its traditional personal and religious base to func¬ tion as commercial and fine art. This remark¬ able story is chronicled here by Chisato Dubreuil in biographical profiles of Ainu artists (notably, of Bikky Sunazawa) who pioneered the breakout of Ainu art from its traditional en¬ cumbrances and from its commercial shackles as tourist art into the international fine-art realm (fig. 1.29,- Dubreuil 1995).

Essays in this section also document the continuing struggles that Ainu have faced during the past century to maintain their access to tradi¬ tional subsistence resources, lands, and religious rights. Losses in these areas continued long after the passage of the 1899 Protection Act, which in reality denied Ainu the ability to control their destiny, placing it instead securely in the hands of Japanese officials. Even as access to lands and resources diminished throughout the century, an equally strong force of cultural revitalization ma¬ terialized as Ainu like Shigeru Kayano, among many others, fought to document, preserve, and teach Ainu language, culture, carving traditions, dance, yukar, and many other forms of culture to Ainu, Japanese, and any others who were inter¬ ested (Kayano 1978, 1985, 1987). At times theirs truly were voices crying out in the wilder¬ ness as political and economic forces aligned against any and all forms of Ainu expression.

The fight against the Nibutani Dam (Kaizawa, this volume) was in this sense as crucial an ele¬ ment in cultural survival as efforts to preserve Ainu language. These efforts and the interna¬ tionalization of the Ainu cause (Dietz, this vol¬ ume) reveal new aspects of the importance of ethnic identity to cultural survival.

This political struggle has recently met with some success, as judged by the court's decision in the Nibutani Dam-construction case which affirmed the Ainu as the indigenous people of Hokkaido,- by the passage of the new law, Ainu Shinpo of 1997,- and the sup¬ port achieved by the Ainu in gaining rec¬ ognition for their native rights in the United Nations (Tsunemoto, this volume). None of these achievements would have been possible without public recognition of Ainu commitment to their culture and heritage as demonstrated by political engagement, maintenance of tradi¬ tional rituals and beliefs, a strong work ethic, and a level of excellence in art and literature.

In the difficult years of the twentieth cen¬ tury strong pressure was brought upon the Ainu to discontinue their periodic celebration of the iyomante, or bear-sending ceremony, which was considered cruel and barbaric to many who did not understand its central place in the Ainu worldview. Like Eskimo whaling in northern

I / AINU ETHNICITY

25

Alaska or the Northwest Coast Indian potlatch (in which valuable property was given away by individuals to members of the opposite clan with expectation of future reciprocity) which was banned by the Canadian government in the early twentieth century as being "wasteful" and un-Cana- dian, the Ainu iyomante was also discouraged by the Japanese and survived into mid-century only as a secretly held family-based ceremony. But as with other cultural touchstones, Ainu elders reinstigated the iyomante, and it has once again become an im¬ portant focus for the preservation of Ainu tradition. The ceremony pays respect to elder tradition-bear¬ ers and provides an opportunity for people to ex¬ press their culture through music, dance, and oral presentations. The resurgence of the iyomante (fig. 1.31) has not only helped revitalize Ainu culture it has also brought new understanding to Japanese society and the world about Ainu atti¬ tudes toward nature and the reverence for life (Fujimura, Utagawa, this volume,- Aiga 1 985). The iyomante ex¬ presses the belief that life and nature can be renewed continuously as long as there is hu¬ man commitment to reciprocity with na¬ ture: what is taken must also be given back in equal measure, and with reverence.

1.31 Ainu Cultural Rebirth

After centuries of political and cultural represssion, Ainu efforts to preserve their culture and language have stimu¬ lated a cultural rebirth. Ceremonies that were discouraged or banned during the past one hundred years are now being performed and passed on to younger generations. (AMS)

A New Beginning

On July I, 1997, the Japanese government for the first time gave official recognition to Ainu culture and language through the passage of the Ainu Cultural Promotion Law, popularly called Ainu Shinpo or "The New Ainu Law." This stat¬ ute establishes a new relationship between the Ainu people and Japan and replaces the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, a 1899 Meiji- government decree that actually promoted eco¬ nomic and political decline and encouraged Ainu assimilation into Japanese society. The Ainu Shinpo (Dietz, Tsunemoto, this volume) reverses the former policies of the previous Japanese gov¬ ernments that controlled Hokkaido and provides a modicum of funding and official support for the preservation and promotion of Ainu language and culture. It also, for the first time, recognizes the "indigenous nature" of the Ainu people, but stops short of an explicit statement that the Ainu are "an indigenous people." Whatever the outcome of the new legislation on the ultimate outcome of Ainu culture, its passage reverses centuries of official and unofficial cultural oppression that,

together with economic competition and loss of lands and resources, nearly led to the extinction of Ainu culture. By the end of the twentieth century, the Hokkaido Ainu population (about 25,000) is probably only a fraction of what it was in the fifteenth century when the Ezo (Ainu) of Ezogashima (Hokkaido) were a regional economic and political power presiding over Hokkaido, the Kurile Islands, and southern Sakhalin.

In the end, Ainu ethnicity is what the people themselves make of it, but it is not just an internal process, for Ainu ethnicity has also been shaped by the forces that surround it. Ainu culture is remarkable as an example of a tradi¬ tion that has existed as a recognizable ethnic construct for at least eight hundred years. Dur¬ ing this period it coalesced and emerged as a dominant regional trading power whose advan¬ tage was its control of communication and trade along the margins of the expanding na¬ tion-states of Manchuria, Russia, and Japan. During the past four hundred years the Ainu have seen their star eclipsed, and many of their homelands have been lost to foreign encroach¬ ment. Just as nautical prowess and trading abilities proved crucial in the establishment of an Ainu world in the medieval period, Ainu of the past two centuries have survived confron¬ tations with competing societies by finding strength in other areas. Though they lost ter¬ ritories and suffered economic and social hardship, they did not lose their culture — their Ainu society, customs, beliefs, and mate¬ rial forms. Because their struggles have been rewarded by survival, they remain a viable people with much to teach the world

* * * *

IT IS A GREAT CHALLENGE and a primary goal of anthropology and art history to document cultural change through time and space and to seek to identify the cultural forms, sources of innovation, trends, and traditions that affect the history of cultures. By bringing together a large body of data on the Ainu, this project has pro¬ vided a rare opportunity to explore how these processes have influenced the development of a particular cultural-historical tradition. While this format does not allow an intensive analysis of the diverse sets of data presented here, by bringing together a large corpus of information it may assist future integrative studies of Ainu history, culture, and art. We also hope to have advanced international recognition of the Ainu as well as a better understanding of one culture's quest for survival. And we hope to have shown that the Ainu — and their ancestors and their descendants — have a permanent place among the peoples of the North Pacific rim.

26

INTRODUCTION / W FITZHUGH

Historical Sources and Ainu-e

The view of the Ainu as an impoverished but mysterious people living as "children of nature" persisted throughout the early part of the twentieth century and left the impression that the Ainu were a cultural remnant that one might meet only occasionally in the pages of National Geographic (Hilger 1967). For most of the public, knowledge of the Ainu and their putative Caucasoid links survived only as a brand of anthropological esoterica encountered in crossword puzzles as "a northern [or mysterious,- or hairy,- or extinct] people of Japan." This view was promoted by early travelers, museum collectors, missionaries, and doctors, primarily in Hokkaido (Bickmore 1 868,- Batchelor 1887 etsecj.; Chamberlain 1887 etsecf.; Landor 1893,- see Kreiner 1993, 1996, and this volume). Kurile Ainu and their origins were studied initially by Hitchcock (1891a) and Torii (1919). Anthropological studies of the Ainu began in Sakhalin with Bronislaw Pilsudski (1906) and were pursued more recently by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, who has written on the resettled Sakhalin Ainu in Hokkaido (Ohnuki-Tierney 1969 etsecf.'). The most recent anthropological treat¬ ment of the Hokkaido Ainu in English is Hitoshi Watanabe's Ainu Ecosystem (1973),- a more popular anthropological account is Sister M. Inez Hilger's Together with the Ainu ( 1 971 ). All of these works treat the Ainu as forest-dwelling hunters, fishermen, collectors, and gardeners, and they tend to emphasize anthropological views of a traditional culture rather than the every¬ day struggle the Ainu faced as they sought to maintain their language, religion, traditions, economy, and land. One work that breaks this pattern is Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans (Philippi 1979), which presents translations of the Ainu epic poetry known as yukar; this work has a long introduction describing Ainu culture written by the editor, Donald L. Philippi, and a preface by poet Gary Snyder. Ainu history has recently been fully explored by Richard Siddle (1996 and this volume), and its trade and economic relationships by Howell (1994 etsecf. and this volume).

In contrast to Western research, which has primarily emphasized anthro¬

pological approaches, Japanese scholar¬ ship is far more complex thematically and reveals a different intellectual tradition, especially regarding the Ainu language and oral traditions (see H. Watanabe 1973: 165—70 for a biblio¬ graphic review of Ainu studies),- unfortu¬ nately, iittle of this information is available in English. Among the high¬ lights are works by the following authors: Mashiho Chiri, the great Ainu linguist and lexicographer,- Shiro Hattori, also a linguist and lexicographer,- Kyosuke Kindaichi, who transcribed Ainu tales and yukar; Sakuzaemon Kodama, who wrote widely on Ainu history and culture,- Mari Kodama, who has recently illuminated Ainu textile art,- and Takamitsu Natori, Ryuzo Torii, Shigeru Kayano, Yoshikazu Ohtsuka, Toshikazu Sasaki, and many others. Only a few of these scholars have published in English, but we are pleased to include some of them as contributors to this volume.

For Europeans, the key to Ainu literature is to be found in the voluminous works of Josef Kreiner who has published widely on Ainu culture and history (Kreiner 1993, 1996,- Kreiner and Olschleger 1987).

Among Japanese sources, the most important work for English readers interested in Ainu origins and history is Shini'chiro Takakura's Ainu of Northern Japan ( 1 960). This work presents the history of Ainu-Japanese relations in a process-oriented exposition, beginning with the earliest written Japanese records on the Ainu (from the seventh century) and continuing to modern times. This history documents the devastating effects that Japanese contact and competition have had upon the Ainu over more than one thousand years, the impact of defeat in wars and rebellions, and the various terms that imposed new restrictions on Ainu movement, settlement, economy, and education. Exploitative treatment of the Ainu persisted well into the present century, as seen in the biography of Shigeru Kayano, Our Land Was a Forest (Kayano 1994).

Shini'chiro Takakura also wrote fine works on other aspects of Ainu studies,

including A Collection of Ainu-e, which presents a pioneering analysis of the illustrations of the Ainu known as Ainu-e. These genre illustrations of Ainu subjects have been drawn and painted by Japanese artists over a period of six hundred years (Takakura 1973,- T. Sasaki 1993a, b and this volume). Ainu-e are an important source of knowledge, for they include detailed and often highly accurate illustrations of Ainu life, customs, and material culture, including clothing and implements,- they are especially important ethnologically because of the detailed descriptions — marginalia added by the artists and learned associates — that accompany the drawings. While Ainu-e constitute a visual cultural and historical "handbook" of Ainu culture, they are not immune to bias, especially in their distortions of Ainu physical appearance, which is frequently shown to be bearded, tattooed, and barbaric. These images must be interpreted in relation to Japanese-Ainu history at the time they were created. The fact that they have been compiled as Japanese-Ainu relations evolved through various political stages make them both an exciting and problematic source. The history of Ainu-e and the challenges they raise for Ainu historiography are explored in this volume by Toshikazu Sasaki.

The history of early Ainu research and collecting has been compiled in two volumes edited by Josef Kreiner. Papers in the 1993 volume present data on the European image of the Ainu (Kreiner), language studies (Voss, Dettmer, and Refsing), ethnographic studies (Kato, Majewicz, and Olschleger), Ainu collections in European museums (Wilkinson, Teague, Thiele, Warthol, and Spevakovski), Ainu-e pictures (Sasaki, Prunner), with appendices on Ainu collections in Japanese, European, and American museums. The 1996 volume includes essays on the important museum, archival, and library collec¬ tions of Philipp Franz and Heinrich von Siebold (Kreiner, Forrer, and others). Finally, Irimoto ( 1992b) has compiled a voluminous bibliography of Ainu literature in all languages.

I /AINU ETHNICITY

27

'

1/ Ainu Origin Theories

S. A. Arutiunov

1.1 Abashiri Ainu Romyn Hitchcock took this 1888 photograph of an Ainu group in Abashiri, a town on the Sea of Okhotsk in northeastern Hokkaido. Unlike photos made by many scientists visiting later who had their subjects dress in ceremonial robes, Hitchcock usually showed people in relaxed groups wearing everyday clothes. (NAA 98-10383)

< Ikorikayani, Son of Ikotoi

1843 copy by Teiki Kojima after Hakyo Kakizaki’s work, Portraits of Ezo Chief¬ tains. (Y. and M. Kitao Collection)

EPORTS ABOUT AiNU — OR EZO (Yezo) — people abound in Japan¬ ese chronicles and semi-mytholo¬ gical literature of medieval times. The question of their origins is never raised in these sources, but they do contain priceless data about the Ainu before their contact with Western researchers. Especially valuable are sources of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Tokunai Mogami (1790,- fig. 16.9), Rinzo Mamiya (1855), and Takeshiro Matsuura (1851). The earliest reports by Western Euro¬ pean and Russian scholars and voyagers to the area also contain some very detailed and in¬ teresting descriptions,- these individuals include Philipp Franz von Siebold ( 1832,- fig. 1 6.3), Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1812), Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1810-12,- fig. 16.1), Georg Wilhelm Steller (1774), and Stepan P. Krasheninnikov (1776).

Intensive scholarly research on the

to various institutions and places throughout Japan for purposes of educating its people and modernizing its practices, laid the foun¬ dation of modern scientific studies concern¬ ing the origins of the Japanese and various local populations in Japan. Among the many people to be mentioned with gratitude and due respect are Neil G. Munro (1908), Ed¬ ward Morse ( 1 879), John Batchelor (1901 ), and Erwin E. Baelz ( 1900), all of whom greatly contributed to the pioneer studies in Japanese prehistory and Ainu cultural and physical anthropology.

Baelz was the first to compare the physical and cultural similarities between Ainu and Ryukyu islanders and to propose a hypothesis that identifies them as vestiges of the original population of Japan prior to the penetration of ancestors of the mod¬ ern ethnic Japanese to this archipelago. Although the ethnic history of Japan seems

origins of various people and tribes of the earth developed only in the second half of the nineteenth century and was connected with evolutionist trends in history and anthropol¬ ogy, fostered by similar trends in biology.

This interest coincided with both the opening of Japan, following the visit of the American Naval Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his fleet to Tokyo in 1 853, and with the begin¬ ning of western anthropology. A deep and penetrating curiosity about Japan's history and traditional cultures resulted, affecting the then-fledgling fields of archaeology and physical anthropology. These early anthro¬ pologists, as well as missionaries and practical advisors invited by the Japanese government

to be more complex, Baelz's basic theory of a dual population structure for Japan is cor¬ roborated by recent research (Hanihara 1991,- Kozintsev 1993). On the other hand, Baelz was among the first to interpret the racial peculiarities of the Ainu population as evidence of a certain group of "Caucasian- like" (i.e., Europoid) population that alleg¬ edly preceded the spread of Mongoloid (Asianoid) racial types in East Asia (fig. 1.1).

This thesis of "Caucasianness" of the Ainu was rather uncritically accepted and taken for granted by many European and Japanese scholars. It was, however, rejected by scholars of physical anthropology in Russia who instead preferred to believe in

1/ ORIGIN THEORIES

29

the Australoid affiliation of the Ainu physical type and in their southern origins, supposedly from somewhere in southern China, Indo¬ china, and Austronesia. The ideas of a south¬ ern origin of the Ainu race were first postu¬ lated by L. Vivien de Saint-Martin (1872) and soon gamed wide acceptance among Russian anthropologists who studied mainly skeletal collections in museums (Anuchin 1 876,- Tarenetzky 1 890). Later on, one of the lead¬ ing authorities in early Soviet anthropology, Leo Shternberg, who as a revolutionary exile had worked among Nivkhi (formerly known as Gilyak) and Ainu groups of Sakhalin in the early 1900s, added much new data on reli¬ gion, material culture, and Amu art, which in his opinion corroborated the theory of their southern origins (Shternberg 1933).

More or less simultaneously with Shternberg, important contributions to Ainu studies were made by a number of Polish schol¬

1.2 Ainu Men of Sakhalin

Physical and economic differences are evident between the Abashiri group and these wealthy Sakhalin Ainu traders photographed by Bronislaw Pilsudski between 1902 and 1905. Sakhalin formal garments differ from Hokkaido styles, and the men, who still wear beards, have Mongoloid features.

(NAA 98-10361)

ars like Izydor Kopernicki ( 1 882), I Radlinski (1892), B. Dybowski (1902), and Bronislaw Pilsudski (1912,- fig. 1.2). Among Russian scholars, perhaps only M. M. Dobrotvorskii, who worked among the Ainu of Sakhalin and published many valuable materials on their eth¬ nography and language, did not share ideas ei¬ ther of Europoidness or Australoidness of the Ainu,- he held that their physical features are not strikingly different from their neighbors and con¬ cluded that the Ainu could be included in the Mongoloid race, a viewpoint that has largely been corroborated (Dobrotvorskii 1873, 1875).

All Soviet physical anthropologists of the first half of the twentieth century who had a chance to study living Ainu or cranio- Iogical collections (Trofimova 1932,- Debets 1935, 195 1 , Cheboksarov 1947, 1951, -and Levin 1958) rejected the thesis of their Europoidness and basically followed the view taken by A. 1. Tarenetzky and Shternberg.

The idea of the Europoidness (Caucasoidness) of the Ainu continued to prevail in Western scholarship for some time and was strongly influenced and supported by George Montan- don ( 1 927, 1 937), for whom, as he stated, this Europoidness was "de clarte' de s oleil," that is, as clear as the light of day. The reasons for such a declarative statement were, however, rather insufficient. Montandon based his opinion mostly on such features as the form and de¬ velopment of hair, the form of nose and eyes, eye color, etc. Dental features, genetic mark¬ ers, blood-group factors, nonmetric cranial characteristics — all of which place the Ainu definitely outside the limits of the Europoid physical type — were not yet sufficiently known in Montandon's time.

In the twentieth century the greatest contribution to Ainu studies was made by Japanese scholars who emphasized collecting extant ethnographic and linguistic data, which were in danger of disappearing — a danger that has become a tragic reality. Luckily, Japanese scholars succeeded in gathering an enormous amount of data, which documented the Ainu cultural and linguistic legacy down to minute details. As the most important contributors one must mention Shin'ichiro Takakura ( 1940, 1947, 1949, 1960), Sadaka Nishizuru (1942), Kyosuke Kindaichi (1943, 1961), Yuko Yamamoto (1943, 1944), Genzo Sarashina ( 1 955, 1968), Hiromichi Kono (1958), Motosuke Ishikawa (1962), Hitoshi Watanabe (1973), and many others. There have also been native Ainu contributors, such as the outstanding linguist Mashiho Chiri (1942, 1953-62, 1 957), and the most impor¬ tant modern Ainu author who has written about the history and culture of his native people, Shigeru Kayano (1994).

The aspect of Ainu origins most vividly discussed by Japanese anthropologists was the Jomon-Ainu relationship. The question was whether the Neolithic people of the Jornon culture, known through archaeological re¬ search, should be considered direct ancestors of modern Ainu while being only marginally important to the formation of the modern

30

ANCIENT ROOTS/S. A. ARUTIUNOV

ethnic Japanese physical type (Wajin) or whether the Jomon people are to be placed among the most important ancestors of mod¬ ern Japanese but not the Ainu.

The development of dental studies shed new light on these discussions. In particular, Christy Turner II has demonstrated that the teeth of Jomon people, as well as those of the Ainu, belong to an archaic type labeled by Turner as Sundadontic, whereas the teeth of modern Japanese (and many other modern populations of Eastern Asia) belong to a type of a more recent formation labeled Sinodontic (Turner 1976,- Kozintsev 1993,- Ishida, this volume) Introduction of dental material into the scope of the discussion was especially impor¬ tant because, as many physical anthropologists (Cheboksarov 1951) have noted, there is no single craniological trait (with the possible exception of eye orbital height) that would allow one to distinguish precisely between Ainu skulls and eastern and southeastern Mon¬ goloid skulls, in spite of the obvious difference in appearance that can be observed among the living populations. Therefore, all previous arguments and comparisons, which were based exclusively on cranial features without examin¬ ing the dentition, remained indecisive.

There is still not total agreement among anthropologists concerning the problem of Ainu origins, but a more or less prevailing point of view was formulated recently by Alexander Kozintsev (1993). According to Yamaguchi's and Hanihara's views and in accordance with Baelz's previous findings, Ainu and Ryukyuans represent more-or-less direct descendants of the Jomon populations, although during the last two or three millen¬ nia both have experienced continental Mon¬ goloid admixtures, more clearly visible among Ryukyuans than among Ainu. Any Caucasoid resemblances of Ainu or Ryukyuans are to be considered accidental or, rather, ascending to a proto-Australoid heritage common to all humankind. The

modern Japanese are, to the contrary, basi¬ cally descendants of various continental Mongoloid migrants, although they also possess about 10 to 20 percent of genes inherited from the Jomon people.

The Jomon people were Australoid not in the sense that they had migrated to Japan from somewhere in Indochina or Indonesia, let alone Australia, but in the sense that they, like some "Australoid" tribes of India, were extant representatives of those archaic, undifferentiated proto- Australoid types from which all more-spe¬ cialized racial types, including Africanoids and Europoids, gradually developed on different continents. In other words, the Jomon people were related to and re¬ sembled those remote ancestors of the Asian Mongoloids who had not yet developed specific Mongoloid features. This point of view basically agrees with Tatyana Trofimova (1932). According to Kozintsev (1993), Ainu are extant Upper Paleolithic Australoid ancestors of recent Mongoloids. Essentially similar views have been ex¬ pressed by several Japanese authors, such as Bin Yamaguchi (1967) and Keiichi Omoto and Shogo Misawa (1976).

Based on the current theory of Ainu origins, it is no longer necessary to search for a proto-Ainu homeland in the remote south, either in Indochina or even further south. The continental ancestors of the Jomon people might have lived anywhere in southern or eastern China and/or the Amur River area as well The later genetic and cultural influences from the Russian Far East Maritime/Amur/Manchuria region to northern Jomon peoples and the Ainu occurred for the most part shortly before or soon after the time of Christ. These influ¬ ences have been documented beyond any doubt (Kiyono 1955,- Oba 1955, 1956,- Chubarova 1957,- Levin 1958,- Kozyreva 1967,- and Befu and Chard 1964).

1/ ORIGIN THEORIES

31

Ainu

Homelands:

Natural History from Ice Age to Modern Times

Yugo Ono

Although there are different opinions on the origin of the Ainu, archaeological research confirms that they represent the end of a long chain of aboriginal settlement that began more than 20,000 years ago during the last and coldest phase of the Ice Age. Knowledge of a Paleolithic occupation of the Japanese archipelago has come to the atten¬ tion of Japanese archaeologists only during the past few decades, when research acceler¬ ated rapidly because of an increase in salvage excavations resulting from development projects. The discovery that Japan had a lengthy Paleolithic settlement has also stimu¬ lated new interest in the early environments of these Late Ice Age hunters. As a result we have learned much about the evolution of

landforms, changing climate and its influ¬ ence on vegetation, effects of lowered and rising sea levels on adjacent seas and on the Japanese islands, and animal extinctions and introductions — to say nothing of the many ecological changes that occurred during the Holocene, the post-glacial period from 10,000 years ago to the present, when human activities increasingly affected envi-

2.1 Ice-Age East Asia and Today

Permafrost was more ex¬ tensive than continental glaciation in eastern Asia because lack of moisture sources kept snow and ice from forming ice sheets that insulated the earth. This map illustrates the extent of permafrost in the Late Glacial Maximum (ca. 18,000 years ago) and today. Late Glacial and modern shorelines are also shown.

1-5 Present permafrost distribution

1. continuous

2. southern limit of discontinu¬ ous permafrost

3. southern limit of sporadic permafrost

4. southern limit of 50cm- deep seasonal frost

5. southern limit of seasonal frost

6-8 Permafrost distribution in the Late Glacial Maximum

6. southern limit of continuous permafrost

7. southern limit of discontinu¬ ous permafrost

8. extent of alpine permafrost 9. Present soil wed6e

ronmental change.

°E

glacial maximum shoreline

present

shoreline

120°E

140°E

100°S

32

Tens of thousands of years 2.2 Sea-Level History

This graph shows fluctuations in sea level for the past 140,000 years. Sea level rose rapidly as the global cli¬ mate warmed, and then fell for 100,000 years, only to rise again during the last ten millennia. Hatching de¬ notes period of Hokkaido-Sakhalin land bridge.

This essay provides a brief description of the early landscapes and environments of Japan, focusing on its natural history as the context for the earliest human settlement in this region. We examine the natural history of Hokkaido, the northeastern island of the Japanese archipelago, where Ainu people live today, as well as the northern part of Honshu, where they may have lived in the past, to reveal why human-environmental interactions are crucial to understanding Japan's paleoenvi- ronments and the changing role of humans as "ecological actors" through time.

Ice Ages and Paleolithic Japan

Archaeological remains of settlements that are more than 20,000 years old have been found in Hokkaido, providing evidence of a popula¬ tion that survived the coldest phase of the late glacial period. These people made various kinds of hunting and processing tools from obsidian, which was easily accessible from the volcanic regions of eastern Hokkaido. Their culture is known as Shiritaki, named for the modern village where the best-quality obsid¬ ian is found.

By the end of the glacial period, about 10,000 years ago, Shiritaki Paleolithic was replaced by a Mesolithic culture with similari¬ ties to cultures of the Lake Baikal region in southern Siberia. Their small "microlithic" tool industry was based on a new method of producing blades from small cores, and from these bladelets a wide variety of tools were made, including many believed to have been used for arming arrows for hunting large ani¬ mals like deer and mammoth.

These Paleolithic and Mesolithic peoples seem to have had no direct connec¬ tion with the Ainu, unlike the pottery-making Neolithic Jomon culture. The Jomon culture is known either as Epi-jomon (reflecting its modified form) or Zoku-Jomon in Hokkaido

ANCIENT ROOTS / Y. ONO

("Zoku" means northern), where it persisted until about 2,000 years ago. It was replaced in southern Hokkaido by Satsumon culture and in the north by the Okhotsk culture. Jomon culture spread widely throughout the Japanese islands in the warmer period that followed the melting of glacial ice. Although the origin of Jomon culture has never been clear, it probably originated from regional variants of the earlier Paleolithic and Meso¬ lithic cultures, because regional varieties of Jomon are known throughout Japan.

In Honshu and the southern islands, Yayoi culture replaced Jomon about 2,000 years ago and led to the formation of the Japanese state during the first millennium A.D. Yayoi did not penetrate Hokkaido mainly because its severe climate did not permit rice cultivation, the

2.3 Bathymetry of Soya Strait

Shallow waters in Soya Strait ensured a land connection between Sakhalin and Hokkaido for much of the last Ice Age.

economic base of this culture. Ainu culture seems to have originated from the earlier Jomon and Epi-Jomon cultures whose peoples had developed special adaptations to the

natural resources of the Hokkaido environ¬ ment and persisted in this essentially nonagri- cultural tradition, with only limited growth of garden farming, until the nineteenth century.

45°N

The Northern Ice-Age Land Bridge

The Hokkaido Ice Age was characterized by major changes in coastline and natural envi¬ ronments. Figure 2. 1 illustrates the coastline of the entire Japanese islands and eastern Asia at the Late Glacial Maximum about 40 1 8,000 years ago,- at that time, most of northern North America was covered by a continental-scale glacier called the Laurentide Ice Sheet whose surface and ice volume were approximately the same as the present Antarctic Ice Sheet. Northern Europe, 35o England, and Ireland were also covered by a similar ice sheet, and the total volume of ice on earth was three times larger than at present.

Because the water on earth circulates in a closed system in which there is no new source inside or outside the earth and no water leaves the system, the volume of seawater decreases 30° enormously when a large ice sheet builds up on land. Most of the water that evaporates from the sea falls on land as snow, where it contrib¬ utes to glaciers and ice sheets. Because glaciers and ice sheets flow extremely slowly compared

2.4 Late Glacial Fauna

Ice-Age Japan had many cold-adapted mammals. Throughout much of this time Japan was a peninsula of Asia, and the Sea of Japan was connected to the Pacific Ocean at Korea Strait. (Ono and Igarashi 1992)

with rivers, water on the land cannot reach the sea for long periods of time, and the volume of seawater thus decreases, causing a remarkable change in sea levels throughout the world (fig. 2.2). The sea level was decreased by at least

2/AINU HOMELANDS

33

2.5 Present Vegetation Zones of North and East Asia

(after Ono and Igarashi 1992)

2.6 Phytogeography of Japan at Late Glacial Maximum (18,000 Years Ago)

(after Ono and Igarashi 1992)

340 feet (100 meters) during the Late Glacial Maximum, effecting great changes to the coastline of the Japanese archipelago (fig. 2. 1 ).

The most significant change occurred in Hokkaido, which was completely connected to the Asian continent by a land bridge or a relatively narrow strip of land that emerged from the sea during this period of lowered sea level (Ono 1991 ). During the same period that Hokkaido was connected to the Asian continent via the island of Sakhalin by two land bridges — at the Soya Strait and the Marniya Strait — the Bering Land Bridge, one of the largest land bridges of the Ice Age, connected Asia and North America at the northwestern edge of present-day Alaska.

A bathymetric map of the Soya Strait (fig. 2.3) illustrates that the land bridge here appears when the sea level is 150 feet (forty- five meters) lower than its present level. The Marniya Strait, separating Sakhalin from the Asian continent, is very shallow — less than thirty-two feet (ten meters) deep — thus the Sakhalin land bridge emerges with a relatively small reduction of current sea levels. On the other hand, the Tsugaru Strait between

Honshu and Hokkaido is very deep, exceed¬ ing 435 feet ( 1 30 meters), so a land bridge would not be created there even when Ice Age sea levels reached their lowest point. This geographical situation gave Hokkaido a different geographical orientation during the Ice Age: it was a peninsula of the Asian continent for a much longer time than it was an island, as today.

These conditions have contributed to similarities between the fauna and flora of Hokkaido and the Asian continent on the one hand and on the other, to differences between biota in Honshu and Hokkaido. Biogeograph- ically, the Tsugaru Strait corresponds to a remarkable boundary, the Blakiston Line, which separates northern fauna from southern fauna (fig. 2.4). Many species of fauna that once lived or are still living in Hokkaido cannot be found in Honshu, whereas fossils of mammoth and northern types of deer are found only in Hokkaido.

The corresponding boundary for flora lies in the middle of Sakhalin, where a north¬ ern conifer forest (taiga) that exists throughout Siberia is replaced by a mixed forest that char-

34

ANCIENT ROOTS / Y. ONO

acterizes the flora of Hokkaido (fig. 2.5). This vegetation boundary, called the Schmidt Line, migrated southward during the Late Glacial Maximum to the middle or southern part of Hokkaido, and Siberian larch (Larix t pndini ) mixed with the more southern Alpine pine (Pinas pumila ) to produce a taiga forest (fig. 2.6).

The Ice Age-Hoiocene Change

When the late glacial period of the Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, the natural environment of Hokkaido changed quickly. The Ice Age taiga forest and forest tundra disappeared and were replaced by a mixed forest in the island's lowlands. A pollen dia¬ gram that indicates the percentage of differ¬ ent tree species living in lowland northern Hokkaido (fig. 2.7) shows these dramatic environmental changes. The diagram clearly records the replacement of the northern taiga forest by the mixed forest between the Ice Age and the Holocene, that is, between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. The Siberian larch forest completely disappeared from Hokkaido about 8,000 years ago, and the tundra vegeta¬

•o aT AT So S* So

^ ^ „o° .<A

_ # <c <A ■$ cf # ^ ^ # cf & <C® ^

Age BP.

0 80%

B siit ES peat H clay I— I sand

volcanic ash

2.7 Vegetation History This diagram shows changes in the vegetation of the Furano basin in central Hokkaido for the last 32,000 years. The end of the Ice Age and beginning of the warmer Holocene is indicated by the decline in tundra species and rise of forest shrubs and trees, (after Ono and Igarashi 1992)

tion survived only on higher mountains such as Mount Taisetsu in central Hokkaido. In south¬ ern Hokkaido, a cool-temperate deciduous forest dominated by beech (Facjus) spread north from its Ice Age refugium in Honshu.

Although the climatic change from the cold Ice Age to the warm Holocene began more than 10,000 years ago, the arrival of the first beech forest in Hokkaido was retarded: sea levels had risen, and the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido became wider. Because beech seeds are not tolerant of sea¬

water, seeds transported into Hokkaido may have depended on birds and humans. Findings of beech seeds in the food remains at Jomon sites seem to support this possibility. Although no boats have yet been found in Jomon sites in Hokkaido, humans were certainly moving between Honshu and Hokkaido by 8,000 years ago, and beech seeds would have been traveling in their stomachs and in the guts of birds.

The Early and Middle Jomon periods (ca. 5,000-6,000 years ago) correspond to the so-called Holocene "climatic optimum." The climate by this time had become the warmest of the postglacial era, and sea levels rose to their maximum. Recent finds from large archaeological sites on both sides of the Tsugaru Strait — Sannai-Maruyama in Aomori Prefecture on the Honshu side and Nakano-B and Ofuna-C sites near Hakodate in southern Hokkaido — suggest a much more active cultural interaction between the two locations during this warm climatic period. Although a direct link between these Jomon people and the Ainu has never been proven, the natural environments in which their cultures developed show many similari¬ ties. This, along with genetic and other similarities proven by physical anthropologi¬ cal studies, seems to indicate the intimate relationship between the Ainu and the first jomon peoples who lived in Hokkaido.

The Natural History of the Hokkaido Jomon and Ainu Peoples

Even though Ainu appeared later than the Jomon and differ from them in many respects, the habitats in which they thrived show remarkable similarities. These are due to the fact that their natural environments during the Holocene were basically the same, al¬ though obviously some physical and cli¬ matic changes occurred over time.

Two very basic elements were most important for the lifestyles of the Jomon and Ainu people in Hokkaido: the broadleaf forest (including a cool-temperate beech forest in southern Hokkaido and a mixed deciduous forest in other parts) and rivers. The broadleaf forest provided not only beech seeds but also oak acorns, both crucial foods for Jomon and Ainu people. Recent excava¬ tions at Sannai-Maruyama and Ofuna-C suggest that early-to-middle-period Jomon people had already planted chestnut trees ( Castanea ) near their villages in order to

2/ AINU HOMELANDS

35

2.8 Hunter’s Bearskin Pouch

The bear, which the Ainu revered as god of the mountains ( kimun-kamuy ), pro¬ vided the Ainu with food and necessary materials for life. To thank it for providing these resources, people honored the bear with ritual and ceremony. This bear¬ skin pouch holds a hunter’s flint, steel, and tinder, as well as tobacco, used for kamuy-nomt — prayers to the gods. It was collected in Okotsonai, Hokkaido, by Hiram Hiller in 1901. (UPM A454)

2.9 Salmon and Ainu Today

Salmon was a principal food resource for many Ainu, and its skin was used for waterproof boots and other articles. Beginning in the late nineteenth cen¬ tury, the Ainu were prohibited from catching salmon; that right was given to Japanese commercial fishermen. Even today Ainu must obtain special permission to catch fish needed for their annual first-salmon ceremony. Traditional fishing rights are one of many political issues dividing the Ainu and the Japanese government.

harvest their nuts. Acorns were also an im¬ portant source of food for various forms of wildlife, especially the brown bear, one of the most important animal resources for the Ainu. According to the animistic beliefs of the Ainu, the brown bear spirit is the most impor¬ tant god in their cosmology, and many ritual ceremonies have been developed related to hunting this animal (fig. 2.8). Broadleaf forests also supply many kinds of vegetable foods used by the Ainu from spring through fall, such as the roots of wild lilies, rhubarb, berries, and mushrooms. The Ainu make use of nearly all kinds of trees as materials for housing, boats, and clothing, and many kinds of medicines were prepared from the trees, herbs, and animals of the broadleaf-forest zone. This forest was, in essence, the central life-support system for the Ainu.

The Ainu have traditionally been people of the rivers: their settlements are always placed along waterways, and river products once provided much food and many other materials central to Ainu life. Probably the most important of river resources were salmon,

which returned in the fall: salmon provided not only food but also materials for boots and clothing (fig. 2.9). These fish were (and are still) considered to be the most precious gift of the gods, and even today the Ainu celebrate their appearance and capture them with elaborate ritual in their "First Salmon" cer¬ emonies (Roche and Fdutchinson 1998), although now they must procure a special license in advance to do so. The intimate link between the Ainu and rivers is shown clearly by the abundance of place-names that they have given to river locations: even small tributaries are named, and every bank and cliff that has any relevance to their lives is recognized with an Ainu word. Although mountains are important to the Ainu — they penetrate deeply into this realm for trapping and hunting deer, bear, and other animals — they never gave names to the mountains themselves but rather named them after the rivers that originated there.

Fdokkaido has harsh winters even though it is located farther south (42 to 45 degrees north latitude) than Alaska or Canada. It receives heavy snows because of a winter monsoon wind that blows from Siberia and draws humidity as it passes over the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, which lies along the northern coast of FJokkaido and freezes in winter.

Basic winter nourishment for the Ainu was provided by salmon, which return to the rivers in the fall, and the brown bear, which hibernates, making it easy to capture. Migrat¬ ing herds of deer also provided winter food (fig. 2. 10). Hunting and fishing, together with the collection of a wide range of vegeta¬ tive foods from the broadleaf forest, enabled the Ainu to utilize Hokkaido's natural envi¬ ronment and maintain their unique culture and lifestyle. In modern times, the brown bear population has continued to decline as a re¬ sult of the loss and fragmentation of forests due to logging and agriculture.

The Destruction of Hokkaido's Natural Resources

Two maps (figs. 2.1 la, b) clearly illustrate changes to Hokkaido that have occurred since the arrival of outsiders from Honshu after the Meiji Restoration. Although the colonization of Ezo (Hokkaido's former name) was attempted by the shogunate in the Edo period (1615-1868), systematic develop¬ ment began only after the Meiji Restoration,- these works have included agricultural devel-

36

ANCIENT ROOTS / Y. ONO

2.10 Chief Noshikosa of Shamokotan Together with salmon and other fish, deer was an important subsistence resource for Ainu people nearly everywhere in Hokkaido. In Sakhalin, reindeer was the principal quarry. Deer-hunting was a common theme for Ainu-e painters; this painting of an Ainu chieftain with his quarry by Teiki Kojima is a 1843 copy after Hakyo Kakizaki's series Portraits of Ezo Chieftains. (Y. and M. Kitao Collection)

opment, intensive lumbering, and fishing offshore along the Hokkaido coast. Within a century, most of the broadleaf-forest cover has disappeared from the island. Wetlands along the rivers have been filled or dried to expand the agricultural landbase. Rivers have been straightened and their banks cemented to protect new rice fields along the lowlands from erosion and flooding. These river works, which include the construction of dams and embankments, completely changed the ecology of the rivers on which the Ainu have built their economy, life, and culture.

Salmon still ascend the rivers, but many cannot reach their spawning grounds because of dams. The salmon catch is conducted by

Japanese officials, and the Ainu were ex¬ cluded from salmon fishing — even though the official government policy held that Ainu were "Japanese" — until the passage of the new law, or Ainu Shinpo, in 1997 (Roche and Hutchinson 1998,- Kaizawa, Sasamura, this volume). A highly symbolic infringe¬ ment on the Ainu ecosystem involved the construction of a major dam on the Saru River at Niputani in the early 1990s. Two Ainu leaders — Shigeru Kayano, who later became a member of the National Diet, and Tadashi Kaizawa — filed a lawsuit opposing the construction of this dam in their home village, for the dam not only prevents salmon from swimming upstream but has

2/ AINU HOMELANDS

37

2.12

2.12 Kingfisher Owl,

Guardian of the Village The kingfisher owi is important to the Ainu, and like bears, salmon, and many other animals, it is featured in ritual and ceremony. Modern development practices threaten its habitat, and Ainu have asked for regulations to protect this and other species endangered by Hokkaido's rapid and ecologically harm¬ ful development program.

2.11 a, b Land-use Change from WIeui Period to Present One hundred years of industrial-scale devel¬ opment, especially in forestry and agricul¬ ture, have brought major changes to Hokkaido’s natural forest ecosystem. De¬ struction of the broadleaf forest, construc¬ tion of dams, and channelization of rivers threatens the livelihood of not only the Ainu but of the huge Japanese population that now resides in Hokkaido.

also destroyed the site of salmon ceremo¬ nies. The case was under consideration in the courts for a long time, and eventually the Ainu won, but by then it was too late be¬ cause the dam had already been constructed.

Another instance of the continued environmental destruction of the Ainu homeland involves the kingfisher owl ( Bubo blakistoni; fig. 2.12). This existence of this owl, the largest in Japan, has become en¬ dangered by channeling projects and agri¬ cultural development along the rivers (Ono 1997). Because the owl's habitat is restricted to riparian forests, where they primarily eat fish from rivers, the cutting of trees and catching of large numbers of salmon (to ob¬ tain fish for artificial breeding purposes) have threatened their survival. The owl's circum¬ stances offer an ironic parallel to the plight of the Ainu themselves, who effectively lost their way of life when their right to catch salmon was prohibited by the Japanese gov¬ ernment. The rapidly disappearing kingfisher owl is an Ainu god: it guards the village ( kotan ), and its decline may be read as a parable of recent Ainu history.

2.11a

2.11b

38

ANCIENT ROOTS / Y. ONO

Prehistoric Hokkaido and Ainu Origins

Kiyoshi Yamaura and Hiroshi Ushiro

3.1 Duck-Effigy Flute (replica)

This ceramic figurine was found at Bibi-4 site, Chitose, Hokkaido, and dates from the Final Jomon period (1,000 b.c.). Most Japanese archae¬ ologists interpret this ceramic effigy as a duck in flight, but it is clearly not exactly a duck but rather some kind of transformational spirit (duck/sea otter?) whose form is not fixed in na¬ ture. Nor is its function understood: holes in its bottom, chest, and lower body make it useless as a normal vessel, but it could have been used as a kind of flute. It is covered with Jomon designs and has red ocher pigment around the eyes, mouth, and vessel openings. (HMH: Japanese National Important Cultural Property)

WHERE DID THE AlNU PEOPLE come from and how was their culture established? Scholars in linguistics, eth¬ nology, history, biological anthropology, and archaeology have tried to answer these ques¬ tions for many years and have made major advances. Because the Ainu did not have writ¬ ten language, archaeological studies play a crucial role in explaining their origins. This essay explores Ainu origins and antecedents largely based on evidence from Hokkaido, which is the homeland of the largest Ainu population and seems to have been central to its evolution in prehistory (H. Okada 1998; Utagawa 1980a, b; Yamaura 1998).

Archaeological surveys in Hokkaido have been conducted for nearly one hundred years. In the beginning, it was a small-scale effort, but after the 1970s larger surveys and excavations were required to mitigate infra¬ structure developments, including road con¬ struction, house-building, dams, coastal engi¬ neering, and airport growth. The number (seventy-nine) and total area (about thirty- one square miles, or 50,000 square meters) of these excavations in 1997 alone make public archaeology in Hokkaido one of the most extensive such programs in the world.

In order to clarify the origin of the Ainu and their prehistoric culture it is also neces¬ sary to study areas surrounding Hokkaido. The history of archaeological study in Sakha¬ lin, the lower Amur River region, northeast¬ ern China, eastern Siberia, the Kurile Islands, Kamchatka, and the northern coast of the Sea of Okhotsk also dates back almost one hun¬ dred years, as in Hokkaido. But because only

a few researchers are working in these areas today and their excavations are for the most part small-scale efforts, archaeological infor¬ mation is still quite limited.

Examining the prehistoric cultures of Hokkaido beginning with the oldest stage, with a focus on the emerging phases of each era and culture, provides a clearer under¬ standing of both the independent origins and development of prehistory in Hokkaido (Amino 1990,- Nihon Kokogaku Kyokai 1994) and its close relationship with sur¬ rounding regions (figs. 3.1, 3.2).

Paleolithic Cultures

The Paleolithic or "Old Stone Culture" dates to the Ice Age, which ended about 14,000 years ago. Global temperatures cooled, the sea level dropped more than 300 feet (100 meters) below todays oceans,- and Hokkaido was connected to the Eurasian continent by a land bridge across Sakhalin It is also possible that the Korean peninsula and the present- day islands of Kyushu and Honshu were con¬ nected to the Asian mainland (fig. 2. 1 ). Hokkaido was covered by tundra, and mam¬ moths, moose, elk, and probably reindeer migrated to Japan over the Sakhalin land mass.

It is assumed that humans moved to Hokkaido as hunters who followed the movements of these animals into this newly accessible territory, but to date there has been no clear consensus about when such a movement occurred. The oldest archaeo¬ logical sites in Japan date to about 50,000 years ago and have been found near Sendai in northern Honshu and in Tokyo. Al¬ though sites of this age have not yet been

3/ PREHISTORIC HOKKAIDO

39

3.4 Ceramic Vessel The Japanese ceramic tradition is among the earliest in the world, having begun as early as 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. This conical vessel with its scalloped, shell-impressed rim is one of two Incipient Jomon (6,000 b.c.) pot¬ tery types that are found in different regions of Hokkaido, which suggests that cultural differences already existed among the island's Jomon population.

It was found at Narukawa, Narukawa- cho. Hokkaido. (HMH)

discovered in Hokkaido, they probably will be found in the future, because Hokkaido may have been the only land passage between the Asian mainland and Honshu at that time.

At present the earliest Paleolithic sites in Hokkaido (fig. 3.3) belong to the Hok¬ kaido Microlithic ("small tool") culture and date to about 20,000 years ago. Several hun¬ dred such sites are known, and many are also present in other islands of Japan. Microlithic technology spread into Japan from Siberia and northern China. It appears that the old¬ est Microlithic culture sites are in the region between Lake Baikal in Siberia and northeast¬ ern China (H. Kimura 1997). After originat¬ ing in these areas, Microlithic culture spread south into Hokkaido from Sakhalin and into Honshu and Kyushu from the Korean penin¬ sula. The fact that Microlithic culture existed across vast areas of Northeast Asia, including Siberia and Japan, shows that these early people had excellent hunting skills and were adapted to a variety of northern forest, tun¬ dra, and coastal conditions during the coldest

phase of the Ice Age. 1 hese skills allowed them to cross the Bering land bridge and colonize Alaska quickly when conditions began to improve 15,000 years ago.

Jomon Culture

Archaeologists throughout the world see the emergence of pottery as an important mile¬ stone in cultural development. Whether a culture had ceramics was a major criterion that scholars used in the nineteenth century to separate the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. On the islands of Japan, ceramics appeared during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch, 10,000 to 1 2,000 years ago, and is the hallmark of Jomon culture fig. 3.3), whose sites are found throughout Hokkaido and Honshu (Chiyo 1984a, b). Jomon's exist¬ ence in Japan for almost 10,000 years makes it one of the longest-running single cultural traditions in the world, whose hunting-and- gathering economy was so well adapted to the environmental conditions that few eco¬ nomic disruptions seem to have occurred.

3.2 Archaeological Cultures of Hokkaido

AMD SURROUNDING REGIONS

3.3 Geological Stratigraphy and Culture Periods of the Misawa River Region in Chitose and Tomakomai Regions (HACRIC)

Present «=

A.D. 1200

A.D. 700 A.D. 600 A.D. 250 250 B.C.

5,000 B.C.

10,000 B.C.

30,000 B.C.

Honshu

Historic

Period

YAMATO

Japanese state formation

KOFUN state formation

YAYOI agriculture

Hokkaido-Sakhalin

HISTORIC

AINU

EPI-JOMON

hunting

gathering

fishing

Final

Late

Middle

Early

Initial

Incipient

F

JOMON m

E

hunting i gathering

fishing Incipient

PALEOLITHIC

hunting-gathering-fishing

40

ANCIENT ROOTS/K YAMAURA AND H USHIRO

3.5 Killer Whale (replica)

The Ainu know the killer whale (orca) as the god of the sea ( repun-kamuy ). In the past orcas were both feared and revered as the most powerful predators in the ocean. Although they endangered fishermen, they also drove whales ashore into human hands. This sculpture was probably used for rituals involving this animal; it dates from the Middle Jomon period (3,000-2,000 b.c.) and was found at the Kikyo-2 site, Hakodate, Hokkaido. Effigies of bears, deer, and turtles also date to this period. (HACRIC)

Jomon development is most easily traced through stylistic changes in its ceramic tradi¬ tion, which produced, at various stages, highly flamboyant and distinctive pottery types.

How did the Jomon culture develop in Hokkaido? The origin of pottery in Japan has been argued for some time, and the debate — whether it began in Japan itself or in China or Siberia — has not been settled The Jomon culture is divided into six periods according to changes in ceramics: Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final. It is unclear whether immigrants brought Jomon culture from Honshu or whether people who had lived in Hokkaido since the Pleistocene epoch ac¬ quired Jomon characteristics indirectly by trade and social contacts with Honshu peoples.

In what way did the lifestyle of the Jomon people differ from that of the Pale¬ olithic people? Obviously, their lives were deeply affected by environmental changes occurring at the end of the Ice Age, most importantly from climate warming. In Hok¬ kaido this resulted in a change from taiga (forest-tundra) to coniferous forest and later to a mixed coniferous/broadleaf forest. In addition, rising sea levels caused the warm Tsushima current to flow into the Sea of Japan from the south, and the warmer sea- surface temperature brought heavier winter snowfalls and conditions that were generally warmer and more moist.

In this environment the Jomon people

continued gathering wild foods, hunted large game, and caught salmon, ocean fish, and sea mammals as in the Paleolithic (fig. 3.5), but their way of living changed significantly. Their more settled village life made it pos¬ sible to utilize pottery, and pithouses quickly replaced the briefly occupied hunting camps of Paleolithic times. Through time, these pithouse villages grew larger and cemeteries appeared (Watanabe 1990a). By Late Jomon, circular cemeteries 100 to 300 feet (30 to 40 meters) in diameter surrounded by ten-foot- high earthen embankments were being used. Evidence of social stratification also appears, indicated by groups of individuals buried with elaborate grave goods found around the edge and outside the embankment, whereas those in the central locations had more simple interments.

Although Jomon people utilized a hunter-gatherer economy like that of their Paleolithic predecessors, their subsistence activities diversified and became more re¬ gionally focused. Brown bears and deer took the place of Ice Age animals that had be¬ come extinct,- hunting of fur seals, sea lions, and common seals with toggling harpoons began in coastal areas,- and fishing with poles and nets and gathering of shellfish began. Gathering nuts, such as acorns and beechnuts, was another new activity that came with the appearance of mixed coniferous-broadleaf forests in Hokkaido. In short, the Jomon people devised a way of life in which they effectively utilized all available resources in the environment surrounding their villages.

Just as there were regional differences among various Jomon groups in Honshu, Jomon culture sites in Hokkaido also did not have a single unified expression. Ceramics from the northern and southern parts of the Ishikari lowland were very different during the Early and Middle phases, whereas ceram¬ ics in southern Hokkaido were similar to those found in the Tohoku district of north¬ ern Honshu but differed from those from northern and eastern Hokkaido. During these periods, southwest Hokkaido is assumed to have had strong cultural ties with the Tohoku district through trade and marriage.

Although many sites exhibit ties to Honshu, evidence of northern contacts and material exchange with cultures of the lower Amur River region via Sakhalin is seen at various stages. The strongest links appear to be during the Early Jomon period, when Sites

41

3 / PREHISTORIC HOKKAIDO

3.6 Ceramic Mask (replica)

This Final Jomon (ca. 400 b.c.) ceramic mask was found in 1986 in almost per¬ fect condition near a Jomon cemetery in the Mamachi site, Chitose, Hokkaido. Photogrammetry reveals careful render¬ ing of the face, whose open mouth sug¬ gests a death figure or a shaman in trance. Edge perforations show that it was attached to something else, per¬ haps to a grave post. Death masks are found in Shang and Chou burials in China, and in Ipiutak Eskimo burials in Alaska; Koryak and other ethnographic groups of northeastern Asia used leather masks to cover the faces of the dead. (HMH; Japanese National Impor¬ tant Cultural Property)

Owl Eyes

This ceramic fragment (Final Jomon, 1,000 b.c.) is one of the few archaeo¬ logical pieces that show the kingfisher owl, whose face is molded into the ves¬ sel rim. Although the owl’s role in Jomon culture is not known, the Ainu revere it as kotan-kor-kamuy (guardian of the village) and honor it in ceremony and ritual. This was found at the Bibi-4 site, Chitose, Hokkaido. (HPGBE)

3.9 Stone Rod (replica)

This stone rod (Final Jomon, ca. 1,000- 400 b.c.) was pecked from hard igneous rock; it comes from the Kashiwagi-B site, Eniwa, Hokkaido. Two rings are cut into one end and three in the other, and both ends are colored with red ocher. Its function is unknown, but lack of wear suggests that it had a ritual function. Ornamented clubs were used by Eski¬ mos for killing seals, and Ainu and Northwest Coast Indians had special decorated clubs for killing salmon for their first-salmon ceremonies. (HMH)

in northern and eastern Hokkaido contain ceramics, lithics, bone, ivory, and antler artifacts (figs. 3.6-3. 10) that are so similar to Amur region cultures that an actual migration of people is the most plausible explanation.

ZoK.ii -Jomon Culture

Around 300 B.C., agricultural people with iron tools began to move into southern Honshu and Kyushu from the continent. As this new culture, known as Yayoi, expanded, its agri¬ cultural techniques were adopted by the Jomon people, and this agricultural society gradually expanded into northern Honshu By 100 B.C., Yayoi culture appeared in Aomori prefecture, across the strait from Hokkaido. Yayoi led directly to the initial stages of Japan's first state- level society, which emerged in the Yamato region in southwestern Honshu (today's Nara prefecture) at the end of the third century as social stratification and regional integration progressed. This culture is called Kofun (Tumulus) after its practice of burying promi¬ nent individuals in large mounds. These changes were not immediately felt in Hokkaido, where a northern variation and an evolved stage of the earlier Jomon tradition developed,- it is known either by the compound Zoku- Jomon, which recognizes its regional charac¬ ter because "Zoku" means northern in Japa¬ nese, or by the term Epi-Jomon, which points to its later, modified nature.

Several hypotheses have been presented

3.9

to explain why Yayoi culture was not intro¬ duced to Hokkaido. One posits that its eco¬ nomic foundation, rice farming, could not be practiced there because of the harsh northern environment, whereas another claims there was no need for rice farming because the hunting-and-gathering society established in Hokkaido was already economically self- sufficient. Both theories are probably correct.

Epi-Jomon culture did not simply re¬ place the Jomon hunter-gatherer society, for some characteristics particular to early Epi-Jomon tradition have been observed in southwestern Hokkaido where they are recognized as Esan culture. Esan ceramics show similarities to the Yayoi earthenware

found in northern Tohoku, and its people used iron knives brought from that area. They also carved spoons with images of bears and sea animals reminiscent of the carvings seen on Ainu ritual prayer sticks ( ikupasuy ), and some ceramics have bearlike images, suggest¬ ing a special religious and ceremonial interest in this species.

Fishing techniques also advanced, and new types of toggling harpoons (figs. 3.12- 3.14) made from iron were developed for sea-mammal hunting. These changes can be explained by trading relationships with the

42

ANCIENT ROOTS / K. YAMAURA AND H. USHIRO

3.11 Bear-Effigy Vessel (replica) Effigies of animals have been found in many Okhotsk sites, whose pithouses sometimes have ritual altars. This bear head (ca. a.d. 800) was carved on a large wooden bowl that was carbon¬ ized in a house fire; it was recovered from the Matsunorikawa Kitagishi site, Rausu, Hokkaido. The presence of a design resembling the Ainu itokpa (ancestral mark) of repun-kor-kamuy, the killer whale and god of the sea, suggests the vessel had a ceremonial function. Similar effigy vessels (with¬ out itokpa) were used by Northwest Coast Indians. (RTBE)

new Yayoi agricultural society of northern Tohoku that provided these Hokkaido people not only with iron tools but with rice and other southern products that were exchanged for sea-mammal products and other valuable northern materials.

Epi-Jomon influence from Hokkaido extended south into the Tohoku district of northern Honshu, and by A.D. 400-500, dur¬ ing its late phase, its influence is seen even in the Sendai region near the northern boundary of Kofun (Tumulus) culture. This has been interpreted as evidence of Epi-Jomon interest in obtaining goods from the Kofun culture,

which was advancing northward. Epi-Jomon people also obtained goods from the Kinki (Kyoto-Osaka) area, including swords, armor, harnesses, precious-metal products, and glass.

Okhotsk Culture

In A.D. 400-500 an important new devel¬ opment occurred with the appearance of Okhotsk culture in southern Sakhalin (Yamaura 1998). Okhotsk people engaged in sea-mammal hunting, shallow- and deep¬ water fishing, as well as hunting of land ani¬ mals,- they also raised pigs — a rather unusual practice for a maritime-hunting society. The techniques used to hunt sea animals originated with the Epi-Jomon culture of Hokkaido, whereas pig farming was introduced from the lower Amur River region and China. Okhotsk ceramics show a complex mix of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Amur River styles.

These people spread from southern Sakhalin to the Okhotsk coast of eastern Hokkaido and further east and north into the Kuriles during A.D. 600-700. A major stimulus for this expansion seems related to political disorder in the lower Amur River region, resulting from the imposition of a tributary system by the Manchurian Sui and Tang dynasties and their allies in the lower Amur. Okhotsk culture had difficulty advancing along the Sea of Japan side of

< 3.8 Ceramic Figurine (replica)

Jomon ceramic figurines reveal ethno¬ graphic information through hairstyles, clothing, and garment designs. This figurine (Final Jomon, ca. 700-400 b.c.) from the Motowanishi site, Muroran, Hokkaido, establishes that Jomon clothing utilized spiral-band ornamen¬ tation at the base and shoulders of their garments similar to the morew patterns produced by Ainu seam¬ stresses. Such figurines were probably used for protection against illness, infertility, and the dangers of child¬ birth. (HMH)

3.10 Pedestal Vessel This elaborate Epi-Jomon (ca. 300 b.c.) ceramic vessel from the Minamikawa site, Setana-cho, Hokkaido, has the shape and design of Final Jomon ritual vessels. The open-work pedestal may have facilitated its use for ceremonial cooking. (HMH)

43

3/ PREHISTORIC HOKKAIDO

3.12, 3.13, 3.14 Fishhook and Harpoons (replicas)

Maritime hunting and fishing required specialized equipment. This hook and the engraved toggling harpoon with an agate blade were found at the Epi- Jomon (ca. a.d. 1) Esan site in Hokkaido. The latter was used for hunt¬ ing sea mammals and swordfish. The barbed harpoon with the serrated base is made of deer bone and dates to the Okhotsk period, ca. a.d. 500, from Kafukai-A, Repun, Hokkaido. Because a small fish is engraved on its base, it was probably used to harpoon salmon or trout. Eskimos used such decora¬ tions as a mark of respect that en¬ hanced a weapon’s power. (HMH)

Hokkaido and into the Hokkaido interior because these areas were already occupied by Epi-Jomon and Satsumon people. Nonethe¬ less, they did enter Japan's northern territories and in most places found sea-mammal hunting more productive than raising pigs, with the result that sea-mammal hunting intensified (figs. 3.13, 3.14, 3.18, 3.19). Advancing mari¬ time capabilities also resulted in expanded trade contacts in which sea-mammal products were exchanged for Japanese swords and knives through Satsumon intermediaries and for bronze ornaments and glass beads from northeastern China through contacts in the lower Amur.

Okhotsk people, who may have been the first permanent residents of the Kurile Islands, spread throughout the chain, where their pithouse villages are found in protected bays and coves, and even reached the north¬ ernmost islands and perhaps even southern Kamchatka. In addition to fish and sea-mam¬ mal bones, their sites sometimes contain reindeer bones and antler, indicating contact or trade with the predecessors of the native Itel'men peoples of southern Kamchatka, for reindeer are not known to have occupied the Kurile Islands.

Okhotsk pithouses were either pentago¬ nal or hexagonal in shape and had a diameter of about 30 to 35 feet (10 meters). Upon ex¬ cavation, a deposit of bear and sea-mammal cranial bones is often found inside the back wall opposite the entrance. These bones are

3.17 Wide-Mouth Vessel

This pot (ca. a.d. 800) was reassembled from broken fragments found at Futatsuiwa site,

Abashiri, Hokkaido. It is typical of vessels found at Hokkaido Okhotsk sites with a flat bottom, plain body, and wavy lines around the rim. Okhotsk was a maritime culture that appeared in Hokkaido from the north, displacing the previous Epi-Jomon culture. (HMH)

interpreted as evidence that the residents conducted "sending ceremonies" as did many northern cultures in which the spirits of killed animals were returned to their home worlds with special rituals (figs. 3. 1 5a, b, 3.16). De¬ tailed examination of the bear skulls (tooth wear, muscle attachments) shows that these animals were probably raised in captivity, as was the case in the Ainu bear-sending cer¬ emony and similar ceremonies conducted by Amur-area cultures. Several hundred years later, around A.D. 1000, the Okhotsk culture appears to have been absorbed or replaced by Satsumon culture, which moved into their coastal territories in Hokkaido.

Satsumon Culture

The Satsumon culture first developed in Hok¬ kaido around A.D. 700-800 (Yokoyama 1990). The ceramics of this period reflect contempo¬ rary Honshu production methods, and other aspects of Honshu influence can be seen. Hokkaido Satsumon people lived in square¬ shaped pithouses with fireplaces, used spindles and spindle whorls, and built round cemeteries like those known in the northern part of Tohoku,- there is little doubt that southwestern Hokkaido, including the Ishikari lowland in southern Hokkaido, was strongly influenced from the south at this

44

ANCIENT ROOTS/ K. YAM AURA AND H. USHIRO

3.15a

3.15b

3.15a, b, 3.16

Effigy Spoons (replicas)

Two of these spoons, from the Epi- Jomon Esan site, are of bone and have a killer whale and a bear on their handles; they date from ca. a.d. 1. The spoon below, decorated with a bear with outstretched paws, is from Usu- 10 in southern Hokkaido and is made of antler. All were probably used in animal-related rituals; the bear spoon suggests use in an iyomante (bear¬ sending) ceremony. Siberian peoples used similar effigy spoons to feed spirits until modern times. (HMH)

time, probably by actual migrations from Tohoku that were themselves induced by expansion policies of the Yamato Imperial Court. Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) (720) indicate that fortified stockades were built in A.D. 647 and 648 on the Sea of Japan side of northwestern Honshu and that three naval expeditions were sent along the Sea of Japan coast to Hokkaido, beginning in A.D. 658. Meanwhile, on the Pacific coast, relics thought to belong to an administrative office of the Yamato nation — a stockade or castle dating to about A.D. 700 — were discovered in the Sendai plains. These stockades were built by the immigrants themselves who were brought in to secure food and to fight as sol¬ diers. This expansion of territory and the accompanying immigration policy encour¬ aged northward movement of local residents from northern Tohoku and were major factors contributing to the establishment of Hok¬ kaido Satsumon culture.

Hokkaido Satsumon culture, which was influenced by its sister culture in Honshu, also brought agricultural practices, including culti¬ vation of barnyard millet and wheat, to Hok¬ kaido for the first time. With this develop¬ ment, trade with Honshu became even more important in order to acquire iron tools, fab¬ rics, rice, and sake in exchange for local prod¬ ucts, including the meat and hides of bear, deer, seal, and fur seal, as well as kelp, salmon, and other materials.

Such active trade naturally promoted social stratification,- the emergence of tumulus graves venerating the memory and power of local and regional chiefs is evidence of this phenomenon. Their prominence must have been enhanced by the growth of trade net¬ works in which Satsumon peoples exchanged manufactured goods from Honshu for Okhotsk-culture raw rtiaterial products from Hokkaido and the Sea of Okhotsk, and for Chinese manufactured goods via lower Amur middlemen. Eventually this relationship re¬ sulted in the absorption or replacement of Okhotsk peoples by their Satsumon trading relatives to the south.

Post- Satsumon Culture

By A.D. 900- 1 000, a major change took place in northern Tohoku. As agriculture grew more efficient, people released from direct food-production activities gradually shifted into the growing crafts-production market, and men began making wooden implements, lacquerware, iron goods, and pottery to sell. About the same time, the power of the samu¬ rai class that had originated in southern Honshu reached the north of Tohoku and their control over local residents was tight¬ ened,- production of export goods to Hok¬ kaido became more organized, and the life of Satsumon people changed accordingly.

Then, suddenly, about A.D. 1200, production of ceramics ceased, and housing styles changed from pithouses to surface dwellings resembling those of the Ainu culture as known from ethnographic studies. Although an incipient form of iyomante was present in the Okhotsk culture, traces of this ceremony for sending back spirits of bears, which has become central to the ethnic identity of the Ainu, have not been found in Satsumon sites. This important link between Satsumon and Ainu remains to be made.

Japanese migration to Hokkaido accel¬ erated about A.D. 1 300 (Kikuchi 1984,- Kikuchi and Fukuda 1989,- Kitagamae 1991). Documents show that Hokkaido was a de¬ portation site for criminals, who were sent there by the Kamakura Shogunate, and it is known from the Okawa ruins of Yoichi city that fishermen and merchants began residing there, although perhaps only seasonally, around A.D. 1200-1300. During the 1400s, Tosaminato in Honshu's Aomori prefecture became a port of trade with Hokkaido. His¬ torical literature as well as archaeological evidence indicate that in the 1500s samurai interested in the commercial potential of the area built large establishments stretching from Tsugaru Strait to the Sea of Japan coast in southwestern Hokkaido, and military con¬ frontation between the Japanese who had moved into Hokkaido and the Ainu people accelerated, leading in A.D. 1457 to the Battle

3/ PREHISTORIC HOKKAIDO

45

3.19 Engraved Needlecase (replica) Prehistoric evidence of large whales being hunted is often difficult to find, but this Okhotsk-period birdbone needlecase (ca. a.d. 650) leaves little to the imagination. A boat with six pad- dlers and a standing harpooner is being towed by a large animal — almost cer¬ tainly a whale — with lines attached to two harpoons protruding from its side. This artifact was found at the Bentento site, Nemuro, Hokkaido. (HMH)

of Koshamain, the first significant revolt of Hokkaido Ainu against the Japanese (Kudo 1989; K. Tsuboi 1986,- Y. Suzuki 1996).

During this period of increasing contact between Hokkaido and Honshu, Ainu con¬ tacts with the Asian continent to the north also intensified. According to Chinese records, the Ainu fought several times in the I 300s with the forces of the Yuan dynasty on the lower Amur and Sakhalin. The battles apparently began when the Yuan military responded to the request for military assis¬ tance by the Nivkhi (former Cilyak) tribe living in Amur River delta, where Ainu traded Honshu goods for local commodities and Chinese trade goods including silk. A recipro¬ cal trade from the Amur into Sakhalin and Hokkaido was also conducted by the Santan peoples of the lower Amur. This exchange of goods through Hokkaido had a substantial impact on Ainu society that is reflected in hundreds of fortified stockades ( chasbi ) the

3.18 Sea-Otter Figurine (replica)

Sea otters were present in the Kuriles until they were hunted to extinction by the Russians in the mid-1800s. Recov¬ ered from Tokoro Fort, Hokkaido, this sea otter (ca. a.d. 700) which was carved in the Okhotsk period from a large canine tooth and bone remains of a brown bear, indicates that these ani¬ mals were found in northern Hokkaido waters more than a millennium ago. Aleut hunters tied similar carvings of sea otters inside their kayaks to help protect them from misfortune. (HMH)

Ainu built around this time to provide emer¬ gency refuge from raids and attacks from Japanese and northerners. Apparently trade disputes and heightened tension had become the social norm of the times.

Conclusion

Archaeological and historical data present a fairly clear picture of developments in Hok¬ kaido over the 2,000 years since the begin¬ ning of the Epi-Jomon period. By contrast, little is known about the preceding 20,000 years of Paleolithic and Microlithic occupa¬ tions or about the origins of the 8,000-year- long Jomon period. Nevertheless, we do know that the Jomon period was character¬ ized by neither cultural stagnation nor bio¬ logical isolation. Jomon sites in Hokkaido contain ample evidence of artifact types, raw

46

materials, and cultural complexes — including movements of people — that show influence from or have been imported from Honshu or the Russian Maritime Provinces.

Biological mixing between Honshu Yayoi and early Epi-Jomon peoples is also indicated, and during the formation of the Satsumon culture, contact with the people called Ernishi, who were an Ainu or Ainu- related group in northern Tohoku known in early Japanese written records, must have occurred. Contacts with the Satsumon and Okhotsk cultures also introduced population diversity in the region. It is by this process that the Ainu physical type, as it is known archaeologically and historically, emerged.

The ethnic image of the Ainu as pre¬ sented in the Ainu-e depictions and ethnogra¬ phy — of a hairy, independent, hunting and gathering people who practiced animal spirit¬ sending rituals and had a distinctive style of clothing and artifact ornamentation — seems to have emerged circa A.D. 1 200-1 300. Al¬ though there is as yet no direct evidence from this period for existence of the Ainu iyomante ceremony, the fact that sending rituals were practiced with bears and other animals by the Jomon and Epi-Jomon people suggests that evidence linking early cultures with the his¬ toric Ainu will eventually be revealed.

Nevertheless, it is certain that Ainu cul¬ ture was influenced heavily during its forma¬ tion process by northern tribes through con¬ tacts with the people in Sakhalin and the lower Amur River region. Meanwhile, development of the Japanese culture on Honshu affected the formation of the Ainu culture as well; in particular, the ripple effects from political and economic development in Japanese Honshu were strong forces of change. With this under¬ standing of their development, the Ainu people are in the process of reaffirming their identity as known from circa A.D. 1 200-1 300 based on a heritage of more than 10,000 years in Hokkaido and neighboring regions.

ANCIENT ROOTS / K. YAMAURA AND H. LISHIRO

4/Ainu Ties with Ancient Cultures of Northeast Asia

Toshihiko Kikuchi

The Ainu and their ancestors who lived in northern Japan, Hokkaido, the Kuriles, and the southern Sea of Okhotsk area have occupied a region that has been a geo¬ graphic and ecological border zone for thou¬ sands of years. Anyone who has experienced a near-subtropical Tokyo summer and a Siberian Sakhalin winter (fig. 4. 1 ) can appre¬ ciate the extreme climatic and environmental diversity that characterizes this maritime East Asian zone and can more easily envision the power that geography has played on the history of the Japanese archipelago In effect, the Ainu homelands straddle three worlds: temperate East Asia, the eastern Siberia taiga, and the maritime western Pacific and its pro¬ ductive peripheral seas, the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk. In many respects, however, the Ainu homelands are unique unto themselves, and their environmental and cultural histories

ronments, and other North Pacific cultures have had a strong influence on the founda¬ tions of Ainu culture.

The northern orientation of the Ainu is most fundamentally expressed in its geo¬ graphical relationships. The islands of Hok¬ kaido and Sakhalin, separated by Soya Strait, are only twenty-six miles (forty-two kilometers) apart. Sakhalin in turn is sepa¬ rated from the Asian mainland at Tatar near the mouth of the Amur River by only 12.5 miles (twenty kilometers). Moreover, Tatar Strait is extremely shallow and is covered by floating ice during much of the winter, which makes it easy to cross. Migrations and dispersals of animals and plants are known to have reached Hokkaido across these land bridges, and in historic times various ethnic groups in Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Amur region maintained contacts across these narrow bodies of water. Archaeological

4.1 Winter in a Sakhalin Village

(Pilsudski, USNM 047414)

reflect this transitional status. Ancient history, revealed through archaeological remains, clearly shows the influence of southern cul¬ tures on Hokkaido, whereas the northern Ainu territories in Sakhalin and the Kuriles have a prehistory closely linked to the Amur River region, Siberia, and Kamchatka (S. Kato 1985,- Kikuchi 1984,- Kikuchi and Fukuda 1989,- Kikuchi 1995). In this essay we con¬ sider the relationship of the Ainu and their ancestors to these northern regions. Indeed, the Ainu themselves feel a strong pull in this direction and see their culture as closely related to the cultures of North Pacific peoples, even the North American Eskimos and Northwest Coast tribes. As we will see, the northern resources (especially salmon, sea mammals, and bears), the North Pacific envi-

evidence demonstrates that this connection was also active in ancient times and that Asian mainland and Sakhalin cultures had important impacts on the formation of an¬ cient cultures in Hokkaido, including the Ainu. Influences have been noted from as far west as the Trans-Baikal region,- from the south, cultures of the Sungari River were introduced. And archaeological work is now beginning to reveal the impact of cultures of Siberia and the Eskimo region. These influ¬ ences contributed to the formation of vari¬ ous cultures in Hokkaido that developed features distinct from the ancient cultures of Honshu. Finds indicating the ancient linkage between Hokkaido and northeast Asia have been discovered especially from the Pale¬ olithic era and in Okhotsk-culture sites.

47

4/ANCIENT NORTHEAST ASIA

4.2 Microlithic Industries of Siberia and East Asia

The Paleolithic Period

Paleolithic-era remains from Hokkaido, dating from 20,000 to 12,000 years ago, are divided into three chronological and cultural stages (H. Kimura 1997). Sites of the first stage, which are assumed to be about 20,000 years old, include Shukubai Sankakuyama of Chitose city, Shimaki in Kamishihoro township, and Seo in Sarabetsu village. At Sankakuyama and Shimaki, knife-shaped tools similar to ones found in Honshu sites of the same period have been discovered.

In Shimaki and Seo, microblade cores and boat-shaped stone implements characteristic of far-off sites on the Yenesei, Angara, and Lena rivers in northern Siberia have been found. These discoveries suggest that by 20,000 years ago Hokkaido shared cultural links with both Honshu and northeast Asia.

During the second phase of the Pale¬ olithic era, which began about 17,000 years ago, the sites of Horokazawa 1 at Shirataki and Shirataki 13 were occupied. Large blades, boat-shaped stone implements, and Horuka-

type burins (chisel-like tools for carving bone and antler) have been found at these sites; similar stone tools have been discovered in Ustinovka in the Maritime Provinces of the Russian Far East (Primor'ye) and at Sokol' in Sakhalin (fig. 4.2). These finds suggest that during this period Hokkaido was part of the same culture zone as those regions.

The third stage dates from about 15,000 to 1 2,000 years ago, with Shirataki 32 and 33 of Shirataki village being important sites. The microblades, wedge-shaped microcores, and Angara burins found here are similar to those found in Diuktai-culture sites (Mochanov 1980), which date from 16,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Russian Aldan River region and are widely distributed in northeast Asia, ranging from the Yenesei, Angara, and Lena river basins to Baikal, eastern Mongolia, Kamchatka, and Sakhalin (fig. 4.3). During this period people from interior northeast Asia migrated into new lands, including Hokkaido, in response to the warming climate and subsequent changes in animal distribution and the rise of the sea level.

The Mesolithic Period

Toward the end of the Ice Age, people learned to develop new technologies that provided them with light and more efficient weapons. These changes usher in the Mesolithic period, which in Hokkaido dates from 12,000 to 8,000 years ago Its characteristic stone tools have tanged points and probably were used for arm¬ ing arrows. Similar points have also been found in Tatekawa of Rankoshi, Tachikarushunai of Engara, and elsewhere. Such lithics character¬ ize the Osipovka culture of the Russian Mari- times, dated from 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, and have also been found in Sakhalin, suggest¬ ing a continuation of the types of cultural links found from Hokkaido throughout much of northeastern Asia during the Mesolithic era.

The Neolithic Period:

Jomon Culture

Throughout Japan, including Hokkaido, the culture of the Neolithic period (Chiyo 1984a, b) is called Jomon (fig. 3.2). Blade arrowheads have been found in 7,000-year-old Early Jomon sites. Similar arrowheads have been discovered in Neolithic sites in many areas of northeast Asia, and blade arrowheads are characteristic of the Novopetrovka culture (7,500 to 6,000 years ago) in the middle Amur River basin. This widespread dispersion of similar artifacts suggests that people who

48

ANCIENT ROOTS / T KIKUCHI

4.3 Upper-Paleolithic Artifacts from Sakhalin

This assemblage of tools excavated in 1973 by Valerii Shubin from Takoie II in southern Sakhalin has been dated to 16,000-14,000 b.c. Its coni¬ cal and wedge-shaped cores and unifacial points are the kind of as¬ semblage that could have been a pro¬ totype for American Paleo-lndian cul¬ tures of 10,000-8,000 B.c. The brown obsidian characteristic of Shirataki in eastern Hokkaido indi¬ cates early contacts between peoples in Sakhalin and Hokkaido. (SKRM)

4.4 Late-Neolithic Artifacts from Sakhalin

This collection from Nevelsk II. Imchin II, and Sadovnik II illustrates Neolithic- period artifacts from Sakhalin Island. Peaked-rim ceramics resemble early Jomon styles and points show careful bifacial technology. Although many different types of harpoons have been recovered from these sites, none resemble those found in other North Pacific types. (SKRM)

utilized blade arrowheads spread across northeast Asia into Hokkaido. Late Middle Jomon culture (4,500 to 4,000 years ago) in Hokkaido is characterized by Hokuto-type pottery. Similar pottery has been found at the Imchin Site II in northern Sakhalin, which suggests that cultural exchanges took place between Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the lower Amur in this period as well (fig. 4.6).

Small fragments of iron tools have been discovered in the ruins of tombs from the Final Jomon period (200-100 B.C.) at the Kaizukacho 1-Chome site of Kushiro City in Hokkaido. By the last stage of the Jomon culture, 3,000 to 2,000 years ago, the Amur River basin and the Maritime Provinces of the Russian Far East had already entered the Early Iron Age, and various types of iron tools and weapons were being used. Many items crafted from iron have been found in sites of the Uril culture (eleventh-seventh centuries B.C.) and the Pol'tse culture (seventh century B.C.— fourth centuries A.D.) in the lower and middle Amur River basin and in Yankovskii (ninth-fifth centuries B.C.) and the Krounovka cultures (fifth-seventh centuries B.C.) in the southern Maritime Provinces of the Russian Far East It is thought that the iron tools found in the tombs of Kaizukacho in Kushiro City were brought by the people of the Pol'tse culture.

Epi-Jomon Culture

In Hokkaido, Jomon culture continued to follow its own trajectory for nearly a millen¬ nium after it was replaced in Honshu by the Yayoi culture, which advanced north gradu¬ ally as its rice-agriculture lifestyle usurped the previous Jomon hunting-and-gathering economy. This Jomon "extension" culture in Hokkaido is called Epi-Jomon, although Japanese archaeologists have sometimes used the term Zoku, which means northern, to characterize it. Epi-Jomon culture dates to the first to seventh centuries A.D., corre¬ sponding to the Middle Yayoi period of Honshu. Iron knives have been found in tombs of the Rausuchou Llebetsugawa ruin, which date from the early Epi-Jomon period (first to second centuries A.D.), and small traces of silver were found on fragments of an ornamented knife case. A number of silver ornaments have also been found dating to this period in tombs of nomads in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, Shanxi Province, and in Heilongjiang

4/ANCIENT NORTHEAST ASIA

49

4.5 Lacquered Comb (replica)

Early use of lacquer Is shown in this ornamented Late Jomon comb (ca. 2,000-1,000 b.c.) from the Bibi-4 site, Chitose, Hokkaido. It must have been used both for combing and decorating hair. Lacquer technology, based on building up repeated applications of pigmented sap from certain trees, be¬ came a long-standing artistic tradition in East Asia. (HMH)

4.6, 4.7 Evocative Women Small ceramic figurines served as house deities or charms to protect women from disease and the dangers of childbirth and were used for thou¬ sands of years in northeast Asia. The figure (4.6) with the swept-back fore¬ head and Asian features was called “ Nefertiti of the Amur" by its excavator, A. P. Okladnikov, and dates to ca. 4,000 b.c. Her Final Jomon companion (fig. 4.7) of a later millennium (1,000- 300 b.c.), from Ohnakayama Site (Nanae, Hokkaido), wears a necklace, reveals something of her hairdo, and also seems to have Asian features. (HMH; MIHPP Kn-63-48090, replica)

4.9 Needlecase with Geometric Engraving (replica)

Found at Kafukai-a site, Rebun, Hok¬ kaido, this Okhotsk birdbone needle case (ca. a.d. 500) has a carefully ex¬ ecuted geometric design whose motifs evolve from panel to panel. It not only resembles the needlecases of the Kurile Ainu but also those made by Aleut and Central Yup'ik Eskimos of the Bering Sea coast. (HMH)

Province in China, so it seems likely that silver reached Hokkaido by trade with the Amur River region.

Okhotsk Culture

The formation of Satsumon culture was influ¬ enced by the Kofun-period culture of Honshu, which coincided with the final period of the Hokkaido Epi-Jomon culture,- many scholars believe that the Satsumon culture (seventh- thirteenth centuries) is the ancient culture of the Ainu. From the latter half of the Epi-Jomon period and during the Satsumon-culture period (fourth -thirteenth centuries) people of the Okhotsk culture lived on the east coast of Hokkaido on the Sea of Okhotsk (figs. 4.8,

4.9). According to studies of human bones excavated from burials, Okhotsk people were of a different biological group than the Ainu.

Sites of the Okhotsk culture have pro¬ duced various types of iron-, silver-, and bronzeware (fig. 4.8), which have been found in sites of the Mohe culture (fourth-ninth centuries) in the lower and middle Amur re¬ gion, in the succeeding Jurchen culture, and in the Tongren culture (fifth-tenth centuries) in the lower and middle Sungari River basin.

In short, metal products of the Okhotsk culture came from the Amur and Sungari River regions.

There are various theories about the

origin of the Okhotsk culture. This author be¬ lieves that Okhotsk derives from an ancient culture of the lower Amur River, when one of this region's ethnographic peoples, the Nivkhi (previ¬ ously known as Gilyak), formed a distinct culture in the third century in Sakhalin. The range of the Okhotsk culture extended to Hokkaido when probable ancestors of the Nivkhi people mi¬ grated into that region about 1 ,000 years ago.

According to the ethnographic literature of Japan and Russia written after the seven¬ teenth century, Ainu people lived in Sakhalin

and the Kuriles, in addition to Hokkaido, although the date of their arrival has rarely been discussed. Based on studies by this au¬ thor, Ainu people advanced into Sakhalin in the middle of the thirteenth century and to the Kuriles from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries,- as a result of this movement, the Ainu in the historic period inhabited southern Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the Kuriles.

Ainu Origins: A Northern View

Scholars have presented various theories about the origin and lineage of Ainu people (Arutiunov, Ishida, this volume). To under¬ stand their origin it is necessary to know that the ancient culture of northeast Asia extended to Hokkaido from the Paleolithic to the Okhotsk period. The repeated influence of

50

ANCIENT ROOTS / T KIKUCHI

4.8 Bronze Belt Ornaments (replica) This set of bronze belt ornaments (ca. a.d. 700) was found at an Okhotsk site at Menashitomari in northern Hokkaido. Belts with similar decora¬ tions were used for curing rituals by Siberian shamans from the mainland, where bronze technology was consid¬ ered powerful. These ornaments probably found their way to Hokkaido for a similar purpose. (HMH)

4.11 Mixed-Race Family of Sakhalin

Bronislaw Pilsudski's notes indicate that this Sakhalin family had Ainu, Russian, and Ul'chi roots. By the time Pilsudski arrived in 1903, a penal colony had been established on Sa¬ khalin and with it had come an influx of Russian “outlaws" and political exiles sent to populate this newly ac¬ quired territory. Sakhalin’s geographic position in the most populated seg¬ ment of the vast North Pacific Rim kept it at the center of human move¬ ments and change. (NAA 98-10365)

'if i

northeast Asian cultures on Hokkaido brought stone tools, metal products, and other materi¬ als (including Santan silk robes in the early modern period) to Hokkaido (Harrison 1 954,- Tezuka 1998). Those items probably were introduced both by actual movement of peoples (migrations, casual contact, slaving, and genetic contacts) as well as by trade. The Ainu physical type was gradually formed through interracial marriages with the residents of Hokkaido and the northern (Okhotsk) peoples who were moving into the region. Hokkaido was also constantly influenced by the cultures of Honshu throughout the periods of its Paleo¬ lithic, Jomon, Epi-Jomon, and Satsumon

cultures,- nonetheless, it would appear that the ancient cultures of north¬ east Asia had a major impact on Hokkaido people and cultures, and the Ainu ethnic group must have formed in part f through contacts with

.VAT those northern immi¬

grants.

Recent political events have had their own influence in this

regard. After many hundreds — if not thou¬ sands — of years of interaction, Ainu people have been barred from contact with their northern neighbors since 1945 when the Russian government expelled most of the Ainu residing on Sakhalin to Hokkaido and evacuated Ainu from the southern Kuriles. Since then, Hokkaido has become the only remaining Ainu "homeland" and the keeper of Ainu traditions from Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the Kuriles (fig. 4.11). Travel and com¬ munication with other Sakhalin and Amur- area groups ceased, and many Ainu ethno¬ logical treasures that had been collected in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries re¬ mained inaccessible in the Sakhalin Regional Museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Japanese contacts with Sakhalin are beginning to be restored, and many Sakhalin Ainu now living in Hokkaido would like someday to return to visit their old homelands and see the artifact collections and records that docu¬ ment their past. Archaeological exchanges are also now taking place, and excavations conducted by Japanese and Russian archae¬ ologists have the potential to resolve the many questions still remaining about Ainu origins and their ancient northern connec¬ tions.

4.10 Sakhalin Okhotsk Assemblage Okhotsk, a northern culture with a strong sea mammal-hunting economy, employed a technology that was both efficient and beauti¬ fully manufactured. This group of implements from the Solov’evka and Promyslovoe II sites in southern Sa¬ khalin reveals exquisite workmanship in the antler and bone harpoons. The tiny seal in the middle of the picture is evidence of forms and modeling that seem organic and alive. (SKRM 5081-82, 5395, 3756)

4/ANCIENT NORTHEAST ASIA

51

Ancient People of the North Pacific Rim:

Ainu Biological Relationships with Their Neighbors

Hajime Ishida

5.1 Ainu Woman on the Amur

To make full descriptions of cultures and their history, early anthropologists gathered biological as well as cultural, linguistic, and archaeological data on cultures they studied. Photographic records, considered crucial for docu¬ menting “racial types,’’ included both full-face and profile views; body mea¬ surements and head and bust casts were sometimes taken as well. (NAA 98-10380)

52

IT IS NO EXAGGERATION TO SAY THAT THE search for human history on the islands of Japan — in other words, Japanese anthropology — began with studies of the Ainu and questions about their origins. During the Meiji era (around the end of the nineteenth century), scholars debated whether people of the Japanese Stone Age, i.e., the Jomon people, were Ainu. Shogoro Tsuboi ( 1 887) asserted that the "Koropok- guru," as the indigenous population of Hok¬ kaido was referred to in an old Ainu legend, were the indigenous population of all the Japanese islands. He believed they were Japa¬ nese, not Ainu, because Ainu, unlike Japanese, made neither ceramics nor stone tools and did not live in pithouses.

On the other hand, Yoshikiyo Koganei,

( 1 893) an anatomist, made an anthropological study of Ainu skeletons and compared them

with Stone Age skeletons that had been col¬ lected from a shell mound. Although no com¬ plete cranium sample was available, Koganei found common characteristics between the Stone Age people and the Ainu, principally a llatness of the shafts of the long bones in both groups. Based on this, he insisted that Japanese Stone Age people were Ainu, thus refuting the koropok-gum theory, which soon faded away with the death of Tsuboi and the discovery ol Ainu pithouses during a Kurile Island survey by Ryuzo Torii in early 1 899. The purpose of these studies was not to learn the origin of the Ainu,

ANCIENT ROOTS / H. ISHIDA

but rather to ascertain the lineage of the main¬ land Japanese (fig. 5. 1 ). The Ainu who lived in Hokkaido were used simply as a reference point toward this end.

In the Taisho era (1912-1 926) the theory that the Jomon people were the ancestors of the Ainu began to be questioned. This was the result of knowledge gained from human bones of the Jomon period collected by Kenji Kiyono (1949) and Kotondo Hasebe (1949), as well as comparative studies using statistical tools, which were relatively objective and detailed for the standard of the time. In addi¬ tion, the flatness of the long bone shafts was shown to be a common feature among hunt¬ ing-gathering populations worldwide, thus weakening the Jomon/Ainu connection.

The Ainu "Race" Theory

In seeking to establish the origins of the Ainu, scholars