
The Ainu, Japan’s Indigenous People - yial
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200519-japans-forgotten-indigenous-people
======
gabaix
I came across Ainu culture while driving through Kuchiro in Hokkaido. We
stayed one night in the city, unbeknown to us it was the night of their yearly
Marimo festival [1].

Marimo is an extremely odd moss ball that only grows in their lake [2]. Once
to the brink of extinction, the Ainu celebrates every year by strolling around
the city with the prettiest marimo. They celebrate through the night with
traditional dances. It was a unique experience.

[1] [https://ohmatsuri.com/en/articles/hokkaido-marimo-
matsuri](https://ohmatsuri.com/en/articles/hokkaido-marimo-matsuri)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimo)

------
KhoomeiK
The vaguely "caucasoid" appearance they have is generally theorized as the
result of either (or a combination of) two things:

1\. A relatively recent (past ~20k years) migration from Central Siberia
correlated with the Ancestral North Eurasians [1], who contributed significant
ancestry to Amerindians, Europeans, and Central/South Asians. They were
phenotypically intermediate between modern East and West Eurasians, hence the
unique combination of features often found in Amerindians.

2\. A remnant of a much earlier (~50k years) population descended from humans
who took the Southern Route [2] across Eurasia. They contributed significant
ancestry to the Australian Aboriginals, certain South and Southeast Asian
populations, and potentially some groups in the Amazon. The ancestry
contributed to those Amerindians in the Amazon would've had to come from this
population coming up across East Eurasia, where they could've left behind (or
contributed to) populations like the Ainu.

West Eurasians (Caucasoids) and South Eurasians (Australoids) share a few
distinctive traits that are shared by the Ainu, notably prominent brow ridges,
lack of epicanthic folds, and heavier facial hair. So purely from a phenotypic
point of view it's difficult to determine their origin. Genomic analyses also
tend to be inconclusive, with Ainu often clustering with other Siberian groups
rather than some special outgroup.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Eurasian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Eurasian)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Dispersal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Dispersal)

~~~
person_of_color
Reminds me of

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people)

------
babesh
More background:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_period)

It’s supposedly more complicated since Yamato people are partly descended from
Jomon who are supposedly also one of the ancestral groups of the Ainu. Both
are indigenous and have been for over 1500 years. Or perhaps more accurately,
the invasion started over 2000 years ago and was complete a few hundred years
ago. Seems somewhat similar to Okinawa.

It’s like a technologically more advanced people subjugating their cousins.

~~~
contravariant
Kind of seems like there were scattered tribes at first, that gradually spread
and grew apart until they ended up (mostly) assimilating into one
civilization.

Not unsurprisingly the biggest two, the Ainu and the remaining Japanese
civilization, seem to correspond to the two biggest islands.

~~~
longtimegoogler
I don't know. The Ainu look very different, which has led to much speculation
as to their origins.

This suggests to me that the Ainu while maybe sharing some ancestry with the
dominant Yamato people have a very different history, with the Ainu probably
sharing less genetic history with modern East Asians.

~~~
babesh
My read of it was that there was a Jomon culture that was superseded by the
Yamato culture. The Yamato culture was mostly from people coming from what is
now Korea but there probably was admixture with the people already there.

But this peopling was a good 2000+ years ago. So it’s a bit like saying my
ancestors were here 13000 years ago and most of yours were here only 2000
years ago.

Furthermore, we have no idea how many waves of people have migrated to those
islands.

------
echelon
The Emishi [1], another native population, were featured in Hayao Miyazaki's
classic, Princess Mononoke. One of the main characters, Ashitaka, was Emishi.

Some claims state that the Emishi and Ainu are related, but this is debated.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emishi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emishi)

------
prophesi
There are a few episodes of the anime Golden Kamuy that touch over the
lifestyle and culture of the Ainu natives. I've only seen the first season,
but it was a very delightful and insightful watch.

~~~
hrktb
Soft warning: it's targeted at an adult/mature audience, some parts can be
gruesome (yet sometimes insanely funny)

I came into the series for the educational part, but stayed for the crazy
jokes.

------
keiferski
A few weeks ago, I discovered some Ainu folk tales, originally translated in
1888. Pretty interesting!

[https://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/aft/](https://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/aft/)

~~~
fmajid
The British author seems to have imbibed the Japanese prejudice against the
Aino, however.

------
tkgally
Some 19th century accounts by Westerners of encounters with Ainu are at [1],
[2], and [3]. More can be found in books listed in the bibliography at [4].

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.237533/page/n8...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.237533/page/n87/mode/2up)

[2]
[https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.31614/2015.3161...](https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.31614/2015.31614.Japan-
The-Amoor-And-The-Pacific#page/n243/mode/2up)

[3]
[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013977727#page/n209/mode/2...](https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013977727#page/n209/mode/2up)

[4]
[http://gally.net/jatsi/about/sources.html](http://gally.net/jatsi/about/sources.html)

------
drak0n1c
This 1919 footage of Japan taken by the YWCA includes an Ainu village and
their festival. Video footage of traditional Ainu culture is extremely rare.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ3RteagLoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ3RteagLoY)

------
dang
See also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15440125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15440125)
from 2017

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19711756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19711756)
from last year

------
0ld
ainu wikipedia page took me to straight to an absolutely crazy life of a guy
[0] who:

* was the elder brother of the polish national hero jozef pilsudski

* conspired to assasinate russian tsar together with the brother of vladimir lenin

* was sentenced to death, then sent to 15 years of hard labour on sakhalin island

* married ainu woman, they had 2 children

* studied the ainu language, culture, etc, created the dictionary and recorded 100 wax cylinder of the ainu native speakers

* fled to japan when russo-japanese war broke out, where he was trying to help ainu cause too

* returned to poland and studied ethnography of peoples of polish mountains

* fled to france at the beginning of ww1 and was found drowned in seine river

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_Pi%C5%82sudski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_Pi%C5%82sudski)

~~~
cbHXBY1D
In the anime Golden Kamuy, there is a character who is supposed to be a stand-
in for this real life figure.

If my memory serves me, he's also mentioned in Mike Duncan's Revolutions
podcast.

------
klmadfejno
> “We caught the bears as cubs and raised them as a member of the family. They
> shared our food and lived in our village. When the time came, we set one
> free back into nature and killed the other to eat.”

> Having treated the bear well in life, her people believe the spirit of the
> sacred animal, which they worship as a deity, will ensure the continued good
> fortune of their community.

That's... so interesting

~~~
taneq
People make up all sorts of weird stuff to justify the awful things they do.

~~~
fractallyte
You're absolutely correct, and shame on those who downvoted you.

Indigenous or not, humans have truly monstrous traits. Occasionally, there's a
question of how future generations will see us. I hope this is going to be one
of those inconceivable mentalities which they will point to with curiosity and
sadness.

~~~
TheGallopedHigh
You can expand humans to include all animals. All animals have monstrous
traits.

~~~
fractallyte
The difference is that humans claim to be 'intelligent'. _Homo sapiens_
literally means _wise person_.

Where is our consciousness, self-awareness? The invention of religion - as the
ultimate moral or ethical framework - is exposed as a fraud. That's several
millennia of philosophy up in flames.

So I maintain that we should hold humans to a higher standard - the one that
we believe we're entitled to, but seldom live up to.

------
danans
This brings to mind this related article by Jared Diamond from 1998:

In Search of Japanese Roots [https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/in-
search-of-j...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/in-search-of-
japanese-roots)

------
peter303
Genomics suggests Ainu related to northeast Siberians.

[https://www.genetics.org/content/202/1/261](https://www.genetics.org/content/202/1/261)

------
dntbnmpls
Not just japan, the ainu also lived in eastern siberia/islands.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people)

------
fmajid
Another despised minority, even though ethically the same as the majority
group, is the burakumin, descendants of trades deemed untouchable like
tanners.

------
anf0
Where are the majority of Japanese indigenous to?

------
bubba1236
they have some insane beards!

------
foobar_
It's easy to forget them. Every country on the globe has an indigenous people.
The countries that don't have them either killed them all in the middle ages
or assimilated them completely. Apart from them there are swathes of illegal
immigrant workers that are completely ignored and other socially excluded
people.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples)

~~~
microcolonel
Not every country, look at the UK. I guess you can define indigenous people in
a way anywhere that makes what you said true, but it's been a long while in a
lot of places.

~~~
perl4ever
I'm not sure exactly who the indigenous people were in the present day UK, but
surely you're not saying that they're still running things?

I just checked Wikipedia and the Celts seem to have come from central Europe,
so I guess they aren't the original inhabitants, but another wave of invaders.

If you go back far enough, you could probably consider Neanderthals to be
victims of genocide. But there could have been an even earlier wave of
settlement, so were they really indigenous?

~~~
gerdesj
Pre Roman invasion in 43 AD, Britons (Brythonic languages etc). 43 AD to
roughly 400 AD, Romano Britons and various combinations and graduations
thereof. Roughly 300 or 400 onwards, Saxons, Angles, Jutes start to turn up in
these isles. The Romans are generally considered to have buggered off around
400ish.

The largely Angle/Saxon incursion was not a smooth considered invasion but
more of a spreading out. Bear in mind that travelling by sea was generally
easier than by land at the time. Heavily wooded hills are a pain to cross
compared to sea with a decent wind. So the sea back then was not a barrier but
actually helpful.

300?-1066 - What will become the UK etc is an amalgam of tiddly kingdoms and
whatnot. What becomes England is Wessex, Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall - a bit
Welsh - west wales), Kent, Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, Mercia, Deira and quite a
lot more. There was the Danelaw and Dalegelt business with a bunch of
homicidal viking folk. York's, and hence New York's names are derived from
Jorvik which was the Danish name for the original town. The Romans called the
place Eboracum.

Then the Normans turn up in 1066. lol

~~~
danans
> York's, and hence New York's names are derived from Jorvik

There is a step between Jorvik and the Latin Eboracum: Eoforvic.

------
nomad543
Every article about Hokkaido written by Western scholars are outdated or tend
to have this historical misconception about the Ainu being indigenous to
Hokkaido, such as this BBC piece.

The Ainu are not indigenous to Hokkaido. The only factually known indigenous
people of Hokkaido as well as the whole of the Japanese archipelago is the
Jomon, as far as current evidence is considered. The Jomon lived in Hokkaido
centuries before the Ainu existed.

Recent DNA studies have found that the Ainu in the Edo era was already an
admixture of Jomon, Okhotsk and about 30% mainland Japanese.

I also noticed that Western scholars usually get very defensive when we show
them evidence that their narrative of Ainu being the indigenous victims of
Japanese colonization is false.

~~~
notRobot
I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have relevant sources so that we can
read up more?

