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The Ainu believe in many divine beings “kamuy” who are contrasted with the humans “Ainu.” All things have spirits and the Ainu are surrounded by gods which they pray to and which look after them. Among the Ainu, many natural phenomena are considered divine, having a spirit, such as fire, wind, and water. There are gods of objects like boats and pots, and gods of plants like mushrooms and mugwort. There are gods of mountains and lakes, gods that protect the house, and animal gods like foxes and owls. The bear is the god of the mountains who is like a human in appearance in his own divine land, but then he appears to the Ainu in the guise of the bear in the Ainu land, bringing gifts of meat and fur. Another important deity among the Ainu is the goddess of the hearth (fire) or “Grandmother Hearth” who is a symbol of the Ainu universe. There are also goddesses of the sun and moon, and sea animal and fish deities.

The Ainu believe that they have spirits which are immortal, and that the good Ainu will rise to the land of the gods in the hereafter. If they have not been good, they will go to a hell, which is described as a volcano. After a time in heaven, the spirits are reborn to earth, and the cycle goes on.

The bear represents the chief deity, the deity of the mountain, in the disguise of a bear. It is the most important symbol among the Ainu. The Sending of the Bear Ceremony serves to send the soul of the bear-god back to the divine home of the bear with gifts, prayers and invitations to return to the Ainu. The Ainu explain that It is not a sacrifice of the bear, as the bear is god. It is a religious obligation to hold the ceremony to send the bear back to its home through ritual. The bear can can thus be reborn and give the Ainu the valuable gifts of meat and fur once again.

In 1899 the Japanese parliament enacted the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, a law designed to achieve the assimilation of the Ainu population of northern Japan. The paradoxes of this piece of legislation are evident even from its title. The phrase "former Aborigines" was supposed to emphasize the fact that the Ainu were now citizens of a rapidly modernizing Japan, destined to merge their identity with that of the majority population. Yet, by singling the Ainu out as former Aborigines, and subjecting them to patronizing and oppressive assimilation measures, the Protection Act in fact helped to ensure the survival of prejudice and discrimination against the Ainu within the modern Japanese state.

The Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Law was to survive for almost a century. Although some of its most unpopular sections were repealed in the 1930s, it was not until May 1997 that it finally disappeared from the Japanese statute book, to be replaced by a new Ainu Cultural Promotion Law.

1997, indeed, marked something of a watershed in relations between the Ainu people and the Japanese state. In the same year, a district court in the northern island of Hokkaido ruled that the government had failed to respect Ainu cultural heritage and sacred sites when it expropriated land belonging to two Ainu residents for the construction of a dam in the village of Nibutani. The compulsory acquisition of the land had therefore been illegal.

History of the Ainu

Hokkaido, the Northern island of Japan where the Ainu has inhabited, is full of natural resources based on rich river systems. Because of the fact and the location, the land of the Ainu had been both, Japanese and Russian's interests and the Ainu had been a target of extermination in order for them to obtain the flourished land.

View on the change of the Ainu Population As we can see in the following table and graph, the change in the Ainu population clearly indicates the evidence of Japanese exploitation of the Ainu which enforced them to give up their tradition and culture. We can not overlook Ainu's physical and psychological struggle over the abrupt change in their life style of which has been suffered with low economic income as well as harsh discrimination. I believe the struggle is one of the main causes of decreasing population. The population of the Ainu rapidly decreased between 1822 and 1873; about 7000 Ainu died over 50 years. The reason behind the rapid decrease of the population is thought to be the spread of epidemics, such as small pox, measles, cholera and tuberculosis beside the enforcement of Japanese culture and labor. Parallel to the uprising movement in 1960's, the Ainu population also has increased about 6000. Today, the Ainu population seems to be stable with small fracture in numbers.

POPULATION: 25,000

Hokkaido, one of Japan's four main islands, is 32,247 square miles (83,520 square kilometers)—comprising one-fifth of Japan. Hokkaido is twice as large as Switzerland. A small number of Ainu live on southern Sakhalin. Earlier, the Ainu also lived in the southern Kuril Islands, along the lower reaches of the Amur River, and in Kamchatka, as well as the northern part of the Northeast region of Honshu. Their ancestors may have once lived throughout Japan. Hokkaido is surrounded by beautiful coasts. The island has many mountains, lakes, and rivers. Its land was densely wooded with ancient trees into the twentieth century. Two major mountain ranges, Kitami in the north and Hidaka in the south, divide Hokkaido into the eastern and western regions. The Saru basin area in southeastern Hokkaido is a center of Ainu ancestral culture. An 1807 survey reported the Hokkaido and Sakhalin Ainu population as 23,797. Mixed marriages between Ainu and mainland Japanese became more common over the last century. In 1986 the total number of people in Hokkaido identifying themselves as Ainu was 24,381. In the late nineteenth century, the Japanese government created a colonial office for Hokkaido's economic development and encouraged settlers from other parts of Japan. A similar government office now continues to promote Hokkaido's development. With the loss of their land, their livelihood, and their traditional culture, the Ainu had to adapt to a rapidly industrializing society.

We know from archaeological remains that, in Hokkaido, primitive small-scale agriculture existed in the period of the Satsumon ware (scratch-pattern pottery) culture. Foxtail millet, Chinese millet, deccan grass and so on were cultivated in this period.

The Ainu engaged in agriculture as a secondary activity to supplement hunting, fishing and gathering plants in the forests. The cultivated areas thus were small. Women raised crops as a part of housework, and men never took part in agriculture, being principally occupied in hunting and fishing.

The cultivation of vegetables started relatively recently. Potatoes, for example, are believed to have been raised when the Japanese introduced some seed potatoes in 1798 (10 th year of Kansei era). Japanese radish, Ieek, cucumber and pumpkin have been raised since the Edo era. This is said to be because of the influence of the Japanese who engaged in fishing in the area. Other vegetables which the Ainu have raised since ancient times include a kind of turnip called "atane."

Ainu who lived in Hokkaido, the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin were called "Hokkaido Ainu", "Kurile Ainu" and "Sakhalin Ainu"respectively. Most Ainu now live in Hokkaido. It has been confirmed that a few Ainu people now live in Sakhalin. The census of the Ainu was started by the Japanese in the 1800 s for various purposes, e.g. for putting them to work. The Ainu population from 1807 to 1931 varied as follows : 1807 : 26,256 1822 : 23,563 1854 : 17,810 1873 : 16,272 1903 : 17,783 1931 : 15,969 These figures (estimated ones) show that the population decreased particularly sharply from 1822 to 1854. The reasons for the decrease were, among others, the spread through the Ainu population of such diseases as smallpox, measles, cholera, tuberculosis and venereal diseases and the breakup of families due to forced labor. According to a current survey conducted by the Hokkaido Government in 1984, the Ainu population of Hokkaido then was 24,381.