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kirkch01

History of the Ainu - 0 views

www.mtholyoke.edu/...history.htm

location Ainu Hokkaido Japan land theft minority rights history

shared by kirkch01 on 17 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • 1400's The first contact with Japanese from main island and the Ainu engaged in peaceful trade with the Japanese 1457  The Battle of Kosyamain: 1669  The Battle of Syaksyain 1789  The Battle of Kunashiri-Menasi: Japanese succeeded to integrate the Northern island by defeating the Ainu for previous three battles 1869  Mass immigration of Japanese to Hokkaido started with the encouragement of the new western ideal government to develop the Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril became under control of Russian 1871  Enactment of the registration; The Ainu became the common with prohibition of their traditional way of living and enforcement of use of Japanese 1878  The Ainu is given the status of former aborigines
  • kirkch01 on 17 Apr 13
     
    History, population fluctuation details (largely due to harsh effects of colonization). 
kirkch01

The Ainu: Beyond the Politics of Cultural Coexistence | Cultural Survival - 0 views

www.culturalsurvival.org/...-politics-cultural-coexistence

shared by kirkch01 on 29 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • The Colonization of Ainu Moshir Until the middle of the nineteenth century, "Ainu moshir" ["the land of the Ainu"] covered most of the island of Hokkaido, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin and the islands of the Kuril Archipelago (which are now part of the Russian Federation). Earlier, Ainu occupation had extended further south, into the main Japanese island of Honshu. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Ainu society felt the growing impact of the gradual northward expansion of the Japanese state. Japanese merchants established trading posts along the Hokkaido coastline; exchanging goods like rice and ironware for fish and seaweed, and for the Chinese brocades which Ainu traders bought from the Asian continent. Gradually, however, the Japanese presence became more intrusive, provoking several waves of armed resistance from the Ainu. The last major conflict, the Battle of Kunashir-Menash, took place in 1789. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, most Ainu people continued to speak their own language and maintain their own spiritual and material traditions, even though a growing number were persuaded or forced to work for Japanese-run fishing enterprises.
  • While asserting Japan's right to independent nationhood, Japanese scholars adopted notions of "progress" and "civilization" which defined the Ainu as "prehistoric hunter gatherers," destined either to extinction or to assimilation into the majority population. As in other parts of the world so too in Hokkaido, the land occupied by the original inhabitants was seen as "terra nullius" to be claimed by the state and distributed to colonial settlers. Ainu were required to adopt Japanese names and speak the Japanese language. Ainu communities were also often moved to remote areas to make room for new Japanese towns and villages. By the early 1880s, the Ainu population of Hokkaido, officially estimated at around 17,000, was already vastly outnumbered by a Japanese settler population of approximately 250,000. (It is worth observing though that given high levels of intermarriage, adoption, and social prejudice, official counts of the Ainu should always be treated with some caution.)
  • The Ainu, however, have never been passive victims of colonization. By the early twentieth century, a number of Ainu leaders were voicing resistance to the prejudice that they were experiencing in Japanese society. One of the more interesting instances of protest took place in 1927 when Kaizawa Hiranosuke, an Ainu villager from Nibutani, wrote to the government demanding the right for Ainu and other Indigenous people to be represented at the Congress of Asian Peoples in Nagasaki, an event being organized to promote Japan's status as a leader in the Asian struggle against colonialism.
  • It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that Ainu activists began to place growing emphasis on the maintenance or revival of disappearing craft skills, rituals, and modes of Indigenous knowledge.
  • Among them was Kayano Shigeru, who put together the large collection of Ainu artifacts now displayed in the Ainu Cultural Museum at Nibutani.
  • In 1987 Ainu representatives participated for the first time in the deliberations of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Interaction with Indigenous peoples worldwide gave encouragement to the Ainu cause, and promoted renewed debate amongst activists about issues such as Indigenous knowledge, resource rights and self-determination.
  • So began a prolonged campaign, which led to the passing of the 1997 Cultural Promotion Law.
  • So far, the law's most obvious result has been to focus attention on the fundamental question, "how and by whom is `Ainu cultural heritage' defined?" The whole notion of "cultural heritage," as embodied in the new law, implies notions of continuity rather than change, stability and order rather than conflict.
  • But as Ainu commentator Tahara Ryoko points out in a recent collection of essays on the new law, "Ainu culture is not limited to language or ceremonies or dance. It is Ainu life itself. Whatever happens every day within the household is Ainu culture."
kirkch01

Ainu History and Culture - 0 views

www.ainu-museum.or.jp/...eng01.html

Japan Ainu history location land population

shared by kirkch01 on 17 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
kirkch01

Ainu - Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion, Major holidays, Rites of p... - 0 views

www.everyculture.com/...Ainu.html

Ainu population location history

shared by kirkch01 on 17 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • 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.
kirkch01

Actual Living Conditions of the Hokkaido Ainu - 0 views

www.ainu-assn.or.jp/...eabout03.html

Ainu Japan

shared by kirkch01 on 17 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Actual Living Conditions of the Hokkaido Ainu According to the Survey on the Hokkaido Ainu Living Conditions conducted in 2006 by the Hokkaido Government, the Ainu population in HokkaidoNote 1 is 23,782 in 72 municipalities. About 59.5% of these live in the subprefectures of Hidaka and Iburi (as shown on the map to the below). It is estimated that the Ainu population is far larger than the results indicate due to the constraints of the survey.
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