The Ainu

A people, at last

Overdue recognition for Japan’s ethnic minority, before it disappears

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Readers' comments



microbrew, can you open your mind to the possibility that your perspective can be broadened? The Economist is actually doing a good job in at least occasionally showing that some nations other than China have been very bad to their minorities. Much worse in fact than the Chinese. Can you not see that:

1 - The Tibetan people are essentially demographically intact. Despite the claims of some radical Tibetans and their Anglo worshippers, neither the Chinese government nor the Chinese people ever engaged in genocide. The Tibetan population on the Tibetan plateau is essentially the same as it has always been. In contrast, today's Ainu and Native Americans are little more than a trace residual of their former populations. They have been scalped, ambushed, and nearly annihilated by government decree and the personal actions of colonists.

2 - Tibetans still live in Tibet. Native Americans were forced from their homelands into tiny reservations in remote deserts.

3 - Except for a relatively small number of very recent economic migrants to Lhasa, the Chinese have not demographically occupied most of Tibet. In contrast, the United States through government policy actually gave, sold, and subsidized Native American land to white colonists. Not only have those colonists remained, they have multiplied.

4 - China's 50 ethnic minorities are exempted from the one-child policy. This is actually self-imposed REVERSE sinicization. Tibetan music and culture is romanticized and popular among the Han.

While Tibet suffered under the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, so did all of China. That troubled period is now widely regarded by the CCP and all China as a mistake of the past.

In conclusion, we should realize that in the grand sweep of history, Tibet's glass is at least half full. They are a lot more like the Welsh part of Great Britain than the Ainu part of Japan or the Mohican part of New York. I believe the Dalai Lama understands this better than the radical young Tibetans and their Anglo worshippers. I believe I share a hope with the Dalai Lama and (yes) the Politburo that a calming in global rhetoric and vitriol will allow Tibet and China to move toward a relationship like that enjoyed by Scotland and England. The English required Scotland to answer only to London for a time so that Britain could make her place in the world. Now that that is secure, England and Scotland are free to enjoy each others' company as interdependent partners living in the same garden.

As you can see, the Japanese and Americans have deprived their minorities of even that hope.


I'm absolutely not surprised to see the Japanese purists so
called the "descendent of Apollo" to have done to her neighbours with such brutality that no other human being can
ever compared, let alone their own unrecognized aborigines.
I applaud the Japanese government move, it's certainly a right
direction, and hope more can be done to recover the Ainu's
fading cultures, while also not forgetting other aborigines, and minorities in Southern Japan, namely Okinawa/Ryukiu islands
I think in this aspect, China has done more than many other countries to protect its minorities, namely Tibetan, Zhuang,
Mongolian etc etc after thousands of years co-existed in the middle kingdom, most minorities' cultures still existed and


"Wouldn't it be pretty easy to verify whether her lip is tattooed?"

There would be a chance that lip tattooing could experience renaissance if that resolution of Japanese parliament entails any financial incentives for belonging to Ainu. As this report informs, it is not a case.

Too bad as well the resolution does not encourages anyhow the revival of the Ainu language. Back at the very beginning of 20th century Bronislav Pilsudsky, the ethnographer, was so amazed of the richness of Ainu's oral traditions - legends, fairy tales, songs and such - he extended his research of Ainu's culture of Sakhalin by extra year to collect anything possible. Now, as this article reports, it is just 10 speakers in Japan and there is some info that just 2 elders who can understand it in Sakhalin. Ainu's language is absolutely unique, with no relations to known linguistic families, much like Basque of Northern Spain. When it gone, there will be nothing remotely similar left on the planet.

Str Prpn

"[A] solitary century-old woman is thought to have a tattooed lip."Wouldn't it be pretty easy to verify whether her lip is tattooed? Maybe the author means "It is thought that only one woman, who is a century old, has a tattooed lip."


With just 10 Ainu speakers left and only one traditionally tattooed it seems that whatever resolution was made in Japanese parliament it will make little or no difference to saving the language and possibly Ainu culture. In this regard, government of Japan risks of being reached out with Ainu claims don't look too great. Therefore, the precautions put in place in this resolution, like no obligations for state etc., look peculiarly redundant.

Also, "Economist" mentions of Ainu of Hokkaido but does not say much of them in Far East Russia. Continental Russian Far East, Sakhalin and Kurilas were as much motherland for Ainu as Hokkaido. Many of them left after 1945 for Japan fearing Russians.

As far as saving the culture concerns, it does not seems very necessary to restore that ritual of torturing a bear before killing and consuming him. It puzzles how Ainu's cult of bear could coexist with such a terrible treatment of supreme creature, or Bear Holiday, as it is referred to sometimes. It is not known for sure but it can be a reason of why Japanese word for Ainu also means "savage".


@tanky18Not so hypocritical when the current US and Australian government recognizes wrongs have been done to the indigenous peoples, tries to back it up with action (sometimes corrupt, sometimes incompetent - see Indian casinos). No one credible in today's U.S. government will deny that the U.S. and indigenous tribe relations has been full of broken promises, lies and deceit.Calling it "genocide" won't cause patriotic Americans to harass and stalk you, much less label you a separatist and throw you in jail. Every school kid knows what the significance of blankets are.In contrast, the Chinese government not only pretends that nothing wrong done was in the past (Cultural Revolution, anyone?), but claims that they "liberated" and "improved" the conditions. Not unlike how whites "civilized" the various indigenous peoples.It is politics, but don't pretend that the bull*hit smells the same.To be fair, the root source of Tibet's fears (besides the normal corruption and oppression present in most of China) is less government policies but sinicizing due to demographics and modern transportation. The Tibetans, just like Russians in the Far East, can do the math... Or just like the gringos in Texas, California and New Mexico.

belle neige

"One thing is increasingly clear: they are more obviously the descendants of Japan’s original inhabitants, the Jomon, inventors of the world’s earliest pottery, than are modern Japanese, who are descended from later settlers from Korea."
If such a consensus has suddenly formed in favour of this replacement hypothesis despite biological analyses that support the transition hypothesis (in which a small number of Yayoi settlers changed the lifestyle of the Jomon people) or the dual structure hypothesis (in which the two groups intermarried), then this stunning development deserves an article in the science section of The Economist.


the world gotta understand that Japan, copied the imperial western nations of 19th century, instituted a process of forceful assimilation on the native of territory they colonized or conquer. They impose on the native their language, reliqion, culture and others to the extent that the natire is either assimilated or exterminated.

The historical responsibilities clearly lies with the western imperial power including japan who now shamelessly claim for moral authority in the international sphere. This is particularly so with the american, french, british governments. The colonized and the conquered have much longer memory because they sufferred and the colonizer and conqueror have selective momory.

An observation to share. Not on politics. I travelled to Tibet just 3 years ago and I saw a the vibrant Tibetan culture.Monks were chanting. Tibetan costumes were seen everywhere. Tibetan language was still spoken ( i did learn a few). It is so difficult to understand if this is cultutal genocide as alleged by certain quarters.

In the same vein, will any western country ask the Japanese to quit Hokkaido in favor of Ainu? Will Australia be returned to aborigine and NZ to Maori, New Mexico, california to mexican?

It is all politics! please stop being hypocrite!



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