Ainu people
The Ainu are an indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan and southeastern Russia, including Hokkaido and the Tōhoku region of Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai. They have occupied these areas, known to them as "Ainu Mosir", since before the arrival of the modern Yamato and Russians. These regions are often referred to as Ezochi and its inhabitants as Emishi in historical Japanese texts. Along with the Yamato and Ryukyuan ethnic groups, the Ainu people are one of the primary historic ethnic groups of Japan and are along with the Ryukyuans and Bonin Islanders one of the few ethnic minorities native to the Japanese archipelago.
Official surveys of the known Ainu population in Hokkaido received 11,450 responses in 2023, and the Ainu population in Russia was estimated at 300 in 2021. Unofficial estimates in 2002 placed the total population in Japan at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry.
The Ainu were subject to forced assimilation during the Japanese colonization of Hokkaido since at least the 18th century. Japanese assimilation policies in the 19th century around the Meiji Restoration included forcing Ainu peoples off their land. This, in turn, forced them to give up traditional ways of life such as subsistence hunting and fishing. Ainu people were not allowed to practice their religion and were placed into Japanese-language schools, where speaking the Hokkaido Ainu language was forbidden. In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers. In the 1980s, there were fewer than 100 native Ainu speakers, with only 15 using the language daily. The Hokkaido Ainu language is likely extinct today, as there remain no known native speakers. The other Ainu languages, Sakhalin Ainu and Kuril Ainu were declared extinct in the 20th century. In recent years, there have been increasing efforts to revitalize the Hokkaido Ainu language.
Names
This people's most widely known ethnonym, Ainu, means 'a human being' in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to kamuy, 'divine beings'. Ainu also identify themselves as Utari. Official documents use both names.The name first appeared as Aino in a 1591 Latin manuscript titled De yezorum insula. This document gives the native name of Hokkaido as Aino moxori, or Ainu mosir, 'land of the Ainu'. The terms Aino and Ainu did not come into common use as ethnonyms until the early 19th century. The ethnonym first appeared in an 1819 German encyclopedia article. Neither European nor Japanese sources conceived of the Ainu as a distinct ethnic group until the late 1700s.
The Sakhalin Ainu used the autonym Enciw to distinguish themselves from other Ainu.
The Ainu were also called the Kuye by their neighbors. The Qing dynasty called Sakhalin Kuyedao. The island was also called Kuye Fiyaka. The word Kuye used by the Qing is "most probably related to kuyi, the name given to the Sakhalin Ainu by their Nivkh and Nanai neighbors." When the Ainu migrated onto the mainland, the Chinese described a "strong Kui presence in the area otherwise dominated by the Gilemi or Jilimi." Related names were in widespread use in the region, for example, the Kuril Ainu called themselves both kuri and koushi; the former was adopted as an exonym by neighboring peoples, including in Chinese and Japanese.
An exonym applied to the Ainu people in the 8th century Nihon Shoki is 蝦夷, written with the characters 蝦 'shrimp' and 夷 'barbarian', though it also uses the characters 毛人 'hairy people' once.
The 13th-century Shaku Nihongi later claimed that the Ainu called themselves Emishi, but this understanding may have derived from the Sakhalin Ainu word enciw. The term is considered derogatory in modern usage.
History
The Ainu are considered the native people of Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin, and the Kurils. Ainu toponyms support the historical view that the Ainu people lived in several places throughout northern Honshu.The ancestors of the Ainu, who were referred to as Emishi, came under Japanese subjugation starting in the 9th century and were pushed to the northern islands.
Nibutani ("Ainu") period
Following the Epi-Jōmon, which began in the 5th century BC in northern Honshū and Ezo, and the subsequent Satsumon culture of the Tōhoku and Ezo from around the 13th century, was the 'Ainu culture period' or 'Nibutani period'. The Epi-Jōmon peoples had been pushed east by the Yayoi culture and the subsequent Kofun period, during which the Yamato Kingship defeated its rivals. The following era is Heian Japan. The ethnic Japanese are known as Yamato people after this state.The Ainu engaged in transit trade between Honshu and Northeast Asia. Very active contact between the Yamato and the Ainu of Ezo began in this period. The Ainu had largely abandoned agriculture for hunting-gathering, including hunting sika deer and the very large Ussuri brown bear, salmon fishing, gathering shellfish and edible seaweed, and even hunting harbor and spotted seals. Their religious practices were focused on natural phenomena much like Yamato practices alongside Buddhism, and shared features with neighboring indigenous peoples of Siberia such as the Oroks and the Nivkh such as shaved wooden carvings.
After the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty in 1234, the Nivkh and Udege repeatedly raided the Ainu of Northern Sakhalin. In response, the Mongols established an administration post at Nurgan at the junction of the Amur and Amgun rivers in 1263, and forced the submission of the two peoples. In 1264, the Northern Sakhalin peoples invaded Nivkh territory. They also started an expedition into the Amur region, which was then controlled by the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty, resulting in reprisals by the Mongols on Sakhalin.
From the Nivkh perspective, their surrender to the Mongols essentially established a military alliance against the Ainu, who had invaded their lands. According to the History of Yuan, a group of people known as the Guwei from Sakhalin invaded and fought with the Jilimi every year. On November 30, 1264, the Mongols attacked the Ainu. The Northern Sakhalin Ainu resisted the Mongols, but by 1308 had been subdued. They paid tribute to the Yuan dynasty at posts in Wuliehe, Nanghar, and Boluohe.
The Chinese Ming dynasty took control of the Amur region in 1387 and established the Nurgan Regional Military Commission outpost near the ruins of Tyr on the Siberian mainland in 1411. There is some evidence that Admiral Yishiha reached Sakhalin in 1413 during one of his expeditions to the lower Amur and granted Ming titles to a local chieftain.
The Ming recruited headmen from Sakhalin for administrative posts such as commander, assistant commander, and "official charged with subjugation". In 1431, one such assistant commander, Alige, brought marten pelts as tribute to the Wuliehe post. In 1437, four other assistant commanders also presented tribute. According to the Ming Veritable Records, these posts, like the position of headman, were hereditary and passed down the patrilineal line. During these tributary missions, the headmen would bring their sons, who later inherited their titles. In return for tribute, the Ming awarded them with silk uniforms.
Nivkh women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur region. Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, "the Chinese god", and motifs such as dragons, spirals, and scrolls spread among the Ainu, Nivkh, and Amur natives such as the Udeghe, Ulchi, and Nanai. These groups also adopted material goods and practices such as agriculture, husbandry, heating technologies, iron cookpots, silk, and cotton.
Qing China, which the Manchu people established in 1644, called Sakhalin "Kuyedao" or "Kuye Fiyaka". The Manchus called it Sagaliyan ula angga hada 'Island at the Mouth of the Black River'. The Qing first asserted influence over Sakhalin after the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, which defined the Stanovoy Range as the border between the Qing and the Russian Empire. In the following year the Qing sent forces to the Amur estuary and demanded that the residents, including the Sakhalin Ainu, pay tribute. This was followed by several further visits to the island as part of the Qing effort to map the area. To enforce its influence, the Qing sent soldiers and mandarins across Sakhalin, reaching most parts of the island except the southern tip. The Qing imposed a fur-tribute system on the region's inhabitants.
The Qing dynasty established an office in Ningguta, situated midway along the Mudan River, to handle fur from the lower Amur and Sakhalin. Tribute was supposed to be brought to regional offices, but the lower Amur and Sakhalin were considered too remote, so the Qing sent officials directly to these regions every year to collect tribute and to present awards. By the 1730s, the Qing had appointed senior figures among the indigenous communities as "clan chief" or "village chief". In 1732, 6 hala, 18 gasban, and 148 households were registered as tribute bearers in Sakhalin. Manchu officials gave tribute missions rice, salt, other necessities, and gifts during the duration of their mission. Tribute missions occurred during the summer months. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a trade post existed at Delen, upstream of Kiji Lake, according to Rinzo Mamiya. There were 500–600 people at the market during Mamiya's stay there.
Local native Sakhalin chiefs had their daughters taken as wives by Manchu officials as sanctioned by the Qing dynasty when the Qing exercised jurisdiction in Sakhalin and took tribute from them.