Post by Arreana A.
The Ainu people of northern Japan (a population centered mostly within the large northern island of Hokkaido and the Kuril island chain just north of it) have faced discrimination and forced assimilation for centuries. And though older generations turn to the new, the issue of Ainu indignity and their sovereign rights has yet to be fully discussed within the nation.
To begin, I will lay out the Ainu creation myth, following will be a brief look at subsistence practices within the Ainu culture and then I will close with Japan's response to this indigenous culture.
CREATION
Please note that the following creation tale was taken from ethnography written in 1949 titled “Ainu Folklore: Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan.”
Ainu creation stories vary place to place, with the fine details seemingly interchangeable and contextual, but the root of the story remains the same. Just as in ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology and in the Hebrew Religion, we see that the Ainu believed “chaos reigned before creation.” The world before creation was nothing more than a large quagmire. This large body was a mixture of water and earth; in essence, a huge chaotic swamp. However, nothing lived in this primordial swamp. This chaos was desolate, and yet above it Thunder gods lived in the clouds and the creatures flew through the skies. The creator lived in the highest of heavens, “a mighty host of subordinate deities.”
One of these “subordinate deities”, the small water wagtail, would assist in the crea
tion of the earth. He flew down from the skies and “fluttered over the waters with his wings, trampled upon the muddy mass with his feet, and beat it down with his tail.” Thus, separating earth and water and creating dry land. The earth was then called moshiri which means in Ainu language “floating land.” It is interesting to note that the Ainu language (which is widely considered a language isolate) has no word for the “whole world” but rather considers each island a world within itself. Each of these island worlds was thought to have been governed by its own god.
Over time, something appeared in the water rising from the bottom of the sea. It materialized, hardened, and took the shape of the mountain. On top of this mountain the creation god settled just as Yahweh. Shortly thereafter a goddess visited the mountain, arriving on a cloud of five colors. She tosed these colors away, this is what they became. Black fell into the water and became the rocks of the sea. The yellow cloud well into the water and became soil. The white cloud turned to fish and lobsters. Blue formed the grass and trees. From red came the metals, silk, brocade and jewels.
A pair of crows flew to the god and goddess of the mountain and the deities gave the crows control over thunder and rain.
Thus finished, the god and goddess returned to heaven leaving the crows which today are know to the Ainu people as Kamui-Chikafu (Kamui means “god” and Chikafu means “bird”). This pair of birds (often referred to as the divine bird) remains in the land, teaching good morals. Even today – at the very least as late as 1949 - Ainu people are very careful not to harm crows.
Though Wikipedia as a source should always be closely evaluated, as a cross-reference I found that the website's rendition of this tale was a little more comprehensible.
“The Ainu people of Hokkaidō recount the demiurge with a cosmology consisting of six heavens and six hells where gods, demons, and animals lived. Demons lived in the lower heavens. Amongst the stars and the clouds lived the lesser gods. In highest heaven lived Kamui, the creator god, and his servants. His realm was surrounded by a mighty metal wall and the only entrance was through a great iron gate.
Kamui made this world as a vast round ocean resting on the backbone of an enormous trout. This fish sucks in the ocean and spits it out again to make the tides; when it moves it causes earthquakes.
One day Kamui looked down on the watery world and decided to make something of it. He sent down a water wagtail to do the work. By fluttering over the waters with its wings and by trampling the sand with its feet and beating it with its tail, the wagtail created patches of dry land. In this way islands were raised to float upon the ocean.
When the animals who lived up in the heavens saw how beautiful the world was, they begged Kamui to let them go and live on it, and he did. But Kamui also made many other creatures especially for the world. The first people, the Ainu, had bodies of earth, hair of chickweed, and spines made from sticks of willow. Kamui sent Aioina, the divine man, down from heaven to teach the Ainu how to hunt and to cook.”
CULTURAL CONTEXT AND PHILOSOPHY
Whatever retelling you look at when examining Ainu creation stories, there remain two important points I'd like to discuss:
The significance of animals as in seen in the water wagtail.
The idea that each island is a world within itself.
The wagtail, just as we saw in the little brave muskrat of Turtle Island, is the animal teacher; the non-human participant in the creation of the “worlds”. The Ainu recognize and honor animals such as the Kamui crows. To this day offerings are still made before meals of non-catholic families (a growing number of Ainu people are being heavily influenced by nearby Russia into adopting Orthodox Catholicism as their means of belief). Just as American Indigenous societies have upheld time honored subsistence practices (or at least try to), so have the Ainu. Which leads to my second point.
It is clear to see that the Ainu view islands as separate and equally complex worlds. While perhaps not possessing the s
ame terminology used by western environmentalists, they indirectly acknowledge the existence of a complex biodiversity through their lexical specialization. The cloud of five colors that the goddess rode to the mountain also speaks of the strong ties between the people and the ocean. Coming from a strong island past, it is doubtful that anyone would find this surprising, both Hokkaido and the Kuriel island chain is cold and rather bleak by our Washington state standards. But the Ainu people have existed and thrived within this “barren” context in thanks to the ocean that surrounds them and the grasses and reeds that grow near its salty shores. However, the Ainu culture is severally threatened by the prominent Japanese government.
Just as whale hunting turned into a controversial subject here in Was
hington state, so too did deer hunting become a taboo within Japanese society. Deer, which made up a large part of the native diet, are increasingly endangered on the islands of Japan. Though in reality this is due to the expansion and environment degradation of modern Japan, the government has blamed the diminished population of the Hokkaido Sika deer on native hunting. In 1999 the Ainu people were banned from hunting the Sika.
Aside from there ever shrinking territory and fishable waters (thanks in part to growing commercial endeavors by Russian and Japanese fishery companies) the Ainu have had to struggle against continuing efforts on the part of the National government to forcibly assimilate Ainu people and the mandation of the Japanese language in Ainu schools.
A QUICK AND EARNEST DISCLAIMER
I am not part o
f the Ainu society, so I wanted to take a moment to say that if I portrayed anything incorrectly or (I sincerely hope not) offend someone with my preceding post I offer my most sincere apologies. As a someone who has studied abroad in Japan, I have only great respect for my Japanese host family and - in extension - all the wonderful people I met and befriended throughout my stay.
As sources I used the following:
The article by S.C.H. Cheung Ainu Culture in Transition
The Ethnography by Carl Etter titled Ainu Folklore: Tradition and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan
Wikipedia was consulted for the simpler creation story sited and quoted in the post.
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