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2 Ainu ethnic origins

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Handbook of the Ainu Language
This chapter is in the book Handbook of the Ainu Language
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502859-003Juha A. Janhunen2 Ainu ethnic origins1 IntroductionIn the past, the Ainu have variously been characterized as a “unique”, “peculiar”, or even “queer” people (Fitzhugh 1999: 15), whose status has been regarded as an unsolved “problem” (Sternberg 1929; Kosarev 2009; Spevakovskii 2017) or “mystery” (Vovin 1993: 1). It is also common to view the Ainu as an exceptionally “ancient” people (Spevak-ovskii 1985), in any case “the most ancient people of Japan” (Arutiunov and Shhe-ben’kov 1992). While the Ainu are often classified as the “aborigines of Hokkaido”, it is also commonly claimed that they in the past “occupied the entire Japanese archipelago” (Spevakovskii 1985: 187). Many mutually contradictory attempts to clarify the “origins” of the Ainu have been made by linguists, ethnologists, anthropologists, and archaeolo-gists (see also Arutiunov 1999). Mixed with the requirements of political correctness of today’s world, these attempts give a basically mistaken signal, as they do not recognize the fact that ethnic groups are always short-lived entities that constantly evolve in time and place. Objectively speaking, the Ainu, as documented historically and still extant in rem-nants today, are no more “problematic” or “ancient” than any other “people”, that is, ethnic group. Like all ethnic groups, the Ainu involve a complex combination of phys-ical, cultural, and linguistic features, which, in exactly the combination that is known to us synchronically, has never existed before and will never exist in the future. There-fore, speaking of the “Ainu” in the past, or in the future, is inherently controversial and requires a definition of what it actually means that an individual or a community is identified as “Ainu”. It may be noted that in the contemporary Japanese society, being an “Ainu” implies mainly a specific, and in some respects marginalized social status, resulting from decades and centuries of discrimination at the periphery of the offi-cially monoethnic Japanese state (Howell 1999; see also Takakura 1960). This status has hardly been altered by the recent (2008) official “recognition” of the Ainu as the “indigenous people of Japan” (cf., e.g., Okada 2012; Stewart et al. 2014). Leaving the contemporary social aspects of Ainu identity aside, the present trea-tise will focus on the historical and prehistorical processes that formed the Ainu as an ethnic group. In this context, we may also speak of Ainu “ethnogenesis” (Hudson 1999: 206–244), meaning that the Ainu ethnic group was diachronically built out of a heterogeneous variety of elements of different origins. Only when these elements met in the composition of a concrete synchronically defined population with distinc-tive physical, cultural, and linguistic features of its own, can we say that the Ainu as an ethnic group had come into existence. However, although the Ainu as an ethnic group did not exist before the specific complex of features defining Ainu ethnicity was formed, many of the individual components of this complex have historical and
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502859-003Juha A. Janhunen2 Ainu ethnic origins1 IntroductionIn the past, the Ainu have variously been characterized as a “unique”, “peculiar”, or even “queer” people (Fitzhugh 1999: 15), whose status has been regarded as an unsolved “problem” (Sternberg 1929; Kosarev 2009; Spevakovskii 2017) or “mystery” (Vovin 1993: 1). It is also common to view the Ainu as an exceptionally “ancient” people (Spevak-ovskii 1985), in any case “the most ancient people of Japan” (Arutiunov and Shhe-ben’kov 1992). While the Ainu are often classified as the “aborigines of Hokkaido”, it is also commonly claimed that they in the past “occupied the entire Japanese archipelago” (Spevakovskii 1985: 187). Many mutually contradictory attempts to clarify the “origins” of the Ainu have been made by linguists, ethnologists, anthropologists, and archaeolo-gists (see also Arutiunov 1999). Mixed with the requirements of political correctness of today’s world, these attempts give a basically mistaken signal, as they do not recognize the fact that ethnic groups are always short-lived entities that constantly evolve in time and place. Objectively speaking, the Ainu, as documented historically and still extant in rem-nants today, are no more “problematic” or “ancient” than any other “people”, that is, ethnic group. Like all ethnic groups, the Ainu involve a complex combination of phys-ical, cultural, and linguistic features, which, in exactly the combination that is known to us synchronically, has never existed before and will never exist in the future. There-fore, speaking of the “Ainu” in the past, or in the future, is inherently controversial and requires a definition of what it actually means that an individual or a community is identified as “Ainu”. It may be noted that in the contemporary Japanese society, being an “Ainu” implies mainly a specific, and in some respects marginalized social status, resulting from decades and centuries of discrimination at the periphery of the offi-cially monoethnic Japanese state (Howell 1999; see also Takakura 1960). This status has hardly been altered by the recent (2008) official “recognition” of the Ainu as the “indigenous people of Japan” (cf., e.g., Okada 2012; Stewart et al. 2014). Leaving the contemporary social aspects of Ainu identity aside, the present trea-tise will focus on the historical and prehistorical processes that formed the Ainu as an ethnic group. In this context, we may also speak of Ainu “ethnogenesis” (Hudson 1999: 206–244), meaning that the Ainu ethnic group was diachronically built out of a heterogeneous variety of elements of different origins. Only when these elements met in the composition of a concrete synchronically defined population with distinc-tive physical, cultural, and linguistic features of its own, can we say that the Ainu as an ethnic group had come into existence. However, although the Ainu as an ethnic group did not exist before the specific complex of features defining Ainu ethnicity was formed, many of the individual components of this complex have historical and
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Introduction to the Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics VII
  4. Contents XXXIII
  5. Contributors XXXVII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I: Overview of Ainu studies
  8. 1 Ainu: A head-marking language of the Pacific Rim 21
  9. 2 Ainu ethnic origins 57
  10. 3 Major old documents of Ainu and some problems in the historical study of Ainu 79
  11. 4 Ainu language Western records 99
  12. 5 The Ainu language through time 147
  13. 6 Ainu elements in early Japonic 185
  14. 7 Language contact in the north 209
  15. 8 Hokkaido Ainu dialects: Towards a classification of Ainu dialects 253
  16. 9 Differences between Karafuto and Hokkaido Ainu dialects 329
  17. 10 Ainu oral literature 363
  18. 11 Meter in Ainu oral literature 393
  19. 12 The history and current status of the Ainu language revival movement 405
  20. Part II: Typologically interesting characteristics of the Ainu language
  21. 13 Phonetics and phonology 443
  22. 14 Parts of speech – with a focus on the classification of nouns 473
  23. 15 Verbal valency 515
  24. 16 Noun incorporation in Ainu 549
  25. 17 Verbal number 573
  26. 18 Aspect and evidentiality 613
  27. 19 Existential aspectual forms in the Saru and Chitose dialects of Ainu 629
  28. Part III: Appendices: Sample texts
  29. 20 An uwepeker “Retar Katak, Kunne Katak” and kamuy yukar “Amamecikappo” narrated in the Hokkaido Ainu dialect of Chitose by Ito Oda 657
  30. 21 “Meko Oyasi” a Sakhalin Ainu ucaskuma narrated by Haru Fujiyama 677
  31. Subject Index 695
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502859-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Introduction to the Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics VII
  4. Contents XXXIII
  5. Contributors XXXVII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I: Overview of Ainu studies
  8. 1 Ainu: A head-marking language of the Pacific Rim 21
  9. 2 Ainu ethnic origins 57
  10. 3 Major old documents of Ainu and some problems in the historical study of Ainu 79
  11. 4 Ainu language Western records 99
  12. 5 The Ainu language through time 147
  13. 6 Ainu elements in early Japonic 185
  14. 7 Language contact in the north 209
  15. 8 Hokkaido Ainu dialects: Towards a classification of Ainu dialects 253
  16. 9 Differences between Karafuto and Hokkaido Ainu dialects 329
  17. 10 Ainu oral literature 363
  18. 11 Meter in Ainu oral literature 393
  19. 12 The history and current status of the Ainu language revival movement 405
  20. Part II: Typologically interesting characteristics of the Ainu language
  21. 13 Phonetics and phonology 443
  22. 14 Parts of speech – with a focus on the classification of nouns 473
  23. 15 Verbal valency 515
  24. 16 Noun incorporation in Ainu 549
  25. 17 Verbal number 573
  26. 18 Aspect and evidentiality 613
  27. 19 Existential aspectual forms in the Saru and Chitose dialects of Ainu 629
  28. Part III: Appendices: Sample texts
  29. 20 An uwepeker “Retar Katak, Kunne Katak” and kamuy yukar “Amamecikappo” narrated in the Hokkaido Ainu dialect of Chitose by Ito Oda 657
  30. 21 “Meko Oyasi” a Sakhalin Ainu ucaskuma narrated by Haru Fujiyama 677
  31. Subject Index 695
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