The Ainu Cultural Sketch and Changes Essay

Culture Sketch

Ainu is an indigenous nation of Japan – they settled in the northern part of the Japanese archipelago about 15 thousand years ago. They established a traditional society that supported itself by fishing, gathering, and hunting. The Ainu culture was succinctly different from the Japanese one: they had their own rituals, language, and even some specific physical features (Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993). However, the unique Ainu language is currently extinct: the last person who spoke it died in the 20^th century.

The Ainu culture is deeply tied to religion and its associated rituals. There are specific practices and ceremonies that regulate the spiritual life of Ainu. For example, the bear ritual was one of the crucial ones, as it represented the rebirth of the bear’s soul so that Ainu could obtain meat and fur from it again.

Rituals and Ainu Language

For many centuries in Japan, there was an ideology of ethnic homogeneity, and the peculiarities of the national mentality played a big role in the perception of other cultures by the Japanese. Thus, in the middle of the 19^th century, during the Meiji reforms, the Japanese began to suppress traditional Ainu culture. Women were forbidden to make ritual tattoos and wear national clothes; men were forced to shave off their beards. The ban affected both the rituals and the Ainu language, becoming a serious threat to the survival of their culture. Due to it, some representatives of the nation even moved to the furthest northern part of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, where they remain today.

Cultural Survival

With the forced introduction of Japanese culture, the gradual extinction of the culture of the Ainu began, ending with the complete disappearance of some unique traits and rituals. Constant discrimination, lack of representation, and oppression eventually drove the Ainu language and the culture extinct (Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993). For a long time, the Ainu were forcibly assimilated by the Japanese, their consciousness was suppressed, and thus, their culture fell into degradation and did not have the opportunity to develop. Moreover, despite the Ainu’s attempts to preserve their language, it also disappeared with time. This severely affected the quality of life of this minority and had lasting consequences up to today.

Reference

Ohnuki-Tierney, E. (1993). Ainu. In P. Hockings (Ed.), Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume V, East and Southeast Asia (pp. 7–10). essay, G.K. Hall & Company, New York.