Speaking for Themselves
For the Ainu of Japan, long-denied cultural recognition
Anthropology began with inquisitive Westerners gawking at people whose civilizations they considered outlandish, and many natural history museums still treat the study of other cultures as an adventure into the exotic. Whether celebrated as "noble savages" or belittled as "backward primitives," the people whose lives are put on display often remain enigmatically mute. A landmark exhibition opening at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History this week aims to give a voice to one such society: the aboriginal Ainu of northern Japan.
The Ainu are believed to be descended from the Jomon culture, a Neolithic people of unknown origin who occupied much of the Japanese archipelago between 20,000 and 2,000 years ago. Toward the end of that time, ancestors of today's Japanese population moved in from the Asian mainland, gradually mixing the Jomon stock with their own gene pool. Driven steadily northward, the unassimilated people who would eventually call themselves "Ainu" (their word for humans) took refuge in the northern forests of Hokkaido and on the remote Kuril and Sakhalin islands.
With their large, hirsute bodies and pale Northern skin, the wavy-haired Ainu women and luxuriantly bearded Ainu men looked very different from the Japanese. The first Western anthropologists who encountered Ainu considered them to be Caucasian cousins of Europeans, a theory that has long since been discredited. Until forced resettlement and competition from Japanese and Russian fishermen drove them to the interior of Hokkaido in recent centuries, the maritime Ainu had been formidable hunters of whales, seals, swordfish, and sea lions.
History is written by the victors, and the Ainu had no written language even to record an alternative version of their slow defeat. Since most of their art and handicrafts have been made of wood and other perishable materials, there are few surviving archaeological artifacts to fill the cultural vacuum. Scholars trying to reconstruct a picture of Ainu society prior to the 19th century have had to turn to the pictures painted by the Japanese: For the previous 600 years, "Ainu-e," a genre of Japanese illustrations of Ainu life with detailed notes written in the margins, fed the public fascination with a people depicted as hairy, half-civilized curiosities. "Ainu-e represent the biases of their creators, but they're still a valuable source," says William Fitzhugh, director of the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies Center. "The challenge is to separate out the ethnographic realities from Japanese prejudices."
The treatment of the Ainu by mainstream Japanese society has close parallels with that of the original inhabitants of the United States. Both groups were removed from their ancestral lands by acts of government, both have faced overwhelming pressure to assimilate, and both suffer continuing ethnic discrimination. Chisato Dubreuil, co-curator of the exhibition, notes that Japanese children still taunt Ainu classmates by calling them "Inu"-- Japanese for dog. Dubreuil (herself of Ainu ancestry) and her husband, David, (an American Indian of Mohawk and Huron descent) say that this shared experience gives the Ainu show a special relevance in the United States.
Tourist attraction. Japanese legislation of 1899 sought to curb all expressions of Ainu identity, and with each decade more Ainu have lost touch with their heritage. Ainu culture had long been permeated by Japanese influences, with even holy rituals borrowing Japanese elements like rice, sake, and steel swords. After generations of intermarriage and "passing" for Japanese, about 25,000 Ainu are now listed in the census, and only a handful of these can still speak their ancestors' language.
During the late 19th century, hordes of Japanese and Western tourists visited Hokkaido to catch a glimpse of a people they thought were on the verge of extinction. Like American Indians who performed in Wild West shows in the same period, Ainu were put on display for the amusement of outsiders. Traveling exhibits objectifying the Ainu toured Europe and the United States--in the 1890s there was even a show at the Smithsonian.
The curators of the current Smithsonian exhibition attempt to be far more sensitive about how its subjects are portrayed, and they have consulted aboriginal authorities throughout the process. The Japanese government has changed its attitude too: A 1997 law gave official recognition to the Ainu language and culture for the first time. In an effort to present an exhibition of the Ainu rather than merely one about them, Dubreuil and Fitzhugh have included works of art by contemporary Ainu sculptors and painters. "We wanted to show that Ainu culture is still a vital, living force," says Dubreuil. Many modern works employ traditional geometric motifs and intricate repeating patterns that emphasize the ties to the past.
Sacrifice or thanks? Perhaps the most important expression of Ainu culture is the iyomante, or bear-sending ritual. Long prohibited by Japanese authorities and virtually extinguished for much of the 20th century, iyomante is a rite central to traditional Ainu spirituality. Everything in the physical world, Ainu believe, is inhabited by a divine spirit that must be treated with respect. Spirits dwell in each tree, stone, and river, but the deities who inhabit living creatures are entitled to particular reverence.
As a symbolic gesture of gratitude to the gods for leaving their sphere to fill the earth with life, the Ainu ceremonially slay animals such as an owl, a fox, or--on particularly momentous occasions--a bear, to send its spirit back to the realm of divinities. The Japanese Shinto faith similarly recognizes an infinity of deities permeating the physical world, but it seeks to propitiate these spirits with gifts rather than what its practitioners might consider animal sacrifice. For the Ainu, however, the iyomante (a life-size diorama of which is the centerpiece of the Smithsonian exhibition) is not a sacrifice at all: It is a grateful send-off to a divine guest in hopes of a welcome return.
Early ethnographic accounts used the bear-sending ritual to portray the Ainu as a strange, superstitious, and inscrutable people. By showing the iyomante and other expressions of culture from an Ainu point of view, Smithsonian curators hope to turn this portrayal inside out. After centuries of misrepresentation, the "exotic others" are speaking to museumgoers with their own voice.
This story appears in the May 3, 1999 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.