Ainu - the indigenous inhabitants of the Japanese islands photo. The mystery of the Ainu, the aborigines of Japan Ainu white race

When, in the 17th century, Russian explorers reached the “farthest east,” where, as they thought, the firmament of the earth connected with the firmament of heaven, but they found a boundless sea and numerous islands, they were amazed at the appearance of the natives they met. Before them appeared people overgrown with thick beards, with wide eyes like those of Europeans, with large, protruding noses, looking like men from southern Russia, like residents of the Caucasus, like overseas guests from Persia or India, like gypsies - like anyone but to the Mongoloids, whom the Cossacks saw everywhere beyond the Urals.

First of all: where did a tribe come from in a continuous Mongoloid massif that is anthropologically, roughly speaking, inappropriate here? Nowadays the Ainu live on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and in the past they inhabited a very wide territory - the Japanese Islands, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the south of Kamchatka and, according to some data, the Amur region and even Primorye up to Korea. Many researchers were convinced that the Ainu were Caucasians. Others argued that the Ainu are related to the Polynesians, Papuans, Melanesians, Australians, Indians...

The ancient Ainu or their ancestors created amazingly beautiful ceramics, mysterious dogu figurines, and in addition, it turned out that they were perhaps the earliest farmers in the Far East, if not in the world. It is not clear why they completely abandoned both pottery and agriculture, becoming fishermen and hunters, essentially taking a step back into cultural development. The Ainu legends tell of fabulous treasures, fortresses and castles, but the Japanese and then the Europeans found this tribe living in huts and dugouts. The Ainu have bizarre and contradictory intertwined features of northern and southern residents, elements of high and primitive cultures. With their entire existence, they seem to deny conventional ideas and customary patterns of cultural development.

In the 1st millennium BC. e. Migrants began to invade the lands of the Ainu, who were later destined to become the basis of the Japanese nation. For many centuries, the Ainu fiercely resisted the onslaught, and sometimes quite successfully. Around the 7th century. n. e. for several centuries a boundary was established between the two peoples. There were not only military battles on this border line. There was trade and intense cultural exchange. It happened that the noble Ainu influenced the policies of the Japanese feudal lords. The culture of the Japanese was significantly enriched at the expense of their northern enemy. Even the traditional religion of the Japanese, Shinto, shows obvious Ainu roots; of Ainu origin, the hara-kiri ritual and the Bushido complex of military valor. Japanese ritual Gohei's sacrifice has clear parallels with the installation of inau sticks by the Ainu... The list of borrowings can be continued for a long time.

During the Middle Ages, the Japanese increasingly pushed the Ainu to the north of Honshu, and from there to Hokkaido. In all likelihood, some of the Ainu moved to Sakhalin and the Kuril ridge long before that... unless the resettlement process went in a diametrically opposite direction. Now only an insignificant fragment remains of this people. Modern Ainu live in the southeast of Hokkaido, along the coast, as well as in the valley of the large Ishikari River. They were subjected to strong ethnoracial and cultural assimilation, and even more more degree– cultural, although they are still trying to preserve their identity.

Although today, due to centuries-old mixing and a large number of interethnic marriages, it is difficult to meet “pure” Ainu, Caucasian features are noticeable in their appearance: a typical Ainu has an elongated skull shape, an asthenic physique, a thick beard (facial hair is not typical for Mongoloids) and thick, wavy hair. hair. Ainu speak special language, not related to Japanese or any other Asian language. Among the Japanese, the Ainu are so famous for their hairiness that they have earned the contemptuous nickname "Hairy Ainu". Only one race on Earth is characterized by such significant hair - the Caucasian.

During the reign of Yamato, around 500 BC, Japan expanded its territory eastward, and as a result, the Ainu were partly pushed north and partly assimilated. During the Meiji period - 1868-1912. - they received the status of former aborigines, but, nevertheless, continued to be discriminated against. The first mention of the Ainu in Japanese chronicles dates back to 642; information about them appeared in Europe in 1586.

American anthropologist S. Lorin Brace, from Michigan State University in the journal Science Horizons, No. 65, September-October 1989. writes: “the typical Ainu is easily distinguished from the Japanese: he has lighter skin, denser body hair and a more prominent nose.”

Brace studied about 1,100 crypts of the Japanese, Ainu and other Asians ethnic groups and came to the conclusion that representatives of the privileged samurai class in Japan are in fact descendants of the Ainu, and not the Yayoi (Mongoloids), the ancestors of most modern Japanese. Brace further writes: “.. this explains why the facial features of representatives of the ruling class are so often different from modern Japanese. The samurai, descendants of the Ainu, gained such influence and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with the ruling circles and introduced Ainu blood into them, while the rest of the Japanese population were mainly descendants of the Yayoi."

So, despite the fact that information about the origin of the Ainu is lost, their external data indicate some kind of white advancement that reached the very edge Far East, then mixed with the local population, which led to the formation of the ruling class of Japan, but at the same time, a separate group of descendants of white aliens - the Ainu - are still discriminated against as a national minority.

The Japanese captured the "Japanese" islands, destroying the native inhabitants

Everyone knows that Americans are not the indigenous population of the United States, just like the current population South America. Did you know that the Japanese are also not the indigenous population of Japan? Who then lived on these islands before them?...

Before them, the Ainu lived here, mysterious people, the origin of which still has many mysteries. The Ainu lived next to the Japanese for some time, until the latter managed to push them north. The fact that the Ainu are the ancient masters of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names of geographical objects whose origin is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - great mountain Fuji - has in its name the Ainu word “fuji”, which means “deity of the hearth”. According to scientists, the Ainu settled the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu did not engage in agriculture; they obtained food by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements, quite distant from each other. Therefore, their habitat was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka.

Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them the rice crop, which allowed them to feed a large population in a relatively small area. Thus began difficult times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move to the north, leaving their ancestral lands to the colonialists.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, fluent with bows and swords, and the Japanese were unable to defeat them for a long time. A very long time, almost 1500 years. The Ainu knew how to wield two swords, and on their right hip they carried two daggers. One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri.

The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, by which time they had learned a lot from them in terms of military art. The samurai code of honor, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists are still arguing about the origin of the Ainu.

But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race lack. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the aborigines Pacific Ocean because they have similar facial features. But genetic studies ruled out this option as well.

And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on the island of Sakhalin even mistook the Ainu for Russians, they were so unlike the Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people from all the analyzed variants with whom they have a genetic relationship were the people of the Jomon era, who presumably were the ancestors of the Ainu. The Ainu language is also very different from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and a suitable place has not yet been found for it. It turns out that during their long isolation the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even distinguish them into a special Ainu race.

Ainu in Russia

The Kamchatka Ainu first came into contact with Russian merchants at the end of the 17th century. Relations with the Amur and North Kuril Ainu were established in the 18th century. The Ainu considered the Russians, who were racially different from their Japanese enemies, as friends, and by the middle of the 18th century, more than one and a half thousand Ainu accepted Russian citizenship. Even the Japanese could not distinguish the Ainu from the Russians because of their external similarity (white skin and Australoid facial features, which are similar to Caucasoid ones in a number of ways). Compiled under the Russian Empress Catherine II, the “Spatial Land Description of the Russian State” included not only all the Kuril Islands, but also the island of Hokkaido into the Russian Empire.

The reason is that ethnic Japanese did not even populate it at that time. Indigenous people- Ainu - following the expedition of Antipin and Shabalin, they were recorded as Russian citizens.

The Ainu fought with the Japanese not only in the south of Hokkaido, but also in the northern part of the island of Honshu. The Cossacks themselves explored and taxed the Kuril Islands back in the 17th century. So, Russia can demand Hokkaido from the Japanese.

The fact of Russian citizenship of the inhabitants of Hokkaido was noted in a letter from Alexander I to the Japanese Emperor in 1803. Moreover, this did not cause any objections from the Japanese side, much less official protest. To Tokyo, Hokkaido was a foreign territory like Korea. When the first Japanese arrived on the island in 1786, they were met by Ainu bearing Russian names and surnames. And what’s more, they are true Christians! Japan's first claims to Sakhalin date back to 1845. Then Emperor Nicholas I immediately gave a diplomatic rebuff. Only the weakening of Russia in subsequent decades led to the occupation of the southern part of Sakhalin by the Japanese.

It is interesting that in 1925 the Bolsheviks condemned the previous government, which gave Russian lands to Japan.

So in 1945, historical justice was only restored. The army and navy of the USSR resolved the Russian-Japanese territorial issue by force. Khrushchev signed the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan in 1956, Article 9 of which stated:

“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, meeting the wishes of Japan and taking into account the interests of the Japanese state, agrees to the transfer to Japan of the islands of Habomai and the island of Shikotan, however, that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will be made after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan” .

Khrushchev's goal was the demilitarization of Japan. He was willing to sacrifice a couple of small islands in order to remove American military bases from the Soviet Far East. Now, obviously, we are no longer talking about demilitarization. Washington clung to its “unsinkable aircraft carrier” with a death grip. Moreover, Tokyo’s dependence on the United States even intensified after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Well, if this is so, then the gratuitous transfer of the islands as a “gesture of goodwill” loses its attractiveness. It is reasonable not to follow Khrushchev’s declaration, but to put forward symmetrical claims based on known historical facts. Shaking ancient scrolls and manuscripts, which is normal practice in such matters.

An insistence on giving up Hokkaido would be a cold shower for Tokyo. It would be necessary to argue at the negotiations not about Sakhalin or even about the Kuril Islands, but about our own territory at the moment. I would have to defend myself, make excuses, prove my right. Russia would thus go from diplomatic defense to offensive. Moreover, China’s military activity, nuclear ambitions and readiness for military action by the DPRK and other security problems in the Asia-Pacific region will give another reason for Japan to sign a peace treaty with Russia.

But let's go back to the Ainu

When the Japanese first came into contact with the Russians, they called them the Red Ainu (Ainu with blond hair). Only in early XIX century, the Japanese realized that Russians and Ainu are two different peoples. However, to the Russians the Ainu were "hairy", "swarthy", "dark-eyed" and "dark-haired". The first Russian researchers described the Ainu as looking like Russian peasants with dark skin or more like gypsies.

The Ainu sided with the Russians during the Russo-Japanese Wars of the 19th century. However, after defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were killed and their families were forcibly transported to Hokkaido by the Japanese. As a result, the Russians failed to recapture the Ainu during World War II. Only a few Ainu representatives decided to stay in Russia after the war. More than 90% went to Japan.

Under the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875, the Kuril Islands were ceded to Japan, along with the Ainu living there. 83 Northern Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on September 18, 1877, deciding to remain under Russian control. They refused to move to reservations on the Commander Islands, as they were offered Russian government. After which, from March 1881, for four months they traveled on foot to the village of Yavino, where they later settled.

Later the village of Golygino was founded. Another 9 Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. The 1897 census indicates a population of 57 in Golygino (all Ainu) and 39 in Yavino (33 Ainu and 6 Russians). Soviet power both villages were destroyed, and the residents were resettled to Zaporozhye, Ust-Bolsheretsky district. As a result, three ethnic groups assimilated with the Kamchadals.

The Northern Kuril Ainu are currently the largest Ainu subgroup in Russia. The Nakamura family (South Kuril on the paternal side) is the smallest and has only 6 people living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are a few on Sakhalin who identify themselves as Ainu, but many more Ainu do not recognize themselves as such.

Most of the 888 Japanese living in Russia (2010 census) are of Ainu origin, although they do not recognize it (pure-blooded Japanese are allowed to enter Japan without a visa). The situation is similar with the Amur Ainu living in Khabarovsk. And it is believed that none of the Kamchatka Ainu are left alive.

Epilogue

In 1979, the USSR deleted the ethnonym “Ainu” from the list of “living” ethnic groups in Russia, thereby declaring that this people had become extinct on the territory of the USSR. Judging by the 2002 census, no one entered the ethnonym “Ainu” in fields 7 or 9.2 of the K-1 census form. There is information that the most direct genetic connections In the male line, the Ainu have, oddly enough, with the Tibetans - half of them are carriers of the close haplogroup D1 (the D2 group itself is practically never found outside the Japanese archipelago) and the Miao-Yao peoples in southern China and Indochina.

As for female (Mt-DNA) haplogroups, the Ainu group is dominated by group U, which is also found among other peoples of East Asia, but in small numbers. During the 2010 census, about 100 people tried to register themselves as Ainu, but the government of the Kamchatka Territory rejected their claims and recorded them as Kamchadals.

In 2011, the head of the Ainu community of Kamchatka, Alexey Vladimirovich Nakamura, sent a letter to the Governor of Kamchatka Vladimir Ilyukhin and the Chairman of the local Duma Boris Nevzorov with a request to include the Ainu in the List of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation. The request was also rejected. Alexey Nakamura reports that in 2012 there were 205 Ainu registered in Russia (compared to 12 people registered in 2008), and they, like the Kuril Kamchadals, are fighting for official recognition. The Ainu language became extinct many decades ago.

In 1979, only three people on Sakhalin could speak Ainu fluently, and the language became completely extinct there by the 1980s. Although Keizo Nakamura spoke Sakhalin-Ainu fluently and even translated several documents into Russian for the NKVD, he did not pass on the language to his son. Take Asai, the last person who knew the Sakhalin Ainu language, died in Japan in 1994.

Until the Ainu are recognized, they are noted as people without nationality, like ethnic Russians or Kamchadals. Therefore, in 2016, both the Kuril Ainu and the Kuril Kamchadals were deprived of the rights to hunting and fishing, which the small peoples of the Far North have.

“...Embracing each other, the Heavenly Serpent and the Sun Goddess merged into the First Lightning. Rumbling joyfully, they descended to the First Earth, causing the top and bottom to appear by themselves. Snakes created the world, and with it Ayoinu, who created people, gave them crafts and the ability to survive. Later, when Ioina's children settled in large numbers around the world, one of them - the king of the country Pan - wished to marry his own daughter. There was no one around who would not be afraid to go against the will of the ruler. In despair, the princess ran away with her beloved dog across the Great Sea. There, on a distant shore, her children were born. From them came the people who call themselves Ainu, which means “Real people.”

Ainu- the oldest population of the Japanese islands. The Ainu called themselves by various tribal names - “Soya-untara”, “Chuvka-untara”, and the very name “Ainu” or “Ainu”, which they used to call them, is not at all the self-name of this people, it only means “man” , "real man". The Japanese called the Ainu the word "emishi" or "ebisu", which in Ainu means "sword", or "people of the sword".

The Ainu also lived on the territory of Russia - in the lower reaches of the Amur, in the south of Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

But at present, the Ainu remain mainly only in Japan, and according to official data, their number in Japan is 25,000, but according to unofficial statistics, it can reach 200,000 people.

In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94-in the Kamchatka region.

Origin

The origin of the Ainu remains unclear. Europeans, who encountered the Ainu only in the 17th century, were amazed by their appearance- unlike the usual people of the Mongoloid race, with an epicanthus (“Mongolian” eyelid fold), sparse facial hair, the Ainu had a European facial phenotype, and, moreover, unusually thick and long hair on their heads, and wore huge beards (often reaching the waist) and a mustache (while eating, they had to be held with special chopsticks). Despite living in a fairly temperate climate, in the summer the Ainu wore only loincloths, like the inhabitants of equatorial countries.

Currently, among anthropologists and ethnographers there are many hypotheses about the origin of the Ainu, which can generally be divided into three groups:

• The Ainu are related to the Indo-Europeans (Caucasian race), according to the theory of J. Batchelor and S. Murayama.
• The Ainu are related to the Austronesians and came to the Japanese Islands from the south - this theory was put forward by the Soviet ethnographer L. Ya. Sternberg and it was this theory that dominated Soviet ethnography.
• The Ainu are related to Paleo-Asian peoples and came to the Japanese Islands from the north of Siberia, this is the point of view of most Japanese anthropologists.

Japanese colonists rapidly settled the island of Hokkaido, where the Ainu mostly lived, and in 1903 the population of Hokkaido consisted of 845 thousand Japanese and only 18 thousand Ainu.

Thus began the period of the most brutal Japaneseization of the Ainu of Hokkaido.

It should be noted that on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, where there were Russians, the Ainu were very drawn to them - many Ainu spoke Russian and were Orthodox.

The Russian colonial order, despite many abuses by yasak collectors and armed conflicts provoked by the Cossacks, was much softer than the Japanese. In addition, the Ainu lived in their traditional environment, they were not forced to radically change their way of life, and were not reduced to the status of slaves. They lived in the same place where they lived before the arrival of the Russians and were engaged in traditional hunting and sea fishing.

However, in 1875, all of Sakhalin was assigned to Russia, and all of the Kuril Islands were transferred to Japan.

An ethnic catastrophe occurred - the Japanese transported all the Ainu from the Northern Kuril Islands to the island of Shikotan, took away all their fishing gear and boats and forbade them to go to sea without permission. Instead of traditional hunting and fishing, the Ainu were involved in various hard jobs, for which they received rice, vegetables, some fish and sake, which absolutely did not correspond to their traditional diet, which consisted of meat from sea animals and fish. In addition, the Kuril Ainu found themselves in unnaturally crowded conditions on Shikotan. The consequences of the ethnocide were not long in coming - many Ainu died in the first year.

The terrible fate of the Kuril Ainu very soon became known to the Japanese and foreign public and the reservation was liquidated, and the surviving Ainu, only 20 people, sick and impoverished, were taken to Hokkaido. Back in the 70s of the twentieth century, there was information about 17 Kuril Ainu, however, how many of them came from Shikotan is still unclear.

The Russian administration of Sakhalin dealt mainly with the northern part of the island, leaving the southern part to the tyranny of Japanese industrialists, who, realizing that their stay on the island would be short-lived, sought to exploit its natural resources as intensively as possible and cruelly exploited the Ainu.

And then Russo-Japanese War, when southern Sakhalin turned into the governorate of Karafuto and began to be intensively populated by the Japanese, the newcomer population many times exceeded the Ainu.

In 1914, the Japanese authorities gathered all the Ainu of Karafuto in ten settlements, limited their movement around the island, and fought in every possible way against traditional culture, traditional Ainu beliefs, and tried to force the Ainu to live the Japanese way.

And in 1933, all the Ainu were “converted” to Japanese subjects, assigned Japanese surnames, and the younger generation subsequently received Japanese names.

After Soviet-Japanese war 1945 and the surrender of Japan, the majority of the Ainu of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, together with the Japanese, were evicted (and some also voluntarily emigrated) to Japan.

On February 7, 1953, the authorized representative of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the protection of military and state secrets in the press, K. Omelchenko, in a secret order, indicated to the heads of departments of the Glavlit of the USSR (censors): “it is prohibited to publish in open press any information about the Ainu people in the USSR.” This ban lasted until the early 1970s, when publication of Ainu folklore resumed.

Modern Ainu, although recognized on June 6, 2008 by the Japanese Diet an independent national minority, completely assimilated and practically no different from the Japanese, often much fewer Japanese anthropologists know about their culture, and they do not strive to support it, which is explained by the long-term discrimination of the Ainu by the Japanese.

Currently, Ainu culture in Japan is completely put at the service of tourism and, in fact, is a kind of theater; both the Japanese and the Ainu themselves cultivate “exoticism” only for the needs of tourists.

A.A. Kazdym
Academician of the International Academy of Sciences
Academician of the International Academy of Sciences
Ecology and Life Safety, member of MOIP

"The Ainu people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, polite,
sociable, respectful of property, brave when hunting.
Belief in friendship and generosity, selflessness, frankness are their usual qualities.
They are truthful and do not tolerate deception."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

“I consider the Ainu to be the best of all the peoples that I know.”
Russian navigator Ivan Fedorovich Krusenstern

Hokaido and all the Northern Islands belong to the Ainu, as the navigator Kolobov wrote in 1646, the first Russian to visit there.

The indigenous population of Japan were the Ainu, who appeared on the islands about 13 thousand years ago.

In the IV-I centuries BC. Migrants began to invade the lands of the Ainu - tribes that at that time poured from the Korean Peninsula to the east, which were later destined to become the basis of the Japanese nation.

For many centuries, the Ainu fiercely resisted the onslaught and, at times, quite successfully. Around the 7th century. AD for several centuries a boundary was established between the two peoples. There were not only military battles on this border line. There was trade and intense cultural exchange. It happened that the noble Ainu influenced the policies of the Japanese feudal lords...

The culture of the Japanese was significantly enriched at the expense of their northern enemy. The traditional religion of the Japanese - Shintoism - shows obvious Ainu roots; of Ainu origin, the hara-kiri ritual and the “Bushido” complex of military valor. Representatives of the privileged class of samurai in Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu (and everywhere we are shown samurai exclusively of the Mongoloid type.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the swastika is most widespread in Japanese heraldry. Her image is the mon (coat of arms) of many samurai families - Tsugaru, Hachisuka, Hasekura and others.

At the same time, the Ainu suffered a terrible fate. Beginning in the 17th century, they were subjected to merciless genocide and forced assimilation, and soon became a minority in Japan. There are currently only 30,000 Ainu in the world.

“...The conquest of huge Honshu progressed slowly. Even at the beginning of the 8th century AD, the Ainu held its entire northern part. Military happiness passed from hand to hand. And then the Japanese began to bribe the Ainu leaders, reward them with court titles, resettle entire Ainu villages from the occupied territories to the south, and create their own settlements in the vacated areas. Moreover, seeing that the army was unable to hold the captured lands, the Japanese rulers decided to take a very risky step: they armed the settlers who were leaving to the north. This was the beginning of the serving nobility of Japan - the samurai, who turned the tide of the war and had a huge impact on the history of their country. However, the 18th century still finds small villages of incompletely assimilated Ainu in the north of Honshu. Most of the indigenous islanders partly died, and partly managed to cross the Sangar Strait even earlier to their fellow tribesmen in Hokkaido - the second largest, northernmost and most sparsely populated island of modern Japan.

Until the end of the 18th century, Hokkaido (at that time it was called Ezo, or Ezo, that is, “wild,” “land of barbarians”) was not of much interest to the Japanese rulers. Written in the early 18th century, Dainniponshi (History of Greater Japan), consisting of 397 volumes, mentions Ezo in the section on foreign countries. Although already in the middle of the 15th century, the daimyo (large feudal lord) Takeda Nobuhiro decided at his own risk to oust the Ainu of southern Hokkaido and built the first permanent Japanese settlement there. Since then, foreigners have sometimes called Ezo Island differently: Matmai (Mats-mai) after the name of the Matsumae clan founded by Nobuhiro.

New lands had to be taken with battle. The Ainu put up stubborn resistance. People's memory has preserved the names of the most courageous defenders native land. One of these heroes is Shakusyain, who led the Ainu uprising in August 1669. The old leader led several Ainu tribes. In one night, 30 merchant ships arriving from Honshu were captured, then the fortress on the Kun-nui-gawa river fell. Supporters of the Matsumae house barely had time to hide in the fortified town. A little more and...

But the reinforcements sent by the besieged arrived in time. Former owners the islands retreated beyond Kun-nui-gawa. The decisive battle began at 6 o'clock in the morning. The Japanese warriors clad in armor looked with a grin at the crowd of hunters untrained in regular formation running to attack. Once upon a time, these screaming bearded men in armor and hats made of wooden plates were a formidable force. And now who will be afraid of the shine of the tips of their spears? The cannons responded to the falling arrows...

The surviving Ainu fled to the mountains. The contractions continued for another month. Deciding to rush things, the Japanese lured Shakusyain along with other Ainu military leaders into negotiations and killed them. Resistance was broken. From free people who lived according to their own customs and laws, all of them, young and old, turned into forced laborers of the Matsumae clan. The relations established at that time between the victors and the vanquished are described in the diary of the traveler Yokoi:

“...Translators and overseers committed many bad and vile deeds: they cruelly treated the elderly and children, raped women.

Therefore, many Ainu fled to their fellow tribesmen on Sakhalin, the southern and northern Kuril Islands. There they felt relatively safe - after all, there were no Japanese here yet. We find indirect confirmation of this in the first description of the Kuril ridge known to historians. The author of this document is Cossack Ivan Kozyrevsky. He visited the north of the ridge in 1711 and 1713 and asked its inhabitants about the entire chain of islands, right up to Matmaya (Hokkaido). The Russians first landed on this island in 1739. The Ainu who lived there told the expedition leader, Martyn Shpanberg, that on the Kuril Islands “... there are a lot of people, and those islands are not subject to anyone.”

In 1777, Irkutsk merchant Dmitry Shebalin was able to bring one and a half thousand Ainu into Russian citizenship in Iturup, Kunashir and even Hokkaido. The Ainu received from the Russians strong fishing gear, iron, cows, and over time, rent for the right to hunt near their shores.

Despite the arbitrariness of some merchants and Cossacks, the Ainu (including the Ezo) sought protection from Russia from the Japanese. Perhaps the bearded, big-eyed Ainu saw in the people who came to them natural allies, who were so sharply different from the Mongoloid tribes and peoples who lived around them. After all, the external similarity between our explorers and the Ainu was simply amazing. It even deceived the Japanese. In their first messages, Russians are referred to as “red-haired Ainu” ... "

On April 30, 1779, Catherine II issued a decree “On the non-collection of any taxes from the Ainu brought into citizenship,” which stated: “Do not demand any tax from them, and in the future do not force the peoples living there, but try to be friendly and kind to for the expected benefit in trade and trade to continue the acquaintance already established with them.”

In 1785, the Japanese reached the northern Ainu islands and began to exterminate them. Residents were prohibited from trading with Russians and crosses and other signs indicating that the islands belonged to Russia were destroyed.

Here the Ainu were actually in the position of slaves. In the Japanese system of “correction of morals,” the complete lack of rights of the Ainu was combined with the constant humiliation of their ethnic dignity. Petty, absurd regulation of life was aimed at paralyzing the will of the Ainu. Many young Ainu were removed from their traditional environment and sent by the Japanese to various jobs, for example, Ainu from the central regions of Hokkaido were sent to work in the sea fisheries of Kunashir and Iturup (which at that time were also colonized by the Japanese), where they lived in conditions of unnatural crowding, not being able to maintain a traditional way of life.

The Ainam were subjected to real genocide. All this led to new armed uprisings: the uprising in Kunashir in 1789. The course of events was as follows: the Japanese industrialist Hidaya is trying to open his trading posts in the then independent Ainu Kunashir, the leader of Kunashir, Tukinoe, does not allow him to do this, seizes all the goods brought by the Japanese, and sends the Japanese back to Matsumae, in response to this the Japanese declare economic sanctions against Kunashir, and after 8 years of blockade Tukinoe allows Hidaya to open several trading posts on the island, the population immediately falls into bondage to the Japanese, after some time the Ainu, led by Tukinoe and Ikitoi, rebel against the Japanese and very quickly gain the upper hand, but several Japanese escape, get to the capital of Matsumae and the Matsumae clan sends troops to suppress the rebellion.

In 1807, a Russian expedition moved to Iturup. “Duty called us,” wrote Captain Khvostov, “to free the islanders [Ainu] from the tyranny of the Japanese.” The Japanese garrison on Iturup, seeing the Russian ships, fled deep into the island. The Ain were announced “the expulsion of the Japanese, since Iturup belongs to Russia.”

In 1845, Japan unilaterally declared sovereignty over all of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. This caused a negative reaction from Nicholas I. However, which began in 1853 Crimean War forced Russian Empire meet Japan halfway.

On February 7, 1855, Japan and Russia signed the first Russian-Japanese treaty - the Shimoda Treaty on Trade and Borders. The document established the border of the countries between the islands of Iturup and Urup.

The Kuril Ainu gravitated more towards the Russians than towards the Japanese: many of them spoke Russian and were Orthodox. The reason for this state of affairs was that the Russian colonial order, despite many abuses by yasak collectors and armed conflicts provoked by the Cossacks, was much softer than the Japanese. The Ainu were not torn out of their traditional environment, they were not forced to radically change their way of life, and they were not reduced to the status of slaves. They lived in the same place where they lived before the arrival of the Russians and were engaged in the same activities.

However, the north Kuril Ainu they did not dare to part with their homeland and go to the Russians. And then they suffered the most difficult fate: the Japanese transported all the Northern Kuril Ainu to the island of Shikotan, took away all their fishing gear and boats, and forbade them to go to sea without permission; Instead, the Ainu were recruited for various jobs, for which they received rice, vegetables, some fish and sake, which was absolutely not consistent with the traditional diet of the Northern Kuril Ainu, which consisted of meat from sea animals and fish. In addition, the Kuril Ainu found themselves on Shikotan in conditions of unnatural crowding, while a characteristic ethno-ecological feature of the Kuril Ainu was settlement in small groups, with many islands remaining completely uninhabited and used by the Ainu as hunting grounds of a gentle regime. It should also be taken into account that many Japanese lived on Shikotan.

Many Ainu died in the first year. The destruction of the traditional way of life of the Kuril Ainu led to the fact that most of the inhabitants of the reservation died. However, the terrible fate of the Kuril Ainu very soon became known to the Japanese and foreign public. The reservation was liquidated. The surviving handful - no more than 20 people, sick and impoverished - were taken to Hokkaido. In the 70s, there was information about 17 Kuril Ainu, however, how many of them came from Shikotan is unclear.

Ainu(Ainu) - a mysterious tribe, because of which scientists different countries a great many copies have been broken. They are white-faced and straight-eyed (men are also very hairy) and in their appearance they are strikingly different from other peoples of East Asia. They are clearly not Mongoloids, rather they gravitate towards the anthropological type South-East Asia and Oceania.

Ainu in traditional costumes. 1904

Hunters and fishermen, who for centuries knew almost no agriculture, the Ainu nevertheless created an unusual and rich culture. Their ornamentation, carving and wood sculpture amazing in beauty and invention; their songs, dances and stories are beautiful, like any genuine creations of the people.

Each nation has a unique history and distinctive culture. Science more or less knows the stages historical development of one or another ethnic group. But there are peoples in the world whose origin remains a mystery. And today they continue to excite the minds of ethnographers. These ethnic groups primarily include the Ainu - the aborigines of the Far Eastern region.

They were an interesting, beautiful and naturally healthy people who settled on the Japanese Islands, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. They called themselves by various tribal names - “soya-untara”, “Chuvka-untara”. The word “Ainu”, which they are used to calling them, is not the self-name of this people. It means "man". These aborigines are identified by scientists as a separate Ainu race, combining Caucasoid, Australoid and Mongoloid features in their appearance.

The historical problem that arises with the Ainu is the question of their racial and cultural origins. Traces of the existence of this people were found even in Neolithic sites on the Japanese Islands. The Ainu are the oldest ethnic community. Their ancestors are carriers of the Jomon culture (literally “rope ornament”), which dates back almost 13 thousand years (on the Kuril Islands - 8 thousand years).

The beginning of the scientific study of Jomon sites was laid by the German archaeologists F. and G. Siebold and the American Morse. The results they obtained varied significantly. If the Siebolds asserted with all responsibility that the Jomon culture was the creation of the hands of the ancient Ainu, then Morse was more careful. He disagreed with the point of view of his German colleagues, but at the same time emphasized that the Jomon period was significantly different from the Japanese.

But what about the Japanese themselves, who called the Ainu with the word “ebi-su”? Most of them did not agree with the archaeologists' conclusions. For them, the aborigines were always just barbarians, as evidenced, for example, by the recording of a Japanese chronicler made in 712: “When our exalted ancestors descended from the sky on a ship, on this island (Honshu) they found several wild peoples, among them the most savage were the Ainu.”

But as archaeological excavations testify, the ancestors of these “savages”, long before the Japanese appeared on the islands, created an entire culture there that any nation can be proud of! That is why official Japanese historiography has made attempts to correlate the creators of Jomon culture with the ancestors of modern Japanese, but not with the Ainu.

Yet most scholars agree that the Ainu culture was so vital that it influenced the culture of its enslavers, the Japanese. As Professor S.A. Arutyunov points out, Ainu elements played a significant role in the formation of samuraiism and ancient Japanese religion- Shintoism.

So, for example, the Ainu warrior - Dzhangin - had two short swords, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and fought with them, not recognizing shields. In addition to swords, the Ainu carried two long knives (“cheyki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”). The first was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the ritual "pere" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling it hara-kiri, or seppuku (as, by the way, is the cult of the sword, special shelves for swords, spears , onion).

Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: “A long time ago, after this country was created by God, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ain man. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather was ordered to make money.” It further explains why the Ainu had a cult of swords, and the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for money-grubbing.

The Ainu did not wear helmets. By nature, they had long thick hair, which was matted together, forming something like a natural helmet. Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is believed that the proto-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. In fact, the Ainu fought not only with the Japanese.

Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the “Tonzi” - a short people, truly the indigenous population of Sakhalin. It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of open battle with the Ainu, conquered and ousted them by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one “emishi” (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could create fog.

Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of Japan (then it was called Ainumoshiri - land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese. They came to the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin already in the 13th-14th centuries. Traces of their presence were also found in Kamchatka, Primorye and Khabarovsk Territory.

Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin region have Ainu names: Sakhalin (from “Sakharen Mosiri” - “wave-shaped land”); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the endings “shir” and “kotan” mean “plot of land” and “settlement”, respectively). It took the Japanese more than two thousand years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including Hokkaido (then called Ezo) (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC).

There are enough facts about the cultural history of the Ainu, and it would seem possible with high degree accurately calculate their origin.

Firstly, it can be assumed that in ancient times, the entire northern half of the main Japanese island of Honshu was inhabited by tribes that were either the direct ancestors of the Ainu or were very close to them in their material culture. Secondly, two elements are known that formed the basis of the Ainu ornament - a spiral and a zigzag.

Thirdly, there is no doubt that the starting point of the Ainu beliefs was primitive animism, that is, the recognition of the existence of a soul in any creature or object. And finally, quite well studied public organization Ainu and the method of their production.

But it turns out that the factual method does not always pay off. For example, it has been proven that the spiral ornament was never the property of the Ainu alone. It was widely used in the art of New Zealand's Maori people, decorative designs Papuans of New Guinea, among the Neolithic tribes who lived in the lower reaches of the Amur.

What is this - a random coincidence or traces of the existence of certain contacts between the tribes of East and Southeast Asia at some distant period? But who was the first and who adopted the discovery? It is also known that the worship of the bear and its cult were widespread over vast areas of Europe and Asia. But among the Ainu it is sharply different from similar ones among other peoples, for only they fed the sacrificial bear cub at the breast of a female nurse!

Ainu and the cult of the bear

The Ainu language also stands apart. At one time it was believed that it was not related to any other language, but now some scientists bring it closer to the Malayo-Polynesian group. And linguists have discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Sanskrit roots in the Ainu language. In addition, ethnographers are still grappling with the question of where in these harsh lands people wearing the swinging (southern) type of clothing came from.

Dress-robe made from wood fibers and decorated traditional ornament, looked equally good on men and women. Festive white robes were made from nettles. In the summer, the Ainu wore a loincloth of the southern type, and in the winter they sewed fur clothes for themselves. They used salmon skins to make knee-length moccasins.

The Ainu were alternately classified as Indo-Aryans, Australoids, and even Europeans. The Ainu themselves considered themselves to have flown from heaven: “There was a time when the first Ainu descended from the Land of Clouds to the earth, fell in love with it, took up hunting and fishing in order to eat, dance and bear children” (from an Ainu legend). And indeed, the life of these amazing people was completely connected with nature, the sea, the forest, the islands.

They, engaged in gathering, hunting, fishing, combined the knowledge, skills and abilities of many tribes and peoples. For example, as taiga dwellers, we went hunting; they collected seafood like southerners; They beat the sea beast, like the inhabitants of the north. The Ainu strictly kept the secret of mummifying the dead and the recipe for a deadly poison extracted from the root of the aconite plant, with which they impregnated the tips of their arrows and harpoons. They knew that this poison would quickly decompose in the body of a killed animal and the meat could be eaten.

The tools and weapons of the Ainu were very similar to those used by other communities of prehistoric people who lived in similar climatic and geographical conditions. True, they had one significant advantage - they had obsidian, which the Japanese islands are rich in. When processing obsidian, the edges were smoother than those of flint, so that the arrowheads and axes of the Jomon can be classified as masterpieces of Neolithic production.

The most important weapons were the bow and arrows. The production of harpoons and fishing rods made from deer antlers reached a high level of development. In a word, both the tools and weapons of the Jomon were typical for their time, and the only surprise was that people who knew neither agriculture nor cattle breeding lived in fairly large communities.

And how many mysterious questions the culture of this people gave rise to! The ancient Ainu created amazingly beautiful ceramics by hand molding (without any device for turning dishes, much less a potter's wheel), decorating them with intricate rope patterns, and mysterious dogu figurines.

Ceramics of the Jomon culture

Everything was done by hand! And yet Jomon pottery has a special place in primitive pottery in general - nowhere does the contrast between the polishedness of its ornamentation and the extremely low “technology” look more striking than here. In addition, the Ainu were perhaps the earliest farmers of the Far East.

And again the question! Why did they lose these skills, becoming only hunters and fishermen, essentially taking a step back in development? Why do the Ainu features intertwine in the most bizarre way? different nations, elements of high and primitive cultures?

Being a very musical people by nature, the Ainu loved and knew how to have fun. We carefully prepared for the holidays, of which the most important was the bear holiday. The Ainu deified everything around them. But they especially revered the bear, the snake and the dog.

Leading a seemingly primitive life, they gave the world inimitable examples of art and enriched the culture of mankind with incomparable mythology and folklore. With their whole appearance and life, they seemed to deny established ideas and habitual patterns of cultural development.

Ainu women had a smile tattoo on their faces. Culturologists believe that the tradition of drawing a “smile” is one of the oldest in the world; it was followed by representatives of the Ainu people for a long time. Despite all the prohibitions from the Japanese government, even in the 20th century, Ainu were tattooed; it is believed that the last “correctly” tattooed woman died in 1998.

Tattoos were applied exclusively to women; it was believed that this ritual was taught to the ancestors of the Ainu by the ancestor of all living things - Okikurumi Turesh Machi, younger sister Creator God Okikurumi. The tradition was passed down female line, the design was applied to the girl’s body by her mother or grandmother.

In the process of “Japanization” of the Ainu people, a ban on tattooing girls was introduced in 1799, and in 1871 a second strict ban was proclaimed in Hokkaido, since it was believed that the procedure was too painful and inhumane.

For the Ainu, refusing tattoos was unacceptable, since it was believed that in this case the girl would not be able to get married, and after death, find peace in the afterlife. It is worth noting that the ritual was indeed cruel: the drawing was first applied to girls at the age of seven, and later the “smile” was completed over the course of several years, the final stage being on the day of marriage.

In addition to the characteristic smile tattoo, geometric patterns could be seen on the hands of the Ainu; they were also applied to the body as a talisman.

In a word, the number of mysteries became more and more numerous over time, and the answers brought more and more new problems. Only one thing is known for sure, that their life in the Far East was extremely difficult and tragic. When Russian explorers reached the “farthest east” in the 17th century, a vast, majestic sea and numerous islands opened up to their eyes.

But they were more amazed by the appearance of the natives than by the bewitching nature. Before the travelers appeared people overgrown with thick beards, with wide eyes like Europeans, with large, protruding noses, looking like anyone: men from Russia, residents of the Caucasus, gypsies, but not the Mongoloids that Cossacks and servicemen were accustomed to see everywhere beyond the Ural ridge. Explorers dubbed them “furry smokers.”

Russian scientists gleaned information about the Kuril Ainu from the “note” of the Cossack ataman Danila Antsyferov and the captain Ivan Kozyrevsky, in which they notified Peter I about the discovery of the Kuril Islands and the first meeting of Russian people with the aborigines of those places.

This happened in 1711.

“Leaving the canoes to dry, we went along the shore at noon and by evening we saw either houses or plagues. Holding the squeaks at the ready - who knows what kind of people there are - we headed towards them. About fifty people dressed in skins poured out to meet them. They looked without fear and had an extraordinary appearance - hairy, long-bearded, but with white faces and not slanted, like the Yakuts and Kamchadals.”

For several days, the conquerors of the Far East, through an interpreter, tried to persuade the “shaggy Kurilians” to accept the sovereign’s hand, but they refused such an honor, declaring that they had not paid yasak to anyone and would not pay them. All the Cossacks learned was that the land to which they sailed was an island, that at noon there were other islands behind it, and even further away - Matmai, Japan.

26 years after Antsyferov and Kozyrevsky, Stepan Krasheninnikov visited Kamchatka. He left behind a classic work, “Description of the Land of Kamchatka,” where, among other information, he gave a detailed description of the Ainu as an ethnic type. This was the first scientific description tribe. A century later, in May 1811, the famous navigator Vasily Golovnin visited here.

The future admiral spent several months studying and describing the nature of the islands and the life of their inhabitants; his truthful and colorful story about what he saw was highly appreciated by both lovers of literature and scientific experts. Let us also note this detail: Golovnin’s translator was a Kurilian, that is, an Ain, Alexey.

We do not know what name he bore “in the world,” but his fate is one of the many examples of contact between Russians and the Kurils, who willingly learned Russian speech, accepted Orthodoxy, and conducted lively trade with our ancestors.

The Kuril Ainu, according to eyewitnesses, were very kind, friendly and open people. Europeans who visited the islands over the years and usually boasted of their culture had high demands on etiquette, but they noted the gallantry of manners characteristic of the Ainu.

The Dutch navigator de Vries wrote:
“Their behavior towards foreigners is so simple and sincere that educated and polite people could not have behaved better. When appearing before strangers, they dress in their best dress, say their greetings and wishes with forgiveness, bow their heads.”

Perhaps it was precisely this good nature and openness that did not allow the Ainu to resist the harmful influence of people with Mainland. Regression in their development occurred when they found themselves between two fires: pressed from the south by the Japanese and from the north by the Russians.

Modern Ainu

It so happened that this ethnic branch - the Kuril Ainu - was wiped off the face of the Earth. Nowadays the Ainu live in several reservations in the south and southeast of the island. Hokkaido, in the Ishikari River valley. Purebred Ainu practically degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs. Now there are only 16 thousand of them, and the number continues to decline sharply.

The life of modern Ainu is strikingly reminiscent of the life of the ancient Jomon. Their material culture has changed so little over the past centuries that these changes may not be taken into account. They leave, but the burning secrets of the past continue to excite and disturb, inflame the imagination and nourish an inexhaustible interest in this amazing, original and unlike anyone else people.