"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 early XVIII century "Dainniponshi" ("History of Great Japan"), consisting of 397 volumes, mentions Ezo in the section devoted to 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. The former owners of the island 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 collection from them, and in the future do not force the peoples living there to do so, 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 announce 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 under the leadership of Tukinoe and Ikitoi raise rebellion against the Japanese and very quickly gain the upper hand, but several Japanese escape, reach the capital 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 the Russian Empire to 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 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.
Where, as they thought, the firmament of the earth connects with the firmament of heaven, but there turned out to be 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 on the Mongoloids, whom the Cossacks saw everywhere beyond the Urals.
The explorers dubbed them Kurils, Kurilians, endowing them with the epithet “shaggy”, and they called themselves “Ainu”, which means “man”.
Since then, researchers have been struggling with the countless mysteries of this people. But to this day they have not come to a definite conclusion.
Japan is not only the Japanese, but also the Ains. Essentially two peoples. It's a shame that few people know about the second one.
Legend has it that the deity gave the Ain a sword and the Japanese money. And this is reflected in real story. The Ains were better warriors than the Japanese. But the Japanese were more cunning and took the Ain, as gullible as children, by cunning, while adopting their military equipment. Harakiri also came to the Japanese from the Ain. The Jomon culture, as scientists have now proven, was also created by the Ain.
Studying Japan is impossible without studying both peoples.
The Ainu people are recognized by most researchers as the aborigines of Japan; they inhabit the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian Kuril Islands, as well as Fr. Sakhalin.
The most curious feature of the Ainu is their noticeable external difference from the rest of the population of the Japanese islands to this day.
Although today, due to centuries-old mixing and large number In the case of interethnic marriages, it is difficult to find “pure” Ainu; Caucasoid features are noticeable in their appearance: a typical Ainu has an elongated skull shape, an asthenic physique, a thick beard (facial hair is uncharacteristic for Mongoloids) and thick, wavy 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.
The Ainu language is not similar to Japanese or any other Asian language. The origins of the Ainu are unclear. They entered Japan through Hokkaido in the period between 300. BC. and 250 AD (Yayoi period) and then settled in the northern and eastern regions of the main Japanese island of Honshu.
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 Japanese, Ainu and other Asian 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. Samurai - descendants of the Ainu acquired such influence and prestige in medieval Japan who 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.
Initially they lived on the islands of Japan (then called Ainumoshiri - land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese. They came to Sakhalin in the 13th-14th centuries, having “finished” their settlement in the beginning. XIX century. Traces of their appearance 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 2 thousand years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including (then called “Ezo”) (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC). Subsequently The Ainu almost all degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs. Currently, there are only a few reservations on Hokkaido where Ainu families live. The Ainu are perhaps the most mysterious people in the Far East.
The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were surprised to note the Caucasoid facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for the Mongoloids. A little later, ethnographers wondered for a long time where in these harsh lands the people wearing the open (southern) type of clothing came from, and linguists discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Indo-Aryan roots in the Ainu language. The Ainu were classified as Indo-Aryans, Australoids, and even Caucasians. In a word, the riddles became more and more, and the answers brought more and more new problems.
Here is a summary of what we know about the Ainu:
AIN SOCIETY
The Ainu population represented socially stratified groups (“utar”), headed by families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu clan went according to female line, although the man was naturally considered the head of the family). "Uthar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves “utarpa” (head of the Utar) or “nishpa” (leader), represented a layer of the military elite. Men of “high birth” were destined for military service from birth; high-born women spent their time doing embroidery and shamanic rituals (“tusu”).
The chief's family had a dwelling within a fortification ("chasi"), surrounded by an earthen mound (also called a "chasi"), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock jutting out over a terrace. The number of embankments often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Together with the leader's family, there were usually servants and slaves (“ushu”) inside the fortification. The Ainu did not have any centralized power.
WEAPONS
The Ainu preferred weapons. No wonder they were called “people with arrows sticking out of their hair” because they carried quivers (and swords, by the way, too) on their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or euonymus (a tall shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone guards. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers.
A few words about combat tips. Both "regular" armor-piercing and spiked arrowheads were used in combat (possibly to better cut through armor or to get an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (there is information that in the Middle Ages they repulsed a large army that came from the mainland).
Arrowheads were made of metal (early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then coated with aconite poison “suruku”. The root of aconite was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place to ferment. A stick with poison was applied to the spider's leg; if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison decomposed quickly, it was widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.
The Ainu swords were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one-and-a-half-handed handle. Ainu warrior - Dzhangin— he fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decoration. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror shine to repel evil spirits. Besides the swords Ainu They wore two long knives (“cheyki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”), which were worn on the right hip. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings “inau” and performing the ritual “pere” or “erytokpa” - ritual suicide, which was later adopted by the Japanese, calling it “” or “” (as, by the way, is the cult of the sword, special shelves for swords, spears, and bows). 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 a Japanese old man and an Ain old man. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather: money (it is further explained why the Ainu had a cult of swords, and the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for money-grubbing). They treated spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.
Another detail of the Ainu warrior’s weapons were battle mallets - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hard wood. The sides of the beaters were equipped with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The beaters were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, or at best (for the victim, of course) disfigured him forever.
The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair that was matted together, forming something like a natural helmet.
Now let's move on to the armor. Sundress-type armor was made from bearded seal leather (“sea hare” - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor (see photo) may seem bulky, but in reality it practically does not restrict movement, allowing you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success repelled the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic “toli” disks, which scare away evil spirits and generally have magical significance. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened at the front using numerous ties. There was also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them.
Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the proto-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?
Only such a duel has survived to this day. The opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this test of endurance). Sometimes these clubs were replaced with knives, and sometimes they fought simply with their hands until the opponents lost their breath. Despite the brutality of the fight, no injuries were observed.
Actually, they fought not only with the Japanese. Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the “Tonzi” - a short people, truly the indigenous population of Sakhalin. From “tonzi”, Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around their lips (the result was a kind of half-smile - half-mustache), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - “toncini”. It's interesting that Ainu warriors - Dzhangins- were noted as very warlike, they were incapable of lying.
Information about the signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, and dishes, passed down from generation to generation, so as not to confuse, for example, whose arrow hit the beast, or who owns this or that thing. There are more than one hundred and fifty such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were discovered near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the island of Urup.
There were also pictograms on “ikunishi” (sticks for supporting the mustache while drinking). To decipher the signs (which were called “epasi itokpa”) it was necessary to know the language of the symbols and their components.
It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of open battle with the Ainu and conquered 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.
Over the years, they repeatedly rebelled against the Japanese (in Ainu “chizhem”), but lost each time. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Sacredly honoring the customs of hospitality, Ainu, trusting like children, they did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese were unsuccessful in other ways to suppress the uprising.
What do we know about this unique Russian people AIN - AINOS - AINO - AINU?
AINUMOSIRI - land of the Ainu.
View map of Russia 1871: http://atlases.narod.ru/maps/atl1871/map61.djvu
http://atlases.narod.ru/maps/atl1871/map03.djvu
There was a time when the first Ainu descended from
Countries of clouds to earth, fell in love with her, took up
hunting and fishing to eat, dance
and have children. (Ainu legend)
Aino are truthful and do not tolerate deception.
Kruzenshtern was absolutely delighted with them;
listing their wonderful spiritual qualities,
he concludes: "Such truly rare qualities,
which they owe not to elevated education,
but nature alone aroused me
that feeling that I consider this people to be the best
of all the others that are known to me to this day"
(A.P. Chekhov)
A.P. Chekhov said: “The Ainu are a meek people,
modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable,
polite, respectful of property; brave on the hunt
and... even intelligent.”
In 1853 N.V. Busse recorded his conversation
with the old Aino people who remembered the time
their independence and said:
"Sakhalin is the land of the Ain, there is no Japanese land on Sakhalin."
The first Japanese colonists were fugitives or
those who visited foreign land and were expelled from Japan for this.
(A.P. Chekhov)
...among the Ainu villages... – The Ainu are the oldest population of Japan
islands (known there since the 2nd millennium BC), Kuril Islands and
South Sakhalin. Racially they are close to Caucasians,
linguistic connections have not been clearly identified. At the time described, the number
the Ainu on Sakhalin numbered up to 3 thousand people,
on the island of Hokkaido - up to one and a half million.
They are now almost extinct. (Nikolai Pavlovich Zadornov)
What did the Ainu give to Russia? This is Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands!
The Ainu called themselves by various tribal names - “soy-untara”, “Chuvka-untara”. The word "Ainu", by which they are accustomed to be called, is not at all the self-name of this people, it only means "man". The Japanese called the Ainu the word "ebisu".
What we know about the Ainu is that they are white-skinned people; anthropologists classify them as depegmented Australoids, like the black-skinned Papuans, who are bearded, unlike the Japanese Mongoloids. Very similar to Russians according to explorers. After all, the external similarity between Russian explorers and the Ainu was simply amazing. It even deceived the Japanese. In the first messages from the Japanese, the “RUSSIANS” in Hokaido-Matmai are referred to as “RED-RED AIN”.
AINUMOSIRI - land of the Ainu.
The Ainu accepted Russian citizenship, and their lands became part of Russia - Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Matsmai - Iesso - Hokkaido. In those days, Hokkaido - MATSMAI was considered the largest and southernmost island of the Kuril Islands.
Russian decrees of 1779, 1786 and 1799 indicate that the inhabitants of the southern Kuril Islands - the Ainu - had been Russian subjects since 1768 (in 1779 they were exempt from paying tribute - yasak) to the treasury, and the southern Kuril Islands were considered Russia as its own territory.
The fact of the Russian citizenship of the Kuril Ainu and the Russian ownership of the entire Kuril ridge is also confirmed by the Instruction of the Irkutsk Governor A.I. Bril to the chief commander of Kamchatka M.K. Bem in 1775, and the “yasash table” - the chronology of the collection in the 18th century. c Ainu - inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, including the southern ones (including the island of Matmai-Hokkaido), the mentioned tribute-yasaka.
In the Ainu language Sakhalin - "SAKHAREN MOSIRI" - "wave-shaped land", Iturup means " the best place", Kunashir - Simushir means "a piece of land - a black island", Shikotan - Shiashkotan (the ending words "shir" and "kotan" mean "a piece of land" and "settlement" respectively).
With their good nature, honesty and modesty, the Ainu made the best impression on Krusenstern. When they were given gifts for the fish they delivered, they took them in their hands, admired them and then returned them. It was with difficulty that the Ainu managed to convince them that this was being given to them as property. In relation to the Ainu, Catherine the Second also prescribed to be kind to the Ainu and not to tax them, in order to alleviate the situation of the new Russian sub-South Kuril Ainu.
Decree of Catherine II to the Senate on the exemption from taxes of the Ainu, the population of the Kuril Islands who accepted Russian citizenship in 1779.
Eya I.V. commands that the shaggy Kurilians - the Ainu, brought into citizenship on the distant islands - should be left free and no tax should be demanded from them, and henceforth the peoples living there should not be forced to do so, but try to continue what has already been done with them by friendly treatment and affection for the expected benefit in trades and trade acquaintance.
The first cartographic description of the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, was made in 1711-1713. according to the results of the expedition of I. Kozyrevsky, who collected information about most of the Kuril Islands, including Iturup, Kunashir and even the “Twenty-Second” Kuril Island MATMAI (Matsmai), which later became known as Hokkaido.
It was precisely established that the Kuril Islands were not subordinate to any foreign state. In the report of I. Kozyrevsky in 1713. it was noted that the South Kuril Ainu “live autocratically and are not subject to citizenship and trade freely.”
It should be especially noted that Russian explorers, in accordance with the policy of the Russian state, having discovered new lands inhabited by the Ainu, immediately announced the inclusion of these lands in Russia, began their study and economic development, and missionary activity, imposed tribute (yasak) on the local population.
During the 18th century, all the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, became part of Russia. This is confirmed by the statement made by the head of the Russian embassy N. Rezanov during negotiations with the commissioner of the Japanese government K. Toyama in 1805 that “north of Matsmaya (Hokkaido) all lands and waters belong to the Russian emperor and that the Japanese did not extend their possessions further."
The 18th-century Japanese mathematician and astronomer Honda Toshiaki wrote that “... the Ainu look at the Russians as their own fathers,” since “true possessions are won by virtuous deeds. Countries forced to submit to force of arms remain, at heart, unconquered.”
By the end of the 80s. In the 18th century, enough evidence of Russian activity in the Kuril Islands was accumulated so that, in accordance with the norms of international law of that time, the entire archipelago, including its southern islands, belonged to Russia, which was recorded in Russian government documents. First of all, we should mention the imperial decrees (recall that at that time the imperial or royal decree had the force of law) of 1779, 1786 and 1799, which confirmed the Russian citizenship of the South Kuril Ainu (then called the “shaggy Kurilians”), and the islands themselves were declared possession Russia.
In 1945, the Japanese evicted all the Ainu from Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido, while for some reason they left on Sakhalin a labor army of Koreans brought by the Japanese and the USSR had to accept them as stateless persons, then the Koreans moved to Central Asia, and now in the Russian Federation, few people are not familiar with this hardworking ethnic group, even Luzhkov’s deputy is Korean.
The fate of the AIN in Hokkaido - MATSMAI is hidden behind seven seals, like the fate of the Slavs - the Lusatians in Germany.
Information reaches us that there are about 20 thousand Ainu people left, that there is an intensified process of Japaneseization of the Ainu, do young people know the Ainu language big question, just like with the Slavs - the Lusatians, about whom we know that the Lusatian Slavic schools in Germany are closed under any pretext.
According to the census Russian Empire In 1897, 1,446 people on Sakhalin indicated Ainu as their native language. The Ainu language does not belong to any language family(isolate); Currently, the Ainu of Hokkaido have switched to Japanese, the Ainu of Russia - to Russian, very few people of the older generation in Hokkaido - Matsmai still remember the language a little. By 1996, there were no more than 15 people who fully spoke Ainu. At the same time, speakers of dialects from different areas practically do not understand each other. The Ainu did not have their own writing, but there were rich traditions oral creativity, including songs, epic poems and stories in verse and prose.
Russia we can remember historical examples how the Ainu of northern Hokkaido - Matsmaya at the end of the 18th - 1st half of the 19th centuries swore allegiance Russian government. And if so, then in response to the demand of the “northern territories” Russia can put forward a counter-demand of the “southern territories”.
Although the Japanese organized a real genocide of the Ainu, justifying their actions by saying that its representatives were supposedly “ebisu” (savages) and “teki” (beasts). However, the Ainu were not “barbarians”. Their Jomon culture is one of the oldest in the world. According to various sources, it appeared 5-8 thousand years ago, when no one had ever heard of Japanese civilization. According to many ethnographers, it was from the Ainu that the Japanese adopted many of their customs and cultural features, from the seppuku ritual to the sacred Shinto complex and imperial attributes, including jasper pendants. Perhaps the Japanese were brought to the Ainu islands - AINUMOSIRI, as labor for agriculture, since the Ainu themselves did not engage in agriculture. So, for example, the Mongols have the ends of their shoes turned upside down, since a Mongol cannot disturb the land, and the people of Daura (Dauria-Chita region) were engaged in agriculture for the Mongols, so the Daurs were evicted by the Chinese so that Russia would not have the support of this agricultural people.
From the 8th century The Japanese did not stop slaughtering the Ainu, who fled from extermination to the north - to Hokkaido - Matmai, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Unlike the Japanese, the Russian Cossacks did not kill them. After several skirmishes, normal friendly relations were established between the similar-looking blue-eyed and bearded aliens on both sides. And although the Ainu flatly refused to pay the yasak tax, no one killed them for it, unlike the Japanese. However, 1945 became a turning point for the fate of this people. Today only 12 of its representatives live in Russia, but there are many “mestizo” from mixed marriages.
The destruction of the “bearded people” - the Ainu in Japan stopped only after the fall of militarism in 1945. However, cultural genocide continues to this day.
It is significant that no one knows the exact number of Ainu on the Japanese islands. The fact is that in “tolerant” Japan there is often still a rather arrogant attitude towards representatives of other nationalities. And the Ainu were no exception: their exact number is impossible to determine, since according to Japanese censuses they are not listed either as a people or as a national minority.
According to scientists, the total number of Ainu and their descendants does not exceed 16 thousand people, of which no more than 300 are purebred representatives of the Ainu people, the rest are “mestizo”. In addition, the Ainu are often left with the least prestigious jobs. And the Japanese are actively pursuing a policy of assimilation and there is no talk of any “cultural autonomy” for them.
People from mainland Asia came to Japan around the same time that people first reached America. The first settlers of the Japanese islands - YOMON (ancestors of the AIN) reached Japan twelve thousand years ago, and YOUI (ancestors of the Japanese) came from Korea in the last two and a half millennia.
Work has been done in Japan that gives hope that genetics can resolve the question of who the ancestors of the Japanese are. Along with the Japanese living on the central islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, anthropologists distinguish two more modern ethnic groups: Ainu from the island of Hokkaido in the north and Ryukyu people living mainly on the southernmost island of Kinawa.
One theory is that these two groups, the Ainu and Ryukyuan, are descendants of the original Yomon settlers who once occupied all of Japan and were later driven from the central islands north to Hokkaido and south to Okinawa by the Youi newcomers from Korea.
Mitochondrial DNA research conducted in Japan only partially supports this hypothesis: it showed that modern Japanese from the central islands have much in common genetically with modern Koreans, with whom they share much more of the same and similar mitochondrial types than with the Ainu and Ryukuyans.
However, it is also shown that there are practically no similarities between the Ainu and Ryukyu people. Age assessments have shown that both of these ethnic groups have accumulated certain mutations over the past twelve thousand years - this suggests that they are indeed descendants of the original Yomon people, but also proves that the two groups have not had contact with each other since then.
Most modern Japanese living in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu share many mitochondrial sequences with modern Koreans, which proves their maternal kinship with the Yōi and indicates secondary, relatively recent migrations. However, among the Japanese there are quite a few who are descendants of the Yomon and are closely related on the maternal side to either the Ryukyu or the Ainu.
Militarily, the Japanese were inferior to the Ainu for a very long time, and only after several centuries of constant skirmishes from the Japanese military detachments defending the northern borders of Yamato, what was later called “samurai” was formed. Samurai culture and samurai fighting techniques largely go back to Ainu fighting techniques and contain many Ainu elements.
On my own behalf, I would suggest to the leadership of Russia and Japan in the “northern territories” in Russia and in the “southern territories” - Hokkaido - Matsmai, that each of the states create autonomy for the Ainu - Ainu and allow the Ainu from both autonomies to move freely across state borders between Russia and Japan and allow the Ainu to trade seafood, and not poachers who export the entire catch to Japan.
Russia is the peoples and their lands that constitute it,
and Russians are the “cement” that unites the peoples of Russia.
*************From the discussion of the material about the Ainah******************
Andrey Belkovsky AINY - Ainumosiri
A good article, but it’s worth finding out more about the Ainu, especially about their life as part of Russia - the USSR.
There is a good book by Taxami "Who are you, Ainu" and "Peoples of Siberia" edited by Levin (1959 IMHO)
The Ainu and their fellow tribesmen were spread rot by both the Japanese and ours (ours cleared southern Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and especially the Kuril Islands of the Ainu - after the 18th century, it was the Kuril Islands that were the core of the Ainumoshiri).
I even reported to the Foreign Ministry (on the problems of the Southern Kuril Islands) that the best option- create the state of Ainumoshiri there and help the Ainu who survived there to live normally.
The Ainu are the people of Oceania, northern Australoids, and there is positive American experience in granting independence to such structures. Kiribati, Vanuatu and Nauru are alive and thriving.
With the advent of Soviet power, the Ainu twice - before and after the war - turned out to be Japanese spies. The smartest ones corresponded with the Nivkhs (from whom they took Sakhalin).
It’s funny - the Nivkhs have the world minimum for beard and mustache growth, the Ainu and Armenians have the world maximum (under 6 points).
Before the revolution, the Ainu were also resettled in the Commanders. Now they have assimilated with the Aleuts - as part of former family Badaev.
In the lower part of the village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island there was until the 1980s the toponym "Ainsky End".
Among the Badaev-Kuznetsovs there are people with increased beard growth for Aleuts.
Andrey Belkovsky
************************* From the historical chronicle of the Ainu********************* ****
Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of what is now Japan, which were called Ainumoshiri - the land of the Ainu, until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese Yayoi (Mongoloids). The Ainu came to Sakhalin in the 13th-14th centuries, “finishing” their settlement in the beginning. XIX century. Traces of their appearance 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 2 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). Currently, there are only a few reservations for the Ainu on Hokkaido, where Ainu families live.
The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were surprised to note the Caucasoid facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for the Mongoloids.
The Ainu population consisted of socially stratified groups (“utar”), headed by families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu clan went through the female line, although the man was naturally considered the head of the family). "Uthar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had a military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves "utarpa" (head of the Utar) or "nishpa" (leader), represented a layer of the military elite. Men of “high birth” were destined for military service from birth; high-born women spent their time doing embroidery and shamanic rituals (“tusu”).
The chief's family had a dwelling within a fortification ("chasi"), surrounded by an earthen embankment (also called "chasi"), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock jutting out over a terrace. The number of embankments often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Together with the leader's family, there were usually servants and slaves ("ushu") inside the fortification. The Ainu did not have any centralized power.
The Ainu preferred the bow as a weapon. It was not for nothing that they were called “people with arrows sticking out of their hair” because they carried quivers (and swords, by the way, too) on their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or euonymus (a tall shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone guards. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers.
A few words about combat tips. In combat, both “regular” armor-piercing arrowheads and spiked arrowheads were used (possibly to better cut through armor or to get an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped cross-section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (information has been preserved that in the Middle Ages the Sakhalin Ainu fought back a large army that came from the mainland).
Arrowheads were made of metal (early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then coated with monkshood poison "suruku". The root of aconite was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place to ferment. A stick with poison was applied to the spider's leg; if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison decomposed quickly, it was widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.
The Ainu swords were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one-and-a-half-handed handle. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decoration. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror shine to repel evil spirits.
In addition to swords, the Ainu carried two long knives (“cheyki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”), which were worn on the right hip. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the ritual "pere" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which was later adopted by the Japanese, calling it "harakiri" or "seppuku" (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for sword, spear, bow). 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 Ainu. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather: money (it is further explained why the Ainu had the cult of swords, and among the Japanese - the thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for money-grubbing).
They treated spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.
Another detail of the Ainu warrior’s weapons were battle mallets - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hard wood. The sides of the beaters were equipped with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The beaters were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, or at best (for the victim, of course) disfigured him forever.
The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair that was matted together, forming something like a natural helmet.
Sundress type armor was made from bearded seal leather ("sea hare" - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor may seem bulky, but in reality it practically does not restrict movement, allowing you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success repelled the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic “toli” disks, which scare away evil spirits and generally have magical significance. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened at the front using numerous ties. There was also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them.
Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the proto-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?
Only such a duel has survived to this day. The opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this test of endurance). Sometimes these clubs were replaced with knives, and sometimes they fought simply with their hands until the opponents lost their breath. Despite the brutality of the fight, no injuries were observed.
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. From “tonzi”, Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around their lips (the result was a kind of half-smile - half-mustache), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - “toncini”.
It is curious that the Ainu warriors - Dzhangins - were noted as very warlike; they were incapable of lying.
Information about the signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, and dishes, passed down from generation to generation, so as not to confuse, for example, whose arrow hit the beast, or who owns this or that thing. There are more than one hundred and fifty such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were discovered near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the island of Urup.
There were also pictograms on “ikunishi” (sticks for supporting the mustache while drinking). To decipher the signs (which were called "epasi itokpa") it was necessary to know the language of the symbols and their components.
It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of open battle with the Ainu and conquered 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.
Over the years, the Ainu repeatedly rebelled against the Japanese (in Ainu “chizhem”), but lost each time. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Piously honoring the customs of hospitality, the Ainu, trusting like children, did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese were unsuccessful in other ways to suppress the uprising. (In a similar way, the Germans dealt with the princes of the Polabian Slavs - the Lusatians; the Germans locked the invited princes in the house and set the house on fire.)
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov talks about Ainakh-AYNO
The indigenous population of Southern Sakhalin, the local foreigners, when asked who they are, do not name either a tribe or a nation, but simply answer: Aino. This means a person. In Schrenk's ethnographic map, the area of distribution of the Aino, or Ainu, is indicated with yellow paint, and this paint completely covers the Japanese island of Matsmai and the southern part of Sakhalin to Terpeniya Bay. They also live on the Kuril Islands and are therefore called Kuriles by the Russians. The numerical composition of the Aino living on Sakhalin has not been determined precisely, but there is no doubt that this tribe is disappearing, and moreover, with extraordinary speed.
Doctor Dobrotvorsky, who 25 years ago served in Southern Sakhalin*, says that there was a time when there were 8 large Ain villages near Busse Bay alone and the number of inhabitants in one of them reached 200; near Naiba he saw traces of many villages. For his time, he provides three figures, taken from different sources: 2885, 2418, 2050, and considers the latter the most reliable. According to the testimony of one author, his contemporary, from the Korsakov post in both directions along the shore there were Ain villages. I didn’t find a single village near the post and saw several Ain yurts only near Bolshoy Tacoe and Siyantsy. In the “Report on the number of foreigners living in 1889 in the Korsakov District,” the numerical composition of the Aino is determined as follows: 581 men and 569 women.
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* After him, two serious works remained: “The Southern Part of Sakhalin Island” (extracted from a military medical report). - "News of the Sib. Department of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society", 1870, vol. I, ЉЉ 2 and 3, and "Ainsk-Russian Dictionary".
Dobrotvorsky considers the reasons for the disappearance of the Aino to be the devastating wars that allegedly took place once on Sakhalin, the low birth rate due to the infertility of the Aino, and most importantly, disease. They always suffered from syphilis and scurvy; There was also probably smallpox*.
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* It is difficult to imagine that this disease, which caused devastation in Northern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, would spare Southern Sakhalin. A. Polonsky writes that the Aino leave the yurt in which the death occurred and instead build another one in a new place. This custom apparently originated in those days when the Aino, in fear of epidemics, left their infected homes and settled in new places.
But all these reasons, which usually determine the chronic extinction of foreigners, do not explain why the Ainos are disappearing so quickly, almost before our eyes; after all, in the last 25 - 30 years there have been no wars or significant epidemics, and yet during this period of time the tribe has decreased by more than half. It seems to me that it would be more accurate to assume that this rapid disappearance, similar to melting, is due not to the extinction alone, but also to the migration of the Aino to neighboring islands.
Before the occupation of Southern Sakhalin by the Russians, the Aino were almost in serfdom to the Japanese, and it was all the easier to enslave them because they were meek, unresponsive, and most importantly, they were hungry and could not do without rice*.
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* The Ainos told Rimsky-Korsakov: “Sizam sleeps, and the Aino works for him: he cuts down the forest, catches fish; the Aino doesn’t want to work, the Sizam beats him.”
Having occupied Southern Sakhalin, the Russians freed them and until recently protected their freedom, protecting them from insults and avoiding interfering in their internal lives. In 1885, escaped convicts massacred several Ain families; They also say that some Ain musher who refused to carry mail was whipped with rods, and there were attempts on the chastity of Ainki, but this kind of oppression and insult is spoken of as isolated and extremely rare cases. Unfortunately, the Russians did not bring rice with freedom; With the departure of the Japanese, no one caught fish anymore, earnings stopped, and the Aino began to experience hunger. Like the Gilyaks, they could no longer feed themselves on fish and meat alone—they needed rice, and so, despite their dislike for the Japanese, driven by hunger, they began, as they say, to move to Matsmai.
In one correspondence ("Voice", 1876, No. 16) I read that a deputation from the Aino came to the Korsakov post and asked for work or at least seeds for growing potatoes and to teach them how to cultivate land for potatoes; the work was allegedly refused, and they promised to send potato seeds, but they did not fulfill the promises, and the Aino, in poverty, continued to move to Matsmai. Another correspondence dating back to 1885 (Vladivostok, No. 38) also says that the Aino made some statements that, apparently, were not respected, and that they strongly wanted to get out of Sakhalin to Matsmai.
The Aino are dark-skinned, like gypsies; they have large thick beards, mustaches and black hair, thick and coarse; their eyes are dark, expressive, meek. They are of average height and have a strong, stocky build; their facial features are large and rough, but in them, as the sailor V. Rimsky-Korsakov put it, there is neither the Mongolian flatness nor the Chinese narrow-eyedness. They find that bearded Ainos are very similar to Russian men. In fact, when an Aino puts on his robe like our chuika and girds himself, he becomes like a merchant’s coachman*.
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* In Schrenk's book, which I already mentioned, there is a table with a picture of the Aino. See also the book of fr. Gelvald "Natural history of tribes and peoples", vol. II, where the Aino is depicted at full height, in a robe.
The body of the Aino is covered with dark hair, which sometimes grows thickly in tufts on the chest, but it is still far from shaggy, while the beard and hairiness, which is so rare among savages, amazed travelers who, upon returning home, described the Aino as shaggy. And our Cossacks, who took tribute from them in the Kuril Islands in the last century, also called them shaggy.
The Aino live in close proximity to peoples whose facial hair is sparse, and it is no wonder that their wide beards present ethnographers with considerable difficulty; Science has not yet found a real place for the Aino in the racial system. Aino is classified either as a Mongolian or as a Caucasian tribe; one Englishman even found that these were the descendants of Jews abandoned on the Japanese islands at the time. At present, two opinions seem most likely: one, that the Aino belong to a special race that once inhabited all the East Asian islands, the other, belonging to our Schrenk, that they are a Paleo-Asian people, long ago displaced by Mongol tribes from the Asian mainland to its island outskirts, and that the route of this people from Asia to the islands lay through Korea.
In any case, the Aino moved from south to north, from warm to cold, constantly changing Better conditions for the worst. They are not warlike and do not tolerate violence; it was not difficult to conquer, enslave or displace them. They were driven out of Asia by the Mongols, from Nippon and Matsmaya by the Japanese, on Sakhalin the Gilyaks did not allow them above Taraika, on the Kuril Islands they met the Cossacks and thus eventually found themselves in a hopeless situation. Nowadays, an Aino, usually without a hat, barefoot and in ports tucked above the track, meets you on the road, curtsies to you and at the same time looks affectionately, but sadly and painfully, like a loser, and as if he wants to apologize for having a beard He's grown up big, but he still hasn't made a career for himself.
For details about the Aino, see Schrenk, Dobrotvorsky and A. Polonsky*. What was said about food and clothing among the Gilyaks also applies to the Aino, with the only addition that the lack of rice, the love for which the Aino inherited from their great-grandfathers who once lived on the southern islands, constitutes a serious deprivation for them; They don't like Russian bread. Their food is more varied than that of the Gilyaks; in addition to meat and fish, they eat various plants, shellfish and what Italian beggars generally call frutti di mare**. They eat little by little, but often, almost every hour; the gluttony characteristic of all northern savages is not noticeable in them. Since infants have to switch from milk directly to fish and whale oil, they are weaned late.
Rimsky-Korsakov saw how an Ainka was sucked by a child of about three years old, who was already moving perfectly on his own and even had a knife on his belt, like a big one. Clothes and homes show a strong influence from the south - not the Sakhalin one, but the real south. In the summer, the Aino wear shirts woven from grass or bast, but earlier, when they were not so poor, they wore silk robes. They don’t wear hats; in the summer and all autumn until the snow, they walk barefoot. Their yurts are smoky and stinking, but still much lighter, neater and, so to speak, more cultured than those of the Gilyaks. Near the yurts there are usually drying rooms with fish, spreading a dank, suffocating smell far around; dogs howl and squabble; Here you can sometimes see a small log cage in which a young bear sits: he will be killed and eaten in the winter at the so-called bear festival.
I saw one morning how a teenage Ainsk girl fed a bear, pushing dried fish dipped in water onto it on a spatula. The yurts themselves are made of knurling and planks; the roof, made of thin poles, is covered with dry grass. Inside there are bunks along the walls, above them there are shelves with various utensils; here, in addition to skins, bubbles of fat, nets, dishes, etc., you will find baskets, mats and even musical instrument. The owner usually sits on the bunk and incessantly smokes a pipe, and if you ask him questions, he answers reluctantly and briefly, although politely. In the middle of the yurt there is a fireplace with wood burning; smoke escapes through a hole in the roof.
A large black cauldron hangs on a hook above the fire; there is a boiling soup in it, gray, foamy, which, I think, a European would not eat for any money. There are monsters sitting near the cauldron. As respectable and handsome as Aino men are, their wives and mothers are so unattractive. The authors call the appearance of Ain women ugly and even disgusting. The color is dark yellow, parchment, the eyes are narrow, the features are large; uncurly, coarse hair hangs across the face in patties, like straw on an old barn, the dress is unkempt, ugly, and for all that - extraordinary thinness and an senile expression. Married women paint their lips something blue, and from this face they completely lose their human image and likeness, and when I had occasion to see them and observe the seriousness, almost severity, with which they stir the pots with spoons and skim off the dirty foam, then I it seemed that I was seeing real witches. But girls and girls do not make such a repulsive impression***.
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A. Polonsky's study of the "Kuril Islands" was published in "Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society", 1871, volume IV.
** fruits of the sea (Italian).
*** N.V. Busse, who rarely spoke kindly about anyone, by the way, attests to the ain: “In the evening, a drunken ain, known to me as a big drunkard, came to me. He brought his wife with him, and as far as I could understand , in order to sacrifice loyalty to her marital bed and thereby lure good gifts from me.
Ainka, quite beautiful, seemed ready to help her husband, but I pretended that I did not understand their explanations... Leaving my house, the husband and wife, without ceremony, in front of my window and in sight of the sentry, repaid their debt to nature. In general, this Ainka did not show much feminine shame. Her breasts were hardly covered by anything. Ainki wear the same dress as men, that is, several open short robes, belted low with a sash. They don’t have shirts or underwear, and therefore the slightest disorder in their dress reveals all the hidden charms.” But even this stern author admits that “among the young girls there were some quite pretty ones, with pleasant and soft features and ardent black eyes.” Be that as it may, the Ainka fell far behind in physical development; she ages and fades before a man. Perhaps this should be attributed to the fact that during the centuries-long wanderings of the people, the lion's share of hardships, toil and tears fell to women.
Ainos never wash their faces and go to bed without undressing. Almost everyone who wrote about the Aino spoke highly of their morals. The general voice is that these people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable, polite, respectful of property, brave in hunting and; in the words of Dr. Rollen, La Perouse's companion, even intelligent. Unselfishness, frankness, faith in friendship and generosity constitute their usual qualities. They are truthful and do not tolerate deception. Kruzenshtern was completely delighted with them; having listed their wonderful spiritual qualities, he concludes: “Such truly rare qualities, which they owe not to exalted education, but only to nature, aroused in me the feeling that I consider this people to be the best of all the others that are known to me to this day.”* And Rudanovsky writes: “More.” there cannot be a peaceful and modest population, such as we met in the southern part of Sakhalin." Any violence arouses disgust and horror in them.
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* These are the qualities: “When we visited one Ain dwelling on the shore of Rumyantsev Bay, I noticed in its family, which consisted of 10 people, the happiest harmony, or, one could almost say, perfect equality between its members. Having been in it for several hours, We could in no way recognize the head of the family. The elders did not express any signs of command against the young ones. When giving them gifts, no one showed the slightest form of displeasure that he received less than the other. They provided us with all kinds of services."
In conclusion, a few words about the Japanese in the history of South Sakhalin. The Japanese first appeared in the south of Sakhalin only at the beginning of this century, but not earlier. In 1853, N.V. Busse recorded his conversation with the old Ainos, who remembered the time of their independence and said: “Sakhalin is the land of the Ainus, there is no Japanese land on Sakhalin.” The first Japanese colonists were fugitive criminals or those who had visited foreign soil and were expelled from Japan for this.
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Other materials about the Ainu in the community:
http://www.icrap.org/ru/Chasanova-9-1.html photographs of the Ainu
http://community.livejournal.com/anthropology_ru/114005.html
http://www.svevlad.org.rs/knjige_files/ajni_prjamcuk.html
Http://www.icrap.org/Folklor_sachalinskich_Ainov.html
TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE SAKHALI AIN
Http://kosarev.press.md/Ain-jap-1.htm
http://lord-trux.livejournal.com/46594.html
http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/akulov/east06_13.html
http://leit.ru/modules.php?name=Pages&pa=showpage&pid=1326
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/2877/
http://www.sunhome.ru/religion/11036
http://www.4ygeca.com/ainy.html
http://stud.ibi.spb.ru/132/sobsvet/html/Ajni1.html
http://www.icrap.org/ru/sieroszewski8-1.html
http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/1800dok/185401putya.html
http://kosarev.press.md/Contact-models.htm
http://glob.us-in.net/gusev_67.php
The Ainu are a unique people, occupying a special place among the many small nations of the Earth. Until now, he enjoys such attention in world science that many much larger nations have not received. They were a beautiful and strong people, whose whole life was connected with the forest, rivers, sea and islands. Their language, Caucasian facial features, and luxurious beards sharply distinguished the Ainu from neighboring Mongoloid tribes. According to the latest hypotheses of scientists, the ancestors of the Ainu were our Siberian peoples - the Bashkirs and Buryats. 
Ainu (Ainu - lit.: “man”, “real person”) are the people, the oldest population of the Japanese islands. Once upon a time, the Ainu also lived on the territory of Russia in the lower reaches of the Amur, on Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Currently, the Ainu remain only in Japan and Russia. There are approximately 30,000 of them in Japan: about 25,000 live in Hokkaido, the rest in other parts of Japan, mainly in Tokyo. In Russia, the bulk of the Ainu live in the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin and Vladivostok. 
In ancient times, the Ainu inhabited a number of regions of Primorye, Sakhalin, Honshu, Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and southern Kamchatka. They lived in dugouts, built frame houses, wore loincloths of the southern type and used closed fur clothing like residents of the north. The Ainu combined the knowledge, skills, customs and techniques of taiga hunters and coastal fishermen, southern seafood gatherers and northern sea hunters. Their traditional activities are river fishing, hunting sea and land animals, and gathering.
Regression in Ainu culture occurred when they found themselves between two fires: Japanese and then Russian colonization. The territories occupied by the Ainu gradually decreased.
In 1883, the Japanese transported 97 Ainu of the Northern Kuril Islands to Shikotan. In 1941, there were barely 50 Ainu people in Kunashir, Iturup and Shikotan. Soon the 20 remaining Shikotan Ainu were transported to Hokkaido. So in the twentieth century, an entire branch of the people, the Kuril Ainu, disappeared from the face of the Earth. Currently, the Ainu live only in Hokkaido - 16 thousand people. 
Once upon a time, an ancient man first set foot on that land, which he then called Ainumoshiri (land of people or country of the Ainu). And first of all, he needed to develop this land, get used to the world of living nature surrounding him, and find his place in it.
The Ainu did not engage in agriculture, and the main branches of their economy were gathering, fishing and hunting, therefore it was vital for the Ainu to maintain balance in the natural environment and in the human population: to prevent population explosions. That is why the Ainu never had large settlements, and the main social unit was a local group - in the Ainu language - utar/utari - “people living in the same village / on the same river.” Since to support the life of such a culture, a significant space of nature was necessary, the settlements of the Neolithic Ainu were quite distant from each other, and that is why, even at a fairly early time, the Ainu settled dispersedly across all the islands of the Japanese archipelago. 
The islands on which we, the Kuril residents, live, the islands on which the Ainu lived, are tiny pieces of land in the middle of a huge ocean. Nature here is fragile and defenseless more than anywhere else. The Ainu understood: if they want not only them, but also their children and grandchildren to live on the islands, they need to be able to not only take from nature, but also preserve it, otherwise in a few generations there will be no forest, fish, animals and birds left. All Ainu were deeply religious people. They spiritualized all natural phenomena and nature in general. This religion is called animism.
The main thing in their religion was kamui. The deity of Kamui was both the whole world and its component parts: the sea, islands, mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, and the creatures living in them. In some part, this word is consonant with the Russian words “god”, “deity”, but not only. For the Ainu, Kamui is a deity, a respected being, an important object, and a mysterious phenomenon. This word contains the duality of the worldview of the Ainu, who, being deeply religious, remained sober rationalists in practical matters.
Is it a coincidence that many important game animals were deified? Not only among the Ainu, but also among other peoples, those animals and plants on whose presence the well-being of people depended were sacred and were surrounded by worship.
Legends were made about these animals. One of these legends talks about the origin of the Ainu. One western country the king wanted to marry his own daughter, but she ran away overseas with her dog. There, across the sea, she had children, from whom the Ainu descended.
The Ainu treated dogs with care. Each family tried to acquire a good pack. Returning from a trip or from a hunt, the owner did not enter the house until he had fed the tired dogs to their fill. In bad weather they were kept in the house. 
Another myth is about the “primordial celestial serpent” who descended to earth with his beloved, the goddess of fire, essentially identified with the sun. The sun is sometimes called the “solar serpent”. Lightning strikes are also considered snakes. The snake is the patron of hot springs. They pray to her for visual acuity, she diverts danger from human food. 
The most powerful Kamui gods are the gods of the sea and mountains. Sea god - killer whale. This predator was especially revered. The Ainu were convinced that the killer whale sent whales to people, and each discarded whale was considered a gift; in addition, the killer whale every year sends shoals of salmon to its elder brother, the mountain taiga god, in processions of its subjects. These shoals were turned into Ainu villages along the way, and salmon has always been the main food of these people.
The mountain taiga god was the bear - the main revered animal of the Ainu. The bear was the totem of this people. A totem is a mythical ancestor of a group of people (animal or plant). People express their respect to the totem through certain rituals. The animal representing the totem is protected and revered; it is forbidden to kill or eat it. However, once a year it was prescribed to kill and eat the totem. 
The Ainu were firmly convinced of one fundamental difference between animals and humans: a person dies “completely,” an animal only temporarily. After killing an animal and performing certain rituals, it is reborn and continues to live.
The main celebration of the Ainu is the bear festival. Relatives and invitees from many villages came to participate in this event. For four years, one of the Ainu families raised a bear cub. They gave him the best food. And so the animal, raised with love and diligence, was planned to be killed one fine day. On the morning of the killing, the Ainu staged a mass cry in front of the bear's cage. After which the animal was taken out of the cage and decorated with shavings, and ritual jewelry was put on. Then he was led through the village, and while those present distracted the beast’s attention with noise and shouts, the young hunters, one after another, jumped on the animal, pressing against it for a moment, trying to touch its head, and immediately jumped away: a kind of ritual of “kissing” the beast. They tied the bear in a special place and tried to feed it festive food. Then the elder said a farewell word to him, described the works and merits of the village residents who raised the divine beast, and outlined the wishes of the Ainu, which the bear had to convey to his father, the mountain taiga god. Honor to “send”, i.e. Any hunter could be honored to kill a bear with a bow, at the request of the animal’s owner, but it had to be a visitor. You had to hit it right in the heart. The meat of the animal was placed on spruce paws and distributed taking into account seniority and birth. The bones were carefully collected and taken into the forest. Silence reigned in the village. It was believed that the bear was already on the way, and the noise could lead him off the road. 
Currently, about thirty thousand Ainu (that is, people who consider themselves Ainu) live in Japan, of which about 25 thousand live in Hokkaido, the rest in other parts of Japan. On June 6, 2008, the Japanese parliament recognized the Ainu as an independent national minority, which, however, did not change the situation in any way and did not lead to an increase in self-awareness, because all Ainu are completely assimilated and are practically no different from the Japanese, they know about their culture, often There are much fewer Japanese anthropologists, and they do not strive to support it, which is explained by long-term discrimination against the Ainu and the traditional everyday chauvinism of Japanese inhabitants. At the same time, Ainu culture itself is completely put at the service of tourism and, in fact, represents a type of theater. The Japanese and the Ainu themselves cultivate exoticism for the needs of tourists. The most striking example is the “Ainu and Bears” brand: in Hokkaido, in almost every souvenir shop you can find small figurines of bear cubs carved from wood. Contrary to popular belief, the Ainu had a taboo on carving bear figurines, and the aforementioned craft was, according to Emiko Onuki-Tierney, brought by the Japanese from Switzerland in the 1920s and only then introduced among the Ainu.
The Ainu language is considered isolated by modern linguistics. The position of the Ainu language in the genealogical classification of languages still remains unclear. In this respect, the situation in linguistics is similar to the situation in anthropology. The Ainu language is radically different from Japanese, Nivkh, Itelmen, Chinese, as well as other languages of the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Currently, the Ainu have completely switched to the Japanese language, and Ainu can almost be considered dead. In 2006, approximately 200 people out of 30,000 Ainu spoke the Ainu language. Different dialects are well understood. IN historical time The Ainu did not have their own writing, although they may have had a writing at the end of the Jomon era - the beginning of Yayoi. Currently, the practical Latin or katakana script is used to write the Ainu language. The Ainu also had their own mythology and rich oral traditions, including songs, epic poems and stories in verse and prose.
