Hokkaido’s Ainus

Title

Hokkaido’s Ainus

Language

English

Year

1960

Subject

Ainu.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

A case of survival Hokkaido’s Ainus rE LIGHT-SKINNED, hirsute Ainus, fast-disappearing decendants of Japan’s earliest known settlers, are to experience some of the ameni ties of modern living that few of them have known. Such is the plan of the Hok kaido prefectural government, which has charge of the few remaining Ainus. The Ainus, whose origin is indefinite, once were the sole occupants of this country. The approximately 16,000 who are left live in a few settlements on Japan’s northermost main island. Once such group of about 1,000 dwellers in Shiraoi, a vil lage whose name in the Ainu language means “Place of Many Horseflies.” The Hokkaido authorities concerned with Ainu affairs are putting the finishing touches on a five-year program to im prove the lot of this myster ious, dying race. With an ex penditure of 144,000,000 yen (about $400,000) the prefec tural government hopes even tually to bring all the Ainus out of their ramshackel villages and settle them in more com fortable housing with electri city, and communal cooking and bathing places. These fa cilities are enjoyed by few Ai nus today, although they are available to virtually all the 92,000,000 Japanese, whose warlike ancestors drove the Ai nus north. Now it is the Japanese offi cial problem to make the Ai nus happy, and keep them that way. Giichi Asari, the Japanese Mayor of Shiraoi, a town that contains one of the largest Ai nus communities, says that the Ainus generally have little lik ing for the settled, industrious life of modern Japan. At the same time, there is little chance of deriving a satis factory livelihood, by Jap anese standards, from the tra ditional Ainu occupations of hunting and fishing. Formerly confined to reservations, the Ai nus are discouraged from pur suing their old nomadic way of 14 Panorama life, even if it were practicable in a country where nearly all the land is occupied and indus tries are developing fast. Mayor Asari said about 1,000 Ainus of Shiraoi live a typically casual existence. The men will work three days at fishing or cutting firewood, for which they earn about 1,100 yen (about $3). This will keep them in comfortable idleness, satisfactorily lubricated with sake (rice wine) for the next five days, the Mayor said. Af ter the money is gone, he add ed, they report for work again for two or three days. Come live well by their own standards, with even less exertion. An example is Tomoramu, the hereditary chief of the Shiraoi Ainu clan. The 53-year-old, heavily bearded patriarch and his wife, whose lips have been deeply outlined in the blue tattooing that once was a universal fashion among Ainu women, earn their living by posing for tourists’ cameras and showing their traditional Ainu house. The one-room thatch house has a single door and window and an altar to the Ainus’ primtive deities. The Ainus religion is animistic, as cribing souls not only to men, but also to animals and inani mate objects. The efforts of the United States occupation authorities on Hokkaido to improve the Ainus’ lot has shown few lasting re sults, Mayor Asari declared. The Ainus enjoy the equal vot ing and other civic rights de creed by the occupation forces and still honored for all Japan ese citizens, but the benefits of the land redistribution order ed by the United States mili tary regime failed to interest many of these non-agricultural people, the Mayor said. The land reforms under the occupation gave the Ainu fami lies of Shiraoi with about 1,800 acres, he said, but nearly all of it now lies abandoned. At the same time, according to Gov ernment records, slightly more than half of the dwindling Ainu community depends partly up on the Government dole for support. Many younger Ainus have drifted away from the home settlements to work in Tokyo or elsewhere. These often mar ry non-Ainu girls and are ra pidly being absorbed into the Japanese population. But the older folk, Mayor Asari said, remain simple, uneducated, and apparently unable to compre hend modem principles, such as the value of property ow nership and regular work. December 1960 15 While their race is rapidly disappearing, these anachronis tic people live out their days as either feckless casual workers or as living museum pieces for the education of tourists. It is hoped by Hokkaido officials that the prospective five-year uplift program will bring the remaining Ainus into closer attunement with the bustling life of the new Japan that is pass ing them by. * * * Carbon Materials for Missiles Diamonds, apart from being a girl’s best friend, are among the hardest things known and find many industrial uses. They are a form of carbon. Graphite, another form of carbon, also finds many uses in ato mic reactors, in lubricants, and in pencils. Now another form, pyrographite, has been deve’oned by the Raytheon Company sponsored by the Navy Bureau of Ordnance, as a possible answer to some of the problems in missile construction. The material, a high purity form of graphite, withstands temperatures up to 6700 degree Fahren heit higher than any other known element, and re mains strong, chemically inactive and impervious to gases. The secret of its great heat stability is that heat 'is conducted along its surface 500 times better than through it, thus preventing any excessive build-up of heat. * 16 Panorama

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