The Ainu ofTsugaru The indigenous history and shamanism of northern Japan by Sakurako (Sherry) Tanaka l i l ' I ' ^ - f -M.A., University of British Columbia, 1993 B. A., University of Toronto, 1990 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (INDIVIDUAL INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE STUDIES PROGRAM) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA APRIL 2000 © Sakurako (Sherry) Tanaka, 2000 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract ii Abstract This is the first doctoral level Ainu study outside Japan from an indigenous perspec-tive, and the first academic Ainu study ever from a female perspective. This study examines the indigenous history and shamanism of northern Japan, Hok-kaido andTsugaru, in the context of the Ainu culture complex. Tsugaru was the last autonomous stronghold of the Ainu people in Honshu, remaining largely independent until it came under the control of the Japanese state, the Edo government, in the seven-teenth century. Tsugaru has developed a distinct hybrid culture as a result of gradual mtermixing with non-indigenous populations, though an Ainu consciousness has never completely died out in the region. A comparison between Hokkaido Ainu shamanism and Tsugaru shamanism reveals the relative recentness of their contemporary characteristics, their shared roots prior to the Edo period, as well as changes in gender roles and aspects of gender inequity. In both traditions, shamanism has been transmitted primarily by the female population, and in the past, indigenous women played an essential role in maintaining social and spiritual integrity. The centrality of women came to manifest itself differently in the two regions, due mainly to differing socio-historical circumstances which transformed two originally similar cultures into divergent forms. This study questions the stereotypical ethnic opposition between the Ainu and the "Japanese," and sheds light on the intricate relationship among the Ainu and other indig-enous groups in northern Japan. It also questions the powerful Ainu male myth and nar-ratives which shaped much of the Ainu's cultural revival movement in the past century. Abstract Hi Firthermore, by revealing a significant level of shared spiritual beliefs and practices between the past and present inhabitants of the Japanese archepelago of Japan and the traditional peoples of Northeast Asia and byond the Bering Strait, the study will point to a need for both Ainu study and Japanese study to be placed within the larger cultural domain, namely, the northern circumpacific region. Table of Contents iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iv List of Figures and Illustrations x Acknowledgements xiv Chapter One: Introduction 1 Prologue: Isis in darkness 1 Shamans and Ainu - 3 Shamanism and shamanizing 5 The modern Ainu and their neglected roots 13 The dawn of Ainu studies? 19 Why Tsugaru now? - - 23 Heritage and gender: cutting the roots 26 So who are the Ainu? - - - 31 Towards the light: from my story to our stories- - - - 34 Endnotes - - 39 Chapter Two: Tsugaru 46 North and south -- --- 50 The origins of the "Japanese" - - - - 52 Sannai Maruyama and an ancient civilization of the north 55 Nibbling at the North --- 63 Table of Contents v The Ando: merchant lords of northern Honshu 73 The women of Ando: a window into a different world 81 From relation to isolation 83 An indigenous "state"? - 86 The long twilight of Ainu Tsugaru 92 Kiraichi and the Tsugaru Ainu heritage 102 Modern times: Anonymous warriors, unfolding stories 106 Language and identity: a sociolinguistic look at Tsugaru 112 Imposed boundaries, defined ethnicity 118 Yours, mine, and ours: tales from a borderland 121 Endnotes - 126 C h a p t e r T h r e e : A i n u S h a m a n i s m 1 9 1 (1) Shamanic cosmology and the traditional Ainu worldview 193 (a) The three cosmic zones and the world pillar 194 (b) Animism 195 (c) Toren-pehe, the spirit guide 196 (d) Souls 198 (e) An anthropomorphic understanding of the environment 201 (f) East and west: directions of significance 203 (g) Beliefs about death and funeral practice 205 (h) Holy mountains 209 (i) Fire worship 211 (j) The number six 213 (k) The home in the sky. . 214 (2) Terms and definition of shaman 218 (a) Kinds, abilities and functions of shamans 224 Table of Contents vi (3) The shamanic foundation of Ainu life 228 (4) Shamanic verses transmitted by women - 235 (5) Recruiting, initiation, training and masterhood --- ---241 (6) Division of labour according to gender - 242 (7) Shamanic performance, dress, and instruments 250 (8) Shamanesses in the modern world- 255 (a) Aiko's skills as a shaman 257 (0 Tusu 257 (ii) Ueinkar 260 (iii) Tekeinu 264 (iv) Uepotara 265 (v) Imu 266 (b) Ikoinkarkur 269 (c) Healing resources and techniques 271 (i) Regular medicines 271 (ii) Treating female illnesses and disorders 273 (iii) Animal hearts and blood 274 (iv) Treatment of skin disorders 274 (v) Heat therapy with burning willow sticks 275 (vi) Needles 275 (vii) Kaykuma oterke 276 (viii) Stones and stone figures 276 (ix) Transmission of the healing hand 277 (d) The shamanic line 279 (9) Ainu shamanism, its practice, and its variations- 283 (10) Discussion 286 (a) The Matsumae period (up to 1799) 287 (b) Edo bakufu period (1799-1821, 1854-1868) 290 (c) The colonial reality of Hokkaido 296 Endnotes 298 Table of Contents vii Chapter Four: Hell's Heaven — Shamanism, the Tsugaru school 333 (1) The shamanic cosmology of the Tsugaru people 342 (a) The three cosmic zones and the world pillar 342 (b) Animism 346 (c) Spirit guides and divine protection 353 (d) Souls 358 (e) An anthropomorphic understanding of the environment 363 (f) East and west: the directions of significance 365 (g) Beliefs about death 368 (i) Funeral practices 368 (ii) Conversations with the dead 372 (h) Holy mountains: Mt. Iwaki, Mt. Akakura and Mt. Osore 375 (i) Collective purification 377 (ii) The pilgrimage route 379 (iii) Divination 380 (iv) Onmuro, the mountaintop altar and an unrestrained festivity 380 (v) Descent 381 (vi) Initiation 382 (vii) A miniature Mt. Iwaki and an ancient burial site 383 (vii) Mount Akakura 384 (viii) Fear Mountain 386 (i) Fire worship 389 (j) The number six 391 (k) The home in the sky 392 (2) Terms and definition of shaman 394 (a) Taming the shaman in Tsugaru 395 (b) Blind shaman poets: itako 399 (c) Divine healers: kamisama 402 (d) Others: Between the village tradition and "street shamans." 405 (3) The shamanic foundation of Tsugaru life - - -407 (4) Shamanic verses transmitted by itako 414 (a) Itako saimon: sacred verses of the itako 415 (i) Buddhist influence on itako saimon and its limits 415 Table of Contents viii (ii) Origin tales 422 (iii) Itako as oral historians and storytellers 424 (5) Recniiting and training: Itako and kamisama -427 (a) Culture vs. nature 427 (i) Defined by blindness: Itako 428 (ii) Invited by the spirits: kamisama 430 (iii) The "old ladies" of the village 432 (6) Division of labour by gender 434 (a) The influence of shugen during Edo 435 (b) The feminization" process after the Meiji Restoration 437 (c) Ancestral services 438 (d) Women and safee-rnaking : 439 (7) Shamanic performance, dress and instruments in Tsugaru 440 (a) Itako 441 (b) Kamisama 446 (c) Performing with the spirits 447 (d) Dolls 449 (8) Shamanesses today: K2LW2kmajiz6son festival, 1998 450 Summary and discussion: shamanism as a process 466 Endnotes 476 C h a p t e r F i v e : C o n c l u s i o n 5 0 8 (1) The path of tradition and the cycles of time 508 (2) The walls within: the impediments to "homecoming"- - 513 (3) Shamanism, history, and the healing power of narrative 521 (4) A beginning --- 525 Endnotes- - - - 532 Table of Contents ix P o s t s c r i p t : A f o r b i d d e n t o c o m e p l a c e , 536 I. Coming home to Mt. Iwaki + 536 LL A summons from Nibutani - - 549 III. A journey with Ateru 567 A p p e n d i x I : T h e A i n u W r i t i n g S y s t e m 574 A p p e n d i x I I : A i k o ' s M i d w i f e r y 577 1) The initial sitting posture -- 577 2) The foot as a tool - 577 3) Finger techniques - 578 4) Techniques for breech births 579 5) Treatment of the umbilical cord - 580 6) Resuscitation techniques - 581 7) Follow-up examination. - 581 8) The midwife's kit - - - - 582 Endnotes --- - 583 B i b l i o g r a p h y , 584 (1) Books and publications - 584 (2) Miscellaneous sources - -- - 650 List of Figures and Illlustrations x list of Figures and Illustrations C h a p t e r O n e 1: Ainu territories according to the Ainu Association of Hokkaido. Redrawn from the Brochure on the Ainu People, The Ainu Association of Hokkaido (page 14). 2: Ainu territories according to the Hokkaido Ainu Museum, Shiraoi. Reproduced from "Distribution of the Ainu People in Recent Ages," Hokkaido Ainu Association, Shiraoi (page 15). 3: Ainu dialect map, by the Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Center. Reproduced from "Main Ainu Dialects and Sites of Fieldwork," Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Centre (page 17). 4: Traditional salmon-skin boots, Aomori. From the cover of the quarterly magazine Keikokan, vol. 12 19953 (page 24). 5: 18th-century sketch of Ainu atsushi, North Tsugaru. From Hirano Sadahiko, Oomin-zui (1788), reproduced in Yamada 1982:216 (page 25). 6. My grandmother and I, c. 1965. More than thirty years later, my father told me that she spoke Ainu. Photograph from author's collection (page 38). C h a p t e r T w o 1: Northern Honshu and Tsugaru. Redrawn from tourist map (page 46). 2: Topography of northern Honshu. From the Japan topographical map on CD Atlas '97 (ABC World Reference/Creative Wonders) (page 48). 3: Cultures of northern Japan according to Shichinomiya. Translated and redrawn from Shichinomiya 1989: 44 (page 51). 4: "Jomon Venus" from Sannai. Figure from Sannai-Maruyama Jomon Era File (repeat-ed appearances) (page 57). 5: Cultural zones of the Japanese archipelego. Reproduced from Aikens and Higuchi 1982: 245, figure 4.37 (page 62). 6: Ando on a Western map, 1562. Taken from Sato 1990: 128 (page 76). List of Figures and Illlustrations xi 7: The family record of Ando Kinume. Redrawn from Shichinomiya 1989:61 (page 81). 8: Chinese map of northern Honshu, showing Tsugaru ^ | $ $ ; ^ l t and "barbarian terri-tory" . Reproduced from Isho Nihonden volume 2: 1412 (page 95). 9: Ainu place names in northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido. Reproduced from Ya-mada 1993 vol. 1 (page 114). C h a p t e r T h r e e 1: Modern inaw. Photograph from author's collection (page 195). 2: Nipopo sacrificial dolls from Sakhalin. From Fujimura 1982 (page 197). 3: Layout of the traditional Ainu house (Nibutani style). From Chili 1973f: 222 (page 201). 4: Distribution of different shapes of tomb marker in Hokkaido and Sakhalin. Modified from Fujimoto 1964: 226 (page 205). 5: Traditional straw doll. From Chiri 19731: 82 (page 232). 6: Aiko's kamuy-nomi. Photograph by Nagai Hiroshi, reproduced from Nagai 1983 (page 260). C h a p t e r F o u r 1: Neputa float, Nakasato, summer 1999. Photograph from author's collection (page 336) . 2: Neputa float, Nakasato, summer 1999. Photograph from author's collection (page 337) . 3: Paper shavings. Note phallic symbolism: stone versions are common in Jomon sites. Photograph from author's collection (page 345). 4: Modern oshira. Photograph from author's collection (page 345). 5: Traditional oshira. From Inoh 1894 (page 346). 6: Straw plague doll (modern reconstruction). Photograph from author's collection (page 349). 7: Large straw doll (modern). Note sword on right hand side. Photograph from author's collection (page 349). List of Figures and Ilttustrations xii 8: Riverside inari figures near Takayama Inari. Photograph from author's collection (page 350). 9: A distant view of the inari figures, showing their relative isolation from the main tem-ple. Photograph from author's collection (page 350). 10: Riverside suiko images. From Kawakami 1970: 271 (page 352). 11: Private shrine and carved image at Kumano shrine, Kiraichi. Photograph from au-thor's collection (page 357). 12: Mass grave for famine victims in the village of Kase, Tsugaru. Photograph from au-thor's collection (page 360). 13 Spatial pattern at Kawakura according to basic elements. Author's diagram (page 367). 14: Jizo statue with cross bib. Photograph from author's collection, (page 374). 15: Statue of Emma baba as a starving woman, Kiraichi. Photograph from author's collec-tion (page 374). 16: Carrying nosa up the mountain. From Tsugaru no minzoku, 1970 (page 378). 17: Red-bronze statue of a mountain god, made and kept by a matagi family in Aomori. From Aomori prefecture, 1987 (page 385). 18: Mount Osore, view over the cliffs to the sea. From Tsugaru no minzoku, 1970 (page 387). 19: Magonai village fertility stones. Photograph from author's collection (page 412). 20: Horse images. Photograph from author's collection (page 412). 21: The ammonite fossil from the mountain. Photograph from author's collection (page 414). 22: Traditional storytelling tools. Reproduced from Sasaki 1990 (page 424). 23: Shaman's bow from Kawakura. Photograph from author's collection, (page 441). 24: Kamisama and client, Kawakura. From Kataribe, 1998 (page 446). 25: Traditional costumes for neputa dancers. From Shindo, 1970: 412 (page 447). 26: Wooden mountain spirit figures. From Aomori prefecture, 1987 (page 449). List of Figures and IlllustraHons xiii 27: Wooden mountain spirit figures. From Aomori prefecture, 1987 (page 449). 28: Bell rope figure in shrine, Kawakura. Photograph from author's collection (page 458). 29: Ranks oijizo statues. Photograph from author's collection (page 463). 30: "Wind-flowers" lining the path to the river. Photograph from author's collection (page 464). 31: Ainu identity and cultural contexts in Hokkaido and Tsugaru. Illustration "cooked up" by author (page 475). 32:E-ma plaque. Photograph from author's collection (page 499). Chapter Five 1: The sage emperors Fu Xi and Nii Wa, half-human and half-snake, holding the compass and square symbolizing their role in the construction of the universe (rubbing from Feng and Feng, Research on Stone Carving [1821/1934] chapter 4; reproduced in Bir-rell 1993: 70) (page 508). Appendix I (All images in this appendix are reproduced from Sasaki 1990:139-149) 1: Yamago numbers (page 574). 2: Ainu clan symbols (page 574). 3: "Itako" writing (page 574). 4: "Tosa Mountain King" writing (page 574). 5: "Ancient things" (page 575). 6: "Treasure seal" (page 575). 7: Nanbu peasant calendar (page 575). 8: Storyteller's graphs (page 576). Acknowledgements Acknowledgements xiv I am very grateful for the intellectual support provided by the members of my inter-disciplinary supervisory committee at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Daniel Overmyer (Chair) and Dr. Donald Baker from the Department of Asian Studies, and Pro-fessor Steve Saltzberg from the Faculty of Law. They have been remarkably patient with me in times of difficulty, and witnessed and shared the final phase of my intellectual jour-ney in the present study. I congratulate them for their firm intellectual commitment and faith in the pursuit of scholarship; I owe them a great deal for my presence in the com-munity called academia. I thank Dr. Rhodri Windsor-Liscomb, the chair of the Individual Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate programme at UBC for his support in various ways and forms. His friend-liness and acute sense of the passing of time helped keep me focused. I also thank Ms. Leah Postman, our secretary, who gave me much assistance. My thanks should also go to Dr. Laurie Ricou, the former head of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC. I am also thankful for the intellectual support and advice I received in the earlier part of my study from Dr. Robin Ridington, formerly of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC, Dr. Mark Fruin, the former director of the UBC Insitute of Asian Research and Dr. Namlin Hur, UBC Department of Asian Studies. I am also grateful to Dr. Richard Pearson of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC for his constructive criticism and assistance; to Dr. Michael Marker from the Faculty of Education at UBC for his comments and support; the external esa-Acknowledgements xv miner, Dr. Wayne Farris from the University of Tennessee; for valuable comments and advice, and to Dr. Ellen Schattschneider from Emory University for comments and encouragement. Many thanks go to my colleagues at the First Nations House of Learning at UBC, Dr. Jo-ann Archibald, the director, and Ms. Ethel Gardner, the former assistant director, as well as to my fellow members of the Association of Graduate Aboriginal Students at UBC, including my friend Dawn Marsden. Aboriginal students and researchers at UBC reminded me that I am never lacking for a "home," and they listened to me patiently when things were not as good as they could have been for me. My special thanks go to a good friend in Alert Bay, Dr. Gloria Cranmer Webster, the founding director of the U'mista Cultural Center, with whom I shared part of my fieldwork in Japan. I thank Dr. Masao Nakamura, the head of the Center for Japanese Research at UBC, and Mr. GonnamiTsuneharu, the head librarian in the Japanese Section of Asian Library at UBC for various forms of support, tangible and intangible. I also owe a debt of inspira-tion to my colleagues at UBC, Ms. Ito Ikuko and Mr.Takayama Keita. I thank the University of British Columbia for supporting me with fellowships for my study, the UBC Centre for Japanese Research for several research grants, the Canada Council For the Arts for travel grants for cultural presentations, and Japan Airlines Inter-national for special support. I am grateful for the generous support I received from many individuals from the Ainu community in Hokkaido, including Mr. Sawai Aku, Mr. Ogawa Seikichi and Mrs. Ogawa Sanae of The Ainu Association of Hokkaido. I also thank Mr. Ohtani Yoichi of the Acknowledgements xvi A i n u C u l t u r e R e s e a r c h C e n t e r f o r s u p p o r t a n d a d v i c e . I n N i b u t a n i , I t h a n k M r . K a y a n o S h e g e r u a n d M r s . K a y a n o R e i k o , M r . K a y a n o S h i r o , M r . K a i z a w a K o i c h i a n d M r s . K a i z a w a M i w a k o , f o r t h e i r h o s p i t a l i t y , f r i e n d s h i p a n d s u p p o r t . I a m v e r y t h a n k f u l t o M s . K a i z a w a T o m e i n N i b u t a n i f o r a r e a s o n I h a v e n o t y e t d i s c l o s e d t o h e r , w h o m I o n l y m e t o n c e b r i e f l y b u t w h o s e h a n d - m a d e A i n u g a r m e n t I a m p r o u d t o o w n . M y v e r y s p e c i a l t h a n k s g o t o t h e l a t e A o k i A i k o , m a s t e r s h a m a n e s s f r o m N i b u t a n i , a n d h e r f a m i l y f o r t h e p r e c i o u s t i m e w e s h a r e d . I a l s o w i s h t o e x p r e s s m y g r a t i t u d e t o a v e r y s p e c i a l a c q u a i n t a n c e i n N i b u t a n i , M s . Y a m a m i c h i Y a s u k o , a n A i n u l e a d e r . I n S a p p o r o , I h a v e b e e n a s s i s t e d b y M r . N a g a i H i r o s h i . A i k o ' s f r i e n d ; D r . I r i m o t o T a k a s h i , C h a i r o f N o r t h e r n S t u d i e s a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f H o k k a i d o ; M r . K b h a r a T o s h i h i r o o f t h e A i n u C u l t u r e R e s e a r c h C e n t r e ; M r . H i r o s e K e n i c h i r o o f t h e F a c u l t y o f E d u c a t i o n , U n i -v e r s i t y o f H o k k a i d o ; M r . T e z u k a K a o r u a n d D e r i h a K o j i f r o m t h e H o k k a i d o H i s t o r y M u s e u m ; D r . S a s a t a n i H a r u m i o f t h e H o k k a i d o E d u c a t i o n U n i v e r s i t y ; a n d M s . Y a m a z a k i T a k a k o o f S t . L u k e ' s H o s p i t a l . I n H a k o d a t e , I m u s t t h a n k M r . H a s e b e K a z u h i r o o f H a k o d a t e C i t y M u s e u m , D r . O k u -d a i r a T a d a s h i , f o r m e r D e a n o f H o k k a i d o E d u c a t i o n U n i v e r s i t y H a k o d a t e c a m p u s , M s . Y o s h i d a K a z u k o o f t h e A i n u m i n z o k u t o r e n t a l s u m k a i , M r . W a d a S a c h i h i k o a n d M r . I k e d a E i j i o f H a k o d a t e C i t y H a l l I n t e r n a t i o n a l R e l a t i o n s , a n d M r . S a k u r a i K e n j i a n d M r . T a h a r a Y o s h i n o b u o f H a k o d a t e C i t y H a l l B o a r d o f E d u c a t i o n . V e r y s p e c i a l t h a n k s g o t o m y Yijing m a s t e r , M r . K o s e k i Y u k i h i k o , a n d t o m y f a i t h f u l " a u n t i e " M s . T e r u i w h o r u n s a c o z y c a f e , " T h r o u g h b r e d , " a r o u n d t h e c o r n e r f r o m m y f a m i l y h o m e i n H a k o d a t e . Acknowledgements xvii I n A o m o r i c i t y , I t h a n k D r . I c h i k a w a K a n a m a r u , t h e h e a d o f t h e A r c h e o l o g i c a l A s s o c i -a t i o n o f A o m o r i P r e f e c t u r e ; M r . T a n a k a C h u z a b r o , t h e f o r m e r d i r e c t o r o f K e i k o k a n M u s e u m ; M r . M i u r a K e i s u k e o f A o m o r i P r e f e c t u r e ' s B u r i e d C u l t u r a l A r t i f a c t s P r e s e r v a t i o n O f f i c e ; M r . O k a d a Y a s u h i r o o f A o m o r i P r e f e c t u r e S a n n a i - M a r u y a m a S i t e O f f i c e ; M r . F u k u -s h i S h o i c h i o f A o m o r i C i t y B o a r d o f E d u c a t i o n , a n d M s . S a i t o K i w a k o o f O k i n a y a cafe. I t h a n k M r . F u k u d a Y o s h i j i r o o f " C h i m e i k a r a b u n k a o k a n g a e r u k a i " f o r v a l u a b l e m a t e r i a l s a n d i n f o r m a t i o n o n A i n u p l a c e n a m e s i n A o m o r i . I m u s t a l s o t h a n k D r . H a s e g a w a S e i i c h i a n d D r . F u j i n u m a K u n i h i k o o f H i r o s a k i U n i -v e r s i t y , H i r o s a k i C i t y ; a n d M r . K i m u r a T o s h i n o r i o f K a s e a n d t h e K a n a g i T o w n B o a r d o f E d u c a t i o n f o r t h e i r a s s i s t a n c e w i t h m y fieldwork i n K i r a i c h i a n d K a s e . I t h a n k M s . F u j i m -O t o S h i z u e o f K a n a g i f o r h o s p i t a l i t y a n d v a l u a b l e i n f o r m a t i o n . M a n y t h a n k s a l s o g o t o M r . a n d M r s . S a i g a w a o f t h e K a w a k u r a J i z o - s o n t e m p l e a t K a w a k u r a , f o r v a l u a b l e i n f o r m a t i o n a n d s u p p o r t . I t h a n k M s . K i m u r a M y o k a i , a s h a m a n e s s i n H i r o s a k i , f o r h o s p i t a l i t y a n d e n c o u r a g e m e n t ; a n d M r . a n d M r s . O h t a o f I w a k i - m a c h i f o r t h e i r k i n d n e s s a n d h o s p i t a l i t y . I a m a l s o g r a t e f u l t o P r o f e s s o r S h i b a t a S h i g e o o f I w a k i - m a c h i f o r v a l u a b l e i n p u t o n t h e A i n u h e r i t a g e o f T s u g a r u , a n d e n c o u r a g e m e n t i n m y r e s e a r c h . I n I w a t e p r e f e c t u r e , I t h a n k M r . M i y a z a w a S e i r o k u o f H a n a m a k i , t h e o n l y s u r v i v i n g b r o t h e r o f M i y a z a w a K e n j i , f o r h i s h o s p i t a l i t y a n d e n c o u r a g e m e n t f o r A i n u r e s e a r c h i n N o r t h e r n H o n s h u , a s w e l l a s M s . T a k a h a s h i M a r i k o o f t h e M i y a z a w a K e n j i M u s e u m . I a m g r a t e f u l t o D r . K i m u r a E i i c h i o f M i z u s a w a c i t y f o r h i s h o s p i t a l i t y a n d f o r i n f o r m a t i o n o n h i s f a t h e r ' s w o r k o n A i n u p l a c e n a m e s , a n d t o M r . S a t o H i d e a k i o f E n r y a k u h a c h i n e n n o k a i o f M i z u s a w a c i t y f o r h i s a s s i s t a n c e i n m y fieldwork o n A t e r u i . Acknowledgements xviii In Osaka, I am grateful to Dr. Ohtsuka Kazuyoshi and his wife Takako, as well as Dr. Kishigami Nobuhiro of the National Museum of Ethnology for valuable materials on tra-ditional Ainu culture, as well as some stimulating intellectual exchange. In Tokyo, I thank Ms.Aoki Etsuko, the head of Peureutari no kai, and her husband for warm friendship and support. I thank my young Ainu friends, Ms. Uzawa Kanako and Ms. Hasegawa Yuki of Ainu International Network, for their straight and sharp opinions. I am always grateful for the existence of the Rera-chise ("House of Wind" in Ainu) near Waseda University, an important gathering place for Ainu in the Tokyo area, for friendly smiles, good barbecued salmon, and acceptance. I thank many individuals who rendered me support in Tokyo, and who have become good friends since Nibutani Forum 1993, where I ended up as one of the main interpre-ters and a "trouble shooter."They include Ms. Yamaha Midori, Ms. Baba Naoko of Sen-juminzoku Junen no kai, Professor Uemura Hideaki, Professor Juhji Shiba, and Professor Takeo Hideki of International Studies, Meiji Gakuin University. I am grateful for the assis-tance I received from Mr. Nishizawa Hideichi of Maple Tours, and Ms. Ogawa Mieko, a former graduate student at Meiji Gakuin University. I am also grateful for the assistance I received from the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Mr. Nakamura Takayuki, Political Officer and Mr. Luois Hamel, former Cultural Attache at the Embassy in particular. I am also in debt to Mr. Katayama Ryuho, a linguist in Tokyo, for valuable information on the Ainu lan-guage. Many, many thanks go to my late grandparents from Tsugaru,Tanaka Hajime and Kane, with whom now I communicate only in my dreams. Very, very special thanks go to Acknowledgements xix m y p a r e n t s A k i o a n d R e i k o , t h e D r s . T a n a k a , w h o n e v e r l o s t a s e n s e o f h u m o r a n d h a v e a l w a y s b e e n " c o o l " i n c r i s i s s i t u a t i o n s . I o w e s p e c i a l t h a n k s t o m y r e l a t i v e s i n a n d f r o m H a k o d a t e a n d K i r a i c h i . S p e c i a l t h a n k s g o t o m y c o u s i n s , M s . I n o u e A k i k o a n d M s . T o k u m a r u T a k a k o , w h o a r e l i k e s i s t e r s t o m e , a n d w h o h a v e s h a r e d t h e i r k e e n i n t e r e s t a n d j o y i n m y q u e s t f o r a n i d e n t i t y o n c e f o r b i d d e n . I t h a n k t h e j u n i o r m e m b e r s o f m y h o u s e h o l d , L e o , L y r e , A n - a n a n d A i d a n f o r k e e p i n g t h e h o u s e l i v e l y a n d e n e r g y - f i l l e d . I a l s o t h a n k m y f r i e n d E r l i n d a C o n s t a n t i n o w h o c l e a n e d o u r h o u s e , c o o k e d , a n d c o n t r o l l e d t h e c h i l d r e n w h e n I w a s i l l . I t h a n k m y f a m i l y d o c t o r , a t r a d i t i o n a l reiki t h e r a p i s t , D r . F l o r e n c e H a n a k o Y a k u r a , a n d D r . C l i v e D u n c a n , t h e h e a d o f t h e O r t h o p e d i c D e p a r t m e n t a t U B C , f o r t h e i r c a r e f o r m e d u r i n g m y c o m -b i n e d i l l n e s s a n d p r e g n a n c y . I w i s h t o s a y t h a n k y o u t o D r . G a r y A r b u c k l e f o r h i s c r i t i c a l c o m m e n t s o n m y w o r k a n d f o r e d i t o r i a l a s s i s t a n c e . H e i s a l s o m y w e b - m a s t e r , m u l t i - m e d i a a d v i s o r , g u a r d i a n o f o u r c h i l d r e n a n d a v e r y o c c a s i o n a l c o o k . L a s t b u t n o t l e a s t i m p o r t a n t , I t h a n k m y a n c e s t o r s , s p i r i t g u i d e s a n d o t h e r i n v i s i b l e b u t r e a l f o r c e s w h o h a v e t r a v e l l e d w i t h m e , a s w e l l a s t h o s e s p e c i a l f r i e n d s w h o n e v e r r e v e a l e d t h e i r n a m e s b u t h a v e g i v e n m e p r e c i o u s g i f t s . I t h a n k t h e s t a r s f o r r e m i n d i n g m e w h e r e I c a m e f r o m , a n d w h e r e I a m g o i n g . CHAPTER O N E I N T R O D U C T I O N The indigenous people 3^1^ w h o l ived all over 6u [northern Honshu] d id not ascend to the heavens, nor d id they sink to the underworld . They were assimilated where they l ived and became 6u people. This is an unquestionable fact They are all Japanese today, but they are also indigenous people. Fujiwara 1917 (1998): 542-43 Prologue: Isis in darkness For most of human history, myth has been the vehicle to transmit and express the central truths of culture and society.And so, I wi l l borrow a myth to explain the purpose of the chapters that follow, on one level parts of a doctoral dissertation, a formal and even somewhat ritualized requirement among the tribes of academe; but more signifi-cant, to myself at least, for what they have helped me discover about my own indigenous history and that of my Ainu ancestors. After his father Geb retired to the heavens, Osiris, god of the Nile waters and Pha-raoh of Egypt, ruled the lower world with his sister and wife, Isis, goddess of female fer-tility. Seth, jealous lord of the barren desert, murdered Osiris and dismembered his corpse, tearing it into fourteen pieces and scattering it over the banks of the Nile. Upon learning of this, Isis set sail in a boat of papyrus. One by one, she recovered the scattered Chapter 1 2 pieces of Osiris — all but his phallus — and reunited them so that he might thereby be restored to divine life. Later, when Seth was delivered into her hands by her son Horus, Isis pardoned him and let him go free. My work with the Ainu and their traditions has come to be a journey like that of Isis, to reunite the dismembered parts of a lost but still remembered whole so that they may come to life again. Before I was even conscious of the exact dimensions of the quest, I began wandering the banks of my own Nile, not one physical place but a stream of mem-ories, oral histories, transmitted wisdom, neglected writings, and misinterpreted histo-ries. It might not even be too facetious to claim that the loss of Osiris' penis found its parallel as well, in my struggle to understand and transcend the phallocratic bias of some modern Ainu tradition. This dissertation focuses on a "forgotten" community, Tsugaru , located at the northern tip of the main island of Honshu, where an Ainu heritage has persisted in mod-ified and syncretic forms.Tsugaru represents an indigenous culture, pertaining to the Ainu, whose transmission has rested partly on "blood" and partly on shared world views and practices.The persistence of this culture in Tsugaru has only been possible because of a long series of conscious decisions to ensure its transmission, in the face of varying levels of official hostility, rather than a dependence on fate. Understanding Tsugaru is crucial for Ainu study because it demonstrates the intricacy of the "Ainu culture com-plex" and reflects the diversity of the indigenous cultures of northern Japan. This study looks at Tsugaru and its Ainu history and shamanic heritage. It is an attempt to correct the standard view, that this region and peoples are properly no more than a subdivision of Japanese studies, having nothing to do with the Ainu. I wi l l bring to Chapter 1 3 light the cultural foundations of the indigenous populations of northern Japan, shaman-ism and other related spiritual beliefs and practices, and examine both their variations and their uniformity. In so doing, this study wi l l contribute not only to the understand-ing of the Ainu, but also to the past and present inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago, the peoples who have today come to be called the "Japanese."1 Both the Ainu and the "Japanese" wi l l be shown to share a significant proportion of their spiritual foundations with the traditional peoples of the Asian continent — those of Northeast Asia in particu-lar; and even further, to the Northwest Coast indigenous peoples of North America. These findings wi l l thus suggest common roots for the Ainu and the "Japanese," through the great transcontinental, trans-Pacific population movements of the prehistoric past, as well as the busy trade and cultural exchanges which followed them until national bound-aries were erected to obstruct this flow of goods and ideas. Now, let us begin. Shamans and Ainu What follows is a study of the indigenous shamanisms of northern Japan, intended to deepen and extend our knowledge of both indigenous history and culture and the shamanic vocation. One characteristic these two fields share is that they have been "dis-appearing" for a long time — the so-called "Ainu" and the shaman, not to speak of the Ainu shaman, have been labelled relics of a swiftly vanishing world, not long for the liv-ing and thus in urgent need of being seized and dropped in a bottle of formaldehyde. Chapter 1 4 In the face of an imposed Japanese homogeneity, that defined them out of existence in all but a few limited areas, the study of the Ainu and other indigenous peoples in northern Japan is commonly tainted with either the misplaced urgency of salvage eth-nography or the condescending concern of misty-eyed "sympathizers."The former is obviously irritating, imbued as it can be with insensitive and even racist attitudes about savage cultures and dying peoples; but the latter is more insidious, promoting as it does an "Ainu" that is sanitized, sterilized, even emasculated, a Sunday-school puppet whose chief obsession is either living up to the demands of a distinctly contemporary political correctness, or lingering in ostentatious misery as a living advertisement of the evils of the present Japanese government. As for shamanism, no sooner did it receive its name, from seventeenth century Rus-sian priests, than the first drafts of its epitaph appeared. Like the Ainu themselves, the shamans have been dying for a long time, but they have somehow contrived never to be quite dead. Now, as we w i l l see below, they enjoy a new respectability from modern developments in science. Research on both the indigenous peoples of northern Japan and on shamanism has suffered from a lack of direct input and feedback from the native side to academic dis-course. Nearly all accounts are written from the outside, and a native scholar soon finds that his or her own oral traditions and knowledge are seldom if ever given a proper wel-come in academia.The result is that native scholarship comes to be defined by the quan-tity of ethnographic and theoretical literature produced by non-natives, while the mastery of this literature becomes a prerequisite for dealing with primary sources. For a Chapter 1 5 native scholar, it is all rather like being locked into a chastity belt until you can pass a examination on the contents of a sex manual written by a team of eunuchs. Needless to say, we wi l l be trying to do better than this. But before we begin, let us briefly turn our attention to our primary categories. We say "Ainu" and "shaman," but what do these words correspond to in the real world? Shamanism and sbamanizing The term 'shaman' first saw the light of day at the end of the 17th century. It appears to have been adopted from Evenki, a Tungustic language of Siberia, by a priest of the Orthodox Church of Russia, and to have referred to the 'religious' specialists found in small-scale,'primitive,' hunting and gathering societies in Siberia. Such specialists were inevitably viewed by missionaries as religious rivals who consorted with demons (Pascal 1938). In the 19th century, the interpretation of shamanism was strongly influenced by Eurocentric, social-evolutionist perspectives, and anthropologists forged a link between shamanism and an "archaic" way of life (Tylor 1871).This view became part of the gen-eral idea that shamanism was a kind of "natural religion," harmonizing with a natural type of economy (Durkeim 1965, Lommel 1967), or a "technique of ecstasy" (Eliade 1964), a "seizure of man by divinity" that allowed direct contact with the divine (Lewis 1971). At the same time, when social paradigms of ultimate truth shifted from religious to "scientific," the heresies that remained unacceptable to the enlightened, mind were trans-ferred from the class of impiety to that of insanity.A shaman's contact with spirit beings, Chapter 1 6 for instance the souls of the deceased, his/her ability to enter into a trance state, his/her performance of glossolalia, and the manifestation of other skills and conditions not nor-mally observed by other humans, helped the original religious denunciation of the sha-man to evolve into a psychological interpretation which assumed shamanic practitioners were mentally abnormal, victims perhaps of "arctic hysteria" (Czaplicka 1914, Shi-rokogoroff 1935, Hallowell 1941, Belo I960). In order to justify the role of healer he or she often takes, some scholars referred to the shaman as a formerly insane person who had been successfully cured, a "cured madman" (Ackerknecht 1949, Halifax 1982). Still others have attempted to use concepts and arguments from psychiatry to demonstrate the "archetypal nature" of shamanism (Perry 1974). Although many studies have questioned the correctness of labelling shamans mad, or formerly mad (Heinz 1988,1989; Klimo 1988,1989; Inglis 1989), it remains an estab-lished norm in western medical institutions and among medical practitioners in the men-tal health field. Often the outcome of such a bias is not only a failure to provide con-textually effective medical treatment, but also what amounts to cultural genocide (Walker 1989,Alsup 1989)The interpretation of shamans as abnormal has also given rise to a comparative legal perspective in cases where shamanistic practice has been in-cluded within an established system of legal practice (Salzberg 1993). These classical definitions of shamanism, based on the Siberian model, were domi-nant until recently, when studies of shamanism in complex, sedentary, 'modern' societ-ies rendered them not only narrow but useless. The definition of a shaman can be general enough to include what are otherwise known as mediums or channelers, healers (Heinze 1988,1989; Klimo 1988,1989), or artists (Ridington 1983, Levy 1989). Shaman-Chapter 1 7 ism stubbornly refuses to disappear, and by its persistence it has called into question the assumption that it is a relic of the past that wi l l die on contact with the modern world. In some Asian communities, for example, shamanism has survived from prehistoric times to the present (Chang 1982; Overmyer 1976,1996). Many students of shamanism today share the view that although the role, function, and ability of a shaman may be cul-ture-specific, shamanism is a universal religious experience which provides its partici-pant the experience of direct contact wi th the metaphysical and the belief in the survival of souls (Cardena 1989;Hamayon 1994;Heinze 1988,1989;Pattee 1989).This, in my view, is an acceptable working definition of shamanism, at least for the purposes of this study. Unlike most of those who engage shamanism in the academic arena, I came to live what I study. I was born in the port city of Hakodate \MWx in southern Hokkaido, where I inherited an indigenous heritage from my grandparents on my father's side. My grand-mother is from northern Tsugaru in the prefecture of Aomori n M . , the last stronghold of the Ainu people in Honshu, and she still spoke some Ainu and followed indigenous spiri-tual traditions at home. On my grandfather's side, my great-grandmother is also from Aomori; she made and wore Ainu dress, claiming it as part of her tradition, and her elder sister was a traditional shamaness practicing hill-time in Aomori. I did not grow up know-ing about my background, since it was a taboo topic for my father, who had established himself in "mainstream" culture. Yet even prior to confirming my Ainu and shamanic ancestry, I had already been, seemingly by chance, initiated by an Ainu master shamaness from Nibutani,Aiko Aoki, who saw something in me I had not been fully aware of. Chapter 1 8 My understanding of my own traditions has not been noticeably furthered by the religio-academic debate on the shaman's nature, calling, and mental stability: for one thing, I am tolerably certain that I am not insane. I define and use the term "shamanism" for the purpose of this discussion, but it is strictly an academic convenience.There may be shamans, but from the indigenous standpoint in the real world, there is no exact cor-relate to "shaman/sm." Three recent developments in the study of shamanism have been of great assistance, developments which have situated the shamanic vocation within the realm of natural science: health science, environmental science, and the "hard" or "pure" sciences such as physics. Over the past decade, a number of findings about the functions of the brain, neural hormones and chemicals, and the human immune system have revealed a complex psy-cho-physiological mechanism stimulated by shamanic processes. What has been called the state of possession or 'trance' is now studied vigorously by students of altered states of consciousness (ASC) (Jilek 1982, Inglis 1989, Ludwig 1968); the function of neuro-transmitters such as ekaphelhn and endorphins, the body's self-manufactured opiates influenced by successful shamanism and alternative healing methods have been discov-ered (Inglis 1989, Henry 1982, Kane 1982, Katz 1982, Pomeranz 1982, Prince 1982 a,b, c, Saffaran 1982); and near-death experience research has revealed brain functions rele-vant to what has been called "direct religious experiences" (Persinger 1987,Tachibana 1994 a, b).There is also a growing literature concerning the effectiveness of shamanism and alternative modes of healing which suggests beneficial aspects of their application in clinical settings (Brala 1989, Jilek 1982, Palmer 1989,Siegel 1989).The shaman's ability Chapter 1 9 to enter into different states of consciousness such as trance and lucid dreams can now be seen as something innate in every human, rather than a mysterious "gift" given only to certain half-cracked members of exotic indigenous groups. The study of shamanism as an alternative therapeutic system might wel l lead to breakthroughs in western medicine, when and where the limits of modern mechanistic medicine reveal themselves.Tillichi (1967) has called for a reevaluation of the modern concepts of health. He proposes a multi-dimensional concept of health to enhance the multidimensionality of life — mental and physical phenomena cannot be separated. Al l old news to myself and my teachers, of course but it is pleasant to have our insights vali-dated rather than dismissed. Equally important in understanding and enhancing health is the relationship between human behavior and the natural environment. It has been noted that allopathic medicine neglects the role the environment plays in human health (McCarron 1994). Here, shamanism provides a vital model of culture-nature symbiosis. A major contribu-tion in understanding shamanism as an effective life-sustaining mechanism has been made by the ecological anthropologist Irimoto and his colleagues, who have examined the dynamic interaction between religion and ecology among circumpolar indigenous communities (Irimoto and Yamada eds. 1994). Defining ecology as a holistic way of understanding human life, Irimoto proposes a new paradigm which enhances the pro-cessual and interactive nature of the relationship between religion, biology, society and ecology (Irimoto 1994).This approach allows us to say that shamanism must be placed in a temporal and spatial context, as a process, not an unchanging ideal, whose surface manifestations are transformed rather than dying out and being re-invented. The social-Chapter 1 10 ecological approach enables us to see the multiplicity of negative effects brought to an ethnic group by the destruction of its natural environment (Pentikainen 1994). Most recently, researchers in "hard" natural sciences, such as physics, have turned their attention to developing hypotheses and models that might explain the universal mechanics of shamanic phenomena. The majority of this work has been done in Japan and China by researchers such as Shigemi Sasaki of the University of Electrocommuni-cations and the Psi Energy Research Committee in Tokyo, who has taken a physics-based approach to the measurement and analysis of traditional concepts such as ki M (Ch. qi; "transformative energy") and various forms of so-called "exceptional sensor perception" (Sasaki 1 9 9 5 , 1 9 9 7 and so on). He and others have been able to identify certain condi-tions and variables that are prerequisites to the occurrence of such phenomena in natu-ral and laboratory settings.2 A number of similar studies have been done by Hardt at the Biocybernaut Institute in the USA, who has concentrated on measuring and optimizing brain function (Hardt n.d.). This is the shamanism I w i l l be discussing below, a culturally-defined mechanism which facilitates healing in body and mind and, in so doing, integrates a participant with his/her community and the divine environment that surrounds it.A shaman is then a per-son who communicates with spirit beings, and restores balance between the human world, the natural environment, and the Order beyond, the so-called sacred and divine. It is not a quirk, or a consolation prize for the mentally or physically i l l , but has been, can, and should be a natural product of optimum human cognitive ability. It is to this end that I w i l l relate its history and practice among the indigenous peoples of northern Japan. Chapter 1 U To me, one of the problems wi th the study of shamanism is to demonstrate that a shamanic tradition does not necessarily die out when it is denounced by the indigenous population or fails to meet the "classical" standards set by the experts. How do you deal with the issue of change? If you say there are traditional criteria that no longer apply, it does not mean the tradition is thereby discontinued.As many students of indigenous sha-manism in contemporary societies state, the problem is in our minds, expecting a tradi-tion frozen in time, seeking a prototype which all too often has existed nowhere but in the imagination of salvage ethnographers, in spite of the complexity of the social and political processes which influence the survival strategies and responses of traditional shamans adapting themselves to contemporary globalizing societies (Balzer 1999, Hopal 1999, Ingerman 1999,Tiukhteneva 1999, Mader 1999). Van Deusen,for instance, dis-cusses how oral historians/storytellers play a key role in shamanic cultures and their revival, and how the distinction between storytelling and shamanizing blurs in some indigenous societies (Van Deusen 1999). Her point is of particular relevance to this study, as well as to myself and my experience. The transformation in the study of shamanism might be compared to the paradigm shift in the field of linguistics by the transformative school led by Chomsky in the 1950's. Rather than simply observing surface phenomena, we look at the deeper layers of under-lying assumptions, values, and principles which underpin the cultural genre of a particu-lar shamanic tradition. Instead of regarding these traditions as dead and gone, we can see them to be dormant in some areas and capable of revival given a change in circum-stances. Hence, Micheal Herner, for example, has created Core Shamanism, and his insti-tution, the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, has instituted an Urgent Tribal Assistance Chapter 1 12 program to respond to requests from traditional societies to help them restore shaman-ism and healing. At least some scholars, including Townsend, consider Herner's work "authentic" and valid, and feel that it has the potential for at least partially reviving tradi-tional shamanic systems (Townsend 1999:226). Shamanism has been particularly prone to outside manipulation — up to and includ-ing suppression — and in many cases, the peoples concerned, including at least some of the Hokkaido Ainu, have been brought to the point of denying that they practice it. Nev-ertheless, societies under severe pressure can and w i l l find a way to preserve their sacred traditions if they so wish. For example, Balzer reports that one common strategy of shamans under Soviet repression was to "go underground" to practice shamanic acts in invisible, private, and thus safe places, such as forests, or to perform spirit invocations without key shamanic instruments such as drums, after the drums were confiscated, sent off to museums, or burned (Balzer 1999: 94). As we w i l l see, among the Ainu in Hokkaido, midwives came to be the keepers of the shamanic flame. As a result, the contemporary Ainu in Hokkaido have come to possess a dual stan-dard and a dual structure for spiritual matters, the "official" and the "non-official."The former involves public ceremonial events which take place in communities, in which male elders function as ceremonial masters.These are propagated as "real"Ainu tradition to the outside world by the ceremonial masters, and often go hand in hand with media attention and tourist promotion. The latter, on the other hand, are much smaller-scaled and have shamanic ends; they are organized by shamans, or involve them. The powerful Ainu males tend to denounce the "authenticity" of such ceremonies, insisting that they Chapter 1 13 remain outside the Ainu tradition proper, and that "real" shamans have all but disap-peared. In regions such as Tsugaru, where no "real"Ainu are supposed to remain according to official Japanese declarations and policy statements, indigenous shamanism survives under the surface label of Japanese customs, sometimes affiliated with Buddhist temples and other organized religions. Why is shamanism thriving here, at the southern edge of the official Ainu area, divided from Hokkaido by only a few miles of sea — an area the Ainu mysteriously vanished from one by one when they became "Japanese," the home for what appears to have been the magically disappearing Ainu, vanished at the conve-nience of the Japanese government? The modern Ainu and their neglected roots The next chapter, Chapter Two, w i l l be devoted to the history of the indigenous peoples of northern Japan, and I do not wish to foreshadow every detail of it here. How-ever, the discussion wi l l go more smoothly if we do with Ainu as we have done with sha-manism, and give a brief review of the associated definitional problems. These are both external and internal: the misunderstandings of outsiders, picking the bones of what they assume to be a corpse, and the distortion of the tradition under modern pressure, which among other things has led to major gender issues within the Ainu community. Traditional studies of the origin and the definition of the Ainu are as unsatisfactory as those on shamanism — possibly worse. Ainu studies have suffered from disciplinary and national boundaries, the lack of a collaborative framework, a lack of native input, and Chapter 1 14 imperialism. To this day, there is no accepted scholarly consensus on who the Ainu peo-ple are and what their traditional territories included. The definitions that can be found are highly flexible, depending on the criteria used and the standpoint of the person mak-ing the definition. However, one generalization can be made: the main problem is always where to fix the southern border of the Ainu territories, and how to define the relation-ship between the indigenous population of Honshu and that of Hokkaido. This point can be neatly illustrated by comparing three recent maps of Ainu terri-tory and culture, all of which are "official," but all of which disagree on the placement of the southern boundary. The most conser-vative of these is that which appears in the Brochure on the Ainu People published by the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, the larg-Island ol Northern E20 Regional grow saklwun (Karaluto) Ainu ) Hokkaido Ainu Si j ' J J Kurite(Chl»hima)Ainu Figure 1 . 1 : Ainu territories according to the Ainu Association of Hokkaido est and most "official"Ainu organization, reproduced to the left. In this map, Ainu territory includes the southern part of Sakhalin, the Kurils, Hok-kaido, and the prefecture of Aomori at the northern tip of Honshu. The justification offered assumes the relative lateness of the emergence of a distinctive Ainu culture cen-tered on Hokkaido, which is said to emerge from its immediate predecessor, Satsumon culture, in the mid-twelfth century. However, prior to the emergence of "Ainu" culture as so defined, the Satsumon culture had spread across northern Honshu and most parts of Hokkaido.The problem is that before the mid-twelfth century, the main actors on the Chapter 1 15 stage of indigenous history, appearing in various official records, are the indigenous peo-ples of northern Honshu, most commonly known as Emishi.To this day, the exact rela-tionship between the Emishi and the more recent Ainu is not clear, although it is possible to place them in a larger cultural complex and emphasize their affinities. In the next chapter, I wi l l examine various perspectives on understanding the Emishi, and their associated definitional problems. "A (Distribution of Ainu in recent ages) Figure 1.2: Ainu territories according to the Hokkaido Ainu Museum, Shiraoi The second of these maps, shown at the left, presents an attempt to see the Emishi /Ainu cultural complex as a distinct unit. It is titled "Distribution of the Ainu people in recent ages"2 and it is published by the Hokkaido A i n u Museum i n Shiraoi . Unfortu-nately, even though most of the north-ern half of Honshu appears as Ainu territory on the map, this area is never referred to in the accompanying text (The Ainu Museum, 1994).The same area is defined as Ainu in the Ainu minzoku o rikai suru tameni Oo understand the Ainu people), an official publication of the Hokkaido government (Hokkaido govern-ment 1995).The exact words they use are: "The Ainu people once lived in a wide area covering northern Honshu, Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands.Today, the major-ity of the Ainu live in Hokkaido and there are very small populations in other areas" Chapter 1 16 (1995:2). Nevertheless, these sources do not identify the Emishi people as Ainu, but say rather that the Emishi included at least some Ainu people. 3 This position, which is becoming steadily more popular, is still seen by some as problematic, partly because of the lack of Emishi ethnography and the unavailability of any full description of the spo-ken Emishi language. Those scholars who have looked primarily at material culture have emphasized dif-ferences rather than similarities. Physical anthropologists tend to come to rushed con-clusions on very scanty data, for instance that a handful of "Emishi" skulls are not "Ainu," and so the Emishi are not Ainu (Suzuki 1950: 23-44).5 Differences in material culture, such as shifts in pottery styles, are seen by some as indications of racial changes (Kaiho 1993). Nevertheless, even here, some recent studies have questioned to what extent measurable differences in material culture can be mechanically mapped to modifications in social and ethnic frameworks (Fukazawa 1998). Then what justification is there for assuming a link between the Emishi and the Ainu, other than a feeling that the so-called Emishi were the indigenous people prior to the emergence of the Ainu? One problem is that, for fairly obscure reasons, there is no Ainu archeology in Honshu, and even Ainu studies on the academic level have only begun there in the very recent past.6 Thus the chief proponents of the Ainu/Emishi cultural complex come from linguistics, and the study of religion and ecology. The third map we are going to discuss here is thus a linguistic one, entitled "Main Ainu Dialects and Sites of Fieldwork" (see next page). It is taken from a journal pub-lished by the Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Center, which was established in 1993. This map identifies northern Tohoku, in the prefectures of Aomori, Akita, and Iwate, as Chapter 1 17 an Ainu dialect area, dis-tinct from Hokkaido, the Kurils, and Sakhalin. A c c o r d i n g to th is b o o k l e t , the d i a l ec t a l va r i a t i on is apparent, even though the different dialects still remain mutu-ally intelligible.This l in-guistic boundary is the safest and most conserva-tive definition offered by canonical works by Kin-daichi Kyosuke, followed by a number o f o the r prominent linguists, including Chiri Mashiho, the only native Ainu student of Ainu lin-guistics.The most recent scholar in this line is A. Slawik, who considers the historical "Emishi" language to be a member of the same linguistic family as Ainu (Slawik et al. 1994, Chiri 1973J, Kindaichi 1962,Yamada 1984a, 1993).7 9 SB® 8 fft 4 6 m-i u Figure 1.3: Ainu dialect map, by the Hokkaido Ainu Culture Research Center The linguistic argument rests largely on the study of indigenous place names, the result of extensive field work which has been necessary to contextualize the names in question, many of which are duplicated in Hokkaido or even further north.There are also overlapping vocabulary items and beliefs among the local nomadic populations, Chapter 1 18 including the matagi, as well as personal names in written documents, starting from the Kdjiki and Nihonshoki. Although these place names are commonly referred to as "Ainu," this should not be understood as a claim that the Ainu language has remained unchanged over the years, or that the language spoken by the Emishi in northern Honshu one thou-sand years ago was identical to contemporary Hokkaido Ainu. Nevertheless, certain ele-ments seem to persist and ensure a basic continuity, such as is displayed by the words nay andpetsu designating rivers.The consistency of the patterns that remain is difficult to explain by any other hypothesis than the presence of an Ainu or proto-Ainu linguistic heritage. As we mentioned, there are also scholars who support Emishi/Ainu continuity on ecological and religious grounds. ObayashiTaryo, probably the foremost Japanese authority on the ecology and religion of the indigenous peoples in the circumpolar regions, states that judging from the hunting, fishing, and gathering ecology of the Emishi, and their annual ritual cycle, there is no question that they and the Ainu share a basic system and form a continuity. He argues strongly for the recognition of Ainu ele-ments in northern Honshu in general.The problem is, he points out, that due to histori-cal circumstances, scholars have been hesitant to assert the Ainu roots of certain indigenous customs in northern Honshu (1997b: 171). I would merely add that the Hok-kaido Ainu explanation for, and in some cases, demand for the recognition of Ainu cus-toms in northern Honshu only came to be taken seriously by a small number of mainstream academics in the past decade or so. Chapter 1 19 The Dawn of Ainu Studies? There are extra-academic reasons for the disagreement over the definition of "Ainu" as well.The official Japanese government assumption about the Ainu for the last few cen-turies has been that they are an inevitably disappearing minority people, with a distinct culture, language, and world view that all belongs to the past, with no place in, and no right to the present. In other words, "Ainu" became little more than shorthand for "relic of the past."The Meiji government officially labeled the Hokkaido Ainu Hokkaido kyu-dojin (^ blSJMlHi A, "Former Indigenous People of Hokkaido"), and in 1899 they imple-mented a strict colonial law, the Hokkaido kyudojin hogoho ( b^?§ii!lHiA^M?S Hokkaido Former Indigenous People's Protection Act), which remained on the books until 1997. It was only two years ago that the Ainu were recognized as a living indige-nous people in Japan by the Japanese government, and the colonial law was replaced by the Ainu Culture Promotion Act, which is seen by the Ainu as an ad hoc, temporary com-promise for the New Ainu Law still under discussion. Any serious student of Ainu studies, or indigenous studies of northern Japan, must bear in mind that the very existence of the Ainu and other indigenous peoples of northern Japan has never been wholeheartedly acknowledged by the Japanese government.8 The perennial definition of the Ainu as a group of former hunter-gatherers lingering in forgotten corners of Hokkaido is based on 19th-century salvage ethnography, shaped by the unashamed imperialism and nationalism of that time. Nearly all studies accepted the accuracy of the Meiji spatial definition of the Ainu: only in Hokkaido. Their brothers and sisters in northern Honshu, the people of Tsugaru, were set apart from them by an imaginary gulf, despite a host of obvious commonalities — Tsugaru was defined as the Chapter 1 20 domain of vulgar Japanese peasants, Hokkaido as the home of the Ainu, backward bar-barians or (occasionally) noble savages, but never on any account relatives. As part of this process, the concept "Ainu" was associated with a collection of quaint surface manifestations, wi th ethnographers looking for "Ainu customs" rather than searching out underlying values and principles.The sorry state of Hokkaido Ainu culture as it existed in the 19th century was enshrined as its culmination and essence, and the damage done to it by Japanese encroachment ignored or even celebrated. To borrow a Russian proverb cited by Solzhenitsyn: they smash in your face, and say you were always ugly. The Ainu who remained Ainu were treated as living museum specimens, posed, pho-tographed, measured, and tested, often with less consideration than the law now pre-scribes for laboratory animals.The only road "forward" left open to them was to become "civilized," which in effect meant to cultivate a sense of shame towards their indigenous heritage, and try by any and all means to pass as Japanese.9 Most of all, to be Ainu meant to be born inferior, subject to abuse, discrimination, denigration, and an endless need to justify one's existence; and this, unfortunately, continues to this day. The archeological study of the Ainu can help to correct this prejudiced and mistaken picture, but it comes with its own limitations. Archeologists tend to study material cul-ture: and they are often more or less helpless when it comes to fitting these "things" into a living context. Hence archeological research into the indigenous population of Japan came to be dubbed "Jomon" studies, a name taken from a pottery style which conjured up an ethno-cultural group in its own image. Unfortunately, "Jomon" people have become as real as Ainu in the minds of those who study them, with a distinct and unitary Chapter 1 21 presence. Worse still, seduced by the insidious charms of nationalism, the term "Jomon" has sometimes become not merely a name of a people, but the name of the indigenous people who were ancestral to the Japanese state and culture of today. Once more, the Ainu have been left to one side. Some say that Ainu studies are going through a paradigm shift at present, being inte-grated with Japanese studies proper, rather than kept in a separate and isolated compart-ment as in the past. 1 0 Indeed, many questions about the Ainu (and the Japanese) which were earlier taboo are now at least openly asked, including "what is the historical, genetic, linguistic, and cultural relationship between the Japanese' and the Ainu?" and "How 'homogenous' is the Ainu culture, and where are its limits? "Those who study Ainu language and oral literature have begun expressing their problems with the accepted southern boundary of "Ainu" place names, since these can easily be found in central and southern Japan as well (Katayama 1994, Kimura 1988a, Umehara 1994, to quote a few). Answering these questions is a task for future research, but at least the questions are now being taken seriously by a number of respectable scholars. In the past, when com-mon vocabulary and grammatical features were found between Japanese and Ainu, they were mechanically considered to be loans from Japanese, but today the other possibility is not ignored, and even a common root for the two languages is being hypothesized (Katayama 1994, Slawik et al. 1994). And, at long last, there is a growing number of researchers who are will ing to listen to the long-standing Ainu claim that many older place names in the Japanese archipelago can only be understood with a knowledge of indigenous languages, including Ainu (see the Ainu interpretation of Japanese place names by Ainu speakers in Yamamoto 1991, Nomura 1993). Chapter 1 22 Taking into account these different perceptions of the Ainu, and current scholarly concerns, my working definition of the Ainu for the purpose of this dissertation is a com-promise. Recognizing the diversity within the indigenous cultures in northern Japan, both historical and contemporary, I attempt to view the indigenous cultural complex of northern Japan, made up of Ainu and other indigenous peoples in Honshu, as an "Ainu culture complex."The concept "Ainu culture complex" highlights the broadest regional unit traditionally identified through a common general linguistic thread, and at the same time preserves an ethnic subdivision between the Ainu and Emishi, since I consider the Emishi to be indigenous peoples who flourished before the emergence of the modern Ainu.The geographic boundary of this culture complex corresponds to that accepted by the Ainu Culture Research Centre at present. I respect the position of the Hokkaido Ainu Association in their attempt to limit the traditional Hokkaido Ainu territory to that pre-sented in their map, and thus not expanding the use of the term Ainu to the traditional and contemporary inhabitants of areas beyond its limit, unless referring to Ainu people who moved to these other areas. Thus when I use the term Ainu as an ethnic category, I refer strictly to those indige-nous peoples in northern Japan whose "distinct" culture and language are said to have emerged after the mid-12th century.: this usage agrees with the current usage "Ainu" defined somewhat narrowly by the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, and their legal position vis-a-vis the Japanese government. Other indigenous peoples may be referred to as sim-ply indigenous peoples, or depending on the context, by whatever names they were called by the Japanese or by themselves. However, when I use Ainu as a linguistic cate-gory, for the sake of the discussion I treat it completely separately from its ethnic coun-Chapter 1 23 terpart.As a rule, I use the term Ainu (language) in accordance with the model provided by the Ainu Culture Research Centre.Thus, the latter has a much wider scope, in time and space, than the former; I believe this is justifiable considering the possibility that Ainu was a lingua franca among some populations, like English in India or Nigeria. I wi l l return briefly to the issue of language and identity in the concluding section. Why Tsugaru now? Tsugaru is the problem child of a fated mismatch between the "Japanese" and the Ainu. The people of Tsugaru are least likely to be recognized as still Ainu by outsiders; they are situated at the furthest periphery of the present Ainu territories.The same holds true for their "Japaneseness," since the majority of "Japanese" do not understand the authentic Tsugaru vernacular, and perceive Tsugaru to be at the very edge of their civili-zation. Even though Ainu people still live in Tsugaru and its adjacent areas, and keep in contact with the Ainu in Hokkaido, their public visibility is close to zero except for the occasional activities of a few public figures.11 The same holds true for the Ainu in south-ern Hokkaido, who are wrongly depicted by some to have completely disappeared in the sixteenth century after the conclusion of the first Japanese-Ainu war (Howell 1994). On the contrary, open ethnic conflict continued in Tsugaru until the end of the sixteenth century. The recent Ainu past of Tsugaru is neither an invention nor an illusion, whether or not post-modernists wish to accept it.As the textual historian Hasegawa points out, the Tsugaru clan's extension of trade access and subsequent control oyer the entire jurisdic-Chapter 1 24 tion of Tsugaru (western Aomori today) could not have been possible without the pacifi-cation of the A i n u who held power in the central part of the Tsugaru peninsula (Hasegawa 1993:154-156).The Ainu in Tsugaru, as we wil l see in the next chapter, con-tinued to be documented in official records until the early nineteenth century — until all the residents of Tsugaru finally became "Japanese" under the family registration system. Tamai thus rightly points out the need for further study of the historical background of the ethnic conflict at the end of the sixteenth century, since it wi l l shed light on the most important issue concerning the distinct cultural and historical circumstances which shaped Tsugaru (Tamai 1993:185-190) — the influence of Ainu and other indige-nous civilizations on contemporary Tsugaru people at large, and the nature of the indige-nous societies which existed before the Edo period. For example, the Ainu atsushi was commonly produced and worn by the Ainu pop-fep in northern Tsugaru i M teenth century, as seen in sketch s made at that m time (one reproduced on the next page); or the salmon-skin boots shown to the left, w h i c h were in common use in Aomori prefecture until the turn of the twentieth century. (They are called keri, an Ainu word.) These traditions, and many others, are not completely a part of the past even today. Figure 1.4: Traditional salmon-skin boots, Aomori To this day, there are a small number of people in Tsugaru who can trace their roots to their Ainu ancestors. But Ainu Tsugaru, or more precisely, indigenous Tsugaru is not Chapter 1 25 9 r-* T. * * •* % >' ? ' i 1 limited to those few. Tsugaru as a region is a relatively recently conquered land, and its image as "Japan's Dogpatch" is the by-prod-uct of its assimilation and annexation into mainstream society, or to be blunter, the powerful "other." In the context of imposed Japanese homogeneity, the residents of Tsu-garu have suffered an identity dilemma and have been reduced to a forgotten, partial people, neither fully "Japanese" nor fully Ainu. But on the other hand, these forgotten people were perhaps able to profit to a cer-tain extent from their very obscurity, and preserve their indigenous values and customs better than the Hokkaido Ainu, who suffered truly ethnocidal pressures over the past century, and were pushed aside by a massive migration from outside. Indeed,Tsugaru is a distinct, living indigenous community to this day, with a remarkable range of particular and localized customs and beliefs attached to the land, some of which are clearly Ainu influenced, some of which seem more "Japanese," and still others which have acquired unique forms over the centuries. Figure 1.5: 18th-century sketch of Ainu atsushi, North Tsugaru There is a growing consensus that the Tsugaru identity is founded on the assump-tion of mixed origins, from which the Ainu are not excluded, but instead form an impor-tant component. Tsugaru is essentially hybrid, and here even the dichotomy between Chapter 1 Japanese and Ainu, the perennial either-or distinction, often declines in relevance — matter how difficult that is to comprehend for traditional Japanese culture. 26 no Heritage and gender: cutting the roots One key to whether the indigenous heritage is maintained or declines, regardless of the official classification of the persons involved, is family structure and gender relations. With cultural transmission in general — the shamanic heritage in particular — the pros-pects of survival decline in direct relation to the lowering of the status of women. Women, as primary teachers of the young, are of course key to the perpetuation of any culture.Their position in northern Honshu became all the more critical, though, because of two more specific factors: the manner in which the north was conquered by the south, and the nature of the indigenous kinship system. In the conquest of north by south, which wi l l be detailed more fully in the following chapter, most of the conquerors who came from outside — that is, usually middle and upper ranking officers, since the troops were local conscripts — came without their women, at least in the early stages of the invasion.There seems to have been no massive population movements, no racial replacement, almost no immigration at all in some remote areas for many centuries. If the rulers and officials from the south stayed and married, the female part of their family often had to be recruited locally. This seems to have been the case, as evidenced by local oral history, some of which wi l l be discussed in the next chapter; and with the women would have come at least some of the local heritage. In any case, southern migration into northern Honshu was much more gradual Chapter 1 27 compared to that into Hokkaido after the mid-Edo period, where Ainu women became a treasured commodity and were subjected to gross mistreatment by Japanese settlers.The decline of female status among the Hokkaido Ainu seems closely related to the pattern of contact with, and settlement by, the "Japanese" in their colonial advance. The second factor, which tied in with and reinforced the first, was the Ainu descent system. Let us first review its nature as it has been studied among the Hokkaido Ainu. It was in feet not one system, but two: a "juxtaposed descent system" composed of descent lines for both men and women, of equal importance, and equally crucial to maintain. In fact, it was very reminiscent of the dual descent system found throughout the Japanese archipelago before the enforcement of Confucianism in the Edo period (TJmehara 1994). Among the Hokkaido Ainu, the male line of descent was from father to son, and was symbolized by the passing of a distinct ancestral emblem (itokpd) from one generation to the next; the female line, from mother to daughter, had as its symbol a secret "chastity belt," the upsor or kut. By the time this latter system was described by outside observ-ers, it had already fallen into disuse, but it seems likely that the members of the maternal descent group had a distinct collective consciousness as sine hurt ikir'one old woman's blood-related joints' or sine hurt esap utar 'relatives descended from one old woman'. The group assisted each other in childbirth and burial, and the latter function survives to some extent even today. It also defined permitted degrees of relationship for marriage: a man could not marry a woman who had the same type of upsor as his mother (Peng and Geiser 1977). This type of system gave women a greater independence and value in both the sacred and mundane spheres. For example, it was as necessary to maintain the female Chapter 1 28 line as the male for the Ainu, since a woman who died without continuing her descent group would have no-one to perform services to her afterwards. In contrast to later Japa-nese peasant custom, which often abandoned girl children in hard times, the Ainu were notorious for readily adopting female children, both within their own groups and from outside.This custom can be found in Tsugaru as a relic of its indigenous heritage. My grandmother, for example, was adopted by her aunt who lived across the street, since that aunt wanted — in retrospect, we might say she needed — a daughter. We can thus hypothesize that the survival of traditions in indigenous areas in north-ern Honshu,Tsugaru for instance, resulted in more emphasis on the woman-mediated, domestic, and pragmatic than did Hokkaido: the Ainu language spoken at home, and a cultural essence usually devoid of showy ceremonies and outward display. Being rural and female, it often escaped the full attention of the state, though some of its more obvi-ous manifestations were attacked. Shamanism through the female line was passed down from generation to generation, absorbing foreign influences but not losing its essence, penetrating the entire region, as part of the common livelihood of the people in the area. If all daughterless Ainu families in Tsugaru adopted daughters, and if the adopted daughters were treated as real, then theoretically many families in Tsugaru transmitted parts of the Ainu heritage, not through blood, but by means of their own cultural system. This implies that there may have been a massive preservation and diffusion of Ainu cul-ture through the female line throughout the Tsugaru area, if, as seems likely, the Ainu were the largest indigenous population in the area at the time of conquest. Furthermore, because of the pragmatic and domestic nature of the female-mediated heritage, based on Chapter 1 29 needs rather than on loyalty or obligation, such a cultural system could and would con-tinue even after its Ainu label was lost. The indigenous variety of shamanism in Tsugaru became highly syncretic due to assimilation and contact with organized religions including Christianity and Buddhism, but its essential values and elements remained unchanged. The elements which proved hardest to kill in Tsugaru were essentially related to female-controlled activities or female-symbolic activities, such as the worship of fire. When a women married in Tsu-garu society and moved out of her maternal house, it was called kamadowake, literally "dividing the oven," dividing the fire. It is a women's duty to maintain the fire, a synonym for the family or household itself. Now we approach a central puzzle.There are indications in classical Ainu literature that in earlier times women enjoyed a considerable degree of equality with men, trading on their own and even fighting in battle, with swords, carrying babies on their backs.12 This status certainly does not clash with their role as culture transmitters, but how do we reconcile it with the male-centered Hokkaido Ainu model of more recent times, best known from Nibutani, the people who told researchers that there had been no shaman-esses in Nibutani (Sjoberg 1993: 80-81), that women were not allowed to go to the mountains, and that women could not pray to the gods? (Takakura I960:18) How do we explain the change from this earlier society to one where women could not even speak the names of their husbands, or converse with any male guest? (Takakura I960:18)13 This is a question that requires much more work, because it is important not only for the Ainu but also for other indigenous people, many of whom suffer from the same gender tensions. As a beginning, I would suggest that one major factor in reducing the Chapter 1 30 status of women has been Japanese immigration into Hokkaido, beginning in the last half of the Edo period and swelling to a flood in early Meiji. In northern Honshu, on the other hand, the gradual process of colonization, and the relatively low number of Japanese men who came to settle and married locally, would not have been overwhelming withdn the overall indigenous context, and so the culture-bearing roles of their wives and other women would not have been greatly hindered. Moreover, as we wi l l see, power-seeking males relied on maternal connections to authenticate indigenous rule. Although the migration from southern Japan to Tsugaru became more prominent in certain areas more suitable for agriculture and commercial trade, this did not appear to have devastating effects on indigenous culture, but rather to have enhanced it. On the other hand, once immigration to Hokkaido reached the point that it was Ainu marrying into Japanese soci-ety, rather than the other way round, the patrilineal bias of the Japanese family system would have come to dominate. Moreover, i f Ainu men married culturally Japanese women, the female cultural transmission would have been brought to an entire halt; and such marriages have been common in Hokkaido. 1 4 The combination of these two factors has worked to shape the modern construction of Ainu culture in Hokkaido, the only "Ainu" culture most scholars ever acknowledge. Let us call this the "Nibutani" model after its most famous centre, whose spokesmen are for the most part blissfully ignorant of the leading role women once played in their society. Its disturbing phallocentricity can be considered a natural result of the damage to the female descent groups and the cultural descent line among women from intermarriage. As ironic as it sounds, the net result of disregarding the preservation of the female line has been to emasculate official Ainu culture.The "Nibutani" model approved by the Chapter 1 31 outside world is not canonical. Rather, it is a pallid reflection of the original. Its spiritual-ity is centered on the revival of public rituals, neglecting the everyday cultural practice without which such rituals can never be a natural part of life. In this sense, the "Nibu-tani"Ainu, victim of his history, is half or less of what he could and should be. He w i l l never thrive unless he can be reunited with what he has set aside in his frantic search for respectability: not only the cultural role of women and the shamanic inheritance, the restoration of which is the chief object of my study here, but also the sea-trading mer-chant past of the Ainu, shared by both men and women, and their common warrior heri-tage.15 So who are the Ainu? Who properly shares in the Ainu heritage? To whom is this culture, language, litera-ture, and spirituality, to be restored? These are questions which need to be answered in order to determine the rights of the individuals who may reclaim their heritage, as well as to establish the ground for indigenous content in public education, a responsibility still unacknowledged by the Japanese government. I propose three possible grounds for a claim of "Ainu" ancestry, all defensible in one way or another, but some casting their net much wider than others. The first of these grounds is to be descended from an Ainu person whose name was marked as kyudojin (former indigenous person) in his or her family registration in Hok-kaido in the early Meiji period.This is the chief criteria used by the Hokkaido Ainu Asso-ciation, the largest Ainu organization, for detennining eligibility for its membership. The Chapter 1 32 spouse of such a person is also considered Ainu by this organization, as well as a child officially adopted by an Ainu person. 1 6 The second category is less clear-cut than the first, but also involves easily discern-ible characteristics. Persons of Ainu ancestry often recognize themselves as such through details of their family history, such as a family member who speaks the Ainu language and/or practices Ainu customs at home, or by the transmission, orally or in writing, of a family history with links to the Ainu. Excluding the members of this second group from the Ainu, as has been done in the past, is indefensible on several grounds. First, many Ainu chose not to register them-selves as kyudojin if there was any way they could avoid it at the time the family registra-tion system was imposed on them in Hokkaido.There are cases, for example, where Ainu registered themselves as kaitaku-imin, "pioneer" settlers from southern Japan, to escape discrimination and social inequality. 1 7 Also in this category are persons whose Ainu ancestors outside Hokkaido were forcibly registered as "Japanese," since the kyu-dojin category was limited to Hokkaido .This was the case with my family. It also appears that some Ainu migrated to southern Honshu to live among the matagi people, again to escape discrimination. 1 8 The third category, the least obvious but potentially greatest in numbers, is where an entire region or community developed a distinct hybrid culture and identity as a result of a historical process of assimilation. In the last analysis, traditional Ainu culture did not depend on blood transmission at all, since adopted children were recognized as equal to those who were born a part of the group. 1 9 Chapter 1 33 The Tohoku identity (northern Honshu), presently undergoing a revival, is founded on the recognition of the region's indigenous autonomy prior to its invasion by the cen-tral government. This puts them somewhat at odds with the Ainu in Hokkaido, in whose eyes they appear to be indirect rulers and direct invaders. With the shortage of scholarly work on the local indigenous heritage and its possible links with the Ainu, and the lack of a national model for a "mixed-blood" group, both Tohoku study and the revival of the Tohoku indigenous heritage have been considerably delayed. It is only in recent years that a native standpoint has come to be expressed. Indeed, wi th the development of regional history and the recognition of cultural differences, more than one native stand-point has appeared: not only that of Tohoku but that of the Mutsu nation (Aomori) as well. Tsugaru, as I wi l l argue in this dissertation, is a representative case of the third cate-gory defined above.Tsugaru represents an indigenous culture, which pertains to the Ainu, and whose transmission has rested partly on blood, and partly on adoption. But in the last analysis, blood never mattered because the very idea of adopting children requires a belief that nurture is superior to nature.The Ainu traditionally made conscious decisions to ensure the transmission of their culture rather than depending on fate: as far as the traditional Ainu were concerned, "race" was consciously constructed through cul-ture, not the other way around. My understanding here directly challenges those,Ainu or non-Ainu, who reject the idea of racial mixing, and encourage the Ainu to marry only Ainu in order to preserve their racial purity — amazingly, this kind of sentiment is fre-quently expressed by Ainu "purists" and Ainu "sympathizers."These statements only prove their misunderstanding of traditional Ainu culture, an error which may be the Chapter 1 34 r e s u l t o f t h e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f A i n u a d o p t i o n c u s t o m s a s n o m o r e t h a n a r e s p o n s e t o J a p a -n e s e s e t t l e r s ' i n a b i l i t y t o r a i s e t h e i r o w n c h i l d r e n d u r i n g t h e e a r l y y e a r s o f c o l o n i z a t i o n i n H o k k a i d o . Towards the light: from my story to our stories T h r o u g h o u t m y e a r l y e d u c a t i o n i n J a p a n e s e p u b l i c s c h o o l s , u n t i l m y h i g h s c h o o l g r a d u a t i o n , I n e v e r l e a r n e d a n y t h i n g a b o u t i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s i n J a p a n , n e i t h e r O k i -n a w a n n o r A i n u , n o r o f t h e e x i s t e n c e o f a n i n d e p e n d e n t n o r t h e r n n a t i o n c e n t e r e d o n T s u g a r u . T o t h i s d a y , i t i s o f t e n t a b o o t o t a l k o f H i t a k a m i a n d H i - n o - m o t o a s r e a l n a t i o n s , r a t h e r t h a n m y t h o l o g i c a l o n e s , d e s p i t e t h e e x t e n s i v e d o c u m e n t a t i o n o f t h e i r e x i s t e n c e i n b o t h w r i t t e n d o c u m e n t s a n d o r a l h i s t o r y . R e g a r d l e s s o f t h i s p u b l i c s i l e n c e , o f f i c i a l J a p a -n e s e h i s t o r y h a s n e v e r b e e n c o n v i n c i n g e n o u g h t o c o n v e r t m e . H i s t o r y c a n o f t e n b e f o u n d w r i t t e n i n t h e f a c e s o f l i v i n g p e o p l e , e v e n w h e n t h e y h a v e b e e n d e p r i v e d o f w o r d s t o g i v e i t v e r b a l o r t e x t u a l e x p r e s s i o n . F o r m y p a r t , t h e m o s t p o w e r f u l e v i d e n c e o f t h e c o h e r e n c e o f t h e i n d i g e n o u s h i s t o r y o f n o r t h e r n J a p a n i s t h e f e e l i n g o f a t t a c h m e n t m a n y p e o p l e h a v e t o t h e i r l a n d a n d t h e i r a n c e s t o r s , a f e e l i n g o f t e n e x p r e s s e d i n t e r m s o f " A i n u b l o o d " s t i l l r u n n i n g t h i c k i n t h e m , a n d t h e i r s t r o n g d e s i r e t o s e e t h e r e s t o r a t i o n o f a c o n n e c t e d h i s t o r y b e g i n n i n g f r o m t h e e a r l i e s t d a y s o f h u m a n s e t t l e m e n t i n t h e n o r t h . W h e n I s p e n t a f e w d a y s i n A o m o r i i n 1996,1 m e t o n e l a d y w h o w a s a s u c c e s s f u l b u s i n e s s p e r s o n , a n a t i v e o f A o m o r i , w h o w a s n o t s l o w t o c r i t i c i z e o u t s i d e a c a d e m i c i a n s a n d b u r e a u c r a t s w h o h a v e b e e n h e s i t a n t t o Chapter 1 35 affirm the indigenous Ainu heritage in Aomori, "Oh, who cares what they say! I am from Aomori and I am saying I have Ainu ancestry! Cut my arm, take my blood, and be quiet!" To an western student with no connection to Ainu communities, my discussion so far and the story which w i l l unfold may be a total surprise, since the Ainu are still depicted in mainstream Japanese studies and the media as a declining race to be spoken of in the past tense. This is a particular danger for foreign scholars, who may with the best wi l l in the world attempt to respect what they see as the Japanese scholarly consen-sus and the accomplishments of Japanese scholarship, without realizing that these schol-ars may be just as much outsiders to Japanese indigenous issues as any American or European is — and much less sensitive to the limitations of their position. Of the thousands of pieces of literature published on the Ainu or Emishi, very few have been written by the Ainu themselves, and for most of the rest, the Ainu were never consulted. But there is nothing unusual about my story, except that I have a chance to tell it. My journey through the darkness to the light is by no means a unique experience, but rather a very small reflection of what the Ainu in general have been going through in recent years. It is only the tip of an iceberg. If one wishes to see the hidden nine-tenths that remains, it w i l l be necessary to go beyond the accepted "scholarly consensus," a consensus which has often gone hand in hand with colonialism, a reality to this day for the Ainu and many other people in the north. Just like a shaman, who is initiated by opening to totally different realities, outsiders attempting to understand "others" must learn to see reality from their perspective. In the light of the Ainu culture complex, the Ainu homeland, Ainumoshir (the quiet land of humans), becomes a much bigger place, connected by many oceans. National Chapter 1 36 and regional boundaries imposed by nation-states on the region, which have created arti-ficial divisions and the image of unrelated peoples, are essentially foreign to the indige-nous peoples of northern Japan, including those who came to be known as the Ainu of today. But restoring the Ainu's proper place and dignity does not necessarily require a re-writing of the history of Japan, as many might think; it is rather, a chapter to be added to it. When Isis finally faced Seth, who had dismembered her husband Osiris, she pardoned him and set him free.There is no room for revenge in this quest, only for truth. This dissertation is thus a study of the diversity and interconnectedness of the indig-enous cultures of northern Japan, and the shamanism which runs through them like the warp of a fabric. It wi l l compare and contrast two long-standing shamanism traditions in northern Japan: Ainu shamanism in Hokkaido and Sakhalin, and shamanism in Tsugaru at the northern tip of Honshu island in the prefecture of Aomori. Both shamanic traditions encompass cosmological, medical, and ecological knowledge systems indigenous to their localities, though the Hokkaido Ainu tradition exists within a larger, ethnically dif-ferent population, while Tsugaru shamanism is supported by its participants across the region and their communities as a whole. Both traditions have been preserved primarily by female shamans, but while Hokkaido Ainu shamans are few in numbers, those in Tsugaru can be counted in the hundreds and they show no signs of diminishing. As a matter of fact,Tsugaru is notorious as the mecca for traditional shamanism in Japan, and the word incantatory,yw/w/swse/ Hjil#f'[4 , is often used to sum up Tsugaru culture. The chapters to follow are devoted to examining four areas within this general theme. Chapter Two, "Tsugaru: the forgotten history of the First Nations of Northern Japan," wil l provide a brief account of indigenous history in northern Japan and the role Chapter 1 37 of Tsugaru. Here I examine such issues as the confiscation of land and resources in northern Honshu and Tsugaru by the Japanese state; the maternal continuities strategi-cally promoted by male rulers; the persistence of Ainu place names in northern Honshu, Tsugaru in particular; the dual identity, and thus the "metis" dilemma, of powerful indig-enous elites who came to be the indirect rulers of the north as extensions of the central-ized Japanese state; and the differences in public policies towards the indigenous population during the Edo period between Hokkaido and Tsugaru. Chapter Three, "Ainu shamanism and its cosmological foundations," wil l try to recon-struct traditional Ainu shamanism and related spiritual practices and beliefs, centered around Hokkaido and the place of women in the tradition.As part of this, I wi l l provide an account of the late shamanessAikoAoki from Nibutani. The discussion wi l l touch on the contemporary Hokkaido Ainu dilemma, how to cope with shamanism and shamans in the effort to restore their culture and ethnic pride. I w i l l also examine the possible influence of state policy during Edo on shamanistic belief and practice in Hokkaido. The Hokkaido.situation wil l be compared to the past and present of indigenous sha-manism and other spiritual beliefs and practices in public sites in Tsugaru in Chapter Four, "Hell's Heaven: Shamanism, the Tsugaru school." My discussion here wi l l also touch on how present day shamanism and activities pertaining to shamanism integrate oral his-tory concerning the origins of the culture, the conquest, and the events which followed. I wi l l highlight the significant influence of Ainu culture in Tsugaru, but at the same time, discuss foreign elements, "Japanese" and others, to argue for the resultant formation of the distinct Tsugaru shamanism which lies at the heart of Tsugaru culture today. Chapter 1 Figure 1.6: My grandmother and I, c. 1965. More than thirty years later, my father told me that she spoke Ainu. 38 In the course of my doctoral disserta-tion, my path led me to places far more dis-tant than I ever imagined I would reach when I began my journey. My role in put-ting together this dissertation is, after all, shamanic, at least in the sense that story-telling is a shamanic act. It is to restore voices to those who have been silenced, living and dead, but who remain in the hope of a justice yet unfound. Chapter 1 39 Endnotes 1 The term "Japanese" designates those inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago who consider themselves to possess a non-Ainu identity (except, of course, for Korean, Chinese, and other self-conscious minority groups as well as indigenous peoples such as Okinawans and Amami Islanders, among others). I am not in a position to assume that such inhabitants share a homogenous and unified culture, even now, let alone in the past. Included in the category "Japanese" are an unknown but cer-tainly substantial number of indigenous populations whose identities and cultures have been suppressed by the Japanese state. 2 Dr. Sasaki and his colleagues have been officially collaborating with the Chinese government for several years now in their research on qi (ki) and the Chinese con-ception of energy with the Chinese Life Sciences Institute. 3 The time period in question (kinsei jfilit) stretches from 1600 -1868, or perhaps 1853. 4 "Nihonshoki (The Chronicles of Japan) tells us that in the year 658, during the era of Emperor Saimei, an imperial agent by the name of Abe no Hirafu, leading 180 armed ships, attempted to pacify the Emishi, and finally held a large feast with the Emishi of Watari-shima Wi^ at Arima beach [exact location unclear; possibly in Tsugaru]. Although we do not know whether this Watari-shima is today's Hok-kaido, or whether this "Emishi" meant the Ainu, it is accepted that these Emishi Chapter 1 40 included Ainu people, and thus that this is the first record of the Ainu in Japanese sources" (Hokkaido government 1995:3). 5 See the counterargument presented in the discussion of the prototypical "Ainu" skulls found in Hachinohe city in Aomori prefecture, in Fujimoto 1964:140. 6 See the discussion of Ainu oral traditions collected in Tsugaru and Shimokita, and the need for Ainu study in Aomori prefecture inTachibana 1983. 7 Slawik is a former professor at the University of Vienna, an authority on Japanese historical linguistics. His background is in the study of place-names in Central Europe, and he considers the study of place-names in Japan well worth scholarly attention. He also notes, and regrets, the relative lack of such study in China and Korea (Slawik et al., 1994:196). 8 In Japan to this day, there is no indigenous education for and about the Ainu in public schools, including in those in Hokkaido. The Japanese government has yet to pay any serious attention to the need for Ainu language education. Japan proba-bly counts as one of the least sympathetic of all modern nations towards its own indigenous groups. 9 The following statement by Iwano Homei made in 1909 is a typical educated Japa-nese view on the Ainu in Hokkaido then: (The Ainu) are an inferior race fated to disappear sooner or later. What good does it do to educate them? Even if there are a few men and Chapter 1 41 women who grow up, it is not appreciated if they marry Japanese and produce mixed blood offspring. In my view, the Ainu only need mini-mum protection to keep them in servitude for life. (Kaizawa 1993b: 69). 10 Many academic institutions and museums in Japan still manifest discriminatory atti-tudes towards the Ainu. One of my colleagues in Japan told me that the National History Museum QXokuritsu rekishi minzoku hakubutsukari) in Chiba prefecture does not exhibit its Ainu material, the reason given being that the Ainu have no part in Japanese history. 11 These few visible Aomori Ainu include Guantei Yuza, an actor, and Chisato Dubreuil, a curator of the Smithsonian's recent Ainu exhibition, "The spirit of a northern people." 12 The earliest collected of the Ainu oral epics in Phillipi 1979, written down by the English missionary John Batchelor some time in the 1880's, "The epic of Kotan Utunnai" (Phillipi 1979:366-412), takes it for granted that women wi l l fight by the side of men in battle: "I [the hero's elder sister] took you / from your mother's / back and / tied up tightly / my baby-carrying cords. / After that / I wielded my sword / all around / your mother..." (Phillipi 1979: 368-369). Again, the "Woman's Epic" refers to a woman fighting — and winning — a sword battle, once more with a baby tied to her back (Phillipi 1979: 275), and the title character in "The Woman of Poi-Soya" fights, trades, and hu