The genocide of the Ainu - the original inhabitants of Hokkaido and the northern islands. The first samurai were not Japanese at all Ainu people in Japan

Few people know, but the Japanese are not the indigenous population of Japan. Before them lived on the islands Ainu, mysterious people, the origin of which is still a lot of mystery. The Ainu lived side by side with the Japanese for some time, until they were driven north.

That The Ainu are the ancient masters of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, according to written sources and numerous names of geographical objects, the origin of which is associated with Ainu language.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu. Ainu territory was quite extensive. the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka. The fact that the Ainu are not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact.

It is well known that The Ainu came to the islands of the Sea of ​​Japan and founded the Neolithic Jomon culture there (13,000 BC - 300 BC).

Ainu did not practice agriculture they foraged for food hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived along the rivers on the islands of the archipelago, in small settlements quite remote from each other.

hunting weapons The Ainu consisted of a bow, a long knife and a horn. Various traps and traps were widely used. In fishing, the Ainu have long used the "marek" - a spear with a movable swivel hook that captures the fish. Fish were often caught at night, attracting them with the light of torches.

As the island of Hokkaido became increasingly densely populated by the Japanese, hunting lost its dominant role in the life of the Ainu. At the same time, the share of agriculture and domestic animal husbandry increased. The Ainu began to cultivate millet, barley, and potatoes.

Hunters and fishermen, the Ainu created an unusual and rich Jomon culture characteristic of peoples with a very high level of development. For example, they have wooden products with unusual spiral ornaments and carvings, amazing in beauty and ingenuity.

The ancient Ainu created an extraordinary ceramics without a potter's wheel, decorating it with a fancy rope ornament. The Ainu amaze with their talented folklore heritage: songs, dances and legends.

The legend of the origin of the Ainu.

That was a long time ago. There was a village among the hills. An ordinary village where ordinary people lived. Among them is a very kind family. The family had a daughter, Aina, the kindest of all. The village lived a normal life, but one day at dawn a black wagon appeared on the village road. The black horses were driven by a man dressed in all black. He was very happy about something, smiled broadly, sometimes laughed. There was a black cage on the wagon, and in it a small fluffy Bear cub was sitting on a chain. He sucked his paw, and tears flowed from his eyes. All the people of the village looked out the windows, went out into the street and were indignant: how shameful it is for a black man to chain, torturing white teddy bear. People only resented and said words, but did nothing. Only a kind family stopped the black man's cart, and Aina began to ask him to released the unfortunate Bear cub. The stranger smiled and said that he would release the beast if anyone gave their eyes. Everyone was silent. Then Aina stepped forward and said that she was ready for it. The black man laughed out loud and opened the black cage. The white fluffy Teddy bear came out of the cage. And kind Aina lost her sight. While the villagers were looking at Little Bear and saying sympathetic words to Aina, the black man on the black wagon disappeared to no one knows where. The little bear no longer cried, but Aina cried. Then the white Bear cub took the rope in his paws and began to lead Aina everywhere: through the village, over hills and meadows. This did not go on for very long. And then one day the people of the village looked up and saw that white fluffy Bear cub leads Aina straight to the sky, and leads Aina across the sky. Ursa Major leads Ursa Minor and is always visible in the sky so that people remember good and evil...

The Ainu bear cult differed sharply from similar cults in Europe and Asia. Only The Ainu fed the sacrificial bear cub with the breast of a female nurse!

The main celebration of the Ainu is the bear festival, on which Relatives and guests came from many villages. For four years, a bear cub was raised in one of the Ainu families. He was given the best food, the bear cub was prepared for a ritual sacrifice. In the morning, on the day of the bear sacrifice, The Ainu organized mass crying in front of the bear's cage. After that, the animal was taken out of the cage and decorated with shavings, ritual jewelry was put on. Then he was led through the village, and while those present distracted the attention of the beast with noise and shouting, the young hunters jumped on the bear one by one, clinging to him for a moment, trying to touch his head, and immediately jumped back: a peculiar rite of "kissing" the beast. The bear was tied up in a special place, they tried to feed it with festive food. The elder pronounced a farewell word in front of him, described the labors and merits of the inhabitants of the village who raised the divine beast, set out the wishes of the Ainu, which the bear was to convey to his father, the mountain taiga god. It is an honor to “send” the beast to the forefather, i.e. killing a bear with a bow could be awarded to any hunter, at the request of the owner of the animal, but he must have been a visitor. Had hit right in the heart. The meat of the animal was laid on spruce paws and distributed taking into account seniority and generosity. The bones were carefully collected and taken to the forest. There was silence in the village. It was believed that the bear was already on its way, and the noise could lead it astray.

The genetic relationship of the Ainu with the people of the Neolithic culture Jomon, who were the ancestors of the Ainu, has been proven.

For a long time it was believed that the Ainu may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the natives of the Pacific Ocean, since they have similar facial features. But genetic research excluded this option.

The Japanese are sure that the Ainu are related to the Paleo-Asian (?) peoples and came to the Japanese islands from Siberia. Recently there have been suggestions that Ainu are relatives of the Miao Yao living in southern China.

Ainu appearance

The appearance of the Ainu is quite unusual: they have the features of Caucasians, they have unusually thick hair, wide eyes, fair skin. A characteristic feature of the appearance of the Ainu is very thick hair and a beard in men, what representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. Thick long hair, tangled in a tangle, replaced helmets for the Ainu warriors.

Russian and Dutch travelers left many stories about the Ainu. According to their testimony, Ainu are very kind, friendly and open people.. Even Europeans who visited the islands in different years noted a characteristic Ainu gallant manners, simplicity and sincerity.

Russian explorers - the Cossacks, conquering Siberia, reached the Far East. Arriving on the island of Sakhalin, the first Russian Cossacks even mistook the Ainu for Russians, so they were not like the Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans.

Here is what he wrote Cossack Yesaul Ivan Kozyrev about the first meeting: “Fifty people dressed in skins poured out to meet. They looked without fear and were of an unusual appearance - hairy, long-bearded, but with white faces and not slanting, like the Yakuts and Kamchadals.

It can be said that The Ainu were like anyone: the peasants of the south of Russia, the inhabitants of the Caucasus, Persia or India, even the gypsies - just not the Mongoloids. These unusual people called themselves Ainami, which means "real person", but the Cossacks dubbed them "smokers", adding an epithet "hairy". Subsequently Cossacks met Kurils throughout the Far East - on Sakhalin, the south of Kamchatka, the Amur region.

The Ainu pay much attention upbringing and education of children. First of all, they think The child must learn to obey the elders! In the unquestioning obedience of the child to his parents, older brothers and sisters, adults in general, the future warrior was brought up. The obedience of the child, from the Ainu point of view, is expressed, in particular, in the fact that the child speaks with adults only when asked, when he is contacted. The child must be in full view of adults at all times., but at the same time do not make noise, do not bother them with your presence.

The Ainu give names to children not immediately after birth, as Europeans do, but at the age of one to ten years, or even later. Most often, the name of the Ainu reflects the distinctive property of his character, his inherent individual trait, for example: Selfish, Dirty, Fair, Good speaker, Stutterer, etc. Ainu have no nicknames are their names.

Ainu boys raised by the father of the family. He teaches them to hunt, navigate the terrain, choose the shortest path in the forest, hunting techniques and weapons. The upbringing of girls is the responsibility of the mother. In cases where children violate the established rules of behavior, commit mistakes or misdemeanours, parents tell them various instructive legends and stories, preferring this means of influencing the child's psyche to physical punishment.

Ainu war with the Japanese

AT soon the idealistic life of the Ainu in the Japanese archipelago was prevented by migrants from Southeast Asia and China - Mongoloid tribes, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. New settlers brought culture with them rice which allowed a large number of people to feed in a relatively small area. Having formed yamato State, they began to threaten the peaceful life of the Ainu, so some of them moved to Sakhalin, the lower Amur, Primorye and the Kuril Islands. The remaining Ainu began the era of constant wars with the state of Yamato, which lasted about a thousand years.

The first samurai were not Japanese at all.

The Ainu were skilled warriors who were fluent in bow and sword, and the Japanese failed to defeat them for a long time. A very long time, almost 1500 years .

The new state of Yamato, which arose in the III-IV centuries, begins an era of constant war with the Ainu. AT 670 Yamoto renamed Nippon (Japan). "Among the Eastern savages the strongest are Emishi", - testify the Japanese chronicles, where the Ainu appear under the name "emishi".

The Japanese demonized the recalcitrant people, calling the Ainu savages, but the Japanese for quite a long time yielded to the savages - the Ainu militarily. A record of a Japanese chronicler made in 712 : « When our exalted ancestors descended on a ship from the sky, on this island (Honshu) they found several wild peoples, among them the wildest were the Ainu.

Ainu. 1904

The Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu and recognized that one warrior - ain is worth a hundred Japanese . There was a belief that especially skilled Ainu warriors could let in fog in order to hide unnoticed by enemies.

The Ainu knew how to deal with with two swords and on the right thigh they wore two daggers . One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri.

The origins of the samurai cult are in the martial art of the Ainu, not the Japanese. As a result of thousands of years of wars with the Ainu, the Japanese adopted a special military style from the Ainu. culture - samurai, originating from the millennial military traditions of the Atzni. And some of the samurai clans, by their origin, are still considered Ainu.

Even the symbol of Japan - the great Mount Fuji - has in its name the Ainu word "fuji", which means "deity of the hearth."

The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having managed to to adopt many techniques of military art from the Ainu. The code of honor of the samurai, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - many consider the characteristic attributes of Japanese culture, but in fact these military traditions were borrowed by the Japanese from the Ainu.

In ancient times, the Ainu had tradition to draw mustaches for women, so they looked like young warriors. This tradition says that Ainu women were also warriors, along with men they fought like Despite all the prohibitions from the Japanese government, even in the twentieth century, the Ainu were tattooed, it is believed that the latter the tattooed woman died in 1998.

Tattoos, in the form of a lush mustache above the upper lip, were applied exclusively by women. , it was believed that this rite was taught to the ancestors of the Ainu by the gods, the mother-progenitor of all living things - Oki Kurumi Turesh Mahi (Okikurumi Turesh Machi), the younger sister of the creator god Okikurumi .

The tradition of tattooing was passed down through the female line, drawing on the daughter's body was applied by her mother or grandmother.

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

The Ainu language is also a mystery, it has Sanskrit, Slavic, Latin, Anglo-Germanic roots. Ainu language strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and so far they have not found a suitable place for it. During the long isolation the Ainu have lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even single them out as special Ainu race.

ethnographers wrestling with the question where in these harsh lands people appeared, wearing swing (southern) type of clothing. Them national casual wear - dressing gowns , decorated with traditional ornaments, festive - white.

Ainu national clothes - dressing gown, decorated bright ornament, fur hat or wreath. Previously, clothing material was woven from strips of bast and nettle fibers. Now the national clothes of the Ainu are sewn from purchased fabrics, but decorated with rich embroidery. Almost each Ainu village has its own special embroidery pattern. Having met an Ainu in national dress, one can accurately determine from which village he is from. Embroidery on men's and women's clothing differ. A man will never wear clothes with "female" embroidery, and vice versa.

Russian travelers were also struck by the fact that in summer, the Ainu wore a loincloth.

Today, there are very few Ainu left, about 30,000 people, and they live mainly in the north of Japan, in the south and southeast of Hokkaido. Other sources give a figure of 50 thousand people, but this includes first-generation mestizos with an admixture of Ainu blood - there are 150,000 of them, they have almost completely assimilated with the population of Japan. The culture of the Ainu goes into oblivion along with its secrets.

Decree of Empress Catherine II of 1779: “... leave the furry smokers free and do not require any collection from them, and henceforth the peoples living there should not be forced to do so, but try to be friendly and affectionate ... to continue the acquaintance already established with them.”

The decree of the empress was not fully respected, and yasak was collected from the Ainu until the 19th century. The gullible Ainu took their word for it, and if the Russians somehow kept him in relation to them, then with the Japanese there was a war to the last breath ...

In 1884, the Japanese resettled all the North Kuril Ainu on the island of Shikotan, where the last of them died in 1941.The last Ainu man on Sakhalin died in 1961, after burying his wife, he, as befits a warrior and the ancient laws of his amazing people, made himself "Eritokpa", ripping open the stomach and releasing the soul to the divine ancestors...

It is believed that there are no Ainu in Russia. This small people who once inhabited lower reaches of the Amur, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands completely assimilated. It turned out that the Russian Ainu were not lost in the common ethnic sea. At the moment they in Russia - 205 people .

According to the "National Accent" through the mouth Alexei Nakamura, head of the Ainu community, « Ainu or Kamchadal smokers did not disappear anywhere, they just didn’t want to recognize us for many years. The self-name "Ainu" comes from our word for "man" or "worthy man" and is associated with military operations. After all, we fought the Japanese for 650 years.”

At the moment, there are 25,000 Ainu in Japan, and 109 in Russia, which is associated with the repatriation of the Ainu as Japanese citizens from Sakhalin and the Kuriles after the Second World War and great assimilation. However, they still continue to live on Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Hokkaido, as the original, most ancient inhabitants of these places.
And finally, one of the national Ainu tales recorded by Russian researchers:
On a sable hunt
“I went hunting in the taiga. I went far. Having descended from the mountain to a small river, I built myself a hut and installed an inau behind it so that I would be lucky on the hunt.
Then I set traps for sable and near the river, and on trees fallen across it - animals like to run across them, and further into the taiga. Set a lot of traps.
I slept in a hut at night, and early in the morning, when the sun threw a golden chain over the top of the mountain and began to pull itself out of the distant sea, I went to check the traps. Oh, how pleased I was to see prey in the first trap, and in the second, and in the third, and in many more. I tied the caught sables into a big bundle and merrily went to my hut.
When I got across the river, I looked at the hut and was very surprised - smoke was rising from it.
Who flooded my hearth, however?
I cautiously crept up to the hut and heard a sound like the sound of boiling water. Weird. What kind of person came into my hut and even cooked something? And it already smells. And delicious, though.
I entered. Oh-ho-ho-ho! Yes, it's my wife! How did she think of finding me? Never found it, but here it is.
And my wife was sitting in my place and preparing dinner.
"Let's take off your shoes," she said. - Dry your shoes.
I took off my shoes, gave her my shoes, and I myself keep looking at her carefully and thinking: is this my wife? It seems to be not mine and it seems not, mine. Gotta find out somehow.
Sit down and eat, she said. - I'm tired of hunting. I started eating, but I keep thinking: somehow she doesn’t look like my wife. No, it doesn't. It must be some kind of evil spirit. It got scary, though. What to do anyway?
Suddenly the woman stood up and said:
Well, I'll go. She said so and left.
I looked out of the hut and looked after her. "Isn't that a bear?" I thought. And just so I thought, really - the woman turned into a bear. She roared loudly and, clubfoot, went into the taiga.
Of course I got scared. He set up an inau around the whole hut. At night he slept sensitively, anxiously. And in the morning I went to check the traps again. Oh-ho-ho-ho, how many sables got caught! Never got so many!
Returning home, I remembered how the ancient old people used to say: it happens that the inhabitants of the forests come to the Ainu in the guise of a man or a woman to help in the hunt. The old people call them people of the forest. This means that a forest woman came to me, and not my wife. The wife, of course, could not have been so good at helping out on the hunt. And she could. Well done though!"

"All human culture, all achievements of art,
science and technology that we are witnessing today,
- the fruits of the creativity of the Aryans ...
He [the Aryan] is the Prometheus of mankind,
from whose bright brow at all times
sparks of genius flew, kindling the fire of knowledge,
illuminating the darkness of dark ignorance,
that allowed a person to rise above others
creatures of the earth."
A. Hitler

I'm getting down to the most difficult topic, in which everything is confused, discredited and deliberately confused - the spread of the descendants of immigrants from Mars across Eurasia (and beyond).
While preparing this article in the institute, I found about 10 definitions of who the Aryans, Aryans are, their relationship with the Slavs, etc. Each author has his own view on the issue. But no one takes it wide and deep in millennia. The deepest is the self-name of the historical peoples of Ancient Iran and Ancient India, but this is only the 2nd millennium BC. At the same time, in the legends of the Iranian-Indian Aryans there are indications that they came from the north, i.e. expanding geography and time span.
Where possible, I will refer to external data and the R1a1 y-chromosome, but as observations show, these are only "approximate" data. Over the millennia, the Martians (Aryans) mixed their blood with many peoples on the territory of Eurasia, and the y-chromosome R1a1 (which for some reason is considered a marker of true Aryans) appeared only 4,000 years ago (although I already saw that 10,000 years ago, but it’s still has not yet beaten with 40,000 years, when the first Cro-Magnon appeared, he is also a Martian migrant).
The most faithful are the traditions of the peoples and their symbols.
I'll start with the most "lost" people - with the Ainu.

Ainu ( アイヌ Ainu, lit.: "man", "real man") - the people, the oldest population of the Japanese islands. Once the Ainu also lived on the territory of Russia in the lower reaches of the Amur, in the south of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. At present, the Ainu have remained mainly only in Japan. According to official figures, their number in Japan is 25,000, but according to unofficial statistics, it can reach up to 200,000 people. In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94 people are in the Kamchatka Territory.

Ainu group, 1904 photo.

The origin of the Ainu is currently unclear. Europeans who encountered the Ainu in the 17th century were amazed at their appearance. Unlike the usual type of people of the Mongoloid race with yellow skin, the Mongolian fold of the eyelid, sparse facial hair, the Ainu had unusually thick hair covering their heads, wore huge beards and mustaches (holding them with special sticks while eating), their facial features were similar to European ones. Despite living in a temperate climate, in the summer the Ainu wore only loincloths, like the inhabitants of the equatorial countries. There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Ainu, which in general can be divided into three groups:

• The Ainu are related to the Indo-Europeans of the Caucasian race - this theory was adhered to by J. Bachelor, S. Murayama.

• The Ainu are related to the Austronesians and came to the Japanese islands from the south - this theory was put forward by L. Ya. Sternberg and it dominated Soviet ethnography. (This theory has not been confirmed at present, if only because the culture of the Ainu in Japan is much older than the culture of the Austronesians in Indonesia).

• The Ainu are related to the Paleo-Asiatic peoples and came to the Japanese islands from the north / from Siberia - this point of view is mainly held by Japanese anthropologists.

So far, it is known for certain that according to the main anthropological indicators, the Ainu are very different from the Japanese, Koreans, Nivkhs, Itelmens, Polynesians, Indonesians, aborigines of Australia, the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, and approach only with the people of the Jomon era, who are the direct ancestors of the historical Ainu . In principle, there is no big mistake in putting an equal sign between the people of the Jomon era and the Ainu.

The Ainu appeared on the Japanese islands about 13 thousand years before. n. e. and created the Neolithic Jomon culture. It is not known for certain where the Ainu came from to the Japanese islands, but it is known that in the Jomon era, the Ainu inhabited all the Japanese islands - from Ryukyu to Hokkaido, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the southern third of Kamchatka - as evidenced by the results of archaeological excavations and toponymy data , for example: Tsushima— tuima- "distant", Fuji - hutsi- "grandmother" - kamuy hearth, Tsukuba - that ku pa- “head of two bows” / “two-bow mountain”, Yamatai mdash; I am mother and- “a place where the sea cuts the land” (It is very possible that the legendary state of Yamatai, which is mentioned in Chinese chronicles, was an ancient Ainu state.) Also, a lot of information about place names of Ainu origin in Honshu can be found in the institute.

Historians have found that The Ainu created extraordinary ceramics without a potter's wheel, decorating it with a fancy rope ornament.

Here is another link to those who decorated the pots with a pattern, winding a rope around it, although in this article they are called "laces".

When, in the 17th century, Russian explorers reached the "farthest east", where, as they thought, the firmament of the earth is connected to the firmament of heaven, but there turned out to be a boundless sea and numerous islands, they were amazed at the appearance of the natives they met. Before them appeared people overgrown with thick beards with wide eyes, like those of Europeans, with large, protruding noses, similar to the peasants of southern Russia, to the inhabitants of the Caucasus, to overseas guests from Persia or India, to gypsies - to anyone, but not on the Mongoloids, which the Cossacks saw everywhere beyond the Urals.

The explorers dubbed them smokers, smokers, endowing them with the epithet “shaggy”, and they themselves called themselves “Ainu”, which means “noble person”. Since then, researchers have been struggling with countless mysteries of this people. But to this day, they have not come to a definite conclusion.

The well-known collector and researcher of the peoples of the Pacific region B.O. Piłsudski wrote about the Ainu in his report on a business trip in 1903-1905: "The friendliness, affectionateness and sociability of the Maukin Ainu caused me a strong desire to get to know this interesting tribe better."

Russian writer A.P. Chekhov left the following lines: “These people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable, polite, respecting property; courageous and even intelligent when hunting.

In the collection of Ainu oral legends "Yukar" it is said: "The Ainu inhabited Japan hundreds of thousands of years before the children of the Sun came (i.e. the Japanese. - Auth.)".

The Ainu have almost completely disappeared. They remained only in the southeast of the island of Hokkaido, which they previously called Ezo. Until now, the Ainu celebrate the Bear holiday and honor its hero Jajresupo, similarly to the all-Slavic bear holiday Komoyeditsa (Shrovetide), dedicated to the bear Veles and the revival of the Sun (Yarilo).

Almost all geographical names remained from the Ainu in the Japanese archipelago. For example, the volcano in the northeast of the island of Kunashir in the Ainu language is called Tyatya-Yama, literally "Father Mountain".

As in Europe, the southern conquerors, the Japanese, at one time called the representatives of the northern civilization of the Ainu "barbarians". But, despite this, the Japanese adopted most of their culture, religious beliefs, military art and traditions from the Ainu. In particular, the samurai class of medieval Japan adopted from the Ainu the rite of "seppuku" ("hara-kiri") - ritual suicide by ripping open the stomach, the origins of which go back to ancient times - to the pagan cults of the Ainu.

Moreover, according to Japanese historical tradition, the founder of the ancient Japanese empire of Yamato was Prince Pikopopodemi (Jimmu). In the engraving of the 19th century, Jimmu has the external features of an Ain!!!

Shiretoko is a peninsula in the east of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. In the language of the Ainu people, it means "end of the earth."

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

Archaeological evidence convinces of the extreme antiquity of the Ainu settlements in the Japanese archipelago. This especially confuses the question of their origin: how could the people of the Old Stone Age overcome the vast distances separating Japan from the European west or the tropical south? And why did they need to change, say, the fertile equatorial belt to the harsh northeast?

The ancient Ainu or their ancestors created amazingly beautiful ceramics, mysterious dogu figurines, and besides, it turned out that they were perhaps the earliest farmers in the Far East, if not in the world. It is not clear why they completely abandoned both pottery and agriculture, becoming fishermen and hunters, in fact, taking a step back in cultural development. The legends of the Ainu tell about fabulous treasures, fortresses and castles, but the Japanese and then the Europeans found this tribe living in huts and dugouts. The Ainu have a bizarre and contradictory intertwining of features of the northern and southern inhabitants, elements of high and primitive cultures. With their whole existence, they seem to deny the usual ideas and habitual patterns of cultural development. In the 1st millennium BC. e. migrants began to invade the lands of the Ainu, who were later destined to become the basis of the Japanese nation. For many centuries, the Ainu fiercely resisted the onslaught, and sometimes very successfully.

Approximately in the 7th century. n. e. for several centuries a boundary was established between the two peoples. There were not only military battles on this border line. There was trade, there was an intensive cultural exchange. It happened that the noble Ainu influenced the policy of the Japanese feudal lords. The culture of the Japanese was significantly enriched by its northern enemy. Even the traditional religion of the Japanese, Shinto, has obvious Ainu roots; of Ainu origin, the ritual of hara-kiri and the complex of military prowess of bushido. The Japanese ritual of sacrificing gohei has clear parallels with the installation of inau sticks by the Ainu ... The list of borrowings can be continued for a long time. During the Middle Ages, the Japanese increasingly pushed the Ainu to the north of Honshu, and from there to Hokkaido. In all likelihood, a part of the Ainu moved to Sakhalin and the Kuril ridge long before that ... unless the process of resettlement went in a diametrically opposite direction. Now only an insignificant fragment of this people remains. Modern Ainu live in the southeast of Hokkaido, along the coast, as well as in the valley of the large Ishikari River. They have undergone strong ethno-racial and cultural assimilation, and to an even greater extent - cultural, although they are still trying to preserve their identity.

The most curious feature of the Ainu is their noticeable outward difference to this day from the rest of the population of the Japanese islands.

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

The Ainu language is not similar to Japanese or any other Asian language. The origin of the Ainu is unclear. They entered Japan through Hokkaido in the period between 300 BC. BC. and 250 AD (Yayoi period) and then settled in the northern and eastern regions of the main Japanese island of Honshu.

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

Samurai in the broad sense of the word in feudal Japan were called secular feudal lords. In the narrow sense of this concept, this is the military class of small nobles. So it turns out that a samurai and a warrior are not always the same thing.

It is believed that the concept of a samurai originated in the VIII century on the outskirts of Japan (south, north and northeast). In those places, there were constant skirmishes between the imperial governors, who were expanding the empire, and the local natives. Brutal wars on the outskirts took place until the 9th century, and all this time the authorities of these provinces tried with all their might to resist the yoke of constant danger far from the center of the empire and its troops. Under such conditions, they were forced to independently conduct defense and create their own military formations from the male population. An important moment in the formation of the samurai was the transition from the draft formation of a squad to a permanent professional army. Armed servants protected their master, and in return received shelter and food. One of the main reasons that tilted the scales in favor of the professional army was the external threat represented by the indigenous inhabitants of the Japanese islands - the Ainu. Although the threat was not deadly, even at the most critical moments of its history, the Empire of the Rising Sun remained stronger than the disunited tribes, but it created great difficulties for the border regions, as well as for further advancement to the north. To fight the Ainu, the castles of Izawa, Taga-Taga-no jo and Akita are erected, a large number of fortifications are being built. But the call was canceled due to fear of riots, and in order for the fortifications not to stand empty and somehow fulfill their function, warriors are needed. Who, if not professional military personnel, could cope with this best of all?

As we can see, the need for the services of the samurai is increasing, which could not but affect their numbers. Another channel for the emergence of samurai, in addition to the armed servants of large landowners, were settlers. They had to literally win back the land from the Ainu and the authorities did not save on the arms of the settlers. This policy has borne fruit. Living in the immediate vicinity of the enemy, the "azumabito" (people of the east) provided a fairly effective countermeasure to that. The local samurai is no longer a robber sent by the daimyo to take the last, but rather a protector.

But the Ainu were not only an external threat and a condition for the consolidation and formation of northern samurai. Of particular interest is the mutual penetration of cultures. Many customs of the warrior class passed from the Ainu, for example, hara-kiri, a ritual suicide rite, which later became one of the hallmarks of Japanese samurai, originally belonged to the Ainu.

For reference: The strength of the Slavic-Aryan army was the characteristic (Characteristics - literally: those who own the center of the hara. Hence the "hara-kiri" - the release of vitality through the center of the hara, located in the navel, "to the iri" - to Iriy, the Slavic-Aryan Heavenly Kingdom: hence the "healer" - knowing the hara, from the restoration, which should begin any treatment). Characteristics in India are still called maharaths - great warriors (in Sanskrit "maha" - big, great; "ratha" - army, army).

American anthropologist S. Lauryn Brace, from Michigan State University in Horizons of Science, No. 65, September-October 1989. writes: "The typical Ainu is easily distinguished from the Japanese: he has lighter skin, thicker body hair and a more protruding nose."

Brace studied about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian tombs and came to the conclusion that the upper class samurai in Japan are actually the descendants of the Ainu, and not the Yayoi (Mongoloids), the ancestors of most modern Japanese. Brace further writes: “... this explains why the facial features of the representatives of the ruling class are so often different from modern Japanese. Samurai - the descendants of the Ainu gained such influence and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with the ruling circles and introduced Ainu blood into them, while the rest of the Japanese population was mainly descendants of Yayoi.

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

Valery Kosarev

"The Ainu people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, polite,
sociable, respecting property, on the hunt - bold.
Belief in friendship and generosity, disinterestedness, frankness are their usual qualities.
They are truthful and do not tolerate deceit."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

"I consider the Ainu the best of all the peoples that I know"
Russian navigator Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern

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

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

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

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

The culture of the Japanese was significantly enriched due to its northern enemy. The traditional religion of the Japanese - Shintoism - reveals obvious Ainu roots; of Ainu origin, the ritual of hara-kiri and the complex of military prowess "Bushido". Representatives of the privileged class of samurai in Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu (and everywhere we are shown samurai of an exclusively Mongoloid type.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the swastika was most widely used in Japanese heraldry. Her image is the monom (coat of arms) of many samurai clans - Tsugaru, Hachisuka, Hasekura and others.

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

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

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

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

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

The surviving Ainu fled to the mountains. The fights continued for another month. Deciding to hurry things up, the Japanese lured Syakusyain, along with other Ainu commanders, into negotiations and killed him. The resistance was broken. From free people who lived according to their customs and laws, all of them, young and old, turned into forced laborers of the Matsumae clan. The relations established at that time between the winners and the vanquished are described in the diary of the traveler Yokoi:

"... Translators and overseers did many bad and vile deeds: they mistreated the elderly and children, raped women.

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

In 1777, the Irkutsk merchant Dmitry Shebalin was able to bring 1,500 Ainu into Russian citizenship in Iturup, Kunashir, and even in Hokkaido. The Ainu received from the Russians strong fishing gear, iron, cows, and eventually rent for the right to hunt near their shores.

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

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

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

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

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

In 1807, a Russian expedition moved to Iturup. "Duty called on us," wrote Captain Khvostov, "to free the islanders [Ainu] from the tyranny of the Japanese." The Japanese garrison on Iturup, seeing the Russian ships, fled inland. Ainam was announced "the expulsion of the Japanese, since Iturup belongs to Russia."

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

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

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

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

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