What do we know about this unique Russian people Ainu - Ainosi - Aino - Ainu?
AYNUMOSIRI - the land of the Ainu.

See the map of Russia in 1871: http://atlases.narod.ru/maps/atl1871/map61.djvu
http://atlases.narod.ru/maps/atl1871/map03.djvu

There was a time when the first Ainu descended from
The countries of the clouds to the ground, loved it, got busy
hunting and fishing to eat, dance
and bear children. (Ainu legend)

Aino are truthful and do not tolerate deceit.
Kruzenshtern was completely delighted with them;
enumerating their wonderful spiritual qualities,
he concludes: "Such truly rare qualities,
which they owe not to exalted education,
but nature alone, aroused in me
the feeling that I consider this people to be the best
of all the others that I have known to this day"
(A.P. Chekhov)

A.P. Chekhov said: “The Ainu are a meek people,
modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable,
polite, respectful of property; brave on the hunt
and... even intelligent.”

In 1853, N. V. Busse recorded his conversation
with the Aino old men who remembered the time
their independence and said:
"Sakhalin is the land of Ains, there is no Japanese land on Sakhalin."

The first Japanese colonists were fugitives or
but those who visited a foreign land and were expelled from Japan for this.
(A.P. Chekhov)

... among the Ainu villages ... - Ainu - the oldest population of Japanese
islands (known there since the 2nd millennium BC), the Kuriles and
South Sakhalin. Racially close to Caucasians,
language links have not been clearly identified. At the time described, the population
Ainu on Sakhalin was up to 3 thousand people,
on the island of Hokkaido - up to one and a half million.
They are now almost extinct. (Nikolai Pavlovich Zadornov)

What did the Ainu give to Russia? This is Sakhalin and the Kuriles!
The Ainu called themselves various tribal names - "soy-untara", "chuvka-untara". The word "Ainu", which they used to call them, is not at all the self-name of this people, it only means "man". The Japanese called the Ainu the word "ebisu".

What we know about the Ainu is that they are white-skinned people, anthropologists refer to them as depigmented Australoids, like the black-skinned Papuans, who are bearded, unlike the Mongoloids of the Japanese. They are very similar to Russians, according to explorers. After all, the outward resemblance of Russian explorers and the Ainu was simply amazing. It fooled even the Japanese. In the first reports of the Japanese, "RUSSIAN" on Hokaido - Matmai are referred to as "RED Ainu".

AYNUMOSIRI - the land of the Ainu.

The Ainu accepted Russian citizenship, and their lands became part of Russia - Sakhalin, the Kuriles and Matsmai - Iesso - Hokkaido. In those days, Hokkaido - MATSMAY was considered the largest and most southern island of the Kuril Islands.

Russian decrees of 1779, 1786 and 1799 testify that the inhabitants of the southern Kuriles - Ainu since 1768 were Russian subjects (in 1779 they were exempted from paying tribute to the treasury - yasak), and the southern Kuril Islands were considered Russia as its own territory.

The fact of the Russian citizenship of the Kuril Ainu and the belonging of Russia to the entire Kuril ridge is also confirmed by the Instruction of the Irkutsk governor A.I. Bril to the chief commander of Kamchatka M.K. c Ainu - inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, including those from the south (including the island of Matmai-Hokkaido), the mentioned tribute-yasaka.

In the Ainu language, Sakhalin - "SAKHAREN MOSIRI" - "wave-like land", Iturup means "the best place", Kunashir - Simushir means "a piece of land - a black island", Shikotan - Shiashkotan (the ending words "shir" and "kotan" mean respectively "plot of land" and "settlement").

With their good nature, honesty and modesty, the Ainu made the best impression on Krusenstern. When they were given gifts for the delivered fish, they took them in their hands, admired them and then returned them. With difficulty, the Ainu succeeded in explaining that this was being given to them as property. In relation to the Ainu, even Catherine the Second prescribed - to be affectionate with the Ainu and not tax them, in order to alleviate the situation of the new Russian sub-South Kuril Ainu.

Decree of Catherine II to the Senate on the exemption from taxes of the Ainu - the population of the Kuril Islands, who accepted Russian citizenship in 1779

Eya I.V. commands the shaggy smokers, the Ainu, brought into citizenship on the distant islands, to be left free and not to require any collection from them, and henceforth the peoples living there should not be forced to do so, but try to continue with friendly treatment and affection for the expected benefit in crafts and trade to continue what has already been established with them acquaintance.

The first cartographic description of the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, was made in 1711-1713. according to the results of the expedition of I. Kozyrevsky, who collected information about most of the Kuril Islands, including Iturup, Kunashir and even the "Twenty Second" Kuril Island MATMAI (Matsmai), which later became known as Hokkaido.

It was precisely established that the Kuriles were not subject to any foreign state. In the report of I. Kozyrevsky in 1713. it was noted that the South Kuril Ainu "arbitrarily live and not in allegiance and trade freely."

It should be especially noted that Russian explorers, in accordance with the policy of the Russian state, discovering new lands inhabited by the Ainu, immediately announced the inclusion of these lands in Russia, began their study and economic development, carried out missionary activities, taxed the local population with tribute (yasak).

During the 18th century, all the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, became part of Russia. This is also confirmed by the statement made by the head of the Russian embassy N. Rezanov during negotiations with the representative of the Japanese government K. Toyama in 1805 that "to the north of Matsmai (Hokkaido Island) all lands and waters belong to the Russian emperor and that the Japanese did not extend further than their possessions."

The Japanese mathematician and astronomer of the 18th century Honda Toshiaki wrote that “... the Ainu look at the Russians as their own fathers,” since “true possessions are won by virtuous deeds. Countries forced to submit to the force of arms remain unsubdued at heart."

By the end of the 80s. In the 18th century, the facts of Russian activity in the Kuriles were accumulated quite enough to, in accordance with the norms of international law of that time, consider the entire archipelago, including its southern islands, belonging to Russia, which was recorded in Russian state documents. First of all, we should name the imperial decrees (recall that at that time the imperial or royal decree had the force of law) of 1779, 1786 and 1799, in which the citizenship of Russia of the South Kuril Ainu (then called "furry smokers") was confirmed, and the islands themselves were declared the possession of Russia.

In 1945, the Japanese evicted all the Ainu from Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido, while for some reason they left on Sakhalin a labor army from Koreans brought by the Japanese and the USSR had to accept them as stateless persons, then the Koreans moved to Central Asia, and now Russian Federation, few people are not familiar with this hardworking ethnic group, even Luzhkov's deputy is Korean.

The fate of the Ainu in Hokkaido - MATSMAY is hidden behind seven seals, like the fate of the Slavs - LUZHYAN in Germany.
Information comes to us that there are about 20 thousand Ainu people left, that there is an intensified process of Japaneseization of the Ainu, whether young people know the Ainu language is a big question, just like with the Slavs - Lusatians, about whom we know that Lusatian schools of Slavs in Germany are closed under any pretext .

According to the census Russian Empire In 1897, 1446 people on Sakhalin indicated Ainu as their native language. The Ainu language does not belong to any language family (isolate); at present, the Ainu of Hokkaido have switched to Japanese, the Ainu of Russia - to Russian, very few people of the older generation in Hokkaido - Matsmai still remember the language a little. By 1996, there were no more than 15 people who fully knew Ainu. At the same time, speakers of dialects from different localities practically do not understand each other. The Ainu did not have their own writing, but there was a rich oral tradition, including songs, epic poems and stories in verse and prose.

Russia can recall historical examples of how the Ainu northern Hokkaido- Matsmaia at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries swore allegiance to the Russian government. And if so, then in response to the demand of the “northern territories”, Russia can put forward a counter-demand of the “southern territories”.

Although the Japanese organized a real genocide of the Ainu, justifying their actions by the fact that its representatives are allegedly "ebisu" (savages) and "teki" (animals). However, the Ainu were not "barbarians". Their Jomon culture is one of the oldest in the world. According to various sources, it appeared 5-8 thousand years ago, when no one had yet heard of Japanese civilization. According to many ethnographers, it was from the Ainu that the Japanese adopted many of their customs and cultural features, from the seppuku rite to the sacred Shinto complex and imperial attributes, including jasper pendants. Perhaps the Japanese were brought to the islands of the Ainu - AINUMOSHIRI, as a labor force for agriculture, since the Ainu themselves were not engaged in agriculture. So, for example, among the Mongols, the ends of the shoes are wrapped up, since the Mongol cannot disturb the earth, and the Daur people (Dauria-Chita region) were engaged in agriculture for the Mongols, so the Daurs were evicted by the Chinese so that Russia would not have the support of this agricultural people.

From the 8th century the Japanese did not stop slaughtering the Ainu, who fled from extermination to the north - to Hokkaido - Matmai, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Unlike the Japanese, the Russian Cossacks did not kill them. After several skirmishes between similar outwardly blue-eyed and bearded aliens on both sides, normal friendly relations were established. And although the Ainu flatly refused to pay the yasak tax, no one killed them for this, unlike the Japanese. However, 1945 became a turning point for the fate of this people. Today, only 12 of its representatives live in Russia, but there are many "mestizos" from mixed marriages.

The destruction of the "bearded people" - the Ainu in Japan stopped only after the fall of militarism in 1945. However, the cultural genocide continues to this day.

It is significant that no one knows the exact number of Ainu on the Japanese islands. The fact is that in “tolerant” Japan, quite often there is still a rather arrogant attitude towards representatives of other nationalities. And the Ainu were no exception: it is impossible to determine their exact number, since according to the Japanese censuses they do not appear either as a people or as a national minority.

According to scientists, the total number of the Ainu and their descendants does not exceed 16 thousand people, of which there are no more than 300 purebred representatives of the Ainu people, the rest are “mestizos”. In addition, often the most unprestigious job is left to the Ainu. And the Japanese are actively pursuing a policy of their assimilation, and there is no question of any "cultural autonomies" for them.

People from mainland Asia also came to Japan around the same time that people first reached America. The first settlers of the Japanese islands - YOMON (ancestors of the Ainu) reached Japan twelve thousand years ago, and youi (ancestors of the Japanese) came from Korea in the last two and a half millennia.

In Japan, work has been done that allows us to hope that genetics is able to solve the question of who the ancestors of the Japanese are. Along with the Japanese living on the central islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, anthropologists distinguish two more modern ethnic groups: the Ainu from the island of Hokkaido in the north and the Ryukyuans, who live mainly on the southernmost island of Kinawa.

One theory is that these two groups, the Ainu and the Ryukyuans, are the descendants of the first Yomon settlers who once occupied all of Japan and were later forced out of Japan. central islands north to Hokkaido and south to Okinawa by the youi from Korea.

Mitochondrial DNA research conducted in Japan only partly supports this hypothesis: it showed that modern Japanese from the central islands have very much in common genetically with modern Koreans, with whom they have many more identical and similar mitochondrial types than with the Ainu and the Ryukyuans.

However, it is also shown that there are practically no similarities between the Ainu and Ryukyu people. Age estimates have shown that both of these ethnic groups have accumulated certain mutations over the past twelve millennia - this suggests that they are indeed descendants of the original Yomon people, but also proves that the two groups have not been in contact since then.

The majority of modern Japanese living in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu have many common mitochondrial sequences with modern Koreans, which proves their maternal relationship with the yōui and indicates secondary, relatively recent migrations. However, among the Japanese there are quite a few who are descendants of the Yomon and are closely related on the maternal side either with the Ryukyuans or with the Ainu.

Militarily, the Japanese were inferior to the Ainu for a very long time, and only after several centuries of constant skirmishes from the Japanese military detachments defending the northern borders of Yamato, what was later called "samurai" was formed. Samurai culture and samurai fighting techniques are largely derived from Ainu fighting techniques and carry many Ainu elements.

On my own behalf, I would suggest to the leadership of Russia and Japan in the "northern territories" in Russia and in the "southern territories" - Hokkaido - Matsmai, each of the states to create an autonomy for the Ainu - Ainu and allow the Ainu from both autonomies to move freely through state borders between Russia and Japan and allow the Ainu to trade in seafood, and not poachers who export the entire catch to Japan.

Russia is the peoples and their lands that make it up,
and the Russians are the "cement" that unites the peoples of Russia.

***************From the discussion of the material about the Ainah********************

Andrey Belkovsky AINS - Ainumosiri

A good article, but it’s worth learning more about the Ainu, especially about their life as part of Russia-USSR.

There is a good book by Taksami "Who are you, Ainu" and "Peoples of Siberia" edited by Levin (1959 IMHO)

The Ainu and their fellow tribesmen were spread rot by both the Japanese and ours (our people cleared from the Ainu both southern Kamchatka, and Sakhalin, and especially the Kuriles - after the 18th century, it was the Kuriles that were the core of Ainumosiri).

I even reported to the Foreign Ministry (on the problems of the Southern Kuriles) that the best option is to create the state of Ainumosiri there and help the Ainu who survived there live normally.

The Ainu are the people of Oceania, the northern Australoids, and there is a positive American experience in granting independence to such structures. Kiribati, Vanuatu and Nauru are living and prospering.

With the advent of Soviet power, the Ainu twice - before the war and after - turned out to be without exception Japanese spies. The smartest corresponded in the Nivkhs (they took Sakhalin from them).

It's funny - the Nivkhs have a world minimum of beard and mustache growth, the Ainu and Armenians have a world maximum (under 6 points).

Before the revolution, the Ainu were also resettled to the Commanders. Now they have assimilated with the Aleuts - as part of the former Badaev family.
In the lower part of the village of Nikolskoye on the Bering Island, until the 1980s, the toponym "Ainu End" was.
Among the Badaev-Kuznetsovs there are people with a beard growth that is increased for the Aleuts.
Andrey Belkovsky

********************* From the historical chronicle of the Ainu ************************** ****

Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of present-day Japan, which were called Ainumoshiri - the land of the Ainu, until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese Yayoi (Mongoloids). The Ainu came to Sakhalin in the 13th-14th centuries, "finishing" the settlement in the beginning. XIX century. Traces of their appearance were also found in Kamchatka, in Primorye and the Khabarovsk Territory. Many place names Sakhalin region have Ainu names: Sakhalin (from "SAKHAREN MOSIRI" - "wave-like land"); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the ending words "shir" and "kotan" mean, respectively, "plot of land" and "settlement").

It took the Japanese more than 2,000 years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including Hokkaido (then called "Ezo") (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC). At present, there are only a few reservations for the Ainu in Hokkaido, where Ainu families live.

The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuriles were surprised to note Caucasian facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for Mongoloids.

The Ainu population consisted of socially stratified groups ("utars"), headed by the families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu family descended through the female line, although the man was naturally considered the head of the family). "Utar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had a military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves "utarpa" (head of the utar) or "nishpa" (leader), were a layer of the military elite. Men of "high birth" were destined for military service from birth, high-born women spent their time embroidering and shamanic rituals ("tusu").

The leader's family had a dwelling inside a fortification ("chasi"), surrounded by an earthen embankment (also called "chasi"), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock protruding above the terrace. The number of mounds often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Inside the fortification, along with the leader's family, there were usually servants and slaves ("ushyu"). The Ainu did not have any centralized power.

Of the weapons, the Ainu preferred the bow. No wonder they were called "people with arrows sticking out of their hair" because they carried quivers (and swords, by the way, too) behind their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or large euonymus (high shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone overlays. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers.

A few words about combat tips. In battle, both "ordinary" armor-piercing and spiked tips were used (perhaps for better cutting through armor or getting an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (information has been preserved that in the Middle Ages the Sakhalin Ainu repulsed a large army that came from the mainland).

Arrowheads were made of metal (the early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then smeared with aconite poison "suruku". Aconite root was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place for fermentation. A stick with poison was applied to the spider's leg, if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison quickly decomposed, it was also widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.

The swords of the Ainu were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one and a half hand handle. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decorations. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror finish in order to scare away evil spirits.

In addition to swords, the Ainu wore two long knives ("cheiki-makiri" and "sa-makiri"), which were worn on the right thigh. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the rite "re" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling it "hara-kiri" or "seppuku" (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for sword, spear, bow). Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: “A long time ago, after this country was created by God, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ainu man. the cult of swords, while the Japanese have a thirst for money.The Ainu condemned their neighbors for money-grubbing).

They treated the spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.

Another detail of the weapons of the Ainu warrior was the combat beaters - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hard wood. On the sides of the beaters were supplied with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The mallets were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, at best (for the victim, of course) - forever disfigured.

The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair, which was tangled into a tangle, forming a semblance of a natural helmet.

Armor of the sarafan type was made from the skin of a bearded seal ("sea hare" - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor may seem bulky, but in fact it practically does not restrict movement, it allows you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to the numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success reflected the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic "toli" disks that scare away evil spirits and generally have a magical meaning. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened in front with the help of numerous ties. There were also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them.

Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the pra-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?

Only such a duel has survived to this day. Opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this endurance test). Sometimes these batons were replaced with knives, and sometimes they just fought with their hands, until the opponents were out of breath. Despite the brutality of the fight, no injuries were observed.

In fact, the Ainu fought not only with the Japanese. Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the "tonzi" - a short people, really the indigenous population of Sakhalin. From "tonzi" Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around their lips (a kind of half-smile - half-mustache was obtained), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - "tontsini".

It is curious that the Ainu warriors - the Jangins - were noted as very warlike, they were incapable of lying.

The information about signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, utensils, passed down from generation to generation, in order, for example, not to confuse whose arrow hit the beast, who owns this or that thing. There are more than one and a half hundred such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were found near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the sharp Urup.

There were also pictograms on "ikunisi" (sticks for supporting the mustache while drinking). To decipher the signs (which were called "epasi itokpa") it was necessary to know the language of symbols and their components.

It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu and won them by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one "emishi" (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could make fog.

Over the years, the Ainu have repeatedly raised an uprising against the Japanese (in Ainu "siskin"), but each time they lost. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Sacredly honoring the customs of hospitality, the Ainu, trusting like children, did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese did not succeed in other ways of suppressing the uprising. (In the same way, the Germans dealt with the princes of the Polabian Slavs - Lusatians, the Germans locked the invited princes in the house and set fire to the house.)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov talks about the Ainakh- AYNO

The indigenous population of South Sakhalin, the local foreigners, when asked who they are, do not name either a tribe or a nation, but simply answer: Aino. It means a person. In Schrenk's ethnographic map, the area of ​​distribution of the Aino, or Ainu, is marked with yellow paint, and this paint completely covers the Japanese island of Matsmai and the southern part of Sakhalin to Patience Bay. They also live on the Kuril Islands and are therefore called Kuriles among the Russians. The numerical composition of the Aino living on Sakhalin is not precisely determined, but there is no doubt that this tribe is disappearing, and, moreover, with unusual speed.

Doctor Dobrotvorsky, who 25 years ago served on South Sakhalin*, says that there was a time when there were 8 large Ainsk villages near Busse Bay alone, and the number of inhabitants in one of them reached 200; near Naiba he saw traces of many villages. For his time, he guessingly gives three figures taken from different sources: 2885, 2418, 2050, and considers the latter to be the most reliable. According to one author, his contemporary, from the Korsakov post in both directions along the coast there were Ain settlements. I did not find a single village near the post and saw several Ain yurts only near Big Takoe and Siyantsa. In the "Statement of the number of living foreigners for 1889 in the Korsakov district" the numerical composition of the Aino is defined as follows: 581 men and 569 women.

_______________
* After him, two serious works remained: "The southern part of the island of Sakhalin" (extracted from the military medical report). - "Proceedings of the Sib. Department of the Russian Geographical Society", 1870, vol. I, ЉЉ 2 and 3, and "Ainsko-Russian Dictionary".

Dobrotvorsky considers the reasons for the disappearance of the Aino to be the devastating wars that allegedly took place once on Sakhalin, an insignificant birth rate due to the infertility of the Ainos, and most importantly, illness. They always had syphilis, scurvy; there was probably smallpox*.

_______________
* It is difficult to imagine that this disease, which has devastated Northern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, would have spared Southern Sakhalin. A. Polonsky writes that the Aino leave the yurt in which the deceased happened and instead build another one in a new place. This custom apparently originated at a time when the Aino, in fear of epidemics, left their infected dwellings and settled in new places.

But all these reasons, which usually determine the chronic extinction of aliens, do not explain why the Aino disappear so quickly, almost before our eyes; after all, in the last 25 to 30 years there have been no wars, no significant epidemics, and yet in this period of time the tribe has decreased by more than half. It seems to me that it is more correct to assume that this rapid disappearance, similar to melting, does not come from extinction alone, but also from the migration of the Aino to neighboring islands.

Prior to the occupation of South Sakhalin by Russians, the Aino were almost serfdom among the Japanese, and it was all the easier to enslave them because they were meek, unrequited, and most importantly, they were hungry and could not do without rice *.
_______________
* The Aino said to Rimsky-Korsakov: "Sizam sleeps, but the Aino works for him: he cuts wood, catches fish; the Aino does not want to work - Sizam beats him."

Having occupied South Sakhalin, the Russians liberated them and until recently guarded their freedom, protecting them from insults and avoiding interfering in their inner life. Fugitive convicts in 1885 slaughtered several Ain families; they also say that some Ainian musher was whipped with rods, who refused to carry mail, and there were attempts on the chastity of the Ainok, but they speak of such oppression and insults as separate and extremely rare cases. Unfortunately, the Russians did not bring rice along with freedom; with the departure of the Japanese, no one fished anymore, earnings ceased, and the Aino began to experience hunger. They could no longer feed on fish and meat alone, like the Gilyaks, they needed rice, and so, despite their dislike for the Japanese, prompted by hunger, they began, as they say, to move to Matsmai.

In one correspondence (Golos, 1876, No. 16) I read that a deputation from the Aino came to the Korsakov post and asked for work or at least seeds for growing potatoes and teaching them how to cultivate land for potatoes; the work was allegedly refused, and they promised to send potato seeds, but they did not fulfill the promises, and the Aino, in poverty, continued to move to Matsmai. Another correspondence relating to 1885 (Vladivostok, Љ 38) also says that the Aino made some statements that, apparently, were not respected, and that they strongly desire to get out of Sakhalin to Matsmai.

Aino are swarthy, like gypsies; they have large bushy beards, mustaches and black hair, thick and coarse; their eyes are dark, expressive, meek. They are of medium height and strong, stocky build, their facial features are large, coarse, but, according to the sailor V. Rimsky-Korsakov, they have neither a Mongolian flattening nor a Chinese narrow-eyedness. They find that the bearded Aino are very similar to Russian peasants. In fact, when an Aino puts on his dressing gown like our chuyka and girds himself, he becomes like a merchant coachman*.

_______________
* In Schrenk's book, which I have already mentioned, there is a table with the image of the Aino. See also the book fr. Gelwald" Natural history tribes and peoples", vol. II, where the Aino is depicted in full growth, in a dressing gown.

The body of the Aino is covered with dark hair, which sometimes grows thickly on the chest, in bunches, but it is still far from hairy, meanwhile, the beard and hairiness, which is such a rarity among savages, amazed travelers who, upon returning home, described the Aino as hairy. And our Cossacks, who in the last century took yasak from them on the Kuril Islands, also called them hairy.

The Aino live in close proximity to peoples whose facial hair is poor, and it is not surprising, therefore, that their wide beards put ethnographers in no small difficulty; science has not yet found a real place for the Aino in the racial system. Aino is sometimes referred to as a Mongolian, sometimes as a Caucasian tribe; one Englishman even found that they were the descendants of Jews abandoned in the time of the ona on the Japanese islands. At present, two opinions seem most likely: one, that the Ainu belong to a special race that once inhabited all the East Asian islands, the other, belonging to our Shrenk, that they are a Paleo-Asiatic people, long since driven out by Mongolian tribes from the mainland of Asia to its island outskirts, and that the path of this people from Asia to the islands lay through Korea.

In any case, the Aino moved from south to north, from warm to cold, constantly changing from better conditions to worse ones. They are not belligerent, do not tolerate violence; it was not difficult to conquer, enslave or displace them. The Mongols ousted them from Asia, the Japanese from Nippon and Matsmay, the Gilyaks did not let them go higher than Taraika on Sakhalin, they met with the Cossacks on the Kuril Islands and thus eventually found themselves in a hopeless situation. At present, the Aino, usually without a hat, barefoot and in ports tucked above the track, meeting you along the way, curtsies to you and at the same time looks affectionately, but sadly and painfully, like a loser, and as if he wants to apologize that he has a beard. he has grown big, and he still has not made a career for himself.

For details about the Aino, see Schrenk, Dobrotvorsky, and A. Polonsky*. What was said about food and clothing among the Gilyaks also applies to the Aino, with the only addition that the lack of rice, the love for which the Aino inherited from their great-grandfathers who once lived on the southern islands, is a serious deprivation for them; they don't like Russian bread. Their food is more varied than that of the Gilyaks; besides meat and fish, they eat various plants, shellfish, and what Italian beggars generally call frutti di mare**. They eat little, but often, almost every hour; gluttony, characteristic of all northern savages, is not noticed in them. Since infants have to switch from milk directly to fish and whale oil, they are weaned late.

Rimsky-Korsakov saw an Ainka being sucked by a child of three years old, who already moved perfectly by himself and even had a knife on his belt belt, like a big one. The strong influence of the south is felt on clothes and dwellings - not Sakhalin, but the real south. In summer, the Aino wear shirts woven from grass or bast, and earlier, when they were not so poor, they wore silk robes. They do not wear hats, they go barefoot in the summer and all autumn until the snow. In their yurts it is smoky and stinking, but still it is much lighter, neater and, so to speak, more cultured than among the Gilyaks. Near the yurts, there are usually dryers with fish, spreading a dank, suffocating smell far around; howling and biting dogs; here you can sometimes see a small frame-cage in which a young bear sits: they will kill him and eat him in the winter at the so-called bear festival.

I saw one morning how an Ainian teenage girl was feeding a bear, pushing dried fish soaked in water on a spatula. The yurts themselves are made of knurling and tesu; the roof, made of thin poles, is covered with dry grass. Inside, bunks stretch along the walls, above them are shelves with various utensils; here, in addition to skins, bladders with fat, nets, dishes, etc., you will find baskets, mats and even a musical instrument. The owner usually sits on the bunk and, without ceasing, smokes a pipe, and if you ask him questions, he answers reluctantly and briefly, although politely. In the middle of the yurt there is a hearth on which firewood burns; smoke escapes through a hole in the roof.

A large black cauldron hangs on a hook above the fire; it boils ukha, gray, frothy, which, I think, a European would not eat for any money. There are monsters around the cauldron. As solid and good-looking Aino men are, so unattractive are their wives and mothers. The appearance of Ain women is called ugly and even disgusting by the authors. The color is dark yellow, parchment, the eyes are narrow, the features are large; uncurly coarse hair hangs over her face in wads like straw on an old barn, her dress is untidy, ugly, and for all that - an unusual thinness and an senile expression. Married women paint their lips something blue, and from this their face completely loses the image and likeness of a human, and when I happened to see them and observe that seriousness, almost severity, with which they stir spoons in boilers and remove dirty foam, then I I felt like I was seeing real witches. But girls and girls do not make such a repulsive impression ***.
_______________
A. Polonsky's study of the Kuriles was published in Notes of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1871, Volume IV.
** fruits of the sea (Italian).

*** N. V. Busse, who rarely spoke graciously about anyone, by the way, certifies the Ainok as follows: “In the evening, a drunken Ain, known to me as a big drunkard, came to me. He brought his wife with him, and as far as I could understand , in order to sacrifice fidelity to her marital bed and thereby lure good gifts from me.

Ainka, who was rather beautiful, seemed ready to help her husband, but I pretended that I did not understand their explanations ... Having left my house, the husband and wife, without ceremony in front of my window and in the sight of the sentry, paid their debt to nature. In general, this ainka did not show much female shame. Her breasts were hardly covered by anything. Ainki wear the same dress as men, that is, several short swinging robes girded low with a sash. They don’t have shirts and bottom dresses, and therefore the slightest mess in their dress shows all the hidden charms. "But even this stern author admits that "among the young girls there were some pretty pretty ones, with pleasant and soft features and with ardent black eyes" "Be that as it may, the ainka is greatly retarded in physical development; she grows old and fades before a man. Perhaps this should be attributed to the fact that during the centuries of wanderings of the people, the lion's share of hardships, hard work and tears fell to a woman.

Aino never wash, go to bed without undressing. Almost everyone who wrote about the Aino spoke of their manners in the best possible way. The general voice is such that these people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable, polite, respectful of property, bold in hunting and; in the words of Dr. Rollen, a companion of La Perouse, even intelligent. Selflessness, frankness, faith in friendship and generosity are their usual qualities. They are truthful and do not tolerate deceit. he concludes: "Such truly rare qualities, which they owe not to elevated education, but only to nature, aroused in me the feeling that I consider this people to be the best of all others that I have known to this day" * And Rudanovsky writes: "More there cannot be a peaceful and modest population, such as we met in the southern part of Sakhalin.” Any violence arouses disgust and horror in them.

_______________
* These are the qualities: "When visiting our one Ain dwelling on the shore of Rumyantsev Bay, I noticed in the family of this, which consisted of 10 people, the happiest agreement, or, one might almost say, perfect equality between its members. Being several hours in it, not we could not recognize the head of the family in any way. The elders did not show any signs of command against the young. When giving them gifts, no one showed the slightest kind of displeasure that he got less than the other.

In conclusion, a few words about the Japanese in the history of South Sakhalin. For the first time, the Japanese appeared in the south of Sakhalin only at the beginning of this century, but not earlier. In 1853, N. V. Busse recorded his conversation with the Aino old people, who remembered the time of their independence and said: "Sakhalin is the land of the Ains, there is no Japanese land on Sakhalin." The first Japanese colonists were runaway criminals or those who had been on foreign land and were expelled from Japan for this.

**********************************************

Other materials about the Ainu in the community:
http://www.icrap.org/ru/Chasanova-9-1.html photos of the Ainu
http://community.livejournal.com/anthropology_en/114005.html
http://www.svevlad.org.rs/knjige_files/ajni_prjamcuk.html

http://www.icrap.org/Folklor_sachalinskich_Ainov.html
TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE SAKHALIN AINS

http://kosarev.press.md/Ain-jap-1.htm
http://lord-trux.livejournal.com/46594.html
http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/akulov/east06_13.html
http://leit.ru/modules.php?name=Pages&pa=showpage&pid=1326
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/2877/
http://www.sunhome.ru/religion/11036
http://www.4ygeca.com/ainy.html
http://stud.ibi.spb.ru/132/sobsvet/html/Ajni1.html
http://www.icrap.org/ru/sieroszewski8-1.html
http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/1800dok/185401putya.html
http://kosarev.press.md/Contact-models.htm
http://glob.us-in.net/gusev_67.php

Before them, the Ainu lived here, a mysterious people, in whose origin there are still many mysteries. The Ainu for some time coexisted with the Japanese, until the latter managed to push them north.

The fact that the Ainu are the ancient owners of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names. geographical objects, whose origin is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - great mountain Fujiyama - has in its name the Ainu word "fuji", which means "deity of the hearth." According to scientists, the Ainu settled the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu did not engage in agriculture, they earned their living by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements quite remote from each other. Therefore, their area of ​​residence was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka. Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them a rice culture that allowed them to feed a large number of people in a relatively small area. Thus began hard times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move north, leaving their ancestral lands to the colonialists.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, who were fluent in bow and sword, and the Japanese failed to defeat them for a long time. Very long, almost 1500 years. The Ainu knew how to handle two swords, and on their right thigh they wore two daggers. One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri. The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having by this time managed to learn a lot from them in terms of military art. The code of honor of the samurai, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu. But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples Far East and Siberia, already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the natives. Pacific Ocean because they have similar facial features. But genetic studies ruled out this option. And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on Sakhalin Island even mistook the Ainu for Russians, so they were not like Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people from all the analyzed options with whom they have a genetic relationship turned out to be the people of the Jomon era, who were supposedly the ancestors of the Ainu. The Ainu language also strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and a suitable place has not yet been found for it. It turns out that during the long isolation, the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even single them out as a special Ainu race.

Today there are very few Ainu left, about 25,000 people. They live mainly in the north of Japan and are almost completely assimilated by the population of this country.

Ainu in Russia

For the first time, the Kamchatka Ainu came into contact with Russian merchants at the end of the 17th century. Relations with the Amur and Northern Kuril Ainu were established in the 18th century. The Ainu were considered Russians, who differed in race from their Japanese enemies, as friends, and by the middle of the 18th century, more than one and a half thousand Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship. Even the Japanese could not distinguish the Ainu from the Russians because of their external resemblance (white skin and Australoid facial features, which are similar to Caucasians in a number of ways). When the Japanese first came into contact with the Russians, they called them the Red Ainu (Ainu with blond hair). It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the Japanese realized that the Russians and the Ainu were two different peoples. However, for Russians, the Ainu were "hairy", "dark-skinned", "dark-eyed" and "dark-haired". The first Russian researchers described the Ainu as similar to Russian peasants with swarthy skin or more like gypsies.

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

Under the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875, the Kuriles were ceded to Japan, along with the Ainu living on them. On September 18, 1877, 83 North Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, deciding to remain under Russian control. They refused to move to the reservations on the Commander Islands, as they were offered by the Russian government. After that, from March 1881, for four months they traveled on foot to the village of Yavino, where they later settled. Later, the village of Golygino was founded. Another 9 Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. The 1897 census indicates 57 people in the population of Golygino (all Ainu) and 39 people in Yavino (33 Ainu and 6 Russians). Both villages were destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and the inhabitants were resettled in Zaporozhye, Ust-Bolsheretsky district. As a result, three ethnic groups assimilated with the Kamchadals.

The North Kuril Ainu are currently the largest subgroup of the Ainu in Russia. The Nakamura family (South Kuril on the paternal side) is the smallest and has only 6 people living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are a few on Sakhalin who identify themselves as Ainu, but many more Ainu do not recognize themselves as such. Most of the 888 Japanese living in Russia (2010 census) are of Ainu origin, although they do not recognize this (full-blooded Japanese are allowed to enter Japan without a visa). The situation is similar with the Amur Ainu living in Khabarovsk. And it is believed that none of the Kamchatka Ainu survived.

In 1979, the USSR crossed out the ethnonym "Ainu" from the list of "living" ethnic groups in Russia, thereby declaring that this people had died out on the territory of the USSR. Judging by the 2002 census, no one entered the ethnonym "Ainu" in fields 7 or 9.2 of the K-1 census form

There is such evidence that the Ainu have the most direct genetic ties in the male line, oddly enough, with the Tibetans - half of them are carriers of a close haplogroup D1 (the D2 group itself is practically not found outside the Japanese archipelago) and the Miao-Yao peoples in southern China and in Indochina. As for the female (Mt-DNA) haplogroups, the U group dominates among the Ainu, which is also found among other peoples of East Asia, but in small numbers.

sources

The Ainu, who once inhabited the vast territory of South Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the southern tip of Kamchatka and modern Japan and are now preserved in small numbers only on the island of Hokkaido, neither in their anthropological appearance nor in their culture are like any other people of East Asia. Until now, ethnographers have been actively arguing about the origin of the Ainu, putting forward either the northern, the southern, or even the western versions of the origin of this people. However, none of them yet gives a clear answer to the question: where did the Ainu come from and what are their linguistic and ethno-cultural ties with other ethnic groups? Finally, the Ainu attract attention with their tragic fate, being now, essentially, on the verge of extinction.

N. Lomanovich's essay is of great cognitive interest, to a certain extent filling a gap in our popular scientific geographical literature, which has long ceased to concern the problem of the Ainu. In the early 1970s, Mary E. Hilger, an American researcher of the Ainu culture, lived for a long time among the Ainu on the island of Hokkaido. Her observations of the spiritual and material life of a small group of representatives of this nationality, which she talks about in the National Geographic magazine, are the reality of the Ainu today. Unless there are more problems. The inhabitants of the Ainu settlement also understand this, saying: “There is nothing to be done. It's time for another..."

L. Demin, candidate of historical sciences

"Real People"

Embracing each other, the Heavenly Serpent and the Sun Goddess merged into the First Lightning. With joyful roaring, they descended to the First Earth, which caused the top and bottom to arise by themselves. The snakes created the world, and with it Aioin, who created people, gave them crafts and the ability to survive. Later, when the children of Aioina settled in multitudes around the world, one of them, the king of the country of Pan, wished to marry his own daughter. There was no one around who was not afraid to go against the will of the lord. In despair, the princess fled with her beloved dog across the Great Sea. There, on a distant shore, her children were born. From them came the people who call themselves Ainy, which means “Real people”.

Why real? Because every tree, frog, bird, beast, even sand on the shore - a person also has a soul, listens, understands, acts, only with a different look, not like the Ainu - therefore, not real. The Ainu have leaders, "other people" have masters, that is, kamui. Kamui are strong, they can always help real people, you just need to ask them to be able to. Take a stick, turn one of its ends into curly shavings with a knife, cut in some places, and you get inau. Give him food and drink, decorate with colorful rags and explain what you want. The soul of the inau will convey your request to the right spirit-kamuy, and he will not refuse.

How many times has it happened: you go to sea, and then the wind raises the waves - they are about to capsize the boat! But you will throw a pre-prepared inau stick into the water and shout to it:
- Go to the Master of the Sea and ask: is it good if the Ain dies, but the Kamui does not see it?

And the arms suddenly become stronger, the oars become more obedient, the waves go lower and lower—and the storm will end.

But in order to protect oneself from the most formidable hostile forces or diseases, a special inau is needed. First, the hunters hunt for a suckling bear. This weak bearish "little man" is brought to the village. From that day on, all the surrounding Ainu begin new life in anticipation of the holiday. You have to wait three or four years. But now people are not so afraid of diseases, hunger, wars. All misfortunes will go away, because the Holiday is ahead.

And on a special full moon, for many days of the journey, peace comes around. From different families, from the most distant places, guests come by land, guests sail by sea. They are greeted with joy and honor.

It's time for games, competitions and dances. “Muk-kuri” clamped in the teeth are buzzing - plates with an elastic tongue. A spruce log lying on the goats rhythmically hoots under the blows. Former enemies draw each other into a dance, forgetting insults, stand side by side and slowly step in one direction or the other. The music itself makes you clap your hands, shake your heads. Laughter, songs...

Then the main thing comes: the bear is taken out of the house-cage. All this time he was taken better care of than his own children. Now people have come together to see off the dear guest to another world. The bear will remember and thank the Ainu for a long time. But first, let him pass between the rows of standing and sitting people, so that everyone can say goodbye to the "man."

The Ainu crowd into a huge cheering crowd. She leads the bear to a sacred platform, where “people” carved out of wood, similar to him, are frozen. A bearded man comes out with a large bow, in his height. Two arrows hit the bear on the left side and release his soul into the wild. After all, she is the smartest, most skillful inau. Not one, many Kamuev can persuade. And then the Owner of the Forest - the bear - will give a happy hunt, and the Owner of the Sea - killer whale - will drive a sea animal to the prison or order fat whales to throw themselves ashore. If only the soul of the shaggy "man" would remember for a longer time how the real people living on the islands scattered in the middle of the ocean loved him.

This is how the Ainu knew the world, “real people”, whose ancestors inhabited in ancient times the islands of modern Japan, Sakhalin, the Kuriles and the southern tip of Kamchatka. After all, there is no other land in the world. And what does the world know about the Ainu? Unfortunately, they did not create their own written language, and therefore one can only guess about the initial stages of the formation of this people.

The first written references to the Ainu, compiled by Japanese chroniclers, tell of the times when the Japanese were not yet masters of the entire territory of today's Country. rising sun. Because the age of the Ainu culture "jomon" (when ceramic vessels decorated with spiral patterns were created) is about eight thousand years, and the modern Japanese people began to form only in the 4th-1st centuries BC. The basis for it was the tribes that poured at that time from the Korean Peninsula to the east. Natives from the continent first occupied the nearest island of Kyushu. From there they went to the north - the island of Honshu and to the south - the Ryukyu archipelago. The Ainu tribes that lived on the tiny islands of the Ryukyu gradually melted away in the stream of newcomers. But until now, according to some anthropologists, the ethnic group of the Ryukyus has some features of the Ainu type.

The conquest of the vast Honshu progressed slowly. As early as 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 small villages of incompletely assimilated Ainu in the north of Honshu. Most of the crown 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, the Dainniponshi (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 by 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 contractions 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. If the Ezos began to complain about such atrocities, then in addition they received punishment.

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 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, the Russians are referred to as "red-haired Ainu".

Russia's successes in the Kuril Islands did not go unnoticed. In "Brief geographical description Kuril and Aleutian Islands”, issued in 1792 in Germany, noted: “... Matmai is the only island that is not under Russian rule.” The Japanese mathematician and astronomer of the 18th century Honda Toshiaki wrote that “... the Ainu look at the Russians as their own fathers,” since “true possessions are won by virtuous deeds. Countries forced to submit to the force of arms remain unsubdued at heart." The ruler of Japan, Tanuma Okitsugu, interpreted these thoughts in his own way. He decided to accelerate the colonization of Hokkaido, urgently build new fortifications there, and send military expeditions to the islands as a counterweight to Russian influence in the southern Kuriles, which forced a handful of Russian settlers to return to the mainland.

The year 1855 has come. The Crimean War reached the Pacific Ocean. The Anglo-French squadron bombarded Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and the unfortified settlement on Urup. Uncertainty with the Far Eastern borders could turn into another war for the Russian Empire. This is how the Shimoda Treaty was born, according to which the two most densely populated and closest islands to Hokkaido, Iturup and Kunashir, went to Japan. However, 20 years later, Japan still managed to impose an agreement on Russia, according to which all the Kuril Islands passed to the Land of the Rising Sun "in exchange" for the southern part of Sakhalin. The Japanese transported all the North Kuril Ainu - from Shumshu to Urup - to small Shikotan. Immediately after the resettlement, all the dogs were taken from the northerners and killed: why do poor savages need these voracious animals? Then it turned out that there was almost no sea animal left around Shikotan. But after all, unlike the southerners, the North Kuril Ainu got their livelihood by hunting. What to feed the settlers? Let them start gardening! For people who had no tradition of cultivating the land, this experiment turned into a famine. A cemetery decorated with crosses, the custom of giving children Russian names and sooty images in the corners - according to Captain Snow, this is all that the former inhabitants of the northern Kuriles have left from the time when the Russian state provided them with its patronage.

The life and customs of the Ainu seemed to consist of mutually exclusive elements. They lived in dugouts, common for the peoples of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, but sometimes built frame houses, similar to the dwellings of the natives of Southeast Asia. They wore the "belts of modesty" of the inhabitants of the southern seas and the deaf fur clothes of the northerners. Until now, echoes of the cultures of the tribes of the southern tropic, Siberia and the North Pacific can be traced in their art.

One of the first to answer the question of who the Ainu were was the navigator Jean-Francois La Perouse. In his opinion, they are very close to Europeans.

Indeed, opponents of this version agree that Caucasoid tribes once lived in Siberia and Central Asia, but provide evidence that they came to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

There is no evidence.

A number of Soviet scientists (L. Ya. Sternberg, M. G. Levin, A. P. Okladnikov, S. A. Arutyunov) supported the theory of the relationship of the Ainu with the Australoids of the southern seas.

Look, they said, how similar the national ornament of the Ainu is to the patterns that adorn the clothes of the New Zealand Maori, the rock paintings of Australia, Polynesia and Melanesia. The same rhombuses, spirals, meanders. The Ainu are the only people in northeast Asia who had a loom, and this loom is of the Polynesian type. The Ainu used poisoned arrows. In addition, the method of attaching poisoned tips is similar to that used in Indonesia and the Philippines. Moreover, Ainu legends tell of strong and weak deities who helped poison arrows.

The greatest spirit of the Ainu was considered the Heavenly Serpent. And here we can recall the mighty Snake-Rainbow of the Australians, the God-Snake of Micronesia. Sumatra, Kalimantan, Philippines, Taiwan - on this arc there are cultures that have elements similar to the Ainu. Scientists suggest that they all came from the Sunda mainland, which in the past connected most of the listed islands, and with them, possibly, the Japanese Islands and Sakhalin with Southeast Asia.

Relatives of the Heavenly Serpent can be found not only in the legends of the Malays and Polynesians, but also in the epic of the Mongols, the legends of the Phoenicians, in the legends of the American Indians and on a bone plaque that has lain for thousands of years in the ground on the banks of the Angara. So where are the roots of Ainu mythology? What are they?

N. Lomanovich

Arrived from heaven

Tisei greeted me with coolness. The design of this traditional Ainu dwelling is simple: a wooden frame is placed, braided with rods, and the walls are “lined” with any available material - reeds, straw, tree bark. Outside, at the entrance, a wide canopy is being built, replacing the pantry. In the only room, an open hearth is laid out of stones, a rammed earthen floor is covered with mats, and a “sacred” window opens to the east.

The interior decoration was a bizarre mixture of antiquity and modernity. Near the hearth, little white inau - prayer sticks, curled in curls. Heavy beads and decorative crafts were hung on the walls. Large ceramic cylinders, similar to milk cans, lined up on the floor, in which bulk products are stored. The TV screen gleamed on the stand. A pot-bellied electric light bulb hung from the ceiling. And on the enameled washbasin stood a transparent plastic glass with multi-colored toothbrushes.

Having lived on the island of Hokkaido for eight months among the Ainu, studying their way of life, history, religious rites and oral legends, I was convinced that civilization wins and ancient traditions are maintained only through the efforts of the older generation.

Old men Seki and Riyo Tsurukichi welcomed me as a dear guest:
“We are flattered that you have visited our modest dwelling,” solemnly greeted the owner, who had just returned from the rice field. “Please come in and sit closer to the hearth. The fire in it is sacred. And the duty of the hostess is to constantly support him. If it goes out, it's a bad omen. And on the coals, we always throw a little food and a few drops of drink for the spirits and our dead ancestors…” Seki immediately began his “introductory lecture.”

Sitting on embroidered pillows near the hearth, where two aluminum teapots were boiling, I diligently memorized what the owner said. For example, inau, which play a big role in the life of the Ainu, are made only by men and always from willow. The fact is that when the great spirit created the homeland of the Ainu and flew to his sky, he forgot chopsticks on earth. An unforgivable oversight: from the rains and bad weather, they would surely have rotted. It was too lazy to go back to the spirit. So he took yes and turned them into willows.

- Inau you will see in every house. But now no one weaves reed baskets. They think that cardboard boxes are more convenient. And you won’t find atusi, a fabric made from the soft inner bark of an elm,” Seki sighed contritely.

His story was interrupted by the arrival of three neighbors Tsurukichi: 65-year-old Misao, 75-year-old Toroshina and 76-year-old Uma. Their faces were all adorned with large dark blue mustaches.

“The Japanese considered this custom cruel and barbaric and banned it,” Ume began to explain to me. “Well, maybe there is some truth in it. This procedure, which young girls used to undergo, is very painful. With a razor-sharp knife, many tiny incisions are made around the mouth. Soot is rubbed into them from the bottom of a kettle boiled over birch coals. This makes the tattoo blue. And since the sacred fire gave the soot, evil spirits cannot slip into a person through the mouth or nose. And then the tattoo shows that the girl has reached marriageable age. For example, I found a husband right after that,” Ume finished proudly.

In general, outwardly, the Ainu are very different from the Japanese. Their skin is much lighter. Eyes - round, brown, thick eyebrows and long eyelashes. The hair is often slightly curly. Men grow thick mustaches and beards. The Ainu are not in vain considered representatives of another race.

Most of the Ainu settlements I have visited are located between Muroran and Cape Zrimo in southern Hokkaido. The places there are not very beautiful: the sea and the sand. Those villages that were in the depths of the island, long ago turned into city suburbs, and their inhabitants became workers, drivers, office workers. They live in ordinary wooden houses, often even with running water, covered with iron and in no way resembling traditional tisei, in which, by the way, it is very damp and cold in winter. Naturally, the "urban" Ainu were largely Japaneseized.

But the religious beliefs and rituals of the ancestors have been preserved everywhere.

“A real Ain does not believe in a single almighty god, but worships a whole kamui synclite — the spirits of fire, water, mountains, plains, trees, animals,” Shigeru Kayano, forty-year-old, one of the zealous defenders of the national identity of “real people,” as they call themselves, told me. Ainu. — Therefore, when we gather for prayer, the elder distributes to whom to what kamui to offer them: one - the spirit of the bear, the other - the house, the third - the sea, and so on. And everyone refers to kamui with those words that he considers appropriate. For example, the spirit of the river can be prayed like this: “Man cannot live without running water. We thank you, river, for everything you do for us, and we ask that many salmon come with you this year. But the main prayer was and remains for the health of children ...

In general, children occupy a special place in the life of the Ainu and much attention is paid to their upbringing. The whole family, not just the parents, tries to develop in them the qualities that will be needed when they become adults. For boys, this is primarily quick wit, observation, speed. Without this, you will not get a good hunter or fisherman. Three-year-olds, for example, are given toy bows and arrows. And soon the fathers are already taking them with them to hunt and fish. The principle of learning is simple: look and imitate. Girls are taught to cook, sew, knit. And also kindness. Without her, the Ainu believe, there can be no good mother and wife. By the way, although discipline is required from children, adults do not skimp on affection. The only thing that parents will never allow is to let a “bad person” kiss the child. “Envy and malice are as contagious as a disease,” the Ainu say.

Communicating with them, I noticed that the younger generation, which most of the time - both at school and outside it - spends with Japanese children, no longer feels disadvantaged. In fact, they no longer have a national identity. Therefore, when you start asking them about customs and traditions, they feel awkward, although they try not to show it. "Nothing to do about. Another time has come, and we should not get up young across the road,” one old Ainu said philosophically to me.

Yes, a lot has changed in the life of the Ainu. I was convinced of this when I was in the village of Higashi on the coast. Women and a few men roamed the shallow waters, sacking sea ​​urchins. Then right there, on the shore, they broke prickly balls with stones, took out an orange gelatinous mass with their fingers and ate it. The next morning, the villagers got busy with seaweed. Its long black-green leaves, laid out to dry right on the pebbles, covered the entire beach. They will be cut into meter-long pieces and tied into neat bales. Some will be taken to the market, the rest will go to your own table as a side dish and seasoning.

“Before, we lived mainly by hunting and fishing, and no one was starving. Deer were in abundance. Then the Japanese flooded in, the forests were empty, they had to switch to rabbits and raccoons. Now they don't even exist. Well, it is difficult to feed on those that give vegetable gardens and rice fields. There is not enough land, and there are not enough workers. Young people are leaving for the cities. So we don't mind eating. It happens that the stomach tightens, - complained the old people from Higashi.

Of course, a meager table is by no means a minor thing. However, I did not meet thin, emaciated people among the Ainu. However, diseases among them also do not rage. From time immemorial, the Ainu have been treated with herbs and roots, and many drugs are widely used even now. For example, tincture of calamus root with celandine helps well from the stomach. From a cold - a decoction of bear and deer bones. From cough they breathe vapors of boiling mint.

The situation is more complicated with evil spirits, which are capable of not only breaking a person’s arm or leg, but also destroying him. Here the Ainu resort to drastic measures. So, when a fisherman drowned in the sea in Higashi, all the men went ashore with swords in their hands. With shouts: “I ho! I'm ho!" - they marched in a long line, threateningly brandishing their weapons over their heads to frighten evil spirit and prevent new misfortunes.

In simpler cases, for healing, it is enough to cast the appropriate spells or whip the body of the patient with reeds in order to expel the evil spirit that has inhabited him.

- Do you go to doctors? I asked.
— Of course. If our means do not help, was the answer.

Shortly before leaving, the phone rang in my room:
"You seem to be interested in the origin of the Ainu, don't you?" the stranger asked in a thick Japanese accent.
“Yes,” I answered cautiously.
“Then I can reveal this secret to you. Their ancestors came from heaven.
Yes, don't laugh. They still maintain contact with their cosmic relatives, only they keep it a secret. You can check yourself.
— How?
Read descriptions of aliens visiting Earth in flying saucers. Just like the Ainu, they are not like anyone else. But between them and "real people" a lot in common...

Mary Ines Hilger, American ethnographer

Originally lived on the islands of Japan (then it was called Ainumosiri - land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the pra-Japanese. They came to Sakhalin in the XIII-XIV centuries, having “completed” the settlement in the beginning. XIX century. Traces of their appearance were also found in Kamchatka, in Primorye and the Khabarovsk Territory. Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin region bear Ainu names: Sakhalin (from “SAKHAREN MOSIRI” - “undulating land”); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the ending words “shir” and “kotan” mean, respectively, “plot of land” and “settlement”).

It took the Japanese more than 2 thousand years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including (then called “Ezo”) (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC). Subsequently Ainu almost all degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs. At present, there are only a few reservations on the island of Hokkaido, where Ainu families live. Ainu, perhaps the most mysterious people in the Far East.

The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuriles were surprised to note Caucasian facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for Mongoloids. A little later, ethnographers wondered for a long time - where did people wearing open (southern) type of clothing come from in these harsh lands, and linguists discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Indo-Aryan roots in the Ainu language. The Ainu were ranked among the Indo-Aryans, and among the Australoids and even Caucasians. In a word, there were more and more mysteries, and the answers brought more and more problems.

Here is a summary of what we know about the Ainu:

AINU SOCIETY

The Ainu population consisted of socially stratified groups (“Utar”), headed by the families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu family descended through the female line, although the man was naturally considered the head of the family). "Utar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had a military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves “utarpa” (head of the utar) or “nishpa” (leader), were a layer of the military elite. Men of “high birth” were destined for military service from birth, high-born women spent their time embroidering and shamanic rituals (“tusu”).

The chief's family had a dwelling inside a fortification (“chasi”), surrounded by an earthen embankment (also called “chasi”), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock protruding above the terrace. The number of mounds often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Inside the fortification, along with the leader's family, there were usually servants and slaves (“ushyu”). The Ainu did not have any centralized power.

WEAPONS

Of the weapons, the Ainu preferred. No wonder they were called “people with arrows sticking out of their hair” because they carried quivers (and swords, by the way, too) behind their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or large euonymus (high shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone overlays. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers.

A few words about combat tips. In battle, both "ordinary" armor-piercing and spiked tips were used (perhaps for better cutting through armor or getting an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (there is evidence that in the Middle Ages they repulsed a large army that came from the mainland).

Arrowheads were made of metal (the early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then smeared with aconite poison “suruku”. Aconite root was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place for fermentation. A stick with poison was applied to the leg of the spider, if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison quickly decomposed, it was also widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.

The swords of the Ainu were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one and a half hand handle. Ainu warrior - jangin- fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decorations. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror finish in order to scare away evil spirits. Besides the swords Ainu wore two long knives (“cheiki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”), which were worn on the right thigh. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings “inau” and performing the rite “re” or “erytokpa” - ritual suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling “” or “” (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for sword, spear, bow). Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: Long ago, after this country was created by a god, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ain man. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather: money (the following explains why the Ainu had a cult of swords, and the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for acquisitiveness). They treated the spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.

Another detail of the weapons of the Ainu warrior was the combat beaters - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hard wood. On the sides of the beaters were supplied with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The mallets were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, at best (for the victim, of course) - forever disfigured.

The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair, which was tangled into a tangle, forming a semblance of a natural helmet.

Now let's move on to the armor. Armor of the sarafan type was made from the skin of a bearded seal (“sea hare” - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor (see photo) may seem bulky, but in fact it practically does not restrict movement, it allows you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to the numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success reflected the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic “toli” discs that scare away evil spirits and generally have a magical meaning. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened in front with the help of numerous ties. There were also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them.

Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the pra-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?

Only such a duel has survived to this day. Opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this endurance test). Sometimes these batons were replaced with knives, and sometimes they just fought with their hands, until the opponents were out of breath. Despite the brutality of the fight, no injuries were observed.

In fact, they fought not only with the Japanese. Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the “tonzi” - a short people, really the indigenous population of Sakhalin. From “tonzi”, the Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around the lips (a kind of half-smile was obtained - half-mustache), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - “tontsini”. It's curious that Ainu warriors - jangins– were noted as very belligerent, they were incapable of lying.

The information about signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, utensils, passed down from generation to generation, in order, for example, not to confuse whose arrow hit the beast, who owns this or that thing. There are more than one and a half hundred such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were found near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the sharp Urup.

The pictograms were also on the “ikunisi” (sticks for supporting the mustache while drinking). To decipher the signs (which were called “epasi itokpa”) one had to know the language of symbols and their components.

It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu and won them by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one "emishi" (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could make fog.

Over the years, more than once they raised an uprising against the Japanese (in Ainu “chizhem”), but each time they lost. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Sacredly honoring the customs of hospitality, Ainu, gullible as children, did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese did not succeed in other ways of suppressing the uprising.

In the heat of the ongoing dispute between Russia and Japan for the right to own the Kuril Islands, it is somehow forgotten that the true owners of these lands are the Ainu. Few people know that this mysterious people created one of the most ancient cultures in our world. According to some scholars, the Ainu culture is older than the Egyptian one. The average layman knows that the Ainu are an oppressed minority in Japan. But few people know that there are Ainu in Russia, where they also do not feel comfortable. Who are the Ainu, what kind of people are they? What is their difference from other nations, to whom they are related on this Earth by origin, culture and language.

The oldest population of the Japanese archipelago

Ainu, or Ainu, literally means "man". The names of many other peoples, such as, for example, "Nanai", "Mansi", "Hun", "Nivkh", "Turk" also mean "man", "people", "people". The Ainu are the oldest population of the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and a number of nearby islands. Once they also lived on the lands that now belong to Russia: in the lower reaches of the Amur, i.e. on the mainland, in the south of Kamchatka, on Sakhalin and the Kuriles. At present, the Ainu have remained mainly only in Japan, where, according to official statistics, there are about 25,000 people, and according to unofficial data, more than 200,000. There they are mainly engaged in the tourism business, serving and entertaining tourists who are thirsty for the exotic. In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, only 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94 Ainu were in the Kamchatka Territory.

Origin mysteries

Europeans who encountered the Ainu in the 17th century were surprised by their appearance. Unlike Asian Mongoloids, i.e. with a Mongolian fold of the eyelid, sparse facial hair, the Ainu were very "hairy and shaggy", had thick black hair, large beards, high but wide noses. Their Australoid facial features were similar to European ones in a number of ways. Despite living in a temperate climate, the Ainu wore loincloths in the summer like equatorial southerners. The existing hypotheses of scientists about the origin of the Ainu as a whole can be combined into three groups.

Ainu are related to the Indo-Europeans / Caucasian race- J. Bachelor, S. Murayama and others adhered to this theory. But recent DNA studies have decisively removed this concept from the agenda of scientists. They showed that no genetic similarity with the Indo-Europeans and Caucasian populations was found among the Ainu. Is it a “hairy” resemblance to Armenians: the world maximum hairiness among Armenians and Ain is under 6 points. Compare photos - very similar. The world minimum growth of a beard and mustache, by the way, belongs to the Nivkhs. In addition, the Armenians and the Ainu are brought together by another external similarity: the consonance of the ethnonyms Ai - Ain (Armenians - Ai, Armenia - Hayastan).

Ainu are related to the Austronesians and came to the Japanese islands from the south- this theory was put forward by Soviet ethnography (author L.Ya. Shternberg). But this theory has not been confirmed either, because it is now clearly proven that the culture of the Ainu in Japan is much older than the culture of the Austronesians. Nevertheless, the second part of the hypothesis - about the southern ethnogenesis of the Ainu - survived due to the fact that the latest linguistic, genetic and ethnographic data suggest that the Ainu may well be distant relatives of the Miao-Yao people living in Southeast Asia and Southern China.

The Ainu are related to the Paleo-Asiatic peoples and came to the Japanese islands from the north and / or from Siberia- this point of view is held mainly by Japanese anthropologists. As you know, the theory of the origin of the Japanese themselves is also repelled from the mainland, from the Tungus-Manchurian tribes of the Altai family of Southern Siberia. "Paleo-Asiatic" means "the oldest Asiatic". This term was proposed by the Russian researcher of the peoples of the Far East, academician L. I. Shrenk. In 1883, in the monograph “On the Aliens of the Amur Territory”, Schrenk outlined an interesting hypothesis: once in ancient times, almost all of Asia was inhabited by peoples who differed from representatives of the Mongoloid race (Mongols, Turks, etc.) and spoke their own special languages.

Then the Paleo-Asians were supplanted by the Mongoloid Asians. And only in the Far East and North-East of Asia did the descendants of the Paleo-Asians remain: the Yukagirs of Kolyma, the Chukchi of Chukotka, the Koryaks and Itelmens of Kamchatka, the Nivkhs at the mouth of the Amur and on Sakhalin, the Ainu in northern Japan and Sakhalin, the Eskimos and Aleuts of the Commander and Aleut and other areas Arctic. The Japanese consider the Ainu mestizo Australoids and Paleoasians.

Ancient inhabitants of Japan

According to the main anthropological features, the Ainu are very different from the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols-Buryats-Kalmyks, Nivkhs-Kamchadals-Itelmens, Polynesians, Indonesians, natives of Australia and, in general, the Far East. It is also known that the Ainu are close only to the people of the Jomon era, who are the direct ancestors of the Ainu. Although it is not known where the Ainu came from to the Japanese Islands, it is proved 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 southern third of Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.

This was proved by archaeological excavations and the Ainu names of places: Tsushima - "distant", Fuji - the deity of the hearth of the Ainu, Tsukuba (tu ku pa) - "the head of two bows", Yamatai - "the place where the sea cuts the land", Paramushir - "wide island", Urup - salmon, Iturup - jellyfish, Sakhalin (Sakharen) - undulating land in Ainu. It has also been established that the Ainu appeared on the Japanese islands about 13 thousand years BC. and created a very highly developed Neolithic Jomon culture (12-3 thousand years BC). So, Ainu pottery is considered the oldest in the world - 12 thousand years.

Some believe that the legendary Yamatai state of the Chinese chronicles is the ancient Ainu state. But the Ainu are a non-literate people, their culture is the culture of hunters, fishermen and gatherers of the primitive system, who lived dispersed in small settlements at a great distance from each other, who did not know agriculture and cattle breeding, however, they already had onions and ceramics. They practically did not engage in agriculture and nomadic cattle breeding. The Ainu created an amazing system of life: in order to maintain harmony and balance in the natural environment, they regulated the birth rate, preventing population explosions.

Due to this, they never created large villages, and their main units were small settlements (in Ainu - utar / utari - “people living in one place by the same river”). They, gatherers, fishermen and hunters, needed a very large territory to survive, so the small villages of the Neolithic primitive Ainu were far removed from each other. This type of economy in ancient times forced the Ainu to settle scattered.

Ainu as an object of colonization

From the middle of the Jomon era (8-7 thousand years BC), groups from South-East Asia who spoke Austronesian languages. Then they were joined by colonists from southern China, who brought the culture of agriculture, primarily rice - a very productive culture that allows a very large number of people to live in a small area. At the end of Jomon (3 thousand BC), Altaic-speaking pastoralists arrived on the Japanese islands, who gave rise to Korean and Japanese ethnic groups. The established state of Yamato is pressing the Ainu. It is known that both Yamatai and Yamato considered the Ainu as savages, barbarians. The tragic struggle of the Ainu for survival went on for 1500 years. The Ainu were forced to migrate to Sakhalin, Amur, Primorye and the Kuriles.

Ainu - the first samurai

Militarily, the Japanese were inferior to the Ainu for a very long time. Travelers XVII-XIX centuries. noted the amazing modesty, tact and honesty of the Ainu. I.F. Kruzenshtern wrote: “The Ainu people are meek, modest, trusting, polite, respectful of property ... disinterestedness, frankness are their usual qualities. They are truthful and do not tolerate deceit." But this characterization was given to the Ainu when they lost all fighting spirit after only three centuries of Russian colonization. Meanwhile, the Ainu in the past were a very warlike people. For 1.5-2 thousand years they heroically fought for the freedom and independence of their homeland - Ezo (Hokkaido).

Their military detachments were led by leaders who, in peacetime, were heads of villages - "utars". Utar had a paramilitary organization, like the Cossacks. Of the weapons, the Ainu loved swords and bows. In battle, they used both armor-piercing arrows and spiked arrowheads (for better cutting through armor or getting an arrow stuck in the body). There were also tips with a Z-shaped section, apparently adopted from the Manchus / Jurgens. The Japanese adopted from the warlike, and therefore invincible, Ainu the art of combat, the code of honor of the samurai, the cult of the sword, the hara-kiri ritual. The swords of the Ainu were short, 50 cm long, adopted from the Tonzi, also warlike aborigines of Sakhalin, conquered by the Ainu. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - famously fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. Interestingly, in addition to swords, the Ainu wore two daggers on their right hips ("cheiki-makiri" and "sa-makiri"). The cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the rite of ritual suicide - hara-kiri. The Japanese, having only adopted from the Ainu many techniques of war and the spirit of a warrior, finally inventing cannons, turned the tide and established their dominance.

The fact that Japanese domination in Ezo (Hokkaido), despite the injustice of any colonial administration, was still not as wild and cruel as on the northern islands subject to Russia, is noted by almost all researchers, including Russians, pointing to waves of flight Ainu from Sakhalin, the Kuriles and other lands of Russia to Japan, to Hokkaido-Ezo.

Ainu in Russia

Ainu migrations to these territories began, according to some sources, in the 13th century. How they lived before the arrival of the Russians is a practically unexplored question. The Russian colonization of the Ainu was no different from the Siberian conquest: pogrom, subjugation, taxation with yasak. The abuses were also of the same type: the repeated imposition and knocking out of yasak by new detachments of Cossacks, and so on. The Ainu, a proud people, flatly refused to pay yasak and accept Russian citizenship. By the end of the XVIII century. the fierce resistance of the Ainu was broken.

Doctor Dobrotvorsky wrote that in the middle of the XIX century. in South Sakhalin, near Busse Bay, there were 8 large Ainu settlements, with 200 people in each at least. In 25 years there was not a single village. Such an outcome was not uncommon in the Russian area of ​​the Ainu villages. Dobrotvorsky saw the reasons for the disappearance in devastating wars, an insignificant birth rate “due to the infertility of the Ainok” and in diseases: syphilis, scurvy, smallpox, which “mowed down” precisely small peoples. Under Soviet rule, the Ainu were subjected to political persecution - before and after the war, they were declared "Japanese spies." The most "smart" Ainu corresponded in the Nivkhs. Nevertheless, they were caught, moved to Komandory and other places where they assimilated, for example, with the Aleuts and other peoples.

“At present, the Aino, usually without a hat, barefoot and in ports tucked up above the knees, meeting you along the way, curtsies to you and at the same time looks affectionately, but sadly and painfully, like a loser, and as if he wants to apologize that the beard he has grown big, but he still has not made a career for himself, ”the humanist A.P. wrote with great bitterness. Chekhov in his Sakhalin Island. Now there are 109 Ainu people left in Russia. Of these, there are practically no purebreds. Chekhov, Kruzenshtern, and the Polish exile Bronislaw Pilsudsky, a volunteer ethnographer and patriot of the Ainu and other small peoples of the region, are a small handful of those who raised their voice in defense of this people in Russia.

Ainu in Japan

In Japan, according to unofficial data, 200,000 Ainu. On June 6, 2008, the Japanese Parliament recognized the Ainu as a separate national minority. Now various events are being held here, state assistance is being provided to these people. The life of the Ainu in material terms is practically no different from the life of the Japanese. But the original culture of the Ainu practically serves only tourism and, one might say, acts as a kind of ethnic theater. The Japanese and the Ainu themselves exploit ethno-exotics for the needs of tourists. Do they have a future if there is no language, ancient, guttural, but native, millennial, and if the spirit is lost? Once warlike and proud. A single language as the code of the nation, and the proud spirit of self-sufficient fellow tribesmen - these are the two fundamental bases of the nation-people, two wings that lift into flight.