Archaeological remains as well as many place names indicate that the Ainu once occupied the whole of what is now Japan. They are now found as a distinct people only in Hokkaido, with some hundreds in the southern portion of Saghalien and the Kuriles. Ainu types are, however, recognizable in other parts of Japan, especially in isolated mountain regions. Contact between the Yamato, or ancestors of the Japanese, and the Ainu began at least two thousand years ago, but little is known of it until the beginning of the historic period in Japan, about 700 A.D. It was then that systematic campaigns against the Ainu were begun by the Japanese though they were not finally subdued for a thousand years. In these campaigns, carried out under the direction of a high official entitled "Barbarian-Subduing-Generalissimo," the Japanese were by no means always successful. Ainu culture was, however, neolithic, while the Japanese had iron and fought the Ainu on horseback. In spite of these advantages, subduing the Ainu proved a difficult task, and they made many sporadic revolts against their conquerors. It was in warfare with the Ainu that the foundations were laid of the Samurai or professional warrior class in Japan and many of the Ainu themselves were incorporated in this class. The claim made for some time by the Japanese, that the Ainu, defeated on Honshu—the main island of Japan—fled northwards and crossed over to Hokkaido, is certainly false. All the evidence goes to show that the Ainu were gradually assimilated in southern and central Japan, though since they despised them as an inferior people the Japanese were reluctant to acknowledge this. By a kind of popular etymology the Japanese associated the name Ainu with inu, a dog, and based a widely accepted legend of the origin of the race on this association and also on the similarity of the name to the word for half-caste. There were no acknowledged Ainu in southern and central Japan by the end of the nineteenth century but Ainu informants told the writer how they interested themselves in noting evidences of Ainu descent in Japanese officials. Accounts of Ainu culture are based on the Ainu of Yezo (re-named Hokkaido), and of the nearby islands. Japanese - 206 accounts, especially in manuscript, are numerous but are not available. European descriptions belong mainly to the second half of the nineteenth century, though one of the Jesuit missionaries to Japan visited and described the Ainu of Yezo in the sixteenth century. Considerable scientific interest was taken in the Ainu people about 1880-90 after a number of accounts of them by travellers had been published. As well as British there have been German, Dutch, French and Russian students of the Ainu and of aspects of their culture. Many papers on Ainu subjects have been published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, while in more recent years the Research Institute for Northern Culture, attached to Hokkaido Imperial University, has published—in Japanese—a large amount of material relating to the Ainu. Professors Kodama, Inukai and Takakura of Hokkaido Imperial University have been specially active in this research. Professor Kodama's collection of archaeological material and of more than one thousand Ainu skulls is impressive. So far there does not appear to have been in any language a comprehensive scientific treatment of the people and their culture. The best known British authority on the Ainu is the late Rev. Dr. John Batchelor of the Church Missionary Society. Batchelor spent more than fifty years among the Ainu and his efforts to promote their welfare and to secure for them better treatment from the Japanese constitute a remarkable life's work. His special interest was the Ainu language and he prepared an Ainu-English dictionary now being revised by Mashiho Chiri, the part-Ainu already mentioned. Batchelor also published several general accounts of the Ainu people of which Ainu Life and Lore (1927) was the latest. Basil Hall Chamberlain, who was a professor at Tokyo Imperial University collected Ainu folk tales towards the end of the nineteenth century, compared Ainu mythology with that of the Japanese, finding them quite distinct, and traced Ainu place-names throughout Japan. Dr. Neil Gordon Munro did a large amount of archaeological work, was apparently the first to suggest a Caucasian origin for the Ainu and worked for their welfare along medical lines. There are many gaps in the accounts available of Ainu culture, a particular lack being a detailed account of the social structure of the people.

• published: 11 Sep 2012
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