Mysteries of Ainu

05. 02. 2021
6th international conference of exopolitics, history and spirituality

Ainu (but also Ainu, Aina, Ajnu, etc.) they are a mysterious tribe on which many scientists from different countries have broken their teeth. They have a light face, eyes of the European type (men are also characterized by thick hair) and their appearance is very different from other nations of East Asia. Obviously they are not a Mongoloid race, rather they tend to an anthropological type of Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Ainu

They are hunters and fishermen who have barely known agriculture over the ages, but have created an extraordinary and rich culture. Their ornament, carving and wooden sculptures are remarkable for their beauty and imaginativeness, their songs, dances and legends are truly beautiful, as are all the original work of this tribe.

Each nation has its own unique history and distinctive culture. To a greater or lesser extent, science knows the stages of the historical development of this or that ethnic group. But there are still nations in the world whose origins remain a mystery. And even today they worry the minds of ethnographers. In the first place, such ethnicities include the Ainu, the original inhabitants of the Far East.

It was a very interesting, beautiful and healthy nation that settled in the Japanese archipelago, southern Sakhalin and Kurilah. They called themselves the different tribal names of Soja-Untara or Chuvka-Untara. Word ainu, which they are accustomed to signify, is not the endonym of this nation (endonyms represent the official name of geographic objects used in the territory where the object is located; Note: transl.), but it means a person. These natives have been identified by the scientists as a separate Aryan race, linking in their exterior with the Europoid, Australoid and Mongoloid features.

The historical problem that arises in connection with this tribe is the question of their racial and cultural origin. Traces of the nation's existence have been found even in Neolithic camp sites on the Japanese islands. The Ainu are the oldest ethnic community. Their ancestors are the bearers of the Jomon culture (which literally means a rope pattern), which is almost thirteen thousand years (in the Kuril Islands, eight thousand years).

What about the Japanese themselves?

The Bavarian physician and naturalist Phillip Franz von Siebold and his son Heinrich and the American zoologist Edward Morse were the first to scientifically study the Jómon camps. The results they obtained were very different. While the Siebolds argued with all responsibility that the Jonomon culture was the work of the hands of the ancient Ains, Morse was more careful. He disagreed with the point of view of his German colleagues, but at the same time emphasized that the Jonomon period was significantly different from the Japanese period.

And what about the Japanese themselves, who called Ainy word ebi-su? Most of them disagreed with their conclusions. For them, these natives have always been barbarians, as evidenced, for example, by the Japanese chronicler's entry from 712: "When our noble ancestors descended from the sky on a ship, they found several wild nations on that island (Honshu) and the wildest of them were the Ainu."

But as archaeological excavations prove, the ancestors of these "savages" created a whole culture on the islands that every nation can be proud of, long before the Japanese appeared! That is why official Japanese historiography made an attempt to connect the creators of Jomon culture with the ancestors of contemporary Japanese and not with representatives of the Ainu tribe.

More and more scholars agree that the Ain culture was so viable that it influenced the culture of its Japanese oppressors. As Professor Sergei Alexandrovich Arutyun shows, Aryan elements played a significant role in shaping samurai art and the ancient Japanese Shinto religion.

Arms

For example, an Ainian soldier jangin he had two short, slightly curved swords 45-50 centimeters long, with a one-sided blade, which he fought without using a shield. In addition to swords, he carried two long knives (so - called. čejki-makiri a sa-makiri). The first was ritual and used to make sacred sticks inau . It was also intended for the ceremony pears or eritokpa, which was a ritual suicide that was later taken over by the Japanese and called it "harakiri" or "seppuku" (as well as the cult of swords, special boxes for them, spears or bows).

The Ainu swords were exhibited publicly only during Bear Festival. An old legend says: “Once upon a time, after this earth was created by God, two old men lived. One Japanese and one Ainu. Old Ainu was ordered to make a sword, while old Japanese was ordered to make a sword. " This explains why the Ainu had a sword cult, while the Japanese had a desire for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for greed.

They also did not wear helmets. By nature, they had long, thick hair that they braided into a bun, creating something like a natural helmet on their heads. Little is known about their martial arts today. It is believed that the ancient Japanese took virtually everything from them and were not the only ones the Ainu fought.

For example, they obtained Sakhalin from the Tonci, a tribe whose members were small and who were the original inhabitants of the island. It should be added that the Japanese were afraid of an open fight with Aina, so they used tricks to subdue and expel them. In an old Japanese song it is said that one emissions (barbar, Ain) is worth a hundred people. They were also believed to cause fog.

Where did they live?

The Ainu first lived in the Japanese islands (then called Ainumosiri, the land of the Ains), until the Japanese were displaced north from here in the past. They came to Kurila and Sakhalin in XIII. - XIV. century and their traces were also found in Kamchatka, in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk region.

Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin area bear the Alain names: Sachalin (from Sacharen Mosiri, meaning "Wavy Country"), the islands of Kunašir, Simušir, Šikotan, Šiaškotan (words ending on -broad and -kotan indicate land and dwellings). It took more than two thousand years for the Japanese to occupy the entire archipelago, including the island of Hokkaido (then called Edzo) (the earliest testimonies of the Ainui clashes date back to 660 BC).

There is ample evidence of Ain's cultural history, and it seems that it is possible to accurately predict their origin.

First, it can be assumed that in ancient times the entire northern half of the main Japanese island of Honshu was inhabited by tribes that were either their direct ancestors or very close to them in their material culture. Secondly, two elements are known that formed the basis of the Ain ornament. It was a spiral and a scribble.

Thirdly, there is no doubt that the initial moment of the Ainic faith was the primitive animism, ie the acknowledgment of the existence of the soul of any being or subject. Finally, the social life of the Aina and its production methods are well studied.

But it turns out that the method of facts does not always pay. For example, it has been proven that the spiral ornament was never the exclusive property of the Aina. In his art, he used it abundantly by Maura, the inhabitants of New Zealand, to the decorations of the Papuan of New Guinea, as well as the Neolithic tribes living on the lower reaches of the Amur River.

So what is it? A coincidence or traces of the existence of certain contacts between the tribes of East and Southeast Asia once in the distant past? But who was the first and who just took over this discovery? It is also known that bear worship and its cult have spread to large areas of Europe and Asia. But the cult of Ainu was very different from his cult, because only they fed the sacrificial bear cub so that it was breastfed by an Ain woman!

Language

The language of the Ains also stands out separately. At one time, it was thought to be unrelated to any language, but now some scholars have put it together with a Malaysian-Polynesian group. Linguists have found Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Sanskrit roots in their language. Moreover, ethnographers are still wondering where people came from in these rugged regions who dressed in the unzipping (southern) type of clothing.

The ribbon dress, made of tree fibers and adorned with traditional ornament, looked equally good on men and women, and sewed festive white coats out of nettle. In the summer, the Ainu wore a loincloth like people from the south, for the winter they made fur clothes and used salmon skin to make knee-high moccasins.

The Ainu were gradually assigned to the Indo-Aryans, the Australoid race, and even the Europeans. But they considered themselves to be those who had come from heaven: "(Excerpt from the Ain legend). And indeed, the lives of these remarkable people were completely connected to nature, the sea, the forest and the islands.

They engaged in crop collection, hunting game and fish, combining the knowledge, skills and skills of many tribes and nations. For example, just as the inhabitants of the taiga went hunting, collecting seafood like southerners, hunting sea creatures like the inhabitants of the north. The Ainu strictly protected the mystery of the mummification of the dead and the recipe for the deadly poison, obtained from the root of the thistle, into which they dipped the ends of their arrows and harpoon. They knew that this poison decomposed very quickly in the body of a slaughtered animal, and the meat could then be eaten.

Their tools and weapons were very similar to those used by other communities of prehistoric people who lived in analogous climatic and geographical conditions. It is true that the Ainu had one major advantage, and that was the obsidian, which is abundant in the Japanese islands. During its processing, it was possible to obtain much smoother edges than quartz, so that the arrowheads and axes of these people can be considered masterpieces of Neolithic production.

Ceramics and culture

The most important of the weapons were bows and arrows. The production of harpoons and fishing rods made of deer antlers reached a high level. In short, their tools and weapons were typical of their time, and it turned out only unexpectedly that these people, who knew neither agriculture nor cattle breeding, lived in quite numerous communities.

How many mysterious questions the culture of this nation has spawned! This ancient community created remarkably beautiful ceramics by modeling (without any tools for turning the dishes, and rather the pottery circle), which were decorated with an extraordinary rope ornament and their work is also mysterious dog statuettes (statues in the form of animals or in the form of a woman).

Everything was done by hand! But even so, the primitive ceramics have a special place among the fired products made of fired clay. Nowhere else is the contrast between the polishing of its ornament and the extremely primitive production technology as surprising as here. In addition, the Ainu were almost the earliest farmers in the Far East.

And again a question! Why did they lose these skills and become just hunters, essentially taking a step back in their development? Why do the features of different nations and elements of high and primitive culture intertwine in the strangest way? As a very musical nation by nature, they loved entertainment and could have fun. They carefully prepared for the holidays, the most important of which was the bear's feast. This nation adored everything around them, but most worshiped bear, snake and dog.

Although they led a primitive life at first sight, they gave the world inimitable patterns of art, enriched human culture with mythology and folklore that are unparalleled. Their whole kind and way of life seems to reject established ideas and the usual patterns of cultural development.

Tattooed smile

Aina's women had a tattooed smile on their faces. Culturologists think that the tradition of "painted smiles" is one of the oldest in the world, and the representatives of this nation have been adhering to it for a very long time. Notwithstanding all the bans by the Japanese Ainu government, even in the XX. century underwent this procedure. The last "properly" tattooed woman is believed to have died in 1998.

Tattoos were performed exclusively by women, and the people of this nation were convinced that their ancestors were taught this ceremony by the great-grandmother of all living Okikurumi Turesh Machi, the younger sister of the divine creator Okikurumi. This tradition was passed down along the female line and tattoos on the girl's body were performed by her mother or grandmother. During the "Japaneseization", tattooing was banned from the Ainu people in 1799, and in 1871 a strict ban was renewed at Hakkaido because it was claimed that the procedure was too painful and inhumane.

For Aina, the renunciation of the tattoo was unacceptable because they thought that in such a case the girl could not get married and calm down in the afterlife after death. It should be noted that the ceremony was really raw. The girls were first tattooed at the age of seven, and later a "smile" was added over the years. It was then completed on the day she entered into the marriage.

Geometric patterns

In addition to the characteristic tattooed smile, it is possible to see geometric patterns on Ain's hands, which served as amulets. In a word, mysteries are rising more and more over time, but the answers have always brought new problems. Exactly one thing is known, and that is that life in the Far East has been exceptionally difficult and tragic. When in the XVII. In the XNUMXth century, Russian explorers reached the easternmost point of the Far East, opening an endless majestic sea and numerous islands before their eyes.

But more than of enchanting nature, they were amazed by the appearance of the natives. In front of the travelers appeared overgrown people with thick beards, with wide eyes, resembling the eyes of Europeans, large protruding noses, and resembling members of different races. Men from the regions of Russia, the people of the Caucasus, the gypsies, but not the Mongols, who were Cossacks and people serving in the civil service, used to meet everywhere beyond the Urals. The travelers called them "bushy Kurils."

Testimony of the Kurilian Ainu was drawn by Russian scientists from the notes of Cossack Ataman Danil Ancyferov and Captain Ivan Kozyrevsky, in which they informed Peter I about the discovery of the Kuril Islands and the first meeting of the Russian people with the local natives. It took place in 1711.

"They let the canoes dry and headed south along the shore. In the evening, they saw something like houses, or maybe rather snowshoes (Evening designation for a conical tent with a wooden structure covered with skins or bark;). They had their weapons ready to fire, because who knows what kind of people they are, and they went to them. About fifty people, dressed in furs, came out to meet them. They looked without fear and their appearance was very unusual. They were hairy, with long beards, but they were white because they did not have slanted eyes like the Yakuts and Kamchatas (the native inhabitants of Kamchatka, the Magadan region and the Čukotky; Note: transl.) ".

Shaggy Kurilci

For a few days, the Far East benefactors, using the interpreter, tried to make the "rushing Kurilci" become the sovereign's sovereign, but they refused such honor and declared that they would not pay or pay anybody. The Cossacks have learned that the land they come to is an island, and that further islands lie on the south, and further afield Matmai (in the Russian documents of the 17th century, the island of Hokkaido is mentioned as Matmaj, Matsmaj, Matsumaj, Macmaj). and Japan.

Twenty-six years after Ancyfer and Kozyrevsky, Stepan Kraseninnikov visited Kamchatka. He left behind a classic work called Description of Kamchatka, where, among other testimonies, he described in detail the characteristics of Ain as an ethnic type. It was the first scientific description of this tribe. A century later, in May 1811, the important seafarer Vasily Golovnin lived here. For several months, the future admiral studied and described the nature of the islands and the daily life of their inhabitants. His true and colorful talk about what he saw was highly appreciated by both lovers of literature and scientific specialists. It is also necessary to draw attention to such a detail that a Kurilec named Alexej, who was from the Ainu tribe, served as his translator.

We do not know his real name, but his fate is one of many examples of the Russians' contact with the people of Kuril, who willingly learned Russian, accepted Orthodoxy and ran a lively business with our ancestors. According to witnesses, the Kuril Ainu were very good, friendly and open people. Europeans who visited the islands in different years usually boasted of their culture and placed high demands on etiquette, but noticed the gallant ways so characteristic of Aina.

The Dutch navigator de Fritz wrote: “Their behavior towards foreigners is so simple and sincere that educated and polite people could not behave better. They appeared in front of foreigners in their best clothes, they express their welcomes and wishes apologetically and at the same time they bow their heads. Perhaps it was the kindness and openness that did not allow the Ains to stand up to the destructive influence of the people of the Great Land. The regress in their development occurred when they found themselves between two fires - the Japanese were oppressed from the south and the Russians from the north.

This ethnic branch of the Kurilian Ainu has disappeared from the face of the earth. They currently live in several reserves in the south and southeast of the island of Hokkaido, in the Isikari River Valley. The purebred Ainu practically became extinct or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivcha. Now there are only sixteen thousand of them and their number is falling sharply.

The existence of contemporary Ainu is strikingly reminiscent of the image of the life of the ancient representatives of the Jomon period. Their material culture has changed so little over the past centuries that these changes need not be taken into account. They are leaving, but the burning secrets of the past continue to disturb and irritate, stimulate the imagination and fuel an inexhaustible interest in this remarkable, distinctive and dissimilar nation.

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