Culture through English A: The Ainu・アイヌ

Hello!

How are you? Today let's look at Japan's indigenous people (先住民族) - the Ainu. 

Look at the picture above. It's a group of Ainu, taken in 1904. Now here's a map of Japan showing the original area, plus the widest locations, of Ainu populations: 

As you can see, at one time they lived from the northeastern part of the Tohoku, all of Hokkaido, and up through Sakhalin Island (what many older Japanese call Karafuto「樺太」) and even into all of the Kuril Islands (千島列島). 

But now they only live in Hokkaido. Their numbers are small, and they have married regular Japanese people enough so that they do not look so different. But they are proud of their culture and traditions.

Genetic testing (遺伝子検査) shows that while most Ainu are related to Japanese, they are not closely related to any other modern ethnic group. 

Activity/homework

Since the Ainu have some characteristics that make them at least a little different from most Japanese, here's a little research: 

What do you think are the origins of the Ainu? Did they come from somewhere else? If so, where did they come from, and how did they get to Japan? 

Here are two maps showing two ideas where the Ainu might have come from (the numbers you see in the maps are not so important – they show some different genetic groups): 

Write out a mini-report about your ideas about where the Ainu came from - most importantly, give some reasons why they came from where you believe they did.

If you believe they came from elsewhere, draw a rough map - or find another map on the internet - of where you believe they came from. 

When you are finished, upload your document (or a clear picture of your mini-report on notebook paper) to Manaba. Name your document or picture file like this, with your own name (here is an example): 

t_suzuki_cteA_ainu

I hope you find this interesting.

Images: Top - by Official Photographic Company - Missouri History MuseumURL: http://images.mohistory.org/image/EC2888F4-26C5-258A-DF5F-9E6EBE7F704E/original.jpg Gallery: http://collections.mohistory.org/resource/143534, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61717410/Map - by Arnold Platon - This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this:  Japan on the globe (claimed) (Japan centered).svg (by TUBS). - Own work (Vectorization), based on this map, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25364093/Upper genetic map - by ABCEditer - Own work by reference to 崎谷満（2009）『DNA・考古・言語の学際研究が示す新・日本列島史 日本人集団・日本語の成立史』勉誠出版, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62921263/Lower genetic map - by Y-dna data file - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63590897