Ainu people
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 11/01/2019

Ainu people, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1530 / CC BY SA 3.0

Ainu people

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu アィヌ "Aynu"; Japanese: "Ainu"; Russian: "Ajny"), in the historical Japanese texts the Ezo (), are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaido, and formerly northeastern Honshu) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and formerly the Kamchatka Peninsula).

The official number of the Ainu is 25,000, but unofficially is estimated at 200,000, due to many Ainu having been completely assimilated into Japanese society and, as a result, having no knowledge of their ancestry.

Recent research suggests that Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Jomon, Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures. In 1264, Ainu invaded the land of Nivkh people controlled by the Yuan Dynasty, resulting in battles between Ainu and the Chinese. Active contact between the Wajin (the ethnically Japanese) and the Ainu of Ezochi (now known as Hokkaido) began in the 13th century. The Ainu formed a society of hunter-gatherers, surviving mainly by hunting and fishing. They followed a religion which was based on natural phenomena.

During the Muromachi period (1336–1573), the disputes between the Japanese and Ainu developed into a war. Takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain. Many Ainu were subject to Japanese rule which led to a violent Ainu revolt such as Koshamain's Revolt () in 1456.

During the Edo period (1601–1868) the Ainu, who controlled the northern island which is now named Hokkaido, became increasingly involved in trade with the Japanese who controlled the southern portion of the island. The Tokugawa bakufu (feudal government) granted the Matsumae clan exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu in the northern part of the island. Later, the Matsumae began to lease out trading rights to Japanese merchants, and contact between Japanese and Ainu became more extensive. Throughout this period the Ainu became increasingly dependent on goods imported by the Japanese, and were suffer...