Ainu people

The Ainu are an ethnic group of related indigenous people native to Northern Japan, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai; they have occupied these areas since before the arrival of the modern Japanese and Russians. These regions are often referred to as  in historical Japanese texts.

Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry.

The Ainu are one of the only major ethnic minorities in the Japanese islands with a distinct and highly unique culture and way of life. They were subject to forced assimilation, colonization, and ethnic and cultural genocide by the larger Japanese populace since at least the 18th century. Japanese assimilation policies in the 19th century around the Meiji Restoration included forcing Ainu peoples off their land; this, in turn, forced them to give up traditional ways of life such as subsistence hunting and fishing. Ainu people were not allowed to practice their religion, and they were pushed into Japanese-language schools where speaking the Ainu language was strictly forbidden. In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers; in 2008, however, there were only about 100.

Names

This people's most widely known ethnonym, "Ainu" (; ; ) means "human" in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to , divine beings. Ainu also identify themselves as "Utari" ("comrade" or "people"). Official documents use both names.

History

Pre-modern 
The Ainu are the native people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kurils. Early Ainu-speaking groups (mostly hunters and fishermen) also migrated into the Kamchatka Peninsula and into Honshu, where their descendants are today known as the Matagi hunters, who still use a large amount of Ainu vocabulary in their dialect. Ainu toponyms people also live in several places throughout northern Honshu, mostly along the western coast and in the Tōhoku region. This serves as further evidence for Ainu-speaking hunters and fishermen migrating down from Northern Hokkaido into Honshu. There is also evidence that Ainu speakers lived in the Amur region through Ainu loanwords found in the Uilta and Ulch people languages.

Research suggests that Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures. According to researchers Lee and Hasegawa, Ainu-speakers descend from the Okhotsk people, who rapidly expanded from northern Hokkaido into the Kurils and Honshu. These early inhabitants did not speak the Japanese language; some were conquered by the Japanese early in the 9th century. In 1264, the Ainu invaded the land of the Nivkh people. The Ainu also started an expedition into the Amur region, which was then controlled by the Yuan dynasty, resulting in reprisals by the Mongols who invaded Sakhalin. Active contact between the Wa-jin (the ethnically Japanese, also known as Yamato-jin) and the Ainu of Ezogashima (now known as Hokkaidō) 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), many Ainu were subject to Japanese rule. Disputes between the Japanese and Ainu developed into large-scale violence, known as Koshamain's Revolt, in 1456. Takeda Nobuhiro, the ancestor of the Matsumae clan, killed the Ainu leader Koshamain.

In the 15th century, Manchuria in northern China came under Ming rule. As part of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission, the Ainu and Nivkh peoples of Sakhalin were subjugated and became tributaries to the Ming dynasty. Women in Sakhalin intermarried with Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region. Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", and motifs such as dragons, spirals, and scrolls, spread among the Ainu, Nivkh, and Amur natives such as the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais.
These groups also adopted material goods and practices such as agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking pots, silk, and cotton. 

During the Edo period (1601–1868), the Ainu, who controlled northern 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, Ainu groups competed with each other to import goods from the Japanese, and epidemic diseases such as smallpox reduced the population. Although the increased contact created by the trade between the Japanese and the Ainu contributed to greater mutual understanding, it also sometimes led to conflict, which occasionally intensified into violent Ainu revolts. The most important Ainu rebellion against Japanese authority was Shakushain's Revolt from 1669–1672. Another large-scale revolt by Ainu against Japanese rule was the Menashi-Kunashir Battle in 1789. However, throughout this period and thereafter, the Ainu-Japanese relationship continued to be marked more by trade and commercial interactions than by conflicts.

From 1799 to 1806, the Tokugawa shogunate took direct control of southern Hokkaido. During this period, Ainu women were separated from their husbands and either subjected to rape or forcibly married to Japanese men. Meanwhile, Ainu men were deported to merchant subcontractors for five- and ten-year terms of service. Policies of family separation and assimilation, combined with the impact of smallpox, caused the Ainu population to drop significantly in the early 19th century. In the 18th century, there were 80,000 Ainu, but by 1868, there were only about 15,000 Ainu in Hokkaido, 2,000 in Sakhalin, and around 100 in the Kuril islands.

Despite their growing influence in the area in the early 19th century as a result of these policies, the Tokugawa shogunate was unable to gain a monopoly on Ainu trade with those on the Asian mainland, even by the year 1853. Santan traders, a group comprised mostly of the Ulchi, Nanai, and Oroch peoples of the Amur River, commonly interacted with the Ainu people independent of the Japanese government, especially in the north part of Hokkaido. In addition to their trading ventures, Santan traders sometimes kidnapped or purchased Ainu women from Rishiri to become their wives. This further escalated Japan's presence in the area, as the Tokugawa shogunate believed a monopoly on Santan trade would better protect the Ainu people.

Contrary to popular belief, it is now thought that the Ainu were not the first settlers of the island of Hokkaido. Archeological evidence suggests that ancient Japanese Jomon people inhabited Hokkaido early on, and the Ainu people may have only appeared after the 13th century. They likely migrated from more northern islands and what is now Far East Russia.

Japanese annexation of Hokkaido
In 1869, the imperial government established the Hokkaidō Development Commission as part of the Meiji Restoration. Researcher Katarina Sjöberg quotes Baba's 1890 account of the Japanese government's reasoning:

... The development of Japan's large northern island had several objectives: First, it was seen as a means to defend Japan from a rapidly developing and expansionist Russia. Second ... it offered a solution to the unemployment for the former samurai class ... Finally, development promised to yield the needed natural resources for a growing capitalist economy.

As a result of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), the Kuril Islandsalong with their Ainu inhabitantscame under Japanese administration. In 1899, the Japanese government passed an act labelling the Ainu as "former aborigines", with the idea that they would assimilate. This resulted in the Japanese government taking the land where the Ainu people lived and placing it from then on under Japanese control. Also at this time, the Ainu were granted automatic Japanese citizenship, effectively denying them the status of an indigenous group.

The Ainu went from being a relatively isolated group of people to having their land, language, religion and customs assimilated into those of the Japanese. Their land was distributed to the Yamato Japanese settlers to create and maintain farms in the model of Western industrial agriculture. It was known as "colonization" (拓殖) at the time, but later by the euphemism, "opening up undeveloped land" (). Additionally, factories like flour mills and beer breweries, along with mining practices, resulted in the creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines during a development period that lasted until 1904. During this time, the Ainu were ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing. The same act applied to the native Ainu on Sakhalin after its annexation as the Karafuto Prefecture.

Assimilation after annexation
The Ainu have historically suffered from economic and social discrimination, as both the Japanese government and mainstream population regarded them as dirty and primitive barbarians. The majority of Ainu were forced to be petty laborers during the Meiji Restoration, which saw the introduction of Hokkaido into the Japanese Empire and the privatization of traditional Ainu lands. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Japanese government denied the rights of the Ainu to their traditional cultural practices such as hunting, gathering, and speaking their native language.

The legal denial of Ainu cultural practices mostly stemmed from the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act. This law and its associated policies were designed to fully integrate the Ainu into Japanese society while erasing Ainu culture and identity. The Ainu's position as manual laborers and their forced integration into larger Japanese society have led to discriminatory practices by the Japanese government that can still be felt today.

Intermarriage between Japanese and Ainu was actively promoted by the Ainu to lessen the chances of discrimination against their offspring. As a result, many Ainu today are indistinguishable from their Japanese neighbors, but some Ainu-Japanese are interested in traditional Ainu culture. For example, Oki, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument . There are also many small towns in the southeastern or Hidaka region of Hokkaido where ethnic Ainu live, such as in Nibutani ().

From the early 1870s, Christian missionary work was conducted amongst the Ainu. The Anglican Communion missionaries included the Rt Rev Philip Fyson, Bishop of Hokkaido, and the Rev John Batchelor. Batchelor wrote extensively in English about the beliefs and daily life of the Ainu in Yezo (or Ezo), and his publications are a source of photographs of the Japanese and Ainu close to the missions.

Standard of living 
The discrimination and negative stereotypes assigned to the Ainu have manifested in lower levels of education, income, and participation in the economy as compared to their ethnically Japanese counterparts. The Ainu community in Hokkaido in 1993 received welfare payments at a 2.3 times higher ratethan that of Hokkaido as a whole. They also had an 8.9% lower enrollment rate from junior high school to high school and a 15.7% lower enrollment into college from high school. Due to this noticeable and growing gap, the Japanese government has been lobbied by activists to research the Ainu's standard of living nationwide. The Japanese government will provide ¥7 million (US$63,000), beginning in 2015, to conduct surveys nationwide on this matter.

The Ainu and ethnic homogeneity in Japan
The existence of the Ainu has challenged the notion of ethnic homogeneity in post-WWII Japan. After the demise of the multi-ethnic Empire of Japan in 1945, successive governments forged a single Japanese identity by advocating monoculturalism and denying the existence of more than one ethnic group in Japan.

Following the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, Hokkaido politicians pressured the government to recognize Ainu rights. Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo answered a parliamentary question on May 20, 2008 by stating,It is a historical fact that the Ainu are the precursors in the northern Japanese archipelago, in particular Hokkaido. The government acknowledges the Ainu to be an ethnic minority as it has maintained a unique cultural identity and having a unique language and religion.On June 6, 2008, the National Diet of Japan passed a non-binding, bipartisan resolution calling upon the government to recognize the Ainu as indigenous people.

In 2019, eleven years after this resolution, the Diet finally passed an act recognizing the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan. Despite this recognition of the Ainu as an ethnically distinct group, political figures in Japan continue to define ethnic homogeneity as key to overall Japanese national identity. For example, politician Tarō Asō notably claimed in 2020, “No other country but this one has lasted for as long as 2,000 years with one language, one ethnic group and one dynasty”.

Origins 

The Ainu have often been thought to descend from the diverse Jōmon people who lived in northern Japan from the Jōmon period ( 14,000 to 300 BCE). One of their , or legends, tells that, "[T]he Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came".

Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon culture, thought to have derived from the diverse Jōmon-period cultures of the Japanese archipelago.

The historical Ainu economy was based on farming, as well as on hunting, fishing, and gathering.

According to researchers Lee and Hasegawa of Waseda University, the direct ancestors of the later Ainu people formed during the late Jōmon period from the combination of the local but diverse population of Hokkaido, long before the arrival of contemporary Yamato Japanese people. Lee and Hasegawa suggest that the Ainu language expanded from northern Hokkaido and may have originated from a relatively more recent Northeast Asian/Okhotsk population, who established themselves in northern Hokkaido and had a significant impact on the formation of Hokkaido's Jōmon culture.

Linguist and historian Joran Smale similarly found that the Ainu language likely originated from the ancient Okhotsk people, which had strong cultural influence on the "Epi-Jōmon" of southern Hokkaido and northern Honshu, but that the Ainu people themselves formed from the combination of both ancient groups. Additionally, he notes that the historical distribution of Ainu dialects and their specific vocabulary correspond to the distribution of the maritime Okhotsk culture.

A 2021 study confirmed that the Hokkaido Jōmon population formed from "Terminal Upper-Paleolithic people" (TUP people) indigenous to Northern Eurasia and from proper Jōmon people, who arrived from Honshu about 15,000 BCE. The Ainu, in turn, originated from the Hokkaido Epi-Jōmon and from the Okhotsk people in Hokkaido.

Another study in 2021 analyzed the indigenous populations of northern Japan and the Russian Far East. They concluded that Siberia and northern Japan were populated by two distinct waves:

Confusion with Emishi 
The claim that the ancient Emishi were Ainu has been largely disproved by current research, although it is still under dispute. The term "Emishi" in the Nara period (710-794) referred to people who lived in the Tohoku region and whose lifestyle and culture differed markedly from that of the Yamato people; it was originally a highly cultural and political concept with no racial distinction.

From the mid-Heian period onward, Emishi who did not fall under the governance of the Yamato Kingship were singled out as northern Emishi. They began to be referred to as "Ezo" (Emishi).

The first written reference to "Ezo," which is thought to be Ainu, can be found in Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba, which was written in 1356. Indeed, Ainu have lived in Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Hokkaido, and the northern Tohoku region since the 13th century.

Thus, "Ezo = Ainu" is a concept that was accepted in the medieval and early modern periods, and it is not accurate to apply it to ancient Emishi as well.

Caucasoid Theory 
Source:

The Ainu Caucasian theory was proposed by Siebold, a physician and naturalist at the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki in the 19th century; he claimed that the Ainu were Caucasian (Caucasoid) and that the Ainu were a long-lost white people.

Early European Ainu researchers considered the Ainu to be Caucasian because they were an ancient culture and based their lives on a lifestyle that could be compared to the Paleolithic period in Europe, i.e., gathering plants and hunting animals in the mountains and sea, and because their facial moats were deeper than those of the mainland Japanese.

This theory was popular until the 1950s. Followers of the theory include French ethnologist Georges Montandon and P.Wilhelm Koppers of the Viennese school of historical ethnography.

Genetics

Paternal lineages 

Genetic testing has shown that the Ainu belong mainly to Y-DNA haplogroup D-M55 (D1a2) and C-M217. Y-DNA haplogroup D-M55 is found throughout the Japanese archipelago, but with very high frequencies among the Ainu of Hokkaido in the far north, and to a lesser extent among the Ryukyuans in the Ryukyu Islands of the far south. Recently it was confirmed that the Japanese branch of haplogroup D-M55 is distinct and isolated from other D-branches by more than 53,000 years.

Several studies (Shinoda 2008) suggest that haplogroup D originated somewhere in Central Asia. According to Hammer et al., the ancestral haplogroup D originated between Tibet and the Altai mountains. They suggest that there were multiple migration waves into Eastern Eurasia.

A 2004 study suggests that fourteen out of sixteen Ainu (or 87.5%) belong to YAP+ lineages (Y-haplogroups D-M55* and D-M125), with 13/16 (81.3%) belonging to D-M55 and 1/16 (6.25%) belonging to D-M125 (the latter is much more typical of mainland Japanese males than Ainu). The presence of haplogroup C-M217 in the Ainu suggests a degree of genetic admixture with the Nivkhs. Two out of a sample of sixteen Ainu men (or 12.5%) belong to C-M217*, which is the most common Y chromosome haplogroup among the indigenous populations of Siberia and Mongolia. Hammer et al. (2006) found that one in a sample of four (25%) Ainu men belonged to haplogroup C-M217.

Maternal lineages 
An analysis of a sample of 51 modern Ainu showed their mtDNA lineages consist mainly of haplogroup Y ( = 21.6% according to Tanaka et al. (2004), or  = 19.6% according to Adachi et al. (2009), who cite Tajima et al. (2004)), haplogroup D ( = 17.6%, particularly D4 (xD1)), haplogroup M7a ( = 15.7%), and haplogroup G1 ( = 15.7%). Other mtDNA haplogroups detected in this sample include A (), M7b2 (), N9b (), B4f (), F1b (), and M9a (). Most of the remaining individuals in this sample have been classified definitively only as belonging to macro-haplogroup M.

According to Sato et al. (2009), who studied the mtDNA of the same sample of modern Ainu (=51), the major haplogroups of the Ainu are N9 ( = 27.5%, including  Y and  N9 (xY)), D ( = 23.5%, including  D (xD5) and  D5), M7 ( = 19.6%), and G ( = 19.6%, including  G1 and  G2); the minor haplogroups are A (), B (), F (), and M (xM7, M8, CZ, D, G) ().

Studies published in 2004 and 2007 found the combined frequency of M7a and N9b observed in Jōmons, which are believed by some to be Jōmon maternal contributions, to be 28% in Okinawans ( M7a1,  M7a (xM7a1),  N9b), 17.6% in Ainu ( M7a (xM7a1),  N9b), and from 10% ( M7a (xM7a1),  M7a1,  N9b) to 17% ( M7a1,  M7a (xM7a1)) in mainstream Japanese.

In addition, haplogroups D4, D5, M7b, M9a, M10, G, A, B, and F have been found in Jōmon people as well. These mtDNA haplogroups were found in various Jōmon samples and in some modern Japanese people.

A study by Kanazawa-Kiriyama et al. (2013) about mitochondrial haplogroups found that the Ainu people (including samples from Hokkaido and Tōhoku) have a high frequency of N9b, which is also found among Udege people of eastern Siberia and is more common among Europeans than Eastern Asians. The N9b haplogroup is also notably absent from geographically close Kantō Jōmon period samples, which have a higher frequency of M7a7, commonly found among East and Southeast Asians. According to the authors, these results add to the internal-diversity observed among the Jōmon period population and show that a significant percentage of the Jōmon period people had ancestry from a Northeast Asian source population; this is suggested to be the source of the proto-Ainu language and culture, which is not detected in samples from Kantō.

A study by Adachi et al. 2018 concluded, Our results suggest that the Ainu were formed from the Hokkaido Jomon people, but subsequently underwent considerable admixture with adjacent populations. The present study strongly recommends revision of the widely accepted dual-structure model for the population history of the Japanese, in which the Ainu are assumed to be the direct descendants of the Jomon people.

Autosomal DNA 
A 2004 reevaluation of cranial traits suggests that the Ainu resemble the Okhotsk more than they do the Jōmon, though there are large variations. This agrees with the hypothesis of Ainu as a merger of Okhotsk and Satsumon populations, referenced earlier. Similarly, more recent studies link the Ainu to the local Hokkaido Jōmon period samples, such as the 3,800 year old Rebun sample.

Genetic analyses of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, B, and DRB1 gene frequencies link the Ainu to indigenous peoples of the Americas. The genetics of a variety of Asian groups show Ainu and Native Americans can both be traced back to Paleolithic groups in Siberia.

Hideo Matsumoto (2009) suggested, based on immunoglobulin analyses, that the Ainu (and Jōmon) have a Siberian origin. Compared with other East Asian populations, the Ainu have the highest amount of Siberian immunoglobulin components, higher than mainland Japanese people.

A 2012 genetic study revealed that the closest known genetic relatives of the Ainu are the Ryukyuan people, followed by the Yamato people and Nivkh.

A genetic analysis in 2016 showed that although the Ainu have some genetic relations to Yamato Japanese people and Eastern Siberians (especially Itelmens and Chukchis), they are not directly related to any modern ethnic group. Further, the study detected genetic contributions from the Ainu to populations around the Sea of Okhotsk, but no genetic influence on the Ainu themselves. According to the study, the Ainu-like genetic contribution in the Ulch people is about 17.8% or 13.5%, and about 27.2% in the Nivkhs. The study also disproved the idea of a relation to Andamanese or Tibetans. Instead, it presented evidence of gene flow between the Ainu and "lowland East Asian farmer populations" (represented in the study by the Ami and Atayal in Taiwan and the Dai and Lahu in Mainland East Asia).

A genetic study in 2016 of historical Ainu samples from southern Sakhalin (8) and northern Hokkaido (4) found that the samples were closely related to the ancient Okhotsk people followed by Ainu samples from southern Hokkaido, pointing to some substructure among the ancient Ainu population.

Recent autosomal evidence suggests that the Ainu derive a majority of their ancestry from the local Jōmon period people of Hokkaido. A 2019 study by Gakuhari et al., analyzing ancient Jōmon remains, found about 79.3% Hokkaido Jōmon ancestry in the Ainu. Another 2019 study, by Kanazawa-Kiriyama et al., found about 66% Hokkaido Jōmon ancestry. A genetic study in 2021, by Sato et al., found that the Ainu probably derived about ~49% of their ancestry from the local Hokkaido Jōmon, ~22% from the Okhotsk (represented by Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples), and ~29% from the Yamato Japanese. Population genomic data from various Jōmon period samples show that their main ancestry component split from other East Asian people at about 15,000 BCE. Following their migration into the Japanese archipelago, they became largely isolated from outside geneflow. However, geneflow from Ancient North Eurasians towards the Jōmon period population was detected along a North to South cline, with a peak among Hokkaido Jōmon.

Physical description

Physical differences can be observed between various Ainu subgroups and clans. According to anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, …features considered to distinguish the Ainu from other populations in the area, especially the Japanese, are the tendency to dolichocephaly (long-headedness), a well developed glabella, a deeply depressed nose root, widely projecting cheekbones, a comparatively massive mandible (lower jaw), and an edge to edge bite,as well as more body and facial hair. Many Ainu men have abundant wavy hair and often wear long beards.

The book Ainu Life and Legends by author Kyōsuke Kindaichi (published by the Japanese Tourist Board in 1942) contains a physical description of Ainu: 
Many have wavy hair, but some straight black hair. Very few of them have wavy brownish hair. Their skins are generally reported to be light brown. But this is due to the fact that they labor on the sea and in briny winds all day. Old people who have long desisted from their outdoor work are often found to be as white as western men. The Ainu have broad faces, beetling eyebrows, and sometimes large sunken eyes, which are generally horizontal and of the so-called European type. Eyes of the Mongolian type are rare but occasionally found among them.

A comparative study by Brace et al. (2001) argues for a closer morphological relation of the Ainu with prehistoric and living European groups, compared with other East Asian groups. The authors concluded that some of their ancestors may have descended from a population, dubbed "Eurasians" by the authors, that moved into northern Eurasia and eastwards in the Late Pleistocene, significantly predating the expansion of the modern core population of East Asia from Mainland Southeast Asia.

Overall anthropometric characteristics and cranial features group the Ainu people most closely together with Native Americans, especially Eskimos, followed by other East Asians, rather than with Europeans.

A study by Kura et al. (2014) based on cranial and genetic characteristics suggests a mostly Northern Asian ("Arctic") origin for Ainu people. Thus, despite the Ainu sharing certain morphological similarities with Caucasoid populations, the Ainu are essentially of North Asiatic origin. Genetic evidence support a closer relation to Paleo-Siberian Arctic populations, such as the Chukchi people.

A study by Omoto has shown that the Ainu are more closely related to other East Asian groups (previously mentioned as "Mongoloid") than to Western Eurasian groups (formerly termed "Caucasian"), on the basis of fingerprints and dental morphology.

A study by Jinam et al. (2015), using genome-wide SNP data comparison, found that some Ainu carry two specific gene alleles associated with facial features commonly found among Europeans but generally absent among Japanese people and other East Asians.

Military service

Russo-Japanese War 
Ainu men were first recruited into the Japanese military in 1898. Sixty-four Ainu served in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), eight of whom died in battle or from illness contracted during military service. Two received the Order of the Golden Kite, granted for bravery, leadership or command in battle.

Second World War 
During World War II, Australian troops engaged in the hard-fought Kokoda Track campaign (July–November 1942) in New Guinea were surprised by the physique and fighting prowess of the first Japanese troops they encountered. One medical officer recounted,

Language 

In 2008, the news block WorldWatch gave an estimate of fewer than 100 remaining speakers of the Ainu language. In 1993, linguist Alexander Vovin placed the number at fewer than 15 speakers, characterising the language as "almost extinct". Because so few present-day speakers are left, study of the Ainu language is limited and is based largely on historical research. Historically, the status of the Ainu language was rather high and was used by early Russian and Japanese administrative officials to communicate with each other and with the Ainu people.

Despite the small number of native speakers of Ainu, there is an active movement to revitalize the language, mainly in Hokkaido but also elsewhere, such as in Kanto. Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations and for using it as a teaching tool for language learners. As of 2011, there were an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaido.

The resurgence of Ainu culture and language is in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist, and former Diet member Shigeru Kayano, himself a native speaker. He first opened an Ainu language school in 1987 funded by Ainu Kyokai.

Although some researchers have attempted to show that the Ainu and Japanese languages are related, modern scholars have rejected the idea that the relationship goes beyond contact, such as the mutual borrowing of words. No attempt to show a relationship with Ainu to any other language has gained wide acceptance, and linguists currently classify Ainu as a language isolate. Most Ainu people speak either Japanese or Russian.

The Ainu language has no indigenous system of writing and has historically been transliterated using Japanese kana or Russian Cyrillic. , it was typically written either in katakana or in the Latin alphabet.

Many of the Ainu dialects, especially those from different extremities of Hokkaido, are not mutually intelligible. However, all Ainu speakers understand the classic Ainu language of the Yukar, a form of Ainu epic. Without a writing system, the Ainu were masters of narration, with the Yukar and other forms of narration such as Uepeker (Uwepeker) tales being committed to memory and related at gatherings which often lasted many hours or even days.

Concepts expressed with prepositions in English, such as to, from, by, in, and at, appear as postpositional forms in Ainu. Whereas prepositions come before the word they modify, postpositions come after it. A single sentence in Ainu can comprise many added or agglutinated sounds or affixes that represent nouns or ideas.

Culture 

Traditional Ainu culture is quite different from Japanese culture. According to Tanaka Sakurako from the University of British Columbia, the Ainu culture can be included into a wider "northern circumpacific region", referring to various indigenous cultures of Northeast Asia and "beyond the Bering Strait" in North America.

Never shaving after a certain age, the men have full beards and moustaches. Men and women alike cut their hair level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, trimmed semi-circularly behind. The women tattoo () their mouths, and sometimes their forearms. The mouth tattoos start at a young age with a small spot on the upper lip, gradually increasing with size. The soot deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark is used for colour. Traditional Ainu dress consists of a robe spun from the inner bark of the elm tree, called attusi or attush. Various styles are made, which consist generally of a simple short robe with straight sleeves, folded around the body and tied with a band about the waist. The sleeves end at the wrist or forearm, and the length generally is to the calves. Women also wear an undergarment of Japanese cloth.

In winter, the skins of animals are worn, with leggings of deerskin and, in Sakhalin, boots made from the skin of dogs or salmon. Ainu culture considers earrings, traditionally made from grapevines, to be gender neutral. Women also wear a beaded necklace called a tamasay. Modern craftswomen weave and embroider traditional garments that command very high prices.

Traditional Ainu cuisine consists of the meat of bear, fox, wolf, badger, ox, and horse, as well as fish, fowl, millet, vegetables, herbs, and roots. They traditionally never eat raw fish or meat, always boiling or roasting it.

Their traditional habitations are reed-thatched huts, the largest about  square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the center. There is no chimney, only a hole at the angle of the roof. One window sits on the eastern side, along with two doors. The house of the village head is used as a public meeting place when one is needed. Another kind of traditional Ainu house is called chise.

Instead of using furniture, Ainu traditionally would sit on the floor, which would be covered with two layers of mats, one of rush, the other of water flag (Iris pseudacorus), a water plant with long sword-shaped leaves. For beds, planks are spread, and mats are hung around them on poles, employing skins for coverlets. Men use chopsticks when eating, and women use wooden spoons. Ainu cuisine is not commonly eaten outside Ainu communities. Only a few restaurants in Japan serve traditional Ainu dishes, mainly in Tokyo and Hokkaido.

The functions of judgeship were not entrusted to chiefs. Rather, an indefinite number of a community's members sat in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not exist, nor did the community resort to imprisonment. Beating was considered a sufficient and final penalty. However, in the case of murder, the nose and ears of the culprit were cut off, or the tendons of his feet severed.

Hunting 

The Ainu traditionally hunt from late autumn to early summer. The reasons for this are in part because in late autumn, plant gathering, salmon fishing, and other activities of securing food come to an end, and hunters readily find game in fields and mountains in which plants withered.

A village typically possesses a hunting ground of its own, or several villages use a joint hunting territory, called an iwor. Heavy penalties were imposed on any outsiders trespassing on such hunting grounds or joint hunting territory.

The Ainu traditionally hunt Ussuri brown bears, Asian black bears, Ezo deer (a subspecies of sika deer), hares, red foxes, Japanese raccoon dogs, and other animals. Ezo deer are a particularly important food resource for the Ainu, as are salmon. They also hunt sea eagles, such as white-tailed sea eagles, along with ravens and other birds. The Ainu hunted eagles for their tail feathers, which they used in trade with the Japanese.

The Ainu hunted with arrows and spears with poison-coated points. They obtained the poison, called surku, from the roots and stalks of aconites. The recipe for this poison was a household secret that differed from family to family. They enhanced the poison with mixtures of roots and stalks of dog's bane, boiled juice of Mekuragumo (a type of harvestman), Matsumomushi (Notonecta triguttata, a species of backswimmer), tobacco, and other ingredients. They also used stingray stingers or skin covering stingers.

They traditionally hunt in groups with dogs. Before hunting, particularly for bear and similar animals, they may pray to the Kamuy-huci, the house guardian goddess, to convey their wishes for a large catch, and to the god of mountains for safe hunting.

The Ainu traditionally hunt bears during the spring thaw. At that time, bears are weak because they haven't eaten during their long hibernation. Ainu hunters catch hibernating bears or bears that have just left hibernation dens. When they hunt bear in summer, they use a spring trap loaded with an arrow, called an amappo. The Ainu usually use arrows to hunt deer. Also, they drive deer into a river or sea and shoot them with arrows. For a large catch, a whole village would drive a herd of deer off a cliff and club them to death.

Fishing 

Fishing is important to Ainu culture. They largely catch trout in summer and salmon in autumn, as well as ito (Japanese huchen), dace, and other fish. Spears called marek" were often used. Other methods were "tesh" fishing, "uray" fishing, and "rawomap" fishing. Many villages were built near rivers or along the coast. Each village or individual had a definite river fishing territory. Outsiders could not freely fish there and needed to ask the owner.

Japanese lacquerware 

Japanese lacquerware was used in everyday life as tableware and often used in ceremonies (ritual utensils), such as the cups used to offer alcohol when praying to the kamui. Lacquerware was often treated as treasure, and it was also used as containers for storing other treasures.

One of the characteristics of Ainu lacquerware is that it is almost entirely imported from the south of Honshu. Some pieces may have been lacquered in Matsumae in southern Hokkaido, but since the technique of lacquering is from Honshu, lacquerware can be considered an introduced item among Ainu folk implements.

There are examples of spatulas and other objects used by the Ainu people for ceremonial purposes that remain in clusters of the same size, and some are specifically produced for trading with the Ainu.

Ornaments 
Traditionally, Ainu men wear a crown called a sapanpe for important ceremonies. Sapanpe are made from wood fibre with bundles of partially shaved wood. The crown has wooden figures of animal gods and other ornaments on its centre. Men carry an emush (ceremonial sword) secured by an emush at strap to their shoulders.

Ainu women traditionally wear matanpushi, embroidered headbands, and ninkari, metal earrings with balls. Matanpushi and ninkari were originally also worn by men. Furthermore, aprons called maidari now are a part of women's formal clothes. However, some old documents state that men wore maidari. Women sometimes wear a bracelet called a tekunkani.

Women may wear a necklace called a rektunpe, a long, narrow strip of cloth with metal plaques. They may also wear a necklace that reaches the breast called a tamasay or shitoki, usually made from glass balls. Some glass balls came from trade with the Asian continent. The Ainu also obtained glass balls secretly made by the Matsumae clan.

Housing 

A village is called a kotan in the Ainu language. Kotan were traditionally located in river basins and along seashores where food was readily available, particularly in the basins of rivers through which salmon traveled upstream. In early modern times, the Ainu people were forced to labor at Japanese fishing grounds . Ainu kotan were also forced to relocate to near fishing grounds, so that the Japanese could secure a labor force. When the Japanese moved to other fishing grounds, Ainu kotan were forced to accompany them. As a result, the traditional kotan disappeared, and large villages of several dozen families were formed around the fishing grounds.

Cise or cisey (houses) in a kotan are made of cogon grass, bamboo grass, bark, etc. The length lays east to west or parallel to a river. A cise is about seven by five meters, with an entrance at the west end that also serves as a storeroom. A cise has three windows, including the rorun-puyar, a window located on the side facing the entrance (i.e., on the east side), through which gods enter and leave and ceremonial tools are taken in and out. The Ainu regard this window as sacred and are told never to look in through it. A cise has a fireplace near the entrance. A husband and wife would traditionally sit on the fireplace's left side (called shiso). Children and guests would sit facing them on the fireplace's right side (called harkiso). The cise has a platform for valuables called iyoykir behind the shiso. Ainu place sintoko (hokai) and ikayop (quivers) there.

Traditions 

The Ainu people have various types of marriage. A child is traditionally promised in marriage by arrangement between their parents and the parents of their betrothed, or by a go-between. When the betrothed reach a marriageable age, they are told who their spouse is to be. There are also traditional marriages based on mutual consent of both sexes. In some areas, when a daughter reaches a marriageable age, her parents allow her to live in a small room called a tunpu, annexed to the southern wall of the house. The parents choose her husband from the men who visit her.

The age of marriage is 17 to 18 years of age for men and 15 to 16 years of age for women, who are traditionally tattooed. At these ages, both sexes are regarded as adults.

When a man proposes to a woman in traditional fashion, he visits her house, and she hands him a full bowl of rice. He then eats half of the rice and returns the rest to her. If the woman eats the remaining rice, she accepts his proposal. If she does not and instead puts it beside her, she rejects his proposal. When a man and woman become engaged or learn that their engagement has been arranged, they exchange gifts. The man sends her a small engraved knife, a workbox, a spool, and other gifts. She sends him embroidered clothes, coverings for the back of the hand, leggings, and other handmade clothes.

The worn-out fabric of old clothing is used for baby clothes, because soft cloth is good for their skin . Additionally, worn-out material was thought to protect babies from the gods of illness and demons, due to these entities's abhorrence of dirty things. Before a baby is breast-fed, they are given a decoction of the endodermis of an alder and the roots of butterburs to discharge impurities. Children are raised almost naked until about the ages of four to five. Even when they wear clothes, they do not wear belts and leave the front of their clothes open. Subsequently, they wear bark clothes without patterns, such as attush, until coming of age.

Ainu babies traditionally are not given permanent names when they are born. Rather, they are called by various temporary names until the age of two or three. 
Newborn babies are named ayay ("a baby's crying"), shipo, poyshi ("small excrement"), and shion ("old excrement").  Their tentative names have a portion meaning "excrement" or "old things" to ward off the demon of ill-health. Some children are named based on their behaviour or habits; others are named after notable events or after parents' wishes for their future . When children are named, they are never given the same names as others.

Men traditionally wear loincloths and have their hair dressed properly for the first time at age 15–16. Women are also considered adults at the age of 15–16. They traditionally wear underclothes called mour and have their hair dressed properly, with wound waistcloths called raunkut and ponkut around their bodies. When women reached age 12–13, the lips, hands, and arms were traditionally tattooed. When they reached age 15–16, their tattoos would be completed, indicating their qualification for marriage.

Religion 

The Ainu are traditionally animists, believing that everything in nature has a  (spirit or god) on the inside. The most important include , goddess of the hearth; , god of bears and mountains; and , god of the sea, fishing, and marine animals.  is regarded as the creator of the world in the Ainu religion.

Ainu craftsmen, and the Ainu as a whole, traditionally believed that "anything made with deep sincerity was imbued with spirit and also became a [kamuy]" They also held the belief that ancestors and the power of the family could be invoked through certain patterns in art to protect them from malignant influences.

The Ainu religion has no priests by profession. Instead, the village chief performs whatever religious ceremonies are necessary. Ceremonies are confined to making libations of , saying prayers, and offering willow sticks with wooden shavings attached to them. These sticks are called  (singular) and  (plural).

They are placed on an altar used to "send back" the spirits of killed animals. Ainu ceremonies for sending back bears are called . The Ainu people give thanks to the gods before eating and pray to the deity of fire in time of sickness. Traditional Ainu belief holds that their spirits are immortal, and that their spirits will be rewarded hereafter by ascending to  (Land of the Gods).

The Ainu are part of a larger collective of indigenous people who practice "arctolatry" or bear worship. The Ainu believe that the bear holds particular importance as 's chosen method of delivering the gift of the bear's hide and meat to humans.

John Batchelor reported that the Ainu view the world as being a spherical ocean on which float many islands, a view based on the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He wrote that they believe the world rests on the back of a large fish, which when it moves causes earthquakes.

Ainu assimilated into mainstream Japanese society have adopted Buddhism and Shintō; some northern Ainu were converted as members of the Russian Orthodox Church. Regarding Ainu communities in  () and other areas that fall within the Russian sphere of cultural influence, there have been a few churches constructed, and some Ainu are reported to have accepted the Christian faith. There have also been reports that the Russian Orthodox Church has performed some missionary projects in the Sakhalin Ainu community. However, there are only reports of a few conversions to Christianity. Converts have been scorned as  (Russian Ainu) by other members of the Ainu community. Reports indicate that many Ainu have kept their faith in their traditional deities .

According to a 2012 survey conducted by Hokkaidō University, a high percentage of Ainu are members of their household family religion, which is Buddhism (especially  Buddhism). However, it is noted that similar to the Japanese religious consciousness, there is not a strong feeling of identification with a particular religion, with Buddhist and traditional beliefs both being part of their daily life culture.

Rituals 
Ainu religion consists of a pantheistic animist structure, in which the world is founded on interactions between humans and Kamuy. Within all living beings, natural forces, and objects there is a Ramat (sacred life force) that is an extension of a greater Kamuy. Kamuy are gods or spirits that choose to visit the human world in temporary physical forms, both animate and inanimate, within the human world. Once the physical vessel dies or breaks, the Ramat returns to the Kamuy and leaves its physical form behind as a gift to the humans. If the humans treated the vessel and Kamuy with respect and gratitude, then the Kamuy would return out of delight for the human world. Due to this interaction, the Ainu lived with deep reverence for nature and all objects and phenomena in hopes that the Kamuy would return. The Ainu believed that the Kamuy granted objects, skills, and knowledge to utilize tools to humans, and thus deserve respect and worship. Daily practices included the moderation of hunting, gathering, and harvesting to not disturb the Kamuy. Often, the Ainu would make offerings of an Inau (sacred shaved stick), which usually consisted of whittled willow tree wood with decorative shavings still attached, and wine to the Kamuy. They also built sacred altars called Nusa (fence-like row of taller Inau decorated with bear skulls) separated from the main house and raised storehouses and often observed outdoor rituals.

The Ainu people observed a ritual that would return Kamuy, a divine or spiritual being in Ainu mythology, to the spiritual realm. This Kamuy sending ritual was called Omante. A bear cub would be captured alive during hibernation and raised in the village as a child. Women would care for the cubs as if they were their children, sometimes even nursing them if needed. Once the bears reached maturity, they would hold another ritual every 5 to 10 years called Iomante (sometimes Iyomante). People from neighboring villages were invited to help celebrate this ritual, in which members of the village would send the bear back to the realm of spirits by gathering around it in a central area and using special ceremonial arrows to shoot it. Afterwards, they would eat the meat. However, in 1955 this ritual was outlawed as animal cruelty. In 2007, it became exempt due to its cultural significance to The Ainu people. 
The ritual has since been modified; it is now an annual festival. The festival begins at sundown with a torch parade. A play is then performed, and this is followed by music and dancing.

Other rituals were performed for things such as food and illness. The Ainu had a ritual to welcome the salmon, praying for a big catch, and another to thank the salmon at the end of the season. There was also a ritual for warding off Kamuy that would bring epidemics, using strong-smelling herbs placed in doorways, windows, and gardens in order to turn away epidemic Kamuy. Similarly to many religions, the Ainu also gave prayers and offerings to their ancestors in the spirit world or afterlife. They would also pray to the fire Kamuy to deliver their offerings of broken snacks and fruit as well as tobacco(Ainu, Everyculture).

Dancing in Rituals 
Traditional dances are performed at ceremonies and banquets. Dancing is a part of the newly organized cultural festivals, and it is even done privately in daily life. Ainu traditional dances often involve large circles of dancers, and sometimes there are onlookers that sing without musical instruments. In rituals these dances are intimate; they involve the calls and movements of animals and/or insects. Some, like the sword and bow dances, are rituals that were used to worship and give thanks for nature. This was to thank deities that they believed were in their surroundings. there was also a dance in Iomante that mimicked the movements of a living bear. However, some dances are improvised and meant just for entertainment. Overall Ainu traditional dancing reinforced their connection to nature, the religious world, and provided a link to other arctic cultures.

Funerals 
Funerals included prayers & offerings to the fire kamuy, as well as verse laments expressing wishes for a smooth journey to the next world. The items that were to be buried with the dead were first broken or cracked to allow spirits to be released and travel to the afterlife together. Sometimes a burial would be followed by burning the residence of the dead. In the event of an unnatural death, there would be a speech raging against the gods.

In the afterlife, recognized ancestral spirits moved through and influenced the world, though neglected spirits would return to the living world and cause misfortune. Prosperity of family in the afterlife would depend on prayers and offerings left by living descendants; this often led to Ainu parents teaching their children to look after them in the afterlife (Ainu, Everyculture).

Institutions 

Most Hokkaidō Ainu, and some other Ainu, are members of an umbrella group called the Hokkaido Ainu Association. The organization changed its name to Hokkaidō Utari Association in 1961, due to the fact that the word Ainu was often used in a derogatory manner by the non-Ainu ethnic Japanese. It was changed back to the Hokkaido Ainu Association in 2009 after the passing of the new law regarding the Ainu. The organization was originally controlled by the government to speed Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation-state. It now is run exclusively by Ainu and operates mostly independently of the government.

Other key institutions include The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC), established by the Japanese government after enactment of the Ainu Culture Law in 1997; the Hokkaidō University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies established in 2007; and various museums and cultural centers. Ainu people living in Tokyo have also developed a vibrant political and cultural community.

Since late 2011, the Ainu have developed cultural exchange and cooperation with the Sámi people of northern Europe. Both the Sámi and the Ainu participate in the organization for Arctic indigenous peoples and the Sámi research office in Lapland (Finland).

Currently, there are several Ainu museums and cultural parks. The most famous are:

 National Ainu Museum
 Kawamura Kaneto Ainu museum
 Ainu Kotan
 Ainu folklore museum
 Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples

Ethnic rights

Legal action 
On 27 March, 1997, the Sapporo District Court decided a landmark case that, for the first time in Japanese history, recognized the right of the Ainu people to enjoy their distinct culture and traditions. The case arose because of a 1978 government plan to build two dams in the Saru River watershed in southern Hokkaidō. The dams were part of a series of development projects under the Second National Development Plan that were intended to industrialize the north of Japan. The planned location for one of the dams was across the valley floor near Nibutani village, the home of a large community of Ainu people and an important center of Ainu culture and history. When the government commenced construction on the dam in the early 1980s, two Ainu landowners refused to agree to the expropriation of their property. These landowners were Kaizawa Tadashi and Kayano Shigeru—well-known and important leaders in the Ainu community. After Kaizawa and Kayano declined to sell their land, the Hokkaidō Development Bureau applied for and was subsequently granted a Project Authorization, which required the men to vacate their land. When their appeal of the Authorization was denied, Kayano and Kaizawa's son Koichi (Kaizawa died in 1992) filed suit against the Hokkaidō Development Bureau.

The final decision denied the relief sought by the plaintiffs for pragmatic reasons (the dam was already in place), but the decision was nonetheless heralded as a landmark victory for the Ainu people. Nearly all of the plaintiffs' claims were recognized. Moreover, the decision marked the first time Japanese case law acknowledged the Ainu as an indigenous people and contemplated the responsibility of the Japanese nation to the indigenous people within its borders. The decision included broad fact-finding that underscored the long history of the oppression of the Ainu people by Japan's majority, referred to as wajin in the case and discussions about the case. The decision was issued on March 27, 1997. Because of the broad implications for Ainu rights, the plaintiffs decided not to appeal the decision, which became final two weeks later. After the decision was issued, on 8 May, 1997, the Diet passed the Ainu Culture Law and repealed the Ainu Protection Act—the 1899 law that had been the vehicle of Ainu oppression for almost one hundred years. While the Ainu Culture Law has been widely criticized for its shortcomings, the shift that it represents in Japan's view of the Ainu people is a testament to the importance of the Nibutani decision. In 2007, the 'Cultural Landscape along the Sarugawa River resulting from Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement' was designated an Important Cultural Landscape of Japan. A later action seeking restoration of Ainu assets held in trust by the Japanese Government was dismissed in 2008.

Governmental bodies on Ainu affairs
There is no single government body to coordinate Ainu affairs. Rather, various advisory boards are set up by the Hokkaido government to advise on specific matters. One such committee operated in the late 1990s, and its work resulted in the . This panel was criticized for including no Ainu members.

In 2006, another panel was established, which notably included an Ainu member for the first time. It completed its work in 2008 issuing a major report that included an extensive historical record and called for substantial government policy changes towards the Ainu.

Formation of Ainu political party 
On 21 January, 2012, the  was founded  after a group of Ainu activists in Hokkaidō had announced the formation of a political party for the Ainu on 30 October, 2011. The Ainu Association of Hokkaidō reported that Kayano Shiro, the son of the former Ainu leader Kayano Shigeru, would head the party. Their aim is to contribute to the realization of a multicultural and multiethnic society in Japan, along with rights for the Ainu.

Official promotion
The "2019 Ainu act" simplified procedures for obtaining various permissions from authorities in regards to the traditional lifestyle of the Ainu and nurture the identity and cultures of the Ainu without defining the ethnic group by blood lineage.

On 12 July, 2020, the National Ainu Museum was opened. It had originally been scheduled to open on 24 April, 2020, prior to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games scheduled in the same year, in Shiraoi, Hokkaidō. The park was planned to be a base for the protection and promotion of Ainu people, culture, and language. The museum promotes the culture and habits of the Ainu people who are the original inhabitants of Hokkaidō. Upopoy in Ainu language means "singing in a large group". The National Ainu Museum building has images and videos exhibiting the history and daily life of the Ainu.
The Ainu cultural contribution is also recognised by a UNESCO listing, in consequence of a UNESCO decision to list non-physical cultural assets, including songs and dancing.

In July 2023, it was reported that a group of Ainu from Hokkaido was suing the government to reclaim the right of salmon river fishing. This has been outlawed for a century, except for an exemption of a limited number of salmon for ceremonial purposes. The group claimed the Japanese government did not abide by the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which it had signed.

Situation in Russia 

As a result of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), the Kuril Islands – along with their Ainu inhabitants – came under Japanese administration. A total of 83 North Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on September 18, 1877, after they decided to remain under Russian rule. They refused the offer by Russian officials to move to new reservations in the Commander Islands. An agreement was reached in 1881, and the Ainu decided to settle in the village of Yavin. In March 1881, the group left Petropavlovsk and started the journey towards Yavin on foot. Four months later they arrived at their new homes. Another village, Golygino, was founded later. Under Soviet rule, both the villages were forced to disband, and residents were moved to the Russian-dominated Zaporozhye rural settlement in Ust-Bolsheretsky Raion. As a result of intermarriage, the three ethnic groups assimilated to form the Kamchadal community. In 1953, K. Omelchenko, the minister for the protection of military and state secrets in the USSR, banned the press from publishing any more information on the Ainu living in the USSR. This order was revoked after two decades.

, the North Kuril Ainu of Zaporozhye form the largest Ainu subgroup in Russia. The Nakamura clan (South Kuril Ainu on their paternal side), the smallest group, numbers just six people residing in Petropavlovsk. On Sakhalin island, a few dozen people identify themselves as Sakhalin Ainu, but many more with partial Ainu ancestry do not acknowledge it. Most of the 888 Japanese people living in Russia (2010 Census) are of mixed Japanese–Ainu ancestry, although they do not acknowledge it (full Japanese ancestry gives them the right of visa-free entry to Japan.) Similarly, no one identifies themselves as Amur Valley Ainu, although people with partial descent live in Khabarovsk. There is no evidence of living descendants of the Kamchatka Ainu.

In the 2010 Census of Russia, nearly 100 people tried to register themselves as ethnic Ainu in the village, but the governing council of Kamchatka Krai rejected their claim and enrolled them as ethnic Kamchadal. In 2011, the leader of the Ainu community in Kamchatka, Alexei Vladimirovich Nakamura, requested that Vladimir Ilyukhin (Governor of Kamchatka) and Boris Nevzorov (Chairman of the State Duma) include the Ainu in the central list of the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East. This request was also denied.

Ethnic Ainu living in Sakhalin Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai are not organized politically. According to Alexei Nakamura,  only 205 Ainu live in Russia (up from just 12 people who self-identified as Ainu in 2008). They, along with the Kurile Kamchadals (Itelmen of Kuril islands), are fighting for official recognition. Since the Ainu are not recognized in the official list of the peoples living in Russia, they are counted as people without nationality, as ethnic Russians, or as Kamchadal.

The Ainu have emphasized that they were the natives of the Kuril islands, and that the Japanese and Russians were both invaders. In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Russia in Kamchatka Krai wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to award the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan. In the letter they blamed the Japanese, the Tsarist Russians, and the Soviets for crimes against the Ainu such as killings and assimilation; they also urged him to recognize the Japanese genocide against the Ainu people. This proposal was rejected.

, both the Kuril Ainu and Kuril Kamchadal ethnic groups lack the fishing and hunting rights which the Russian government grants to the indigenous tribal communities of the far north.

In March 2017, Alexei Nakamura revealed that plans for an Ainu village to be created in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and plans for an Ainu dictionary are underway.

Geography 

The traditional locations of the Ainu are Hokkaido, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Kamchatka, and the northern Tohoku region. Many of the place names that remain in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands have a phonetic equivalent of the Ainu place names.

In 1756 CE, a kanjō-bugyō (a high-ranking Edo period official responsible for finance) implemented an assimilation policy for Ainu engaged in fishing in the Tsugaru Peninsula. From that point on, Ainu culture rapidly disappeared from Honshu.

After the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), most of the Ainu from the Kuril islands were moved to the island of Shikotan by providing the pioneers with essential life supplies and for defense purposes (Kurishima Cruise Diary).

In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Japan and occupied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The Ainu who lived there were repatriated to their home country, Japan, except for those who indicated their willingness to remain.

Population 

The population of the Ainu during the Edo period was a maximum of 26,800; it has since declined, due in part to the spread of infectious diseases. It was traditionally regarded as a Tenryō territory.

According to the 1897 Russian census, 1,446 Ainu native speakers lived in Russian territory.

Currently, there is no Ainu category in the Japanese national census, and no fact-finding has been conducted by national institutions. Therefore, the exact number of Ainu people is unknown. However, multiple surveys have been conducted that provide an indication of the total population.

According to a 2006 Hokkaido Agency survey, there were 23,782 Ainu people in Hokkaido. When viewed by the branch office (currently the Promotion Bureau), there are many in the Iburi / Hidaka branch office. The definition of "Ainu" by the Hokkaido Agency in this survey is "a person who seems to have inherited the blood of Ainu" or "the same livelihood as those with marriage or adoption." Additionally, if the other person is declared not to be "Ainu", then it is not subject to investigation.

A 1971 survey determined an Ainu population of 77,000. Another survey yielded a total number of Ainu living in Japan of 200,000. However, there are no other surveys that support this high estimate.

Many Ainu live outside Hokkaido. A 1988 survey estimated that the population of Ainu living in Tokyo was 2,700. According to a 1989 survey report on Utari living in Tokyo, it is estimated that the Ainu population of the Tokyo area alone exceeds 10% of Ainu living in Hokkaido; there are more than 10,000 Ainu living in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

In addition to Japan and Russia, it was reported in 1992 that there was a descendant of Kuril Ainu in Poland, but there are also indications that they are a descendant of the Aleut. On the other hand, the descendant of the children born in Poland by the Polish anthropologist Bronisław Piłsudski, who was a leading Ainu researcher and left a vast amount of research material such as photographs and wax tubes, was born in Japan.

According to a 2017 survey, the Ainu population in Hokkaido is about 13,000. This is a sharp drop from 24,000 in 2006. However, this is partially due to a decrease in membership in the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, which is cooperating with the survey. Additionally, interest in protecting personal information has increased. It is thought that the number of individuals who cooperate is declining, and that it does not match the actual population of Ainu people.

Subgroups 
These are unofficial sub groups of the Ainu people with location and population estimates.

In popular culture 

 The characters Nakoruru, Rimururu, and Rera from the SNK game series Samurai Shodown are Ainu.
 The manga and anime series Golden Kamuy has an Ainu girl, Asirpa, as one of the protagonists, and features many aspects of Ainu culture.
 The character Asirpa from Golden Kamuy is of Ainu descent.
 The character Fredzilla from Big Hero 6 is of Ainu descent.
 The character Okuru from the anime series Samurai Champloo is the sole survivor of an Ainu village wiped out by disease.
 Usui Horokeu, also known as Horohoro, from the manga series Shaman King is a member of an Ainu tribe.
 "Ainu" is a playable nation in the game Europa Universalis IV.
 The history of the island of Hokkaido, and of the Ainu people, are part of the plot of a chapter in the manga Silver Spoon.
 A coming-of-age film, Ainu Mosir, was released in Japan on 17 October, 2020. The film portrays Kanto, a sensitive 14-year-old Ainu boy, who struggles to come to terms with his father's death and his identity. The film also focuses on the dilemma of controversial bear sacrifice under the shadow of the modern Japanese society and the Ainu's heavy reliance on tourists for their livelihood. Along with other restless teenagers, Kanto is under pressure to retain his Ainu identity and participate in the cultural rituals.
 In the James Bond novel and film You Only Live Twice and film, Bond's character spends some time living in an Ainu village and (in the film) is supposedly disguised as one of the local people, "marrying" a local pearl fisher () as part of his cover.
 In the 2013 samurai film Unforgiven, starring Ken Watanabe and which is a remake of the 1992 Clint Eastwood Western film of the same name, the character of Goro Sawada (Yuya Yagira) is half-Ainu.

See also 

 Ainu-ken
 Akira Ifukube
 Bibliography of the Ainu
 Bikki Sunazawa
 Constitution of Japan
 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
 Emishi
 Aterui
 Ethnocide
 Genocide of indigenous peoples
 Hiram M. Hiller Jr.
 Indigenous peoples
 Kankō Ainu
 Takashi Ukaji
 Shigeru Kayano
 Nibutani Dam

Ainu culture 
 Ainu music
 Ainu flag
 Ainu genre painting
 Ikupasuy
 Iomante
 Matagi
 Yukar

Ethnic groups in Japan 
 Ethnic issues in Japan
 Human rights in Japan
 Ryukyuan people
 Ryūkyū independence movement
 Nivkhs

References

Citations

Sources 
 Japan Times. Ainu Plan Group for Upper House Run, October 31, 2011

Further reading 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hitchingham, Masako Yoshida (trans.), Act for the Promotion of Ainu Culture & Dissemination of Knowledge Regarding Ainu Traditions, Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (2000).
 Kayano, Shigeru (1994). Our Land Was A Forest: An Ainu Memoir. Westview Press. . .
 
 
 
 
 
 (Harvard University)(Digitized January 24, 2006)
 
 
 (Indiana University) (digitized September 3, 2009)
  [Original from Harvard University Digitized Jan 30, 2008] [YOKOHAMA : R. MEIKLEJOHN & CO., NO 49.]

The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski, translated and edited by Alfred F. Majewicz with the assistance of Elzbieta Majewicz. 
 Volume 1: The Aborigines of Sakhalin
 Volume 2: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore (Kraków 1912)
 Volume 3: Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore II
 Volumn 4: Materials for the Study of Tungusic Languages and Folklore

External links 

 Organizations
 Hokkaido Utari Kyokai/Ainu Association of Hokkaido 
 Sapporo Pirka Kotan Ainu Cultural Center 
 Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (centers located in Sapporo and Tokyo) 
 Hokkaido University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies
 Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Ainu in Samani, Hokkaidō
 Foundation for Ainu Culture 

 Museums and exhibits
 Smithsonian Institution
 The Boone Collection
 Nibutani Ainu Cultural Museum 
 The Ainu Museum at Shiraoi
 Ainu Komonjo (18th & 19th century records) – Ohnuki Collection
 The Regions: North America—Ainu–North American cultural similarities

 Articles
 "Japan's Ainu hope new identity leads to more rights" in The Christian Science Monitor, June 9, 2008
 A Salmon's Life: An Incredible Journey (Columbia River basin, June 8, 2016)—Posterback Activities

 Video
 "A Trip through Japan with the YWCA (ca. 1919)" —Rare Japanese video featuring Ainu
 The Ainu: The First Peoples of Japan. Old videos and photographs arranged by Rawn Joseph
 "The Despised Ainu People". The Ainus' Tense Relationship with Japan. 1994. Journeyman.tv

 
 
Ethnic groups in Japan
Ethnic groups in Russia
History of Hokkaido
History of Northeast Asia
History of Sakhalin
Indigenous peoples of East Asia
People of Kamakura-period Japan
Russian people of Japanese descent
Genocides in Asia