The number of ancient tribes disappearing from the world together with their cultures, systems of social organization, languages and mythology during the 19th and 20th centuries was overwhelming. Even those lucky enough to survive as a people were forced to assimilate to the conquering culture, stop speaking the languages of old and live in small parcels of land (if they were lucky enough to get any, that is), forever restricted their lifestyle by virtue of that old European metaphysics concerning land property, a rather bizarre and late idea if you consider it for a second. Same as it happened to the Inuit in Canada or the Nivkh under the Soviet Union, happened with the Ainu people of northern Japan -who inhabited 北海道 [Hokkaidō] from millennia ago- during Japan's consolidation as a country during Meiji and Taishō periods. Japanese government established the Hokkaido Colonization Board, which facilitated Japanese immigration en masse (providing food, money, housing and parcels of land) in 1869. Assimilation and acculturation policy started in 1871. First, the people: women's tattoos and men's earrings were prohibited. They were given Japanese surnames created by officials, such as Hirame, Kaizawa, Kurokawa or Namesawa (which in turn allowed to recognize them as Ainu, creating a great deal of stigma). Secondly, the means of survival: salmon fishing, indispensable for survival during winter and key offering in their religion, was prohibited. The bear sacrifice [Iomante], of the utmost importance to Ainu shamanism, was banned by the Japanese government also, under the guise of protecting them. Poison arrows and all kinds of traps were prohibited in 1876; deer hunting became illegal in 1889. Collecting firewood was banned also. Finally, Ainu language itself was formally banned too (virtually condemning their culture to extinction, as Ainu had no writing and relied on oral transmission), even if many old Ainu kept using it and handling it over to the young.
Chiri Yukie [知里 幸恵] (1903–1922) was born in an Ainu household during Hokkaidō's Taishō era. Indicative of this period, she was given a Japanese name. Daughter of a chief, she was nevertheless raised by her aunt Imekanu and her old mother Monashinouku, an expert story-teller of traditional Ainu legends and heroic sagas, or Yukar [ユカㇻ]. Raised bilingual from an early age, and excelling in language and literature too, she had to endure discrimination and bullying as many young Ainu of the period; circumstance portrayed by Mikio Naruse many years later in his film コタンの口笛 [Whistling in Kotan] (1959). Chiri grew up reflecting on the destiny of her people, and the changes inflicted by time:
Oh, what a wonderful way of life it must have been! That tranquil state of mind is already a thing of the past, a dream torn apart by the passing decades, for this earth is changing quickly, with hills and meadows becoming villages and villages becoming cities one after another. Somehow, almost unnoticed, the form that nature had worn in ancient times began to fade, and of the people who once dwelt so happily in field and mountain, most are no longer to be found.
As years went by, the assimilation policy of the central government (implemented also to cultures such as the Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa, and their beautiful Hajichi tattoos) proved effective, and Ainu not only faced prohibitions but were tricked time after time by colonizers to give away their lands, or into becoming addicted to cheap alcohol (as it happened to natives all around the world). Many were not being taught Ainu language, as their parents wanted them to avoid discrimination and succeed in the new society. Yet, some Japanese were troubled by the disappearing culture: poet and linguist Kyōsuke Kindaichi visited Hokkaidō in order to meet the Ainu and learn as much as he could.
He was on travel searching for Yukar storytellers such as Monashinouku, and thus spent some time at their home. There he convinced Yukie, perfectly fluent in Japanese, of recording as many chants and legends as possible, as the destiny of her people was unknown and only by virtue to her literacy could be preserved. He returned to Tokyo, and mailed her blank notebooks, entirely trusting her, that she would offer some insight into Ainu culture. Young Chiri, barely in her teens, revealed an uncommon sensibility even in her prologue, written in beautiful and evocative prose, with no trace of resentment or prejudice. One can almost picture her by the candle in Hokkaidō as described in her prologue:
I, born an Ainu and living among Ainu speakers, in my spare moments, in rainy evenings and snowy nights, have put together with my clumsy brush just one or two of the very least of the tales our ancestors told for amusement. If it should turn out that this work is read by some who are kind enough to understand us, then shall share with our race's ancestors joy without limit, happiness unsurpassable.
Nothing clumsy about Chiri's brush: she learned the roman alphabet and studied its pronunciation in order to transcribe the exclusively oral Ainu language into written record, producing also an invaluable translation in Japanese, still classic today in simplicity and beauty as Benjamin Peterson ( English translator) states in The Song The Owl God Sang. Yukie Chiri's notebook, containing her first Yukar anthology of thirteen chants, was started in 1921, and she was invited by Kyōsuke Kindaichi to travel to Tokyo and prepare the book's publication. Only months after her arrival, and the same night she concluded the project, she died from heart failure at only nineteen years old. One can only wonder what could have been of such a talented writer, especially considering the success this first publication (completely unaltered by Kindaichi, who did not include his name in the work out of respect to Chiri), and her dedication as such a young age. The notebooks are preserved to this day.
As Peterson states:
Her book, written in parallel Ainu and Japanese text, was the first book in or about the Ainu language to be written from the point of view of an actual Ainu speaker. It was also arguably the first ever printed literary work from a shamanistic culture (...) with its clear and elegant colloquial Japanese rendition, it achieved great success (...) The result is a unique window into an Asian shamanistic poetic tradition -one of the many that once existed, but one of the very few to be studied and recorded while still largely alive.
What can be found in these short transcribed chants? They are colorful kamui yukar, that is, first person accounts of diverse kamui (gods or spirits; quite relevant how it almost sounds as the kami of the Japanese) dealing with specific situations, and associated with concrete figures of nature. How so? Kamui are able to inhabit animals and human beings, using them as hayokpe (literally, armor), sitting 'between their ears' (a frequent shamanic slang for consciousness, it seems) until that creature dies, or even for a longer time, hearing and watching everything humans do from the corpse's ears before it rots. Some recurring figures are Apehuchi, Goddess of Earth (with a place reserved for her in every Ainu household) and Okikirmui, valiant human hero -and, as all heroic figures of traditional cultures, a little too violent sometimes- as well as his younger sister, inhabited by the Goddess of Tattooing.
Hunting was seen as an exchange between humans and kamui whereby the human would obtain the dead body of the animal inhabited by the kamui, who in turn would receive decorations and inau (prayer sticks of noble wood) which they could bring back to kamui moshir, the spirit world. They also received sake offerings, which the kamui enjoy very much. So, to kill fish and deer, if it is done with correct protocols, is thus to make a mutually agreeable bargain with the kamui. As the kamui are immortal, they might even let their hayokpe be killed by humans in order to keep the balance and order in the world; this explains many Ainu costumes as the bear sacrifice, where the animal was raised indoors as a person, given the best food and received the most care until it was sacrificed by poison arrows one day. Much of the retribution in these yukar chants befalls anyone, human or kamui, trying to make hunting impossible, by polluting the waters or destroying the traps. Or, as Nitnekamui (a 'devil' of shorts, in competition with Okikirmui) does, trying to extint animal species or giving them a cruel treatment, in such a way that the gods of fish and deer would not send them as food to the humans and starvation would befall the tribe. Some are quite humorous, as The Song The Fox Sang or The Song The Frog Sang, while others such as The Song The Owl God Sang or The Song The Sea God Sang explain important themes of Ainu mythology, and their language is reverent.
The language, customs, garments, religion and architecture of Ainu people are definitely unique; their early contact with other tribal communities such as Sakhalin's Nivkhs did not change them a bit, as it happened with other isolated groups as Kamchatka's Koryaks. Inhabitants of the remotest and coldest extremes of the world, they all spent millennia of diligent storing, hunting, dancing and chanting in armonic equilibrium with the environment. Now, limited their only territory to main contemporary Hokkaidō, they still exist, and had maintained a fight for recognition since the end of World War 2, during which many men were forcefully enlisted to serve only as regular low-rank soldiers. Their situation has significantly improved since the assimilation period, but they have completely lost their lifestyle, now relying in farming, artisany and tourism. The Ainu language is, taken in number of fluent born speakers, always next to disappear. Yet, some traditional crafts of theirs, such as jaw harp virtuosism (in origin of shamanic use), the beautiful intricate clothing patterns you can see all these pics and their mastery of wood carving have gone famous in Japan and other places, granting them a place in the collective memory.
Indispensable to their present survival as a culture were efforts such as Yukie Chiri's, preserving not only the written testimony of beliefs and practices but also the tenderness and empathy of the humble and generous Ainu, who sometimes even adopted abandoned children (a common feat of Edo Japan) from Japanese families and raised them as their own. If not because of a nineteen year old girl of fragile heart but tenacious brush, many a story repeated during thousands of years at the light of the fire, or during fishing at the light of the moon, would have been lost forever.
Comments
Post a Comment