identity.” According to Tahara, Ainu people were officially forbidden to speak their language and were forced to take Japanese names. Ainu language, culture, and lifeways thrived in Ezo or Ezochi (the land of the Ainu) in the northern part of the Japanese Archipelago, the southern part of Sakhalin Island, and in Kuril Island prior to 1869. At that point, the Meiji government (which ruled Japan from 1868 to 1912) annexed Ezo and renamed it Hokkaido. From that year on, Wajin started immigrating to Hokkaido. The Meiji government outlawed the Ainu language, putting restrictions on the Ainu Peoples’ traditional livelihood, dispossessing them of their land, and imposing a new way of life. Salmon fishing and deer hunting were banned, which worsened the situation of Ainu people. In 1875, Russia and Japan signed an agreement for the exchange of Sakhalin for Kuril Island, and Ainu people who lived in southern Sakhalin and Kuril were displaced to Hokkaido. In 1906, after the war ended between Russia and Japan, large numbers of Ainu from Hokkaido returned to south Sakhalin, but in the 1940s, many Ainu who had returned to Sakhalin were expelled back to Japan. In 1899, the Japanese government introduced the policy of assimilation of Ainu, known as the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act. The law strictly limited Ainu culture, assimilating the Ainu to Wajin culture by educating them in the Japanese language and Wajin customs. In September 2007, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, the government of Japan voted in favor of it. In June 2008, just prior to the G8 summit scheduled in Hokkaido, Japan unanimously adopted the nonbinding Resolution to Recognize the Ainu as an Indigenous People. In July of the same year, the government formed the Advisory Council for future Ainu Policy. The panel recommended the government form a comprehensive Ainu policy department in the cabinet secretariat, based on which the Council for Ainu Policy Promotion was established. In 2014, the cabinet
approved the basic policy for the development and management of spaces to promote the revitalization of Ainu culture. In response to the Ainu Peoples’ movement, after almost a century of Wajin rule, the government of Japan enacted the Ainu Culture Promotion Act and repealed the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act. The new act officially acknowledged the existence of the Ainu ethnic groups in Japan, but stopped short of recognizing Ainu as Indigenous Peoples. However, it signaled the start of a shift toward the acknowledgement of Ainu ethnic groups in Japan, who are estimated to number between 13,000–20,000. According to Tahara, Ainu Peoples have historically suffered from economic and social discrimination, which continues to this day. Although the Japanese government has recognized Ainu as the only Indigenous Peoples of Japan, besides Ainu, there are also Ryukyu Indigenous Peoples in Japan. Said Tahara: “The Japanese government and Japanese people still are with a mind of one nation, one people, and one language. In fact, Japan is a multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic country. We want all Japanese and the Japanese government to accept this fact.”
Ainu women representing the Ainu Women’s Association; Menoko Mosmos performing a dance during Indigenous Terra Madre conference.
Dev Kumar Sunuwar interviewing Kaori Tahara, an Ainu rights activist.
Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2020 • 9
