Ainu people

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula). 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.

However, many theories exist concerning the details of this event, including the location of Watarishima and the common belief that the Emishi in Watarishima were the ancestors of the present-day Ainu people.

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula).

Choka (or Tchoka) is another name found in the early literature and seems to have been the name used by the islanders themselves, but it is not clear whether these were the Gilyak or the Ainu.

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula).

In a ground-breaking 1997 decision involving the Ainu people of Japan, the Japanese courts recognized their claim in law, stating that "If one minority group lived in an area prior to being ruled over by a majority group and preserved its distinct ethnic culture even after being ruled over by the majority group, while another came to live in an area ruled over by a majority after consenting to the majority rule, it must be recognized that it is only natural that the distinct ethnic culture of the former group requires greater consideration."

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula).

This was followed from around 14,000 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture, including by ancestors of contemporary Ainu people and Yamato people.

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 term came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the settlers of mainland Japan from minority ethnic groups who have settled the peripheral areas of Japan, such as the Ainu, Ryukyuans, Nivkh, Oroks, as well as Koreans, Taiwanese, and Taiwanese aborigines who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century.

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.

From 1264 to 1308, the Mongol Empire made several incursions into the island of Sakhalin off the east coast of Siberia to aid their Nivkh allies against the Ainu, who had been expanding north from Hokkaido.

Takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain.

Takeda Nobuhiro, also known as Kakizaki Nobuhiro (1431 – 1494) was the ancestor of the Matsumae clan, and is celebrated for his role in suppressing the 1457 Ainu revolt of Koshamain.

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula).

The Ainu language (occasionally also Ainuic; ; Ainu: アィヌ・イタㇰ, Aynu=itak; アイヌ語, Ainu-go) is a language isolate or language family spoken by the Ainu people of Northern Japan.

For example, Oki, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument tonkori.

Oki Kano known professionally as OKI, is an Ainu Japanese musician, from Kanagawa Prefecture.

For example, Oki, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument tonkori.

The tonkori is a plucked string instrument played by the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, northern Japan and Sakhalin.

The Tokugawa bakufu (feudal government) granted the Matsumae clan exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu in the northern part of the island.

The Matsumae clan was a Japanese clan which was granted the area around Matsumae, Hokkaidō as a march fief in 1590 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and charged with defending it, and by extension the whole of Japan, from the Ainu 'barbarians' to the north.

The most important was Shakushain's Revolt (1669–1672), an Ainu rebellion against Japanese authority.

Shakushain's revolt was an Ainu rebellion against Japanese authority on Hokkaidō between 1669 and 1672.

Many Ainu were subject to Japanese rule, which led to violent Ainu revolt such as Koshamain's Revolt in 1456.

Koshamain's War was an armed struggle between the Ainu and Wajin that took place on the Oshima Peninsula of southern Hokkaidō, Japan, in 1457.

Another large-scale revolt by Ainu against Japanese rule was the Menashi-Kunashir Battle in 1789.

The Menashi-Kunashir rebellion or war or Menashi-Kunashir battle was a battle in 1789 between Ainu and Japanese on the Shiretoko Peninsula in northeastern Hokkaido.

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.

The Kuril Islands dispute, also known in Japan as the Northern Territories dispute, is a disagreement between Japan and Russia and also some individuals of the Ainu people over sovereignty of the four southernmost Kuril Islands.

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula). Ethnic Ainu living in Sakhalin Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai are not organized politically.

The population is mostly ethnic Russians, but indigenous people of the area are various Tungusic peoples (Evenks, Negidals, Ulchs, Nanai, Oroch, Udege) and Amur Nivkhs and Ainu.

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula).

The name Kuril originates from the autonym of the aboriginal Ainu, the islands' original inhabitants: kur, meaning "man".

The Ainu or the Aynu (Ainu: アィヌ, Аину, Aynu; Japanese: アイヌ, Áìnù; Russian: Áйны, Áĭny) or the Ezo in the historical Japanese texts, are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaidō and formerly North-Eastern Honshū) and Russia (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Khabarovsk Krai and the Kamchatka Peninsula). 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.

Their descendants are suspected to be the Ainu people.

undefined 14,000 to 300 BCE) One of their Yukar Upopo, or legends, tells that "[t]he Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came".

Yukar are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature.

The Ainu have often been considered to descend from the Jōmon people, who lived in northern Japan from the Jōmon period (c.

Tsunehiko Hanihara of the Department of Anatomy at Jichi Medical School suggests that the inhabitants of Aogashima and Okinawa, Minatogawa Man, the Jōmon and the modern Ainu are most likely directly descended from Proto-Mongoloids of Late Pleistocene Sundaland.

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.

The Russian Ainu people, also called Kurile, Kamchatka's Kurile or Ein, can be subdivided into six groups.

The space will open on April 24, 2020, prior to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games scheduled in the same year, in Shiraoi, Hokkaidō.

Shiraoi, like the rest of Hokkaido, was populated by the Ainu.

Ethnic Ainu living in Sakhalin Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai are not organized politically.

Besides people from other parts of the former Soviet Union and the Korean Peninsula, the oblast is home to Nivkhs and Ainu, with the latter having lost their language in Sakhalin recently.

According to Alexei Nakamura, only 205 Ainu live in Russia (up from just 12 people who self-identified as Ainu in 2008) and they along with the Kurile Kamchadals (Itelmen of Kuril islands) are fighting for official recognition.

Native peoples of Kamchatka (Itelmen, Ainu, Koryaks and Chuvans), collectively referred to as Kamchadals, had a substantial hunter-gatherer and fishing society with up to fifty thousand natives inhabiting the peninsula before they were decimated by the Cossack conquest in the 18th century.

Mark J. Hudson, Professor of Anthropology at Nishikyushu University, Kanzaki, Saga, Japan, has stated that Japan was settled by a "Proto-Mongoloid" population in the Pleistocene who became the Jōmon and that their features can be seen in the Ainu and Okinawan people.

Recent genetic and anthropological studies indicate that the Ryukyuans are significantly related to the Yamato people (mainland Japanese) but have also a relative closer relation to the Ainu people, compared with the Yamato people.