A picture of an Ainu taken in the 19th century.
Posted on 01/17/2004 2:50:55 PM PST by blam
THE SAMURAI AND THE AINU
Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu.
Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with:
"Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royality and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."
The Ainu and their origin have always been rather mysterious, with some people claiming that the Ainu are really Caucasian or proto-Caucasian - in other words, "white." At present, Brace's study denies this interpretation.
The person playing the "Last Samurai" is a tall guy that looks less 'Asian' than one would expect. This article may explain why.
"The Samurai were descended from the Ainu and were tall and somewhat Caucasian looking, tall, light-skinned and hairy (even today the Ainu are the hairest people). The Samurai were once the ruling class in Japan and some anthropologists suspect the Japanese practice of 'white-face' originates from that period as a way of emulating the 'royals'."
"Kennewick Man's DNA, although ruled 'inconclusive', showed a high relationship to the Ainu.
"Further, the Jomon culture (which precedes the Ainu in Japan) is identified with a specific type of pottery labeled 'Cord Pottery'. This 'Cord Pottery' has been found in Olmec (1400BC-300BC) ruins in Mexico. The oldest Jomon skeleton ever found in Japan is 13,000 years old. Some believe the migrations that put the Ainu in Japan began 7,600 years ago when the Black Sea (Noah's Flood?) was flooded with salt water. Small world, huh? "
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Well, we are one big happy family. /sarcasm
The level of racism in Japan never ceases to amaze me.
The Japanese go farther and designate occupations for the lesser races. No pure blood can be an undertaker, plumber, garbage collector, etc.-- those jobs are for the servant races.
It seems to work. I mean, nobody's ever yet managed to stage any sort of a successful demographic coupe against the Japanese in their own land and they've apparently had 13,000 years to try it. It'd be nice if we could say the same thing...
No, I haven't. I did propose to my son at Christmas that there is the making of a business here. I expect everyone has relatives they don't want to know about though.
IM very HO their culture is neither that old or that strong, but it is that monolithic. A Japanese reporter was quoted in the Economist about how he was amazed when he was asked for directions at an airport in New York. He said that no Japanese would ever ask a Caucasian directions at a Japanese airport.
A picture of an Ainu taken in the 19th century.
Modern Ainu seem like a cross between oriental and caucasian. Archeological evidence indicates that they were a fishing/hunting culture. It would not be too outlandish to think that a fishing culture would expand along the coastline of the Middle East, past south Asia, eventually hitting the Japanese Islands, and continuing on up the coast of asia and across to the west coast of North America
Depends on who you call 'the Japanese.' Seems (to me) like the Asians that now call themselves the Japanese have done a pretty good job of 'displacing' the original (Ainu/Jomon) Japanese people, huh?
I knew a female engineer from Okinawa who said that the Japanese discriminated against them terribly. She 'looked' Asian to me except that she had real curly hair.
I believe the Hakka are mixed blood descendents of these folks, The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummy.
There are records of their migration all the way across China and the Hakka with curly hair or high nose-bridge were killed during this/these migrations. They are related to the 'red-headed' folks via than Han, Xiongnu, Miao, Yuezhi and ultimately the Schythians, all Indo-Asian steppe people.
Related but, waaay to early for Celts. See post #19 about the Red-headed folks. The mummies of Urumchi were directly related to the later Celts at Hallstadt, Austria, 4,000 miles and 1,000 years away/apart...also related to Oetzi The Iceman (5,300 years old)
Ainu = descendants of Anu, chief of the Nephilim pantheon? If I'm not mistaken, I think there is an Anu area in northeastern China as well.
At one point there was a dispersion, or a separation of the population, referencing four different locations, ne'er again to meet, at least for millenia. Different tongues, etc. I think those that went to the Indus valley region may have eventually migrated to eastern China and Japan. I suppose you could call them caucasian, if they were originally offspring of the Nephilim.
Nin-gish-zidda was the Nephilim name for Quetzlcoatl. He was perportedly a builder, an engineer and scientist of no small fame. Egyptians knew him as Thoth. He was in charge of the mining expedition in the Americas after the Great Flood which destroyed all the mines in Mesopotamia and Africa.
(His last known location was in Mexico City. Be on the look-out for the Feathered Serpent. Reportedly still at large.:>)
Thanks for the link. Interesting read.
Not illogical. I would assume a Caucasian was another tourist. Why would a Japanese assume differently?
That's exactly the point. In New York, it's reasonable to assume anyone who simply looks confident would know his way around, regardless of race. In racially pure Japan, we have to assume differently.
I'll buy that.
Early on in the 'Kennewick Man' controversy and after a DNA analysis was done (officially, deemed 'inconclusive.') I saw a break-down of the ananlysis, at the top of the list was Ainu = 23% with others like Polynesian and ect following on down the list. After that one time, I've never been able to find that data again. It's not even in the book written by James Chatters, Ancient Encounters, about his studies on Kennewick Man. I guess it's just to PC.
There was a court case from the Indians after a picture of the reconstructed face of 'Spirit Cave Man' was released. He looked very similar to Kennewick Man.
That does not mean the Amerian ancestors were Europeans or anything like that if Ainu-like.
Yes. It's starting to look like the Aborigines from Oz could be some of the earliest if not the first. (Luzia)
"That does not mean the Amerian ancestors were Europeans or anything like that if Ainu-like."
I agree. The question of the origins of Ainu-Jomon, as far as I'm concerned, is still unsettled. James Chatters has proposed the most palatable (to me) scenerio. That is, that who-ever the Jomon-Ainu ancestors were, they are likely to be the ancestors of present day Europeans, Polynesians and Asians. I think there was a lot of back and forth mixing going on in Siberia >100,000 years ago in a multiregional scheme. The Ainu may have gotten a genetic 'refresh' as early as 5-6,000 from the Euro-Asian steppes. There is limited (some) genetic support for this scenerio.
Now, there does seem to be some evidence of (more recent) Europeans on the east coast of the US, probably arriving in fits and starts themselves.
Nor did our ancestoral features resemble the ones developed in Europe. Arrival in Europe also changed the physical make-up of these people. We forget how clay like our bodies are over generations.
There is this theory that I read and makes sense-during the Bronze age - tin was such a rare commodity that Phoenicians and other tin searchers travled long and far in search of this commodity. They kept such routes secert from mouth to mouth. When the bronze age came to an end, the value of tin for making bronze evaporated and the routes were forgotten except in some half remembered tales by the Phoenicians that the Greeks picked up on and wrote about. That age probably saw limited colonization maybe a trading fort or something-no women but local Indian women. Some slaves - probably Celtic slaves and or Negro slaves to the Phoenicians? This would explain the cocaine and tobacco found in Egyptian mummies. They were Phoenician trading goods and these Phoenicians lept such routes a trade secret.
Yup. I believe the 'Bushmen' and Negritos were more wide-spread than presently recognized. I am presently re-reading (3rd time) J P Maloy and Victor Mair's book, The Tarim Mummies, fascinating book.
The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummy
These folks may have made it all the way to Japan...some even believe they are the Ainu but, I don't. Their relatives, The Hakka, did make it to Japan.
I think that is a reasonable overview and good assumption.
Richard Poe is taking a little 'static' here.
5-19-2004 bump.
CC
Sounds familiar...Japan was connected to the mainland during the Ice Age. The Oldest people in Japan are the Jomon - Ainu. My guess is that they're early Caucasians that may have crossed over through Siberia. James Chatters (of Kennewick Man Fame), in his book, Ancient Encounters, indicated that the Kennewick Man line may have produced todays Asian and Europeans. So....
Japanese nationalism often is source for censorship of information in Japan. During my study abroad, I had an opportunity to hear the professors of Kansai University express their biased opinions of Japanese history against the (also biased) opinions of the professors of Keimyung University in Korea. The "Toraijin" theory of Corea populating Japan is supported by logic and evidence. The magatama, mirror and sword were introduced to Japan from Corea. It was also the Coreans who populated Japan and are the ancestors of the modern Japanese. The Emishi/Ainu in the North and the Ryukyu people in the South were the ancient inhabitants of the islands before the modern Japanese were introduced from Corea. The "mokohan" (Mongolian birth mark) is biological evidence that the Japanese and Coreans are the same people. The amount of evidence supporting this theory is always overlooked by the Japanese. Even a casual study of the Corean and Japanese language supports linguistic similarities. Japanese are good about changing history to conform to their own interpretations of events. Even the spelling of Corea was changed to "Korea" by the Japanese in 1908, so that the Japanese athletes in the 1908 London Olympics would be announced ahead of the Corean athletes. The Japanese professors at Kansai University and Kansai Gaikokogu University as well as the history teachers at Keiho High school here in Nagasaki continuously lie about this historical fact claiming that the Japan was still known as the "Wa" or the "Yamato" "Nihon/Nippon" and that the title of "Japan" was not in existent. I have collected copies of maps from the 18th century to present and have found the English spelling "Japan" as early as the 1840's and the spelling of "Corea" gradually changed to "Korea" between 1908 and 1920. Likewise, we readers have to discern about what the Japanese present as "truth" concerning the Ainu history. An Ainu acquaintance of mine in Obihiro, who is still living today explained to me how the Japanese conquered Ezo and changed it to Hokkaido by inviting the Ainu leaders to a peace talk in Edo and then slaughtering the leaders and sending back their decapitated heads to their families. Such is Japanese "his"tory. The "Kojiki" and "Nihon Shoki" were a myth created in the 7th Century for political support of the emperor. The great and honorable emperor... Remember Ezo like as the Ainu do. Remember Tokdo like as the Coreans do. Remember Tsushima like Russians do. Remember Pearl Harbor like Americans do.
Thank you for that and welcome to freerepublic.
Your lengthy post while informative was predominantly Korean anti-Japanese rhetoric. There are people who have no idea that what you are saying is biased one sided charges.
I am Japanese born in Japan. Allow me to state some facts;
The Japanese of today are a mix of the original inhabitants
called Jomon who were making pottery in Japan as early as 10,500 BC. The Ainu of today are considered to be the decendants of the Jomon. The people who crossed over from the Korean penninsula the Yaoi started coming over in 300BC.
By looking at the number of years you can tell to what extent the original Jomon plays in the makeup of a modern Japanese. Without doubt the Yaoi invasion brought many new advanced technology, farming skills, etc. However, consider this; by 500-600 AD the Japanese(the Yamato) were a recognized seperate nation called Wa by the Korean states, and was an ally of Kudara (Paekche). Already the spoken language between Yamato and Kudara was completely different.
Today even Koreans say that Japanese look different from Koreans. If so the only explanation would be the extent of Jomon (Ainu) blood that exists in modern Japanese.
The Ainu of today are a mostly assimilated people with few if any "pure" ainu left. They were treated very much as the Native Americans were in North America. Now there is no bias
towards Ainu. Just as there is no bias towards Okinawans who
are far more Japanese than anyone realizes; their regional dialect is similar to very old Japanese prior to Chinese influence. The Okinawan word for Japanese is Yamatobito-
a Yamato person.
Sounds like YOU missed the point, Choppari! ƒAƒCƒk‚Í·•Ê‚³‚ê‚Ä‚È‚¢‚Á‚ÄHIƒAƒzIƒoƒJIƒ}ƒkƒPIƒJƒ{ƒ`ƒƒIƒ`ƒ‡ƒbƒpƒŠI
BTTT
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