Ainu
Ainu

The Ainu are an indigenous tribe of northern Japan, dispossessed and marginalized by the Japanese colonization of Hokkaido that started in 1869. Within a Darwinian framework, a range of stereotypes characterized the Ainu as ignorant, alcoholic, disease-ridden, and lazy. Newspapers, popular journals, and school textbooks were not the only means to vehicle such image. Exhibitions played their role too. In 1903, the Ainu were displayed for the first time in a “native” village in the Hall of Mankind, for the 5th Industrial Exhibition in Osaka. They were shown again in 1912, in the Colonial Exposition of Tokyo. The people who had enough money and inclination to travel were sufficient in number to turn at least two Ainu villages, Shiraoi and Chikabumi, into regular tourist attractions. A guide published in 1941 [K. Kindaichi, “Ainu life and legends”, Tourist Library n°. 36, Tokyo: Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways] hints at attitudes encountered by the Ainu while performing for tourists: “Money goes a long way here as well as elsewhere, it is true; but even here it is not omnipotent. Many thoughtful Ainu people are ashamed to perform the old manners of their ancestors for money amid the laughter of the spectators. They consider it disrespectful to their forefathers. You are therefore requested while looking at them to refrain from laughing without any reason or assuming an attitude of mockery”.

Photo 1: "A splendid type of Ainu aborigine, and his family, Island of Yezo, Japan". From the Frederick Starr collection, by H.C. White Co. of Vermont, 1906. PH014-40-03
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/photo/warner/fWarner.html
Photo 2: Ainu chieftain and wife, Robert Chauvelot, 1920’s
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/cubist/613/archive2.htm
Photo 4: Ainu Museum
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/cannelton/fmfjapan/ainu.html
Photo 5: Traditional Ainu House, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan
http://www.minpaku.ac.jp/english/museum/exhibition/ainu/06.html