The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion,1590-1800

by Brett L. Walker

This model monograph is the first scholarly study to put the Ainu―the native people living in Ezo, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago―at the center of an exploration of Japanese expansion during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the height of the Tokugawa shogunal era. Inspired by "new Western" historians of the United States, Walker positions Ezo not as Japan's northern "frontier" but as a borderland or middle ground. By framing his study between the cultural and ecological worlds of the Ainu before and after two centuries of sustained contact with the Japanese, the author demonstrates with great clarity just how far the Ainu were incorporated into the Japanese political economy and just how much their ceremonial and material life―not to mention disease ecology, medical culture, and their physical environment―had been infiltrated by Japanese cultural artifacts, practices, and epidemiology by the early nineteenth century.

Walker takes a fresh and original approach. Rather than presenting a mere juxtaposition of oppression and resistance, he offers a subtle analysis of how material and ecological changes induced by trade with Japan set in motion a reorientation of the whole northern culture and landscape. Using new and little-known material from archives as well as Ainu oral traditions and archaeology, Walker poses an exciting new set of questions and issues that have yet to be approached in so innovative and thorough a fashion.

Genres: History, Japan, Japanese History, Asia, Indigenous, Environment, Nonfiction

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

pick up any standard history book on Japanese history from a western point of view and most will tell you the same story; Japan under the Tokugawa rule isolated themselves from the rest of the world and despises trade with outsiders until 1853 when the US forced Japan to open itself to the world. It is a neat story and still remains the prime example of literal gunboat diplomacy, yet this book by Brett L Walker tries to justify this erroneous view of a hermetically closed Japan by looking way up north to the islands of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kurils.

These islands were the last homes of a group of people whom by the medieval period were known as the Ainu. A people who were less stratified then their Japanese neighbors, with whom they once shared the main islands of Japan, dedicated to a life of small scale farming, fishing, whaling an ritualized hunting with clear shamanistic tones. These smallish communities interacted with their surrounding world, Ainu on Sakhalin were part of the Chinese tributary system, Ainu of the Kuril traded with various east Siberia communities (and later on Russian traders) while those of Hokkaido were slowly but surly integrated in a Japanese hegemony.

As the title states, this is a book about expansion, although the title says 1590, the book does briefly go over the period before up until the major pieces are set on the board. The Ainu who went from an occasional trade with Japan and ceremonial visit to regular contact, the establishment of a new centralizing Japanese state, the Edo regime and the granting of those regular trade contacts by this new regime to the Feudal Matsumae family. Throughout the book Walker makes several comparisons between the interactions and changing relationship between the Japanese and Ainu, and the changing relationship between English settlers and native Americans in the same period. This serves two purposes, one is to emphasize that Japan was not as dissimilar in its contact with non Japanese people it deemed barbaric as the English state was with those peoples it deemed barbaric. The second purpose of this comparison, is to show how these kind of unequal interactions can have a similar effect on those weaker in the interaction despite the huge contextual differences.

This impact, according to Walker, profoundly changed and shaped the Ainu communities. What started out as an occasional trade between (perhaps not equal) free peoples; who could choose to trade on terms both deemed acceptable, quickly and increasingly so became a vector for dependency on the side of the Ainu for Japanese goods. Dependency also to a lesser extent for the Matsumae who needed Ainu trade goods to participate in the Tokugawa political system. This story is indeed quite similar to what happened to various North west American natives, as foreign manufactured goods started out as curiousa to be traded for some animal hides but quickly became status symbols as they grew in number, pitting communities against each other to acquire the necessary trade goods until finally communities had changed profoundly to meet the needs of the traders. So it went with the Ainu, Saké (as was rum for native Americans) became a staple for the Ainu, replacing traditional light alcoholic brews, drink alongside tobacco, iron utensils, swords and other objects. Even rice increasingly became a vital good to be traded for by the Ainu, as more and more people went out to spent time hunting for animal-pelts, fished Salmon to be smoked and exported or trap live hunting hawks to be traded. This proces fairly quickly made whole communities depended on trade to survive. It forced them to become laborers for hire to pay of credit and debt or allowing Japanese small scale gold miners and lumberjacks to devastate traditional hunting lands after they had been picked clean of game.

This story of growing dependence was, as it was in north America, not a linear story. Ainu tried to to resist both with violence, war and maintaining some adapted new forms of older subsistence and they tried to keep other trade contacts outside Japanese control. Some even tried farming rice as to lower dependency on these proto capitalist traders who where fully aware and acted upon the inequality in power to squeeze out the most of these communities. These traders also made sure it stayed that way and who did not hesitate to make the exchange even less advantageous for the Ainu when they could. Licensed as they were by the Matsumae to extract these goods (whose original mandate had included treating the Ainy fairly) and who backed them up with force and threat of violence if the traders were threatened by disgruntled Ainu and who themselves could always count on Edo support if resistance became to united and strong (as it did briefly late 17th century) for this out of the way feudal family.

As the title says, this is a book on ecology and it is not limited to impact of hunting and fishing or lumber and mining on the landscape, the book goes in detail on the impact of smallpox and syphilis on the Ainu and how it weakened communities forcing them in their growing weakness to rely even more so on the goodwill of the traders who were the source of their misfortune. Walker does also include several proofs of how the Shogunate did at various times tried to help Ainu populations in mitigating the effects of small pox and a vaccination campaign in the 19th century, so this is no case of deliberate actions that smallpox spread. Syphilis however.... Walker does not make the comparison, but I will; the way it was spread in the Ainu communities reminds me on similar diseases spread in native communities in the amazon rain forest. Native men contract the diseases via prostitutes where they go and trade to acquire manufactured goods, they spread it among young women in their communities or they got infected via rape/ debt payment by Brazilian miners, loggers, hired thugs and traders who by doing so assert their superior power over local communities. As with these natives, when Ainu complained about these rapes by Japanese, they got shushed with a few bundles of food, drink and 'gifts' while the disease lowered fertility and the health of children with infected mothers.

So what was the end result of this growing dependency and what does it teach us of Japanese society of the time? To me it disproves the notion that Japan was isolated, it did interact with people beyond what was considered proper Japan, it expanded its sphere of influence to islands that are now either part of Japan (Hokkaido) or have been claimed in the past (and still claimed by nationalists) Kurils and Sakhalin, the shogunate did allow foreign trade as long as it was (in)directly under its control(it freaked out and investigated thoroughly when suspicions grew of possible sizable unlawful trade between the Russians and Matsumae through Ainu middlemen), Japanese society had (limited) room for autonomous traders who were (proto) capitalist but firmly under the feudal banner. As from an interactions point of view; the story of the Ainu, which continues until this day, is one of inequality and what it does to communities on the losing side. The winner forces the loser to dance to their tunes and shapes their counterpart to fit in their political, economical and cultural cadre. Neither does this have to directed from all the way on the top either, it was the Matsumae who allowed the traders to do most of the shaping and molding as long as their molding strengthened their position in the Shogunate political system. In fact when Shogunate officials did travel to Hokkaido, they were often very critical of the abuses and unfairness they saw, yet until the 19th century, the Matsumae kept their little monopoly.

The tragedy of it all is that for so long Hokaido or Ezo as it was called then, was not deemed true Japan until the 19th century with its "barbaric primitive" inhabitants, addicted to liquor, who could not even sustain themselves and suffered such tragic diseases. At that point the Soghunate stepped in, pushed the Matsumae out of the way and introduced direct paternalistic control on the Ainu and their still resource rich land. Again Walker makes the comparison with native Americans, whose devastated communities in the mid west came under the care of the federal government who enforced the myth of a primitive society that needed to be saved from itself, ignoring the impact decades or hundreds of years of contact on these communities.

One final note, this island would also become the last stronghold of the Shogunate soldiers during the Mejii restauration as the stillborn Ezo-republic. the Shogunate last refuge after Japan had changed profoundly after its aggressive contact with stronger outside partners who wanted Japan to trade and participate in their order of things. It is profoundly ironic.....

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magisterial work documenting the transnational world of the Ainu in its early modern context from 1590, when the first written records emerge, to 1800 when relations with the Ainu are seized by the shogunate. No future work on the Ainu should be considered serious if it does not take into account Walker's painstaking composition of research and materials from Japanese, Ainu, Russian, and Chinese sources.

To make it clear why this book is valuable, I picked it up because I was wondering if the Japan-Ainu relation from 1800 to 1868 was a "settler colonialist" relationship. Walker offers parallels with Russian and American settler networks, but he makes it clear through the economic and ritual topics he discusses that the period of 1590-1800 was not a matter of laying the groundwork for settler colonialism; rather, Wajinchi served as a "middle ground" mediating the Japanese and Ainu spaces, and the Matsumae viewed Ainu land as an "outer region" with local autonomy rather than a falsely-so-called terra nullius in the truly colonialist and genocidal style of Australia; Japan's own declaration of terra nullius came in 1877.

Most importantly, Walker provides evidence that the Ainu themselves, although they began the 1600s with a strong sense of independence, were unprepared for the impact that trade with the high-production societies of Japan and Russia would have on their own economy and social structure, which left them open to be mentally self-colonized in the sense of feeling a sense of failure to be autonomous and welcoming "aid" from the Japanese. War between Ainu tribes was constant, and when war was made against the Matsumae, it was not a straightforward defense of autonomy but was a result of internal disorder. This provided me with irreplaceable wisdom which I must consider before doing any research on Hokkaido.

One thing that Walker does not cover is the punitive measures that the Matsumae imposed on the Ainu after Shakushain's War of 1669, and their impact on Ainu society. For those, you'll have to check out these excellent companion reads:
- Capitalism From Within: Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery
- Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan
- Re-Inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation

[Markus Klimas]

From what I recall, having read this book many years ago, it is an informative and sympathetic survey of the history of an oppressed people (the Ainu) that are usually left out of history books entirely. In that regard, it is indeed highly valuable. The author's relative detachment from the cultural and ideological presuppositions of the mostly Japanese-language literature he has had to rely upon is also commendable. Not an easy thing to do. However, I find that Walker over-relies on foreign models of representation (frontier theory, the varied experiences of Indigenous peoples in the United States, even some highfalutin eco theory) to explain a series of events that ought to be examined mainly emically, from within. Too much analogical thinking, I guess. But still a fine book.

[CL Chu · Rating 3 out of 5]

While generally informative and well-organized, the book sometimes too quickly applies theory in North American settler colonialism to the colonization of Ainu's lands. Besides, it also eschews from discussion about how the history of trade, conflict, and ecological dependency between Ainu and Japanese matters for Ainu communities today.

[AskHistorians]

a history of the colonial expansion of ethnic Japanese ("wajin") north into the island we now call Hokkaido, and the impact of war, famine and disease on the aboriginal inhabitants they conquered and assimilated.

[Eskil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utover det jeg visste fra kulturell osmose og de fire første bindene av "Golden Kamuy" (som faktisk bruker akademiske kilder for å være realistisk) visste jeg fint lite om ainuene, bortsett fra at de var kulturelt, genetisk og lingvistisk forskjellig fra yamato-japanerne. Etter å ha lest denne boka føler jeg at jeg har mye sterkere grep om hvordan historiske og kulturelle prossesser førte til at ainuene ble assimilert og at kulturen deres i større og større grad forsvant. Walker sammenligner prossessene som fant sted på Hokkaido med de som fant sted i Nord-Amerika, og det er interessant å se likheter og forskjeller mellom indianerne og ainuene.

I stedet for å jobbe kronologisk ser Walker på hvordan ainuenes kultur og praksiser ble endra av kontakt med japanere under Tokugawa-shogunatet, og dette gjorde for min del at det ble enklere å få oversikt. Jeg ble veldig overraska over å se hvor integrert ainuene var i handelsnettverkene i det nordlige stillehavet, men overraska over at inuittene i det som nå er Alaska ikke ble nevnt mer. Den eneste gangen "eskimoer" blir nevnt er for å komme med en generell sammenligning av synet jakt- og sankegrupper har på dyrenes plass i verden, men siden jeg vet at Alaska-inuitter handla med grupper på Kamtsjatka skulle man trodd de ville blitt nevnt i det hele tatt.

Det var også veldig interessant å sammenligne hvordan den ene adelsfamilien på øya fikk så stor autonomi i handel og framferdsel med urbefolkninga, litt på samme måte som Virginiaselskapet, VOC etc for frem på vegne av europeiske makter i Asia og Amerika. Den dypere forståelsen Walker klarer å gi leseren om ainuene gjør det desto mer frustrerende å lese om hvordan Tokugawa-shogunatet tok strengere og strengere kontroll over Hokkaido (eller Ezochi som den heter i boka), og påvirkningen denne kontrollen har over de økologiske og kulturelle villkårene til ainuene.

Jeg anbefaler absolutt boka til alle som er interessert i urfolk, Japan generelt, ainuene spesielt eller hvordan såkalte grenselandgrupper interagerer med større, mer dominante grupper.

[rafael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and enlightening. Walker's ethnography of the Ainu uses a decidedly anti-imperial framework. By forgoing the binaries of center-periphery and civilized-barbaric, the historical account detailed here is a welcome challenge to the preconception that the Ainu are this peaceful, relatively harmless society who were one day subjugated by the Japanese. Agency is key here--something which the "native" population of Ezo/Hokkaido had in spades. Still, the constraints brought by trade and cultural shifts influenced by the Japanese ultimately gave the Ainu little room to maneuver. More than anything, this was a testament to the utility of trade as an imperial tool. Yes, there were physical conflicts and yes, diseases wiped out large swaths of the population, but the commodification of resources and labor that came with the demands of commerce were the biggest blow to Ainu autonomy, eventually leading to Hokkaido's incorporation into the Japanese state at the beginning of the Meiji Era.

[Apostate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had always thought the Japanese where the autochthonous inhabitants of the islands; that Japan was one culture, one ethnic group, one language, two religions. I was wrong. While we were busy stealing the Native American lands, the Japanese were busily seizing Northern Japan from the Ainu, an indigenous people.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really thorough study of colonization under the supposedly isolationist and non-expansionist Tokugawa Shogunate as well as a general survey of how Ainu culture gradually changed over the course of two centuries of trade contact. I would recommend for anyone interested in this topic.

[I. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book by itself is excellent, but I just honestly felt I lacked the background knowledge to fully appreciate the details without feeling lost, confused and quite bored at times. So it didn't work for me, but I'd definitely recommend it to those interested in the topic.