Gendered Resistance: Japanese Assimilation Policy and Early Ainu Response in Hokkaido

• In Event: The Mist-Covered Borderland – Early Modern Ainu-Japanese-Russian Relations in Ezo

Abstract

In 18th-19th century Ezo (present-day Hokkaido), Japanese settlement gradually began to impact the interdependent gender relations of the pre-colonial era, wherein women and men had worked together to meet cultural needs. In response to assimilation policies and later to Japanese colonization, women quickly emerged as the vanguard of Ainu cultural practice. By the early 19th century, under a process known as the “gendering of ethnicity,” women took on the labor of sustaining heritage practices, kin networks and certain ceremonial labor formerly restricted to men.

In this paper I describe how women labored to maintain the cultural practices and human-environment relations of their ancestors, often disrupting gender conventions to maintain ancestral knowledge. Viewing this history through the lens of gender provides critical insights into how Ainu women’s assumption of male and female roles served to prevent the utter collapse of Ainu society. Drawing from Ainu women’s oral histories and research conducted by contemporary Ainu women, I narrate how women took up ritual labor, performed both men’s and women’s roles, absorbed oral literature into their bodies, and sought to transmit this knowledge to future generations. Women empowered the guardian spirits who governed the backs of their clothing through embroidering protective motifs such as thorns into these designs. They implored their children and grandchildren to abide by Ainupuri protocols and to honor spiritual beings (A. kamuy) in their local environment with proper rituals and sharing of foodstuffs. Ultimately, I suggest that such a perspective enables an alternate reading of Japanese settler colonialism.

Author

• Ann-Elise Lewallen, University of California, Santa Barbara