Faculty Forum
The Japanese Ainu and Native Americans

National American Indian Heritage Month was celebrated in November, and during a noon talk of UMUC employees of American Indian descent, we decided to explore the commonalities—challenges and prejudices—other native peoples have had to overcome. Here, UMUC–Asia psychology professor James Jordan, a Native American (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) himself, writes of the crosscultural comparisons between Native Americans in the United States and the Ainus in Japan.

By James B. Jordan

James B. Jordan

I love a good, unsolved archeological mystery. Recent comparisons with the Ainu of Japan and Native Americans indicate many people share that mystery. No one is sure where the Ainu or Native Americans are from. Sure, there are several plausible theories for both—but the bottom line for the archeologist is that they are only theories, based upon the best physical evidence; no one really knows. But, I'm not an archeologist—only one who has worked with and written about Native Americans. Let's look at some of the similarities and differences first, before we look at the origins of these two peoples.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives are often at odds with the archeologists, anthropologists, and historians about their origins. Like other indigenous peoples throughout the world, they have origin myths and a common name for themselves, which is usually a variant of "The Original People," or "The First Human Beings." For example, for my tribe—the Choctaw—it is "Okla," the people. The name Ainu means human.

The Ainu, who once inhabited all of the main island of Honshu, now live primarily on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. A few Ainu people still live in Sakhalin, the island group that has been contested with Russia since World War II. There are many tribal groups making up the Native Americans, who share some 350 languages. The Ainu have one native language. Both groups have had their native land invaded by foreigners. The invasion of Ainu Japan was by the Waijins, the term they use for the ethnic Japanese. The invasion of the Americas was by colonialist Europeans. But then again, the history of the world is about who was first, and who came later to begin the tribal warfare. Both groups have been victims of political deception, first waging war and then, when the invaders were at a disadvantage, working out a peace agreement, only to get mired in swindles. Both indigenous people were introduced to this foreign concept of land ownership—then came the land swindling schemes.

On the dark side, both the Ainu and Native Americans have had invaders introduce diseases such as smallpox and cholera, which decimated the population. The Ainu population fell from 26,256 people in 1807, to 15,969 in 1931 (www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/ainu.html). These figures also demonstrate how the population dramatically decreased between 1822 and 1854, from 23,563 to 17,810, when the Ainu population lost one-fourth of its population to smallpox, measles, cholera, tuberculosis, and venereal diseases. According to the current survey conducted by the Hokkaido government in 1984, the Ainu population of Hokkaido was 24,381.

Contrast this to the entire tribe of the Hidatsa (North Dakota–Minnesota area) being wiped out in the early 1800s in the U.S. Today, only those who were intermingled with the Mandan tribe, the Hidatsa/Mandan, are the survivors. There were many other Native American tribes who suffered this fate. But the darkest part is that the colonial Americans were the first to use biological warfare with the purposeful introduction of smallpox-infected blankets.

Pictured (from left) at a National American Indian Heritage Month celebration held at UMUC headquarters in Adelphi are several UMUC employees who are descendants of American Indians: Maria Strickland, Office of the Provost, Cherokee and Tuscarora; Lynne McNamara, International Programs, Cherokee; Crystal Parks Evans, Student Affairs, Cherokee; and Ernie Santos-DeJesus, Diversity Initiatives, Taino, a people native to the Caribbean. Commemorations, sponsored by the Office of Diversity Initiatives, like this one are held frequently at the Adelphi campus to celebrate diversity at UMUC. In fall 2001, for example, international students at UMUC hailed from approximately 70 different countries. Faculty in the United States alone represent about 30 foreign countries. (Not pictured: Annette Gonzalez, Instructional Technology.)

However, most people comparing the Ainu and Native Americans are fascinated by the possible origins of these people. The current theory with regards to the peopling of the Americas is a multiple-impact theory of several different ancient peoples arriving and exploring at different times. The earliest evidence in South America dates to about 30,000 B.C.

With both Ainu and Native American culture, there is a great, rich history. The likelihood that the two are related is slim, but a relationship is possible. Perhaps there was some travel by boat from the Japanese Sakhalin islands following the Japanese current up to the Aleutian Islands or Alaska mainland itself. If this were the case, and one follows the belief of a cousin Caucasian being related to Native Americans—it doesn't make sense. Why then are there so many genetic similarities of present Native Americans with other Mongoloid races? I think the best bet is on a primarily Mongoloid relationship, and all other probable contacts were relatively insignificant.

But that is the past and the present seems to be all too familiar when we compare these cultures. The Ainu were oppressed and exploited by the Japanese from first contact through the Meiji era. In the Meiji era, under the government policy of assimilation (strikingly similar to the concurrent U.S. policy at the time), the Ainu were prohibited from observing their daily customs. In the late Meiji era, with an increasing number of Japanese colonizing Hokkaido, the oppression and exploitation of the Ainu was replaced by discrimination. Discrimination against the Ainu still remains today and is a major social problem in Japan. Similar to Native Americans, they contend with discrimination, social injustice, and the fallout from this trauma—increased levels of alcoholism. Present day Native Americans have won much recrimination, established self-sufficient businesses and industries, and even solved some land disputes. Native Americans may be a role model for a present-day Ainu indigenous movement just getting underway.

In the final analysis, the crosscultural comparison between the Ainu and Native Americans is about ongoing modern tribal warfare—the invasion by foreigners who become their own nationality, only to be invaded by others. It continues; the American culture has been invaded by the Japanese, and the present Japanese complain of the invasion by the American culture. But the mystery of our origins remains. I like to think of it as a long journey for all races—all originally coming out of Africa.

James Jordan's mother is a full-blood member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and his father was "an Irish-American mix, career military," Jordan says. He is well traveled and often incorporates historical material in crosscultural venues for his psychology courses at UMUC–Asia. For example, he has lived in or visited England, Scotland, Mexico, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, (Old) Hong Kong and Kowloon, Japan, Russia, Costa Rica, Ireland, Germany, Peru, China—and of course, most U.S. states. Jordan lives in Japan with his wife, Laura. They have five grown children, "who are also scattered to the four winds," he says. Jordan holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Denver, and has worked as a psychotherapist for more than 18 years.