The first samurai were not Japanese at all

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Few people know, but the Japanese are not the indigenous population of Japan. Before them, the Ainu lived here, a mysterious people, in the origin of which there are still many mysteries. The Ainu coexisted with the Japanese for some time, until the latter managed to force them out to the north.

The fact that the Ainu are the ancient masters of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names of geographical objects, the origin of which is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - the great Mount Fujiyama - has in its name the Ainu word "fuji", which means "deity of the hearth". Scientists believe that the Ainu settled on the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu were not engaged in agriculture, they obtained food by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements, quite remote from each other. Therefore, the area of their residence was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka. Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them the rice culture, which made it possible to feed a large number of the population in a relatively small area. Thus began the hard times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move to the north, leaving the colonialists their ancestral lands.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, perfectly wielding bow and sword, and the Japanese did not manage to defeat them for a long time. For a very long time, almost 1500 years. The Ains knew how to handle two swords, and they carried two daggers on their right thigh. One of them (cheiki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri. The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having managed by that time to learn a lot from them in terms of the art of war. The samurai code of honor, the ability to wield two swords and the aforementioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu. But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the natives of the Pacific Ocean, since they have similar facial features. But genetic research ruled out this option as well. And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on the island of Sakhalin even mistook the Ainu for the Russians, so they were not like Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people out of all the analyzed variants with whom they have a genetic relationship was the people of the Jomon era, who presumably were the ancestors of the Ainu. The Ainu language also strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and they have not yet found a suitable place for it. It turns out that during the long period of isolation, the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even distinguish them into a special Ainu race.

Today there are very few Ainu left, about 25,000 people. They live mainly in the north of Japan and are almost completely assimilated by the population of this country.