Third Edition Spring 2013 - Institute of East Asian Studies, UC ...

this ‘frontier’ was for them already known, named, and traveled. 24Assimilation policies were first informally, and later, formally adopted.The call for protection was directly impacted by knowledgeof other colonized populations, particularly the U.S. Dawes Act,which allotted land to Native Americans with the goal of assimilation.Consequently, decisions about assimilation were shaped byJapan’s conception of a metaphoric relationship between indigenousand colonizing populations.In 1893, a Protection Act was proposed before the Diet. Argumentsopposing it centered upon the notion that there was littleneed to protect Ainu, as they were already ‘dying out,’ a view rootedin social Darwinism and the scientific racism it produced. OtherDiet members argued against formal legal protection, citing thedestitution of Ainu as emblematic of their deserved decline. 25 Accordingly,this proposal ultimately failed, as did a second attemptthree years later. In 1898, another proposal, again framed in thelanguage of a cultural and biological ‘survival of fittest,’ still projectedthe demise of Ainu as inevitable while stating it was the dutyof the government to protect them in the interim. Notably, whilethis proposal spoke of Ainu as an ancient part of the Japanese empire,it did not explicitly recognize them as indigenous.The Protection Act was enacted in 1899. Its objective was,first and foremost, assimilation. Ainu in Japan acquired a status of‘former natives,’ and among the protections granted were limitedland grants (without the full rights of ownership), elementary educationin separate village schools, and access to limited health care(the effect of tuberculosis on Ainu populations, introduced withsettlement, was devastating). These initiatives were designed totransform Ainu into subjects through the eradication of Ainu language,culture, and lifestyle, with an emphasis on agriculture as theprimary means of achieving ‘civilization.’ 26 Yet even under these‘protections,’ Ainu were unsuccessful in transitioning to an agriculturallifestyle, due to a lack of agricultural knowledge and training,and insufficient land size and quality. Additionally, there was nocorresponding protection against exploitation by competing Japa-24 Ibid., 60.25 Ibid., 88.26 Ibid.nese landowners. 27The failures of the Protection Act to adequately ‘protect’ signifiedto Japanese that they couldn’t stop the extinction of the Ainu‘race,’ which continued to be regarded as inevitable; the decreasingAinu population was deemed further evidence of the principle of‘survival of fittest’ in action. Still, Japanese viewed themselves asobligated to provide a measure of welfare to the Ainu, though notto the extent of attempting to defy the laws of ‘nature’ by trying to‘save’ them. 28 This opinion was directly influenced by the perceivedcorrelation between Ainu and Native Americans; an Ainu educationcommittee member wrote in 1901 that, while Native Americanswere thought to be “violent and vengeful,” Ainu were instead“mild and servile,” and Japanese should show their compassion tothis “dying race.” 29 Notably, this noblesse oblige positioned Japaneseas equivalent to Western colonizers in power, but superior tothem in virtue. Cultural, and eventually biological, assimilation wassoon advocated as the basis of providing this ‘support’: “Throughthe mixing of blood and assimilation they are fusing into the broader[ethnic Japanese] race and can be said to be developing.” 30Opposition to this viewpoint continued, as many arguedthat Ainu should not be granted any protection, and that instead,their “survival or extinction should be left to nature.” 31 Furthermore,conceptions of ‘racial purity’ were invoked, as supposed inherentracial inferiority became the basis of legal inequality. The hierarchicalbiological admixture of Ainu and Japanese identity was constructed,by way of standardized testing, to show ‘pure’ Japaneseas intellectually superior, Ainu as abjectly inferior, and ‘half-breed’Japanese-Ainu as in-between these two poles. 32 Ironically, observationsof the continued disadvantages experienced by Ainu furtherfueled belief in the need to increase, rather than reduce or alter,27 Ibid., 71.28 Ibid.29 E. Iwayya, “Hokubei Dojin Hogoho o Ronjite Ainu Jinshu Hogoho ni oyobu (2),”Hokkaido Kyoiku Zasshi, Vol. 88 (May 1901): 1-3.Translated and discussed by Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, 90-91.30 Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, 95.31 Ibid., 92.32 Ibid.79 Valerie Black Ainu Indigeneity 80