History of Ainu People in Japan

Ainu (アイヌ) are an ethnic group of Japan in Hokkaido.Most of them still live in this same region.Ainu culture already appeared since 1200 CE.Most researchers believe that it originatedin a merger of the Okhotsu and Satsumon cultures.Relationships between the Wajin and the Ainu of Ezochi began to develope in the 13th century.The Ainu were a society of hunter gatherers and followed the region based on The Japanese Government introduced the variety of social,political and economic reforms in the hopes of modernising the country and resulted in the annexation of Hokkaido.Japanese government passed an act labeling the Ainu as former Aborigines, and the government think that they would assimilate.

This is resulted in the land the Ainu people lived on being taken by the Japanese government and under Japanese control.The Ainu were given automatic Japanese citizenship and they were been denied of being an indigenous group.The Ainu were becoming increasingly marginalised on their own land and they were being isolated to have their own land,language,religion and customs assimilated into those of the Japanese.The Ainu who had decide to move to Hokkaido then had to give their land to the Wajin.The Japanese government of the Meiji era encouraged them to take advantage of the island’s abundance of natural resources, and to create and maintain farms in the model of western industrial agriculture.The creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines were influenced by factories such as flour mills and beer breweries and mining practices.The Ainu were forced to learn Japanese, required to adopt Japanese names and ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing.Until 1997,the government had stated there were no ethnic minority groups but in 6th June 2008,the Ainu were formally recognized as an indigenous group.