Japanese : https://i-rich.org/?p=1996
Sawada Kenichi
Senior Researcher of International Research Institute
Introduction
Some people say, “The Ainu are a northern people,” “The Aine are not the descendants of the Jomon people,” or “The Ainu are not a Japanese people.” However, these are misunderstood conceptions which may shake the foundation of Japan, and any assertion based on such false recognitions can be extremely dangerous. I will now correct the false recognitions and explain how fallacies put Japan into a crisis.
Mr. Matoba Mitsuaki of Hokkaido is regarded as the leader of the conservative view regarding Hokkaido, and I pay due respect to him for his work. However, when it comes to the issue of Ainu, his view is utterly misleading, and I cannot help condemning him for the dangerous direction to which he may be leading Japan. Let me explain why so.
The fault of Mr. Matoba’s assertion
Once I received a text message from a friend asking if I had seen YouTube video titled “Matoba Class #60: History tells of the Ainu’s genetic element of the Jomon people.”[i] I did not see the video and so immediately checked it. The part of the video about 37 minutes into it, which my friend described as totally astounding, was the most extraordinary explanation that “Ainu are not the descendants of Jomon people, using a chart (Chart 1) of the pedigree which shows Ainu in Hokkaido, Okinawans and the mainlanders derive from the same branch.
If you read this chart correctly, the Ainu, Okinawans and mainlanders derive from the same genetic branch and are all descendants of the Jomon people. Nevertheless, in the video, a completely opposite explanation is calmly being made, which made me totally astounded.
Then, other people contacted me to point out the video is wrong. This video mostly explains the segregated people. Why is it about the segregated people? That is because Mr. Matoba explains that during the Edo period, a large number of segregated people moved from Honshu in mainland to Hokkaido and mixed with Ainu people. Even if it is true that there were certain cases of mixing with the segregated, it is hardly thinkable that all of them were mixed. Even so, this conclusion is clearly wrong.
Chart 1 The Formation Model of people of the Japanese archipelago from the book Japanese People Seen from DNA, written by Saito Naruya, Chikuma Shinsho, 2015.
According to Mr. Matoba’s explanation, “the Ainu people are northern tribe having nothing to do with the Jomon people.” That is, the original Ainu did not have Jomon people’s genes, but the segregated people came and mixed with Ainu, through which Jomon people’s genes entered Ainu people. However, the present-day mainlanders possess about 10% of the genes deriving from the Jomon people. Against this percentage, today’s Ainu people possess about 70% of genes deriving from the Jomon people.[ii] [iii] Should all Ainu people have genetically become segregated people, the ratio of their genes could never reach 70%. It would have been 10% at most.
Using the segregated people up front in a manner like this is extremely inappropriate and poses a serious human rights issue. An academic mistake can be corrected, but a statement made concerning human rights cannot be corrected academically.
Mr. Matoba’s view has many other faults. Let me mention just one more. Thirty-six minutes into the video in question, immediately after Mr. Saito Naruya said, “Ainu are the direct descendants of Jomon people,” Mr. Saito said, “It’s not true,” and this scene is repeatedly quoted. By doing so, it is explained as if Mr. Saito said, “Ainu are not Jomon people’s descendants.”
In fact, I had seen Mr. Saito’s video “Ethnical relationship in East Asia seen from genetic analysis”[iv] before and felt great sense of disparity at the above-mentioned scene, because Mr. Saito squarely explains that Ainu are descendants of the Jomon people in his books. So, I directly called Mr. Saito on the phone to confirm it. Mr. Saito said what Mr. Saito meant in the video was “they were not 100% Jomon people.” I would like Mr. Matoba to read Mr. Saito Naruya’s books once again.
To sum up, what the chart means in Mr. Matoba’s video in question is explained in the context which is opposite to the author’s intention, and this is an academic problem. At the same time, he lightly uses the segregated people in his explanation, which can be said to include a serious human rights issue. It can be concluded that the assertion in the video “Matoba school series #60: History tells the Ainu people’s genetic element of the Jomon people” is inadequate and misleads public opinion.
The danger in Mr. Matoba’s assertion with respect to the relationship with Russia
Academic errors will occur. Those errors are to be corrected through academic controversies over time. However, when it comes to the issue related to the Ainu, we cannot be so slow and time-consuming. I will explain the reason for quick action now.
Mr. Matoba says that Ainu are a northern tribe who used to live along the Amur River. Then, the Ainu people would become Russian, of which Russian President Putin promptly took advantage. The Hokkaido Shimbun dated December 19, 2018, reported that Russian President Putin showed his intention to acknowledge Ainu people as indigenous Russians. Along this line, J-cast News of April 7, 2022, reported: Russian political science scholar Sergei Chernyakhovsky asserts, “Tokyo (the Japanese Government) inappropriately owns Hokkaido, which was politically Russian territory. As one of the grounds for the assertion it was mentioned that the Ainu people living in Hokkaido are one of Russian peoples. On the next day, April 8, 2022, Vice-Chairman Sergei Mironof of the Russian Lower House reportedly said, “According to experts, the entire hegemony of Hokkaido rests on Russia,” according to zakzak, the official website of Evening Fuji, published by the Sankei Shimbun Company.
Surprisingly, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has followed this trend. It instructed that since Hokkaido was inhabited by more populations of other peoples than Japanese up to the Edo period, Hokkaido before the Meiji era did not belong to Japan. In the school textbook accreditation of geology, it was instructed that Hokkaido be shown in white while other parts south of Hokkaido be colored. Thus, logically, Hokkaido is no longer called Japan’s inherent territory.
Under such circumstances, Japan is in the extremely disadvantageous position when it comes to the northern territorial issue. Etorofu and Kunashiri will be no longer Japanese people’s inherent islands. People lived there were Ainu and should Ainu be regarded as Russian people, Japan’s claim to the region will be completely toppled. Let alone, Russia is already claiming its territorial right to Hokkaido, as mentioned above
Should Japan leave these situations as they are, fearfully Japan may become a second Ukraine. In fact, The Newsweek Japan of November 25, 2022, reported, “Russia had been prepared for attack against Japan, not against Ukraine.” This was revealed by email text of an insider of FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, formerly KGB). We don’t know how trustworthy this peace of information was, but whether true or not, we must not overlook it nor underestimate Russia.
Ainu seen from genome
According to the study jointly announced in August 2020 by The University of Tokyo, The University of Tokyo Graduate School and Kanazawa University, “Ancient Jomon genome sequence analysis sheds light on migration patterns of early East Asian populations[v], “Ainu are the oldest lineage as inhabitants of Japanese Archipelago and at the same time, highly probably one of the direct descendants of original East Eurasian groups and the lineage of Jomon people is “so old as to compose the “root” of East Eurasians (East Asians, Northeast Asians) and one of the direct descendants of the original East Eurasian populations.”
In gist, Ainu are descendants of Jomon people and therefore genuine Japanese people and more detailedly the oldest inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago. Ever since recorded history, Hokkaido and Chishima Islands have been inhabited by none but the Japanese people. There is no room for ethnic issues whatsoever. On the contrary, the Japanese people advanced to East Eurasian Continent. In archaeology, in Siberia of the Eurasian Continent, no other ruins are older than those in Japan. Jomon potteries unearthed along the middle and lower Amur are much newer than those found in Japan. The ancient people most certainly came to settle in Siberia, advancing from Japan. If this was the case, Siberia surely belongs to Japan after Putin’s argument.
Certainly, “Ebisu people” and “Emishi people” in the north conflicted with the central government and in order to conquer them, the Barbarian Quelling Generalissimo was appointed and became leader of the Japanese government as “Bakuhu”. The “Bakufu” government and “Ebisu” were key players in Japan’s history, like two sides of the same coin. There is no room at all for Russia to intervene in such history. We must not be trapped into a plot aiming to divide the Japanese people and the conservative parties must duly cope with Russia, sharing this historical view. For that cause, no one should make the wrong assertion related to the Ainu people.
[i] Matoba Mitsuaski, YouTube “Matoba Intensive Course No. 8 Jomon people’s DNA mixed with the modern Ainu people” (February, 2024) Since this study of mine aims to directly criticize this video of Mr. Matoba, I would like to post this video as below. This video is in Japanese and those who read this “study” in English translation may not fully understand it. I apologize for the inconvenience in advance.
Scholars and researchers cannot speak about the Jomon people’s DNA mixed with Ainu [Matoba...] Accessed by the author as latest as April 27, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?V=B7cc9OtqPo4
[ii] The Nihon Keizai Shimbun of May 13, 2019 “The origin of the Jomon people probably dates back to 20,000 ~40,000 ago, the National Museum of Nature and Science analyses genomes.
[iii] Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama, Timothy A. Jinam, Yosuke Kawai, Takehiro Sato, Kazuyoshi Hosomichi, Atsuhi Tajima, Noboru Adachi, Hirofumi Matsumura, Kirill Kryukov, Naruya Saito, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Late Jomon male and female genome sequences from the Funadomari site in Hokkaido, Japan, Anthropological Science, Essay ID 190415, publication date 2019/05/29
[iv] Saito Naruya’s YouTube video “The ethnical relationship seen from generic analysis,” (June 2021). This video is also in Japanese. Those who read my paper in English may not fully understand it. The part of this video (twenty minutes into it) is cut out and used in Mr. Matoba’s video of Note 1. But this explanation is introduced in the opposite context to what Mr. Saito means. By the way, Mr. Saito’s books of the same effect are The DNA tells the root of the Japanese people (Bessatsu Takarajima, 2016) and The Origin of the Japanese people traced through nuclear DNA analysis (Kawade shobo, 2017). The author’s latest access to the video: April 27, 2024. https://youtu.be/nb5eunteGa0
[v] Takashi Gakuhari, Shigeki Nokagome, Simon Rasmussen, Morten E. Allentoft, Takehiro Sato, Thorfinn Kornelliussen, Blanaid Ni Chuinneagain, Hiromi Matsumae, Kae Koganebuchi, Ryan Schmidt, Souichiro Mizushima, Osamu Kondo, Nobuo Shigehara, Minoru Yoneda, Ryosuke Kimura, Hajime Ishida, Tadayuki Masuyama, Yasuhiro Yamada, Atsushi Tajima, Hiroki Shibata, Atsushi Toyoda, Toshiyuki Tsurumoto, Tetsuaki Wakebe, Hiromi Shitara, Tsunehiro Hanihara, Eske Willerslev, Martin Sikora, Hiroki Oota, Ancient Jomon genome sequence analysis sheds light on migration patterns of early East Asian populations, Communications Biology 2020
Chart:
Okhotsk Culture people Hokkaido (Ainu people) Okinawans Japan Archipelago mainlanders Continental Chinese Korean Peninsula people
10,000 years ago 3,000 years ago 1,000 years ago present