Ainu textiles, OKI, and ‘The Roads to Sata’
late 19th century Ainu robe, elm bark fibre with cotton; Thomas Murray Collection
Some of the most interesting pieces in the mammoth Textiles of Japan: The Thomas Murray Collection are the garments used by farmers, fishermen, and other ordinary people, many of them from marginalised ethnic groups such as the Ainu from Hokkaido, at the northern end of the country. Old Ainu robes and other forms of clothing were generally made from plants such as nettles and hemp, as well as with elm bark and salmon skin; imported cotton was only occasionally used on luxury items, many of which were worn ceremonially and have consequently survived in very good condition. The textiles were coloured with dyes that included orpiment, cinnabar, cochineal, India ink, and especially indigo, which remains ubiquitous in Japanese fabrics to this day. These rural textiles, like many of their finer urban equivalents, display auspicious motifs and symbols that were intended to attract good fortune, wealth, and happiness, as well as to dispel evil; on Ainu clothing, for instance, animal-style designs, probably of Scythian and Siberian descent, were believed to have magical protective qualities.
The Ainu are thought to have made their home in Hokkaido around the 12th or 13th century; they followed quiet lives as hunters and gatherers, living close to nature, guided by the belief that everything natural, including humans, fauna, flora, and the elements, has a ‘ramat’, or divine spirit. There were ceremonies and rituals to honour each deity. Music and dance were also fundamental to their culture; they had songs for work, play, sharing stories, and settling arguments. In the 19th century, however, their peaceable way of life was interrupted and destroyed. Following the Meiji Restoration, which integrated Japan’s disparate political factions under the aegis of a national Emperor, the country became focussed on military power and expansionism, and it wasn’t long before Hokkaido was taken over and the Ainu people displaced from their ancestral lands. The Ainu were forced to become Japanese citizens, and the use of their language, as well as other societal practices, was forbidden. The law that deprived them of their cultural rights was only formally repealed in 1997, although parts of it had been eroded over time, and by then most people of Ainu descent had become fully assimilated into Japanese culture, many of them unaware of their heritage. Finally, in 2019, the government made the decision to acknowledge the Ainu as indigenous people and to accept their rightful place in Japanese society; today, while the number of people practicing ‘pure’ Ainu culture is very small, those fluent in the language even less, a few have held resolutely onto their knowledge, passing it down to the next generation, and there is growing interest in their history.
Born and raised in Hokkaido, Oki Kano, usually known as OKI, didn’t learn of his Ainu lineage until he was an adult; then, in the late 1980s, an outsider in both Ainu and Japanese cultures, he went to live in New York, where he became friendly with several Native Americans at a time when the movement for recognition of their rights was gathering momentum. This experience impelled him to connect more seriously with his own heritage, and after returning to Japan in 1993, he began to learn to play the ‘tonkori’, an Ainu stringed instrument that was then rarely in use. There were no teachers to instruct him, so he taught himself by listening to old cassette tapes. Later that year, Kano made his first recording with the ‘tonkori’, and since then he has become its most prominent exponent, often employing it in contemporary and cross-cultural settings. ‘Tonkori in the Moonlight’, his best-known record, is a retrospective compilation that includes traditional songs and other forms of indigenous music, as well as material that is influenced by dub and rock. As one reviewer remarked, it is music from the past that is brought into the present, preserving a tradition and taking it in new directions.
The Roads to Sata, the story of a journey undertaken in 1977 by Alan Booth, a young Englishman, when he walked from the north of Hokkaido to the southern tip of the country, documents a comparable process of transition between ‘traditional’ and contemporary forms of Japan. Booth had spent seven years living in Tokyo with his Japanese wife and had learnt fluent Japanese; his intention was to get a deeper understanding of the country by tramping from one end to the other, on small roads whenever possible, avoiding all forms of transport, interacting with the local people, and staying mostly in ‘ryokan’, Japanese inns that are more often used by locals than tourists. This engaging book, which is based on daily recordings, includes vivid descriptive passages, short historical interludes, amusing and absurd incidents, and occasional serious conversations that illuminate aspects of Japanese life. Often a single sentence or paragraph is enough to convey their essence and the moments of insight they inspire. Booth does not romanticise Japan or the Japanese, and occasionally their lives seem narrow, rough, and small-minded. When irritated by someone, which is not an infrequent occurrence, he caustically recounts their annoying behaviour and his impatient reaction to it, but he almost always does so with underlying affection.
For further exploration:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191008-the-fabrics-that-reveal-the-other-japan
The Ainu people: https://www.ff-ainu.or.jp/web/english/details/post-5.html
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/11/oki-tonkori-in-the-moonlight-review-ainu-people
OKI nusic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oL_-asygk
and Umeko Ando: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYqp2llzBis
