The Hairy Ainus of Japan II

Alas it has proven to be my most popular post ever.
At the time it was posted, the Hebrew children of the east coast were the only camp of bloggers that accepted me for who I am, almost like an honorary son of David, if not an ornery one. Just as I came into this world by the helping hand of a Jew, I became a blogger in the same fashion. If not for their kindness and encouragement, I may have never started this blog. Most have gone on to other things their blogs now like tombstones are but mute testimony to what once was a very vibrant social enterprise. It was a grand time, when I was free to write crazy things, and good humor was in abundant supply. I miss Bananaman and TAB, most of all.

The Despised Ainu People sound like Jews to me. I mean God gets around, who knows where he put the first Hebrews?

Here is a humorist's rebuttal to that hairy post of long ago.

Meanwhile, in Japan, many Jewish researchers were convinced that the long-haired Ainu people of Hokkaido were a lost tribe of Israelites, on the evidence that the Ainu are not Japanese, and therefore must be Jewish. A Jewish colony had existed in Kaifeng in China for many years, and China is, after all, *nearly* Japan. The Reverend felt it necessary to reply.



The Hairy Ainus of Japan



Oh dear. I feel this one is something of an old chestnut.



Many of my best friends are Hairy Ainus, and I can quite categorically state, after much research into this subject, that the Ainus are not descended from Jewish stock. As my Hairy Ainu friend, Levi 'Schlemiel' Matsumoto, said to me one day over a traditional Ainu meal of sushi and bagels, 'My life! These kvetches with their long beards and their skullcaps are saying to us, you are not being Japanese already! Is wahnsinnig, neh?'



The solution is simple; the Ainus are not Jews, but vice versa. All Jews originated in Japan, and have since migrated to the Middle East, where, for example, Yuri Geller is a striking example of the large hairy Ainus of Palestine. Some of them migrated further, to Britain, and became the Celts, where Mick Hucknall provides an excellent example of the ginger-haired Celtic Ainus. Some of them stayed in Kaifeng and became the Chinese Mandarins, who speak Mandarin Chinese, which is identical to Yiddish in all respects save grammar and phonetic structure. Some of these Celts, Mandarins and Jews emigrated to the New World, where they prospered and founded a race of giants; the Americans are still regarded, indeed, by many sources, as being the biggest Ainus in the world.


To cut a long story short, then, there are very few people in the world today who are not Jewish. Among those few peoples who are *not* descended from Lost Tribes of Israel are:


(1) Jews (those few Tribes of Israel with sound directional sense)


(2) Ainus


(3) Atlanteans


(4) Self-transforming Machine Elves


(5) The vast majority of Chinese persons who are descended from

dinosaurs

I hope that this will answer any queries and hope to end discrimination against Ainus everywhere.

Yours


Ignatius Churchward Von Berlitz M.A. (Dom. Sci.) Oxon. (Oklahoma ... FINN



In truth, the sad history of the Ainu is much like that of the Jews, and the American Indian.



The historical rights of the Ainu have not been given much attention until now, particularly by Japan, where most of them live. There are about 25,000 Ainu in Japan, and some on the Russian island of Sakhalin. Until the last century the Ainu lived in relative peace, living off the fish, bear, deer and other wildlife on Hokkaido and the smaller Kurile Islands to the north. But almost simultaneous expansion by Japan and Russia in the middle of the last century squeezed them out of their habitats.

A Japanese government also forced the Ainu to adopt Japanese names, and banned them from fishing and hunting, reducing them to poverty much like the dispossession of the Australian Aborigines. The Ainu are an embarrassment to Japan which likes to maintain that it is an ethnically homogenous society.

The Ainu have been constant victims of discrimination, and even today many Japanese families would strenuously object if their daughter or son wanted to marry an Ainu. Coming originally from Siberia, the Ainu have more body hair than other Japanese - leading a Japanese travel agency in 1981 to promote a tour of Hokkaido including 'a visit to a village of the famous hairy Ainu'.

But in the past 10 years, encouraged by the worldwide trend of indigenous people to reassert their own tradtions, the Ainu have grown in confidence. 'The Ainu are reviving their old culture,' said Jiro Suzuki, a professor of social anthropology at Tokyo's Sokka University.

The campaign by the Ainu to remind people of their historic ties to the Kuriles may not come to much, but Mr Akibe hopes it at least will raise the profile of the Ainu from 'famous hairy people' to human beings who happen to have a different culture to mainstream Japan.


The New York Times reports (via Japundit )that just this year, Japan has finally recognized the rights of the indigenous Ainu. This recognition was apparently timed to coincide with Japan's hosting of an international conference of indigenous peoples on the island of Hokkaido (formerly the home of the Ainu) but it comes a little late for this rapidly disappearing culture:

In a study by the Hokkaido prefectural government in 2006, just under 24,000 people identified themselves as Ainu. Most were of mixed blood and lacked the telltale fair skin or hirsute features that distinguished older Ainu from the Japanese. But it is not known how many live outside Hokkaido since Japan has never conducted a nationwide census of Ainu.




People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Take no one for granted and embrace all equally with joy!
Julie A. Manhan ...