Ethnographic Reconstruction from the Material Culture of the Kuril Ainu

This essay examines the methodical and practical reconstruction ofcultural ethnography from material culture, taking up, as an example foranalysis, the Kuril Ainu and their material culture, which has no successorstoday.First, folk tools of the Kuril Ainu kept in Japan are compiled. Themain part of the compiled materials were collected by Ryuzo Torii duringhis ethnological investigation in the Chishima (Kuril) Islands in1899, and the rest include what government officials collected on theirway to Northern Chishima before the Kuril Ainu were forced to emigrateto Shikotan Island in 1884. Torii's ethnological investigation was donein order to prove his own theory explaining the origin of the Japanesepeople, and the materials (folk tools of the Kuril Ainu) collected on thisoccasion were influenced by this motive. He also attempted to restoreand record the unmodernized life-style of the Kuril Ainu, so only traditionaltools were the objects of his collection.Considering this, on analyzing the folk tools of the Kuril Ainu compiledfor this study, it is necessary to pay special attention to the natureof these materials and to amend this bias. The methods of analysis areas follows: calculation of the ratios of kinds of raw materials composingfolk tools collected by Torii, those collected by other people, and archaeologicalmaterials of the Kuril Ainu; comparison of the ratios todiscover the degree of bias inherent in the materials; compensation forthe bias in compilation of the tools of the Kuril Ainu.Secondly, the tools compiled as above are classified according totheir uses, characteristics of their form and manufacture are observed andrecorded, and a scale drawing of representative examples of each tool ismade (in the following studies dealing with individual materials, thisscale drawing will be indispensable in order to introduce the typologicalanalysis) .It becomes possible to propose a new outlook on facts for whichrecords are lacking or insufficient in the existing ethnography. For example,(1) it can be reconfirmed that the Kuril Ainu adapted themselves toa marine environment, fishing and hunting for a certain long period,migrating from island to island; (2) while today the Hokkaido Ainu andthe Kuril Ainu are recognized as having once belonged to the samecultural and ethnic group, they regarded each other as different: this is atendency which can be traced back rather a long time in their history; (3)it is proved that iron and cotton products imported from Japan andRussia greatly influenced the traditional raw materials of everyday toolsand the expression of sexual differences in their manufacture, and that atlast they brought about a revolution in the whole system of folk tools;(4) in existing ethnography and historical documents, relations betweenthe Kuril Ainu and the Sakhalin Ainu are rarely recorded, but this essaypoints out some direct contacts between them.Today, when many traditional cultures are being rapidly changedand destroyed, some leaving no successors, the importance of an attemptto reconstruct cultural ethnography from a study of material culture ineveryday tools will increase.