All my life I have wondered and wandered. I did not know who I was. I only knew I was different. Then a great bear appeared and revealed the truth. I am Ainu. I am proud of my hair. Our people are being assimilated by the Japanese. It is a form of genocide.

This is a petition for your help. Save the Ainu!

AINU

AINU, aboriginal people of Asia, chiefly occupying parts of the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian-occupied islands of the Kurils and Sakhalin. The Ainu are thought to be descended from the ancient circumpolar people, who were gradually driven north on the Japanese archipelago by invaders now known as the Japanese. Many anthropologists believe that the ancestors of the Ainu belonged to the Caucasoid race; full-blooded Ainu are rare, primarily because so many have intermarried with Japanese. Typical members of this group possess various Caucasoid characteristics, including light complexions, heavy beards, and thick, wavy hair. They have short, sturdy bodies. A few isolated communities of upland Ainu are identical in some respects to those of prehistoric times. The Ainu language appears to be unrelated to any other. The reforms introduced into Japan after World War II caused rapid social and economic assimilation of most Ainu groups by the Japanese.

The Ainu social organization is based on patrilineal kin groups, each headed by a chief. Local groups usually consist of five to ten households. Spawning grounds of dog salmon are owned collectively; cooperative activities within local groups include housebuilding and a ceremony involving the dog salmon. Ainu pit houses, ground-stone celts, ground-bone projectile points, and grit-tempered, cord-marked pottery have been uncovered by archaeologists.

Ainu men hunt and fish; the women gather food and do some fishing. Ainu agriculture, essentially primitive until recently, was engaged in mainly by women, who practiced a method of crop rotation. The people have a basic diet of cherry salmon, dog salmon, deer, bear, and at least nine different plants. Tattooing of the face and arms is a common practice among the women, and both men and women frequently wear earrings. Adult males never shave. The traditional religion, based on faith in a supreme deity, is a form of nature worship that revolves around a belief in spirits associated with natural phenomena and forces. A bear cult is especially prominent; an annual religious festival is climaxed by the sacrifice of a bear approximately three years old, which has been reared from cubhood.

Some contemporary anthropologists contend that a pure Ainu culture no longer exists, having been absorbed by the Japanese culture.

-- (grukl@bear.cave), January 01, 2001

Answers

"Adult males never shave"

So adult females do shave?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), January 01, 2001.

A petition for my help huh? Just exactly what the f**k am I supposed to do to "help save" these people? Invade Japan?

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), January 01, 2001.

Deedah, you heartless Libertarian crank. You send money, of course.

-- (grukl@bear.cave), January 01, 2001.

“Tattooing of the face and arms is a common practice among the women, and both men and women frequently wear earrings. Adult males never shave.”

Sounds like South Central to me.

-- Barry (bchbear863@cs.com), January 01, 2001.

do they offer bumper stickers? SAVE THE AINU would be more interesting than SAVE THE WARTS.

-- (anotherbrick@the.wall), January 01, 2001.

An advocacy group is forming among the Ainu exile community in Sitka. There will be several bumper stickers available from SHA NA NA. (Save hairy Ainu, Noble Ainu Noble Ainu).

Thank you for supporting this forgotten people.

-- (grukl@bear.cave), January 01, 2001.

What forgotten people?

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), January 01, 2001.

Do hairy Ainu have hairy ani?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), January 01, 2001.

Yo Grunkl ... you guys take major credit cards?

-- (anotherbrick@the.wall), January 01, 2001.

anotherbrick,

No, send a dumptruck of wampum

-- (grunkl@bear.cave), January 01, 2001.

I'm a little short on wampom right now. How about if I send you sumer? She makes great Bloody Marys and is good at practical jokes.

-- (anotherbrick@the.wall), January 01, 2001.

Sumer is very nice but she is only worth a half truck of wampum.

-- (grukl@Clan_of-_the.CaveBear), January 02, 2001.

They can all come over to my house. We'll sit in circles and tell tales of ancient hunting grounds, great tribal wars, lost pantheons. Then we'll get drunk and play Mario-Cart.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), January 02, 2001.