Ainu Gods and Religion

Ainu Photo taken in 1902, courtesy of Wikipedia

The Ainu ethnic group in Japan is something I know very little about, so I was intrigued by this small article on the Asahi Shinbum newspaper, about the coming of bear and killer whales to northern Hokkaido island. As the article states, both animals are seen as top of the food chain, and their spirits or kamui, are highly revered in the traditional animistic religion of the Ainu. Indeed, multiple sources online I found all point to important festivals such as the Bear Festival as important components of Ainu spirituality, so these animals really do play a significant role in traditional religious life.

Also, I was intrigued first by the word kamui itself, which to me bears some resemblance to the Shinto word kami, though it’s not clear if this is a coincidence, or evidence of a common spiritual root.¹ Based on a few sources online, it seems that the notion of kamui permeates many things in life, just as Shinto kami do, and kamui are objects of veneration similarly. When I previously read Rev. Motohisa’s book on Shinto titled “The Essence of Shinto: Japan’s Spiritual Heart“, he spent a lot of time drawing parallels between Shinto religion and Okinawan native beliefs, their beliefs in spirits or kami, interaction with humans, the power of water, Okinawan shamans, salt and so on, though he never mentioned Ainu religion.

Still, between the three separate ethnic groups, and their respective animist traditions, there do seem to be some parallels between them, which to me may speak to common ancestors in the distant past. Japan has seen waves of migration in prehistory by ethnically disparate groups, so perhaps they converged ideas, or exchanged them long ago. Further research by much smart people would be needed, so I am just making a guess. But if they are indeed related, it would be interesting to rollback time to see what the common ancestral religion of Japan was during the early days of the Jomon and everything that followed after.²

It also brought to mind the name of Mount Fuji (富士), which one theory states may not be Japanese in origin, but may belong to other ethnic groups, and reflect a traditional veneration of the mountain from an animist perspective. Again though, further research would be needed to verify or disprove this theory.

In any case, more information about the Ainu and religion can be found here and here, among other sources. As time goes on, I hope more comprehensive studies will bring to light this often neglected and overlooked group in Japanese ethnic history.

¹ Wikipedia points out that the Ainu language is probably a linguistic isolate, so even if the words were related, one language must have borrowed from the other.

² More from Wikipedia worth mentioning (emphasis added):

The origins of the Ainu have often been considered Jōmon-jin, natives to Japan from the Jōmon period. “The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came” is told in one of their Yukar Upopo (Ainu legends)…Full-blooded Ainu are lighter skinned than their Japanese neighbors and have more body hair. Many early investigators proposed a Caucasian ancestry, although recent DNA tests have not shown any major genetic similarity with modern caucasian Europeans.

The “Children of the Sun” comment likely refers to the “Yamato” people (i.e. the Japanese) and their veneration of the Shinto kami Amaterasu-ōmikami of the Sun.