Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir by Kayano Shigeru Westview Press $150 IN Japan, many myths and half-truths have surrounded the native people of Hokkaido, the Ainu. As more mainland settlers moved north and began to occupy the island, the Ainu's fragile culture came increasingly under threat.
In this slim volume, one of the last great Ainu storytellers, Kayano Shigeru, separates the myths from the reality and tells the sad history of his people and the struggle during his own lifetime to keep their traditions alive.
He was born in 1923, in the village of Nibutani, next to the Saru River. The shamo, as the mainland Japanese were called, already controlled all of the island, and treated the Ainu with ill-concealed contempt. Their exploitation began in the 17th century when they were treated like virtual slaves and continued throughout the Edo period. Forced labour was only abolished at the end of the 19th century.
Despite growing up in abject poverty, the author enjoyed a happy childhood. The history of the Ainu was passed on through oral tradition, in long epic poems called yukar. Religion was a combination of animism and Buddhism and emphasised a respect for nature.
The Ainu only caught the salmon and deer they needed to eat. Each year when he had netted his first salmon, Shigeru's father would say a prayer: 'This salmon is not merely for us humans to eat, but for us to eat with the gods and with my children.' As he grew older, Shigeru began to resent his poverty, his father's alcoholism and the fact that in school he was different from the shamo. He left school at 12, refused to speak Ainu and began working in logging camps.
His feeling of alienation did not last long. He returned to Nibutani and saw a way of life disappearing. He wanted to keep at least the memories alive and whenever he had spare money would buy Ainu artefacts. He also taught himself woodwork and recorded yukar from those who could still remember them.