Ainu schools and education policy in nineteenth-century Hokkaido, Japan.

摘要

Three overlooked aspects of Japan's early modern colonial policy toward the indigenous Ainu of Hokkaido are language policy, the role of Ainu elites, and the activities of foreign missionaries. This study looks at those aspects in relation to schools established for the Ainu in the nineteenth century, and their effects on the development after 1900 of the segregated, public Ainu school system.;In 1604, the Matsumae family was granted a trade monopoly with the Ainu. To prevent other Japanese domains from trading with the Ainu, the Matsumae gradually prohibited Ainu from learning to speak or read Japanese. Japanese translators conducted official business, a role usually held by a bilingual indigenous elite. As Russian influence grew among the Kurile Ainu in the late 1700s, the Japanese central government adopted a policy of "benevolent care" (buiku) toward Ainu elites to overcome the language and literacy boundary, with little success.;After the Meiji Restoration (1868), legal distinctions between Ainu and Japanese were erased, and the use of Ainu language translators banned. Two schools were established for Ainu elites and "commoners" respectively in the 1870s, but were quickly abandoned despite growing Ainu demand for literacy skills.;In the early 1880s, Ainu elites Kannari Ki and his son Taro petitioned for government funds for a school, but were rejected. Despite official harassment, John Batchelor of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) built a small school with the Kannaris in 1887, where students used Ainu language textbooks. In the 1890s, the CMS built a dozen Ainu schools including the Hakodate Ainu Training School. Here, many of the first generation of bilingual Ainu elites were educated, including Kannari Matsu, Kannari Nami (mother of Chiri Yukie and Mashiho), and Yuki Shotaro.;The expansion of segregated, public Ainu schools under the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act convinced the missionaries to close their schools. This ended an era of experimentation in Ainu schooling, and heralded exclusive government control over the education and schooling of Ainu children, and the end of Ainu language use in most communities.