[yarddog]

I don’t really understand much of this but have often been struck by how certain groups seem to be really different from close neighbors or even majorities in their own land.

For instance, the Bushmen of Southern Africa, the Finns, of course the Ainu, and some American Indian tribes don’t look anything like others.

I used to work at a Summer retreat which had a large number of Japanese students come through every Summer. The Japanese seem to be two separate groups. The fairly tall, sort of wide faced ones and the small, delicate, and often very pretty or handsome ones.

The ancient Greeks were composed of two groups. The Dorics typified by the Spartans who were tall and often fair looking and the Ionians who were smaller, and appeared more like what we call Mediterranean complexion today. Despite the differences, they spoke the same language and had the same ancient history and religion.

[Textide]

Ping!

[Pearls Before Swine]

The Miqmaqs? I knew a father and son in Maine many years ago who were part Miqmaq. He was an alcoholic, but a mechanical genius. He built a pulp loader of scrap hydraulic, metal plate, and an old beat up truck. His son, on the other hand, was defective. Ainu? So far away? Who could have imagined?

[exDemMom]

A map would really help with this.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Fascinating website! Thanks very much for the link.

[dangus]

The tie between the hieroglyphics of the Miqmaqs and the Egyptians is surprising, but easy to figure: Christians. The Miqmaqs are the first-nations tribe among whom the Vikings settled, interbred and assimilated. The Vikings who settled North America were NOT pagan barbarians as most people presume; Lief Ericson was a Catholic bishop.

As for the Ainu, I can’t address their cultural similarities, but you should know that they *are* Caucasians... or at least had very caucasian features, prior to massive intermarriage.

[skinkinthegrass]

*

[Rebelbase]

Jeans ping.

[blam]

The Samurai And The Ainu

Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu.

Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with:

"Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royality and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."

The Ainu and their origin have always been rather mysterious, with some people claiming that the Ainu are really Caucasian or proto-Caucasian - in other words, "white." At present, Brace's study denies this interpretation.

(Some say the ancient practice of 'white-face' was an imitation of the Ainu)

[blam]

The Relationship Between The Basque And Ainu

[blam]

Origins Of The Ainu