Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Samurai And The Ainu (Read This Before Seeing The Movie "The Last Samurai")
Science Frontiers ^ | 1989 | Dr C Loring Brace

Posted on 01/17/2004 2:50:55 PM PST by 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.


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: ainu; archaeology; asia; asian; bronson; brynner; buchholz; cloringbrace; coburn; dexter; genealogy; genes; genetic; genetics; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; japan; japanese; last; mcqueen; multiregionalism; neandertal; nobility; orient; oriental; samurai; vaughn
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-140 next last
Kennewick Man is believed to be 'primarly' Ainu.
1 posted on 01/17/2004 2:50:56 PM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SauronOfMordor; farmfriend; RightWhale
Article compliments of FReeper 'SauronOfMordor.'

The person playing the "Last Samurai" is a tall guy that looks less 'Asian' than one would expect. This article may explain why.

2 posted on 01/17/2004 2:54:42 PM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Leroy S. Mort; Sam Cree; VOA
My Comments from a previous thread:

"The Samurai were descended from the Ainu and were tall and somewhat Caucasian looking, tall, light-skinned and hairy (even today the Ainu are the hairest people). The Samurai were once the ruling class in Japan and some anthropologists suspect the Japanese practice of 'white-face' originates from that period as a way of emulating the 'royals'."

3 posted on 01/17/2004 2:59:27 PM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: blam
More of my comments:

"Kennewick Man's DNA, although ruled 'inconclusive', showed a high relationship to the Ainu.

"Further, the Jomon culture (which precedes the Ainu in Japan) is identified with a specific type of pottery labeled 'Cord Pottery'. This 'Cord Pottery' has been found in Olmec (1400BC-300BC) ruins in Mexico. The oldest Jomon skeleton ever found in Japan is 13,000 years old. Some believe the migrations that put the Ainu in Japan began 7,600 years ago when the Black Sea (Noah's Flood?) was flooded with salt water. Small world, huh? "

4 posted on 01/17/2004 3:13:48 PM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: blam
Study Says Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago (Ainu/Jomon)
5 posted on 01/17/2004 3:32:31 PM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: blam; *Gods, Graves, Glyphs; A.J.Armitage; abner; Alas Babylon!; ameribbean expat; Andyman; ...
Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.

6 posted on 01/17/2004 9:52:43 PM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."

Well, we are one big happy family. /sarcasm

7 posted on 01/17/2004 10:24:16 PM PST by Wilhelm Tell (Lurking since 1997!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
SPOTREP - ANTHROPOLOGY
8 posted on 01/17/2004 10:34:07 PM PST by LiteKeeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
I have made up my mind to take one of the mitochondrial DNA tests just for fun, but it seems that each lab keeps its own database, and so far I haven't seen anyplace that pools the data.

Have you had that done yet? Being male, you can do the Y-chromasome one, too.

Maybe I should be deferential to the parents and let them take the tests, since the data for my mom should be the same as for me.
9 posted on 01/17/2004 10:44:53 PM PST by CobaltBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."

The level of racism in Japan never ceases to amaze me.

10 posted on 01/18/2004 2:35:18 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (06/07/04 - 1000 days since 09/11/01)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Straight Vermonter
The level of racism in Japan never ceases to amaze me.


The Japanese go farther and designate occupations for the lesser races.  No pure blood can be an undertaker, plumber, garbage collector, etc.-- those jobs are for the servant races.

11 posted on 01/18/2004 5:56:49 AM PST by expat_panama
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: expat_panama
The Japanese go farther and designate occupations for the lesser races. No pure blood can be an undertaker, plumber, garbage collector, etc.-- those jobs are for the servant races.

It seems to work. I mean, nobody's ever yet managed to stage any sort of a successful demographic coupe against the Japanese in their own land and they've apparently had 13,000 years to try it. It'd be nice if we could say the same thing...

12 posted on 01/18/2004 6:34:28 AM PST by greenwolf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: CobaltBlue
"Have you had that done yet?"

No, I haven't. I did propose to my son at Christmas that there is the making of a business here. I expect everyone has relatives they don't want to know about though.

13 posted on 01/18/2004 7:17:47 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: greenwolf
"a successful demographic coupe against the Japanese"

IM very HO their culture is neither that old or that strong, but it is that monolithic.  A Japanese reporter was quoted in the Economist about how he was amazed when he was asked for directions at an airport in New York.  He said that no Japanese would ever ask a Caucasian directions at a Japanese airport.

Related topic -re post no. 7.

14 posted on 01/18/2004 7:20:02 AM PST by expat_panama
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: greenwolf

A picture of an Ainu taken in the 19th century.

15 posted on 01/18/2004 7:22:25 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: blam

Modern Ainu seem like a cross between oriental and caucasian. Archeological evidence indicates that they were a fishing/hunting culture. It would not be too outlandish to think that a fishing culture would expand along the coastline of the Middle East, past south Asia, eventually hitting the Japanese Islands, and continuing on up the coast of asia and across to the west coast of North America

16 posted on 01/18/2004 7:36:28 AM PST by SauronOfMordor (Look as if you're playing by the other guy's rules, while quietly playing by your own)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: greenwolf
It'd be nice if we could say the same thing...

** I take it you aren't for the Bush plan.
17 posted on 01/18/2004 7:55:37 AM PST by cyborg (feed marmite to the prisoners and they'll never go there again)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: greenwolf
" I mean, nobody's ever yet managed to stage any sort of a successful demographic coupe against the Japanese in their own land and they've apparently had 13,000 years to try it. It'd be nice if we could say the same thing..."

Depends on who you call 'the Japanese.' Seems (to me) like the Asians that now call themselves the Japanese have done a pretty good job of 'displacing' the original (Ainu/Jomon) Japanese people, huh?

I knew a female engineer from Okinawa who said that the Japanese discriminated against them terribly. She 'looked' Asian to me except that she had real curly hair.

18 posted on 01/18/2004 8:12:17 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SauronOfMordor
The Hakka of China are an interesting group too.

I believe the Hakka are mixed blood descendents of these folks, The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummy.
There are records of their migration all the way across China and the Hakka with curly hair or high nose-bridge were killed during this/these migrations. They are related to the 'red-headed' folks via than Han, Xiongnu, Miao, Yuezhi and ultimately the Schythians, all Indo-Asian steppe people.

19 posted on 01/18/2004 8:27:31 AM PST by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: blam
CELTS!
20 posted on 01/18/2004 8:37:13 AM PST by Henchman (I Hench, therefore I am!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-140 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson