著者

大塚 和義 Kazuyoshi Ohtsuka

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.12, no.2, pp.513-550, 1987-11-10

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This article aims to reconstitute the rite of passage of theAinu, based mainly on T. Matsuura's unpublished hand writtenmanuscript, which for the sake of this article, I have entitled"The Illustrated Manuscript of Manners and Customs in Ezo",and in part on other documents written before the mid-NineteenthCentury.Takeshiro's manuscript can be considered the most accurateand detailed material illustrating the entire life cycle of theAinu. It contains the following the descriptions: a legend ontheir progenitor, teaching of sexual intercourse, children's playand games (and learning the art of life through them), a boy'swearing a loincloth for the first time, a boy's wearing a formalsapanpe for the first time to enter adulthood, tattooing (a girl'sbeing tatooed to prepare for marriage), the hot water trial (judging a crime by putting one's hands into hot water), marriageceremony, civilities, exchange of tobacco, iyomante (a ritual tosend back the spirit of bears), treatment of disease and shamanism,funeral rites, burning the house of the departed, and specialfuneral rites for a person who died an unnatural death.Adding upsor (women's loincloth expressing their descent)to these descriptions, we can reconstitute the entirety of the riteof passage as elucidated by Takeshiro.No Japanese has paid enough attention to the concepts ondeath and rebirth of the Ainu, and Takeshiro, too, did not fullyunderstand them. But what is deserving of special mention isthat he clearly stated that there was a social order in Ainusociety, which was in no way inferior to that of Japanese society.The Ainu, in those days, were governed by the Japanese,from whom they suffered discrimination and exploitation.By trying to publish the manuscript, Takeshiro intended tocorrect such a false view of the Ainu, but, unfortunately, hisambition was not realized.