M étishistory may help indigenous people in Japan

[Jennifer Teeter]

Métis history may help indigenous people in Japan By Konnie LeMay, Today
correspondent

Story Published: Oct 14, 2009

Story Updated: Oct 9, 2009

REGINA, Saskatchewan – Dr. Shunwa Honda of the Open University of
Japan<http://www.u-air.ac.jp/eng/index.html>is on a mission to help
win government legal recognition of indigenous
status for the Ainu people.

To that end, he is heading a 10-member team on a four-year research project
funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education to study relationships with
indigenous and aboriginal people around the world, but primarily in Canada.

He recently stayed at the First Nations University of
Canada<http://www.firstnationsuniversity.ca/>,
working through the Centre for International Academic
Exchange<http://www.tpu.ru/eng/ciap.htm>to meet leaders of the Métis
Nation and to research the political, social
and cultural development of the Métis people in Saskatchewan.

“I wanted to learn through the Métis experience of how they became
acknowledged by the government in 1982 as an aboriginal people.”

Some situations of Métis and the Ainu (pronounced I-new) are similar.

The Ainu (the word means “human” in the Ainu language) are a people
indigenous primarily to Hokkaido, the northern most of Japan’s four main
islands, and the Kuril islands. They are culturally, physically and
linguistically different from the Japanese people of the southern islands.
As the Japanese people moved north taking control among the islands, the
Ainu fought back, but were unsuccessful.

Eventually, many Ainu people intermarried with the Japanese and even today,
many don’t acknowledge their Ainu heritage, blending into the dominant
culture to avoid discrimination.


For the rest of the article:

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/global/canada/63874022.html
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