Tribute

This statue of Shakushain is located in Mauta Park in Shinhidaka, Hokkaido, Japan. Shakushain was a leader of the Ainu people in the mid-to-late 17th century who led a revolt against the Yamato people/Japanese government. The revolt represented the final attempt of the Ainu people to regain political and trade independence of the Hokkaido region. The metal statue of Shakushain is placed at the location of where the Ainu Shibechari Fortress once stood, and stands roughly 20 feet above a stone and cement foundation that holds a plaque detailing Shakushain and his life. 

The memorial commemorates Shakushain, but does so in a way that dismisses the historic struggle of the Ainu. As aforementioned, the official colonization of Hokkaido and the Ainu peoples did not occur until the “second half of the nineteenth century”, but the Ainu had still endured years upon years of struggle (Bukh 35). Even before expansion by the modern Japanese government, the Ainu were subjected to the ethnically Japanese peoples of Hokkaido and various samurai clans. However, upon first glance of the Shakushain statue, one could easily misinterpret the significance of the battle. The triumphant pose of the statue leads a viewer to not only initially misinterpret the Shakushain and the Ainu as the victors of the battle, but dismisses the significance of the reality (defeat) as well. Though Shakushain led the Ainu people in a three year war, ultimately, he and the Ainu people were defeated. After nearly a century of on-and-off conflicts between the Ainu people and the dominant Japanese peoples, the last battle represented the final attempt of the Ainu to regain their independence. What followed were centuries of discrimination and policies of assimilation that aimed to strip the Ainu people of their identity. Though the memorial aims to memorialize Shakushain and the Ainu people, the pose of the statue not only detracts from the past and what Shakushain was fighting for, but the future implications of the defeat as well. 

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, though memorials, statues, and museums exist to memorialize the Ainu people and their history, they are done so in commemorative manners that elicit positive connotations. Olson’s second point in the preface of “Constitutive Visions” argues that “U.S.-based interpretations of [indigenous] contexts are in debt of [indigenous] interpretations” (xvii). In a similar fashion, but in Japanese terms, the memorials, many of which are built by official Japanese entities, memorialize the Ainu from a Japanese perspective, as opposed to an Ainu one. Not only do they tend to commemorate the traditions and cultures of the Ainu instead of serving as education of the historic harm endured by the Ainu people, they place the Ainu in a Japanese context as well. The very existence of a need to memorialize the Ainu represents a “symbol of Japanese aggression” (Bukh 46). Given decades of Ainu activism for rights and recognition as an indigenous people with little success, the commemorative memorials, statues, and museums erected by the official Japanese entities can be accurately described by one word: performative.