Here we have a particularly telling piece of Japanese history, via the Japan Times article Ainu Pride towers amid ongoing woes. (The Ainu refers to Japan's largely unrecognized aboriginal population; the remaining natives live mainly in the north, and are characterized by their thick hair and white skin.)
In 1669, the Ainu leader Shakushain, who rose up and united the Ainu in rebellion against Japanese invaders, was called on to observe a truce, and invited to a banquet in his honor. The Matsumae clan, who had established a foothold on the island then called Ezo, now Hokkaido, by building a castle in 1601, had been cheating and robbing the Ainu in their lucrative trade for dried kelp and salmon, and the skins of deer, bear and sea otter. This and other gross injustices spurred the otherwise peaceful Ainu, the original inhabitants of Hokkaido, to pick up their swords, spears and hunting bows to fight the powerful Japanese feudal clan.
Even though members of the Matsumae clan by this time carried firearms, the Ainu knew their country and were fighting a guerrilla war that was proving very costly to the Japanese. Consequently, orders came from the Shogun to quickly subdue this rebellion and take over the resource-rich northern island. Not being able to defeat Shakushain, who was the first Ainu leader to gather the scattered tribes together, the Matsumae leaders called for a truce and laid on a great banquet — then they murdered him with poison.
In a hopelessly cynical sort of way, this banquet almost reminds me of the first American Thanksgiving, which took place some 40 years earlier on the other side of the globe.
It all rings eerily familiar to learn that in the aftermath of the "feast," the Ainu was driven further and further off of their land by the Japanese expansion of the 17th century, during which time the natives were nearly wiped out by foreign diseases and a series of turf wars.
Yet unlike the Americans, who go on to celebrate their 'friendship' with the 'Indians' despite the bloody battles and eventual genocide that soon followed the First Thanksgiving, some Japanese will do everything in their power to negate the notion that a thriving aboriginal population ever existed on their territories at all.
In a way, this sums up the essential difference between the two cultures.
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