I was born in 1947 into a fisherman’s household facing the Pacific, and I lived in that house until I graduated from junior high school. While I was raised in an Ainu family, I rarely had an opportunity to be touched by Ainu customs and language; I only knew my grandmother on my father's side--an Ainu woman--through a small picture of her and an old kimono of hers that I had been given. Before the days of my grandparents, older Ainu people in my town apparently observed ethnic customs, but by the time my parents were born we were already in the last stage of Japan's assimilation policy--becoming completely Japanese and forgetting Ainu traits was thought to be the best path. Therefore, my parents were taught neither the Ainu language nor Ainu customs, and even though I had some Ainu blood, it took me a long time to consider myself Ainu.

It was only after I moved to the city for a job that I began wondering "What is Ainu?," and I became interested in learning all I could. I was surprised—and angry—about how little the people around me knew about the Ainu, and how deep their prejudices were.

I was twenty years old when I decided to do what I could to add to public understanding about the Ainu, and I went back home to work at Ainu tourist areas. I worked as a traditional dancer for two years at a tourist location, but my hope that this would educate the public about Ainu culture did not come true. However, I met Haru-fuchi [Haru Torao] (fuchi is the Ainu term for "respected female elder"), who was also working at the tourist area. The time I spent with her had a significant impact on my life, for I was able to learn, for the first time, how Ainu feel and how Ainu women think; I learned to reach the Ainu heart and was filled with contentment.

In the 1970s, inspired by the growing activism of various indigenous/minority populations around the world, the campaign for Ainu liberation grew. It was, at the same time, a movement to revitalize and protect Ainu culture, which was fading away. I joined the movement; at the same time, I got married and began raising my children. I met older Ainu people in different regions and had many opportunities to work with them for the cause, and I was lucky enough to inherit their wisdom.

One day Haru-fuchi passed away. The death of someone who had become so close to me, who taught me how to feel Ainu, was shocking. More than a mentor, I felt I had lost someone I could rely on. Although I was involved in conferences both at home and abroad with indigenous people of many countries, I was searching for the life I should live as an Ainu. My search led to my decision to move in with Suteno-fuchi, who was then in her eighties and alone; I had been introduced to her by Haru-fuchi.

In the spring of 1991, I looked forward to a relaxed life, for I was now relieved of my family and work obligations because my two children were grown and my husband supported my decision. As soon as I put down my luggage, however, fuchi handed me the inner bark of the linden tree (nipes) and began to teach me to twine bags and baskets, saying, "You should learn this now and you will find it useful in the future." We then started to weave a carrying strap (tar) and moved on to making bags (saranip) with the thread we made. Later we brought in cattails from a marsh and began weaving mats. Without realizing it, I was experiencing that part of an Ainu woman's existence that is described as "thinking while moving your hands." I was surprised that I neither questioned nor resisted the situation. The simple, gentle old woman was a great teacher.

I learned so much by doing women's seasonal work with her. She told me many stories during our breaks from manual or field work and at meals; she told me what she believed in and valued, what she inherited from ancestors, and what she was told by respected male elders, the ekashi. As she mixed her own experience with old tales, she always told me to fulfill my responsibilities and work as an Ainu woman in a fun manner. I never had the feeling that I was being taught, nor did fuchi mean to teach or lecture; rather, she shared with me her stories and her memories. Something, unexplainable through words or logic, took hold in my mind.

When I was young, I was neither conscious of being born Ainu nor did I understand the meaning of my existence as a person of different ethnicity. When I left my hometown, I saw myself as different from others for the first time, and I asked myself, "Who am I? It was the various fuchi who made me feel Ainu and helps me to understand Ainu women. The short period of time I shared with the fuchi, who are gone now, created a special and unique core in my heart, and it was Suteno-fuchi who implanted that core throughout my being. I feel that I am here to digest what fuchi told me, make it my own, and in turn convey her words to my children and grandchildren.

Going home after a year of living with Suteno-fuchi, together with my husband and friends I formed a new organization to revive and convey the traditional culture of the Ainu in contemporary everyday life. Since 1992, the number of programs to spread traditional Ainu skill and spirit through workshop and seasonal field activities has increased, and there has been a steady growth in the number of participants--one noteworthy tradition that w revived after 130 years was the Ainu way of hunting deer.

Among Suteno-fuchi's words, those that have made the strongest impressions on me were these: "Because I am teaching you right, you should be careful not to teach others wrong when it your turn"; "Try hard"; and "Work your best, and when working is done, the god of paradise will come to take you." She completed her work in 1993 and began her journey, as she herself said, to the world where her ancestors waited for her.

In 1995, I participated in the World Woman's Conference in Beijing. Despite the conference slogan, 'The Twenty-first Century: The Century of Human Rights," the disparities between the conditions of the indigenous/minority people of the world, including the Ainu, and the majority population sometimes seems a chasm yet to be bridged. While the struggle to rectify economic and social inequality continues, there is a long way to go and the tasks are enormous. Spiritualism alone will not open a door, but if that spirit is lost, there is no future.

At the Beijing conference, I presented these words of Sunazawa-fuchi (then sixty-seven years old), which she had spoken at the Ainu Culture Conference held in 1964.

Tane anakne shisam-utar kotankorine
Now the Japanese behave as if our towns were theirs

Fuchi iyaiikakka
They make the fuchi profoundly sad

Ekashi iyaiikakka
They make the ekashi profoundly sad

Chi-oira ine
We forget the good customs of the Ainu

Shisam puri patek chi-ki-wa okai
And we learn only the bad Japanese customs

Ekashi-ki-ya yukar hene
We try to follow the yukar that the ekashi performed;

Upopo hene
the songs and dances,

Fuchi utar yaisama bene
and the fuchi's impromptu poems;

Opitta-wa oira isam
We have forgotten all of them

Whenever I think about these words, I cry in my heart. Looking at so many people gathered on this occasion, I do not know how to express my pleasure, except with tears (nube turano), feeling the joy fuchi and ekashi would have felt.

My fellow Ainu people, the pillar of the Ainu family is woman. I would like to ask you to educate our grandchildren and children about the enormous power of the woman so that they will grow up with pride about being born Ainu. I would like to ask you to join me, hand in hand, and let's follow the manners of ekashi and fuchi so that we won't forget our ekashi's language and yukar and the pride of being Ainu. Please, my fellow Ainu people, I sincerely ask you to do me this favor.

Nube turano ku-haw tapanna. Iyairaikere.
[With tears, this is what I tell you. Thank you very much.]

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Eds. William W. Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution in association with the University of Washington Press, 1999; 379-381.