John Batchelor; The father of the Ainu

John Batchelor

By Tomoki Ogawa

Did you know that Japan has another race and language? It’s Ainu. Ainu is an indigenous people in Japan. They originally lived in Ezo (Hokkaido) and had their own traditional cultures and histories. Due to the Meiji Restoration which included modernization and democratization, Japanese people who lived on mainland tried to assimilate the Ainu people to the standard of Japan. At that time, following national trends was usual but Ainu people’s life style was too different from the ordinary Japanese way of life. The Japanese nation’s forcible cultural assimilation made the Ainu confused since the nation prohibited Ainu’s traditional cultures, like earrings for man and tattooing of women. Furthermore, historical festivals, salmon fishing and deer hunting were necessary to survive. Against these policies, missionaries and doctors of foreign countries started the movement to uphold the Ainu’s human rights. John Batchelor was one of them.

John Batchelor was born in England in 1854 and he had 11 brothers. He was born in a wool merchant’s shop and his father was the mayor of Hartsfield city three times. The family was reverent Christian and Batchelor was also baptized. At 14 years old, he left junior high school and tried to be lawyer but he failed to pass the examination so he went on to a night school and engaged in farming. He also graduated from Islington seminary and School of Theology of Cambridge. After that, he entered St. Paul College in Hong Kong when he was 22 years old. However, after three months, he had to move to Japan because he suffered from local disease, malaria. He needed to go to a region which had similar conditions of England, and Japan has the Anglican Church in Hakodate of Hokkaido so he decided to go there.

After he arrived in Hakodate, he started to study Japanese and the Ainu language. One day, he met an Ainu boy and got to know about the cruel situations of the Ainu. Japanese people in the main land tried to cultivate Hokkaido by force, so the Ainu people were forced to be assimilated. In 1878, he visited Sapporo and met Kurotaka Kiyoda who was the leader of development of Hokkaido. The next year, he visited Hiratori and started missionary work. Penriuku, the head of the region, and the villagers were impressed by Batchelor’s enthusiasm. The head decided that Batchelor should stay at his house and teach Ainu language for three months. In 1881, he went back to England and studied divinity again for six weeks at Cambridge University. In 1884 when he was 30 years old, he married Luisa who was a younger sister of the head of Hakodate Anglican Church in the England Embassy in Tokyo. After the marriage, they decided to move to Horobetsu, southern part of Hokkaido and in 1888, he established a school for Ainu there, called Airui-gakkou. In 1892, he moved to Sapporo, the center of Hokkaido. He established a hospital and dormitories for students of the Ainu in Sapporo. Thanks to his donations, lots of Ainu people got a chance to go to school and contribute to Japanese society as teachers, veterinarians and radio operators. In 1932, he won the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

He studied the language and race of the Ainu and made an Ainu-Japanese-English dictionary (Kawaei-Santai-zisho) for the first time. Furthermore, he translated the Bible and hymns to Ainu. In 1940, he had to go back to England due to the outbreak of the world war. He hoped to come to Japan again after the end of the war, however he passed away due to cerebral hemorrhage in 1944 in England. Batchelor had contributed to protecting Ainu’s human rights so he is called “The father of Ainu” even now.

●Discussion questions

Why did he try to propagate Christianity among the Ainu?

Most members think that he wanted to save the Ainu by telling the way of Christianity. Batchelor strongly believed that people who believed in Christianity would be saved so he tried to save the Ainu whose culture was being penetrated by main land people. One member thought he want to invade Hokkaido by brainwashing the Ainu.

●Feelings about the person

Batchelor had a strong sense of justice to relieve the Ainu people. Japanese people who lived next to them could not think about Ainu’s feelings. However Batchelor, who came from a far away country, devoted his whole life to the Ainu. Most Japanese people, including me, did not know about him. I think Japanese education should add more power to history classes of compulsory education because Japanese people tend to judge other countries by only media reports or some superficial impressions, so knowing their heroes and admire them countries. I want a lot of Japanese people to know about his great achievements and cultivate a better understanding of foreign people.

【Reference list】

Morimoto, M. (2011). HOMAS (Japanese ver.) Retrieved January 14, 2015 from Hokkaido/ Massachusetts Society web site: http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~homas/

Yamamoto, H. (2011). Hokkaido history walker. Retrieved January 14, 2015 from Hokkaido.net web site: http://rekitan.namara-hokkaido.net/column/?id=412

John Batchelor

John Batchelor

By Mei Suzuki

John Batchelor was called a father of Ainu. He was born on March 20, 1854 in England. His parents were Christian so he became Christian as well. He learned how to spread Christianity to Oriental countries in his university so he moved to Hong Kong in 1877 as a missionary. However he couldn't get used to Hong Kong, so he moved to Hakodate in Hokkaido when he was 24 years old. In Hokkaido, he heard that Ainu were discriminated against by wajin (old Japanese), so he wanted to change their situation.

Ainu were often separated into two regions, which were Karahuto and Chishima, because of relationship between Japan and Russia at that time. Also they had to be the same as wajin because Meiji government forced them to do that. So they had to work like wajin but they didn’t know how to work and how to write because their main job was hunting animals. Therefore Ainu spent hard life and were discriminated against by wajin.

Batchelor was sad when he heard about Ainu so he did a lot of things for Ainu. He built a school, Airin Gakkou, for Ainu. They could learn alphabets there. Then, he made a dictionary, Kawaeisantai, of Ainu language. He translated Ainu language to English so people around the world could know Ainu language. In addition, he built a hospital for Ainu so they could go there for free. Then he made an Ainu girls school. This school is for Ainu girls who lost parents or didn't have houses. After that, he made an Ainu Kyouka-Dan to let Ainu children study higher level than junior high school. At last, he built a Batchelor school in Sapporo.

He helped Ainu children to be able to go to school and to spend a valuable life by donating. A lot of Ainu children could go to school thanks to him. When he was 70 years old, he retired as a missionary and went back to England. He died when he was 90 years old in England. After his death, Ainu held a lot of ceremonies for him. Because of such a great achievements for Ainu, he was called a father of Ainu.

During the discussion, I asked my classmates “What did you know about Ainu?” and I realized Japanese people don’t know much about Ainu even though Ainu are related to Japanese people the most. I thought they should know about Ainu because Ainu and we are friends. Also they said they could understand what Ainu is, and how terrible the discrimination that they faced, through my presentation, so I was happy.

Through this presentation, I could learn much about Ainu that I didn't know much and what an important person Batchelor is for Ainu. He is not Japanese but he studied a lot about Ainu and did a lot of great achievements for them. I really respect him. In addition, I could learn many wonderful people and what they did through my classmates’ presentations. I became more interested in history thanks to this project.

John Batchelor

By Student A

John Batchelor and Ainu people

Introduction

From the end of Edo to Meiji Era, Japanese people started accepting a variety of western cultures and ideas that were inspired from Europe like the UK. Later these western cultures and ideas had a great impact on things such as governmental system, foods, fashion or education in Japan. Although westerners impacted on many things in Japanese society, the governmental system was one of the most affected aspects because it led Japan to get the idea of imperialism like the UK in this time.

While the big western wave was coming to Japan, a Japanese ethnic group, Ainu, who lived in Hokkaido, was facing difficulties. At that time, John Batchelor, a Christian missionary from England came to Japan. Batchelor spent his life in Hokkaido as a missionary and he saw the difficulties that Ainu were facing; although he was not Japanese, he wanted to help Ainu. Finally, people called him “Father of Ainu”.

Why did he dedicate himself to saving their cultures? What happened in Ainu communities in Hokkaido in this time? In this report, I would like to discuss the reason why Batchelor wanted to help the Ainu ethnic group and how he contributed to protecting Ainu people and their culture.


Ainu’s suffering

To know about Bachelor’s works I will explain what happened to Hokkaido and Ainu. After Meiji Restoration [1868], government introduced new polices to develop Hokkaido because they government felt the need for stronger national defense and the territorial extension against powers like China or Russia. Hokkaido became a place of national land development. The government wanted to develop Hokkaido because Hokkaido was a big island and it had a lot of natural resources.

Hokkaido Development Commissioners started to cultivate the land, Non-Ainu people recognized that Ainu ethnic group was not “Japanese” and considered them to be inferior beings. Ainu people were discriminated against and they faced difficult and awful environments.

Because hunting and fishing were banned, Ainu people faced inadequacy of food because they got their foods from nature. They needed to work to get “money” to survive. They started to work under government, however local public officers foully abused them. In addition, by losing Ainu’s traditional ways to survive, Ainu people became very poor and physically weak because of weakening of resistance to get through the hard winter. For those reasons a lot of Ainu people passed away and got serious diseases.


Why did Batchelor come to Japan, Hokkaido?

After Batchelor finished studying theology in seminary in England, he moved to Hong Kong as a Christian missionary to witness people.

However, he got endemic diseases there. By doctor’s advice, he moved to Japan to cure his illness. Japanese weather was like England's, and Hong Kong’s one did not fit him. He arrived in Yokohama at first and took medical care. After that, Batchelor moved again on medical specialist’s advice and next place was Hokkaido. The doctor thought that cold place like Hokkaido was good for medical care. Finally Batchelor came to Hokkaido but until this time he hadn’t known what Ainu was.


Why did Batchelor focus on “Ainu”?

By Meiji governmental policy, Ainu people lost their land and culture for the reasons above. After Batchelor came to Hokkaido and cured his disease, he started missionary activities locally. He got a great shock from the hard discrimination against Ainu people by non-Ainu people. Batchelor started to want to save their hearts by Christian idea gradually.

To understand Ainu, he stayed at a local Ainu community leader’s house for over 3 months at first and tried to learn Ainu language. Gradually, Batchelor knew Ainu’s holding idea for God and nature; he recorded what he learned from them. He respected Ainu culture and thought deeply how they can find the joy of life in this suffering situation.


Batchelor’s achievements

Batchelor was called “Father of Ainu” by local Ainu people. He became the first Ainu culture keeper. There are two main big achievements about Ainu. I will introduce Batchelor’s ethnological study achievements in here.


Study achievement

Batchelor deeply studied Ainu and he conducted his mission telling about Christianity by Ainu language. At the same time, he focused on saving poor Ainu people with charity works like building hospitals, a children’s home for girls who lost their parents. Many local Ainu people witnessed Batchelor’s attitudes, and then those people become Christian.

During his mission, he published “Today and past story in Ezo” (蝦夷今昔物語) in 1884. It was about Ainu culture customs and life styles. He knew true Ainu’s things by local Ainu, not local non-Ainu who make a border for Ainu. Also Batchelor could tell for public true Ainu and their beautiful and respectable culture in nature.

A dictionary named “Ainu, Japanese and English dictionary”(蝦和英三対訳辞書) was published in 1889, and finally he published part of the New Testament in Ainu while he was in England temporarily to do dedication works in the local church in 1890.

It is difficult to decide if Batchelor’s missionary activities were good for local Ainu, because even though they had their local nature faith in Hokkaido, introducing western religion changed this local faith. However, the new idea of God and faith saved part of the Ainu people's damaged hearts.

Also Batchelor left a lot of studying and communication records like diaries or books. Those materials are very valuable today. We can know how local Ainu people spent their life and how they lived with hard nature in Hokkaido. Bachelor cultivated new study fields in Hokkaido historical culture and he expanded the being of true Ainu. Batchelor retired in 1923. He spent over 46 years in Japan and dedicated his life to trying to save internal and external Ainu culture.


References

『HOMAS (北海道マサチューセッツ協会)　日本語版ニューズレター 』

No64北海道開拓の基礎を築いた指導者たち⑲　

「アイヌ民族保護を訴え続けたジョン・バチェラーの生涯と業績」

2011年12月10発行記事　北海道マサチューセッツ協会　



『近代アイヌ差別の発生についての考察』　

上野昌之著

　早稲田大学大学院教育学研究科紀要　別冊　19号―2　

2012年3月　早稲田大学大学院

Isabella Bird and her stay in Japan

By Kanako Kawai

Isabella Bird

If you had the opportunity to travel around the world, where would you want to go? An English explorer, Isabella Bird traveled around the world for almost her whole life to treat her illness. On her journey, she met lots of people and had various experiences. For example, she climbed Rocky Mountain, experienced Ainu tribe culture in Japan, and became the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society. Also, she published some books, which if you read them, perhaps you will notice she has really strong opinion, and has different views for observing. In this paper, I will first mention her early life, and next describe her journey particularly in Japan, and finally conclude what she contributed to the later society.

Isabella Bird, who was born in the English county of Yorkshire in 1831, was well-known among people as she traveled all over the world. In her early age, she was a sickly child and spent her entire life struggling with various diseases. She mentions that she began to have health troubles at least six different times during her six-month stay in Hawaii. Although she had several diseases, she was really active, and her desire was to travel around the world. In 1854, she was allowed to travel to America with £100, and the trip inspired her to travel other countries like Australia, China, Japan or anywhere she interested in. Surprisingly, during her journey, she never got ill. 

When she landed in Japan, she first realized that it was really hard to find her way around. Because there are no names on the streets but just numbers on maps without sequence, she was confused a lot. Moreover, there were no Europeans on the way to go. Therefore, she had trouble with lots of people because of the language problem, so she finally hired a young Japanese man to be her translator, and they traveled together to Hokkaido. On the way to Hokkaido, in her observation of the urban area, Yokohama and Tokyo, she was really frank. She said “Yokohama does not improve on further acquaintance. It has a dead-alive look” (Simkin, 1997), and “In Tokyo, the houses were mean, poor, shabby, often even squalid, the smells were bad and the people looked ugly, shabby, poor…” (Lucier, 2008). However, she was not always so critical. Meli (2008) says “Indeed, she is struck by the beauty of the landscape she travels through on her way to Nikko.” Also, she mentions that the hospitality and generosity of the Japanese people were respectable, and in fact, some people say that these features and characteristics remain intact. Probably most travelers agree with her opinion.

When she arrived in Hokkaido, she experienced culture of The Ainu tribe which is non-Japanese, and inhabitants of the islands. Their culture is distinct from Japanese. For example, they used their own language, had own culture, and believed in a particular religion. Actually, her observation of the tribe is particularly valuable. As she experienced Ainu culture, she describes them as “complete savages”, although she did not mean this completely negatively. Indeed, she had a great respect for them and their customs. She actually spent a lot of time investigating their culture and customs, and she found their social customs and spiritual beliefs “simple”. For example, she was curious about their thoughts of the possibility of life after death. First of all, she had no idea whether life after death existed or not, but she says “Although the future…does not occupy any place in their thoughts, and they can hardly be said to believe in the immortality of the soul,… their fear of ghosts shows that they recognize a distinction between body and spirit.” This means even if we have died, our spirit is still alive, and there is another life as a ghost. Like this, she gradually began to understand their culture and customs, and wrote everything she saw and experienced on her travelogue.

To conclude, she contributed to the later society as she tells us that she “writes the truth as sees it” (Honjo, 2001). This is one of her famous sayings, and she said she wrote everything truthfully on her travelogue. Thanks to her, now we can see what exactly happened, and the real situations of Japan in the era. However, there is one problem with her observation. As she observed Japan, she wrote her travelogue just on her self-reflection. There might be different concept of what she saw from other people. Even so, knowing the real lives of every different class which may not told by any text in schools is important, and her journey and experiences definitely made the later society reconsider the history. Bird gives us an opportunity to know the importance of studying every little piece of history because they all eventually fade away.

References

Honjo, Y. (2001 December), "Bird's eye view of early Japan", The International Herald Tribune-Asahi Shimbun, Pg. 23. 

Lucier, A. (2008, September), “Lady Isabella Bird in Japan”, Wuthering expectations. Retrieved on 17/07/2013 from http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.jp/2008/09/lady-isabella-bird-in-japan-rats-gnawed.html


Meli, M. (2008 November), “The “Savage” and “Gentle” Race: Isabella Bird on the Ainu”, Jairo. Retrieved on 16/07/2013 from http://jairo.nii.ac.jp/0161/00000681/en

Simkin, J.(1997), “Isabella Bird”, Spartacus.schoolnet. Retrieved on 16/07/2013 from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWbirdbishop.htm