Not quite. I am not sure whether Ainu was the only tribe that existed in the entire archipelago. The researchres have not agreed on that hypothesis, I believe. I am not sure who are the Yamato. They may be the ancestors of the present day Chinee, Koreans, or Indonesians. The art of rice planting seem to have a source in present day Indonesia, south China, or Malaysia. Also, I did say "2000 years ago" but didn't say "arrived" 2000 years ago. I don't know exactly when different groups arrived at the archepelago.
But those questions are rather unimportant to me. One thing that I can easily believe is that there wasn't such a clear cut superiority/inferirority divide in terms of force between the so-called Yamato and Ainu as we see between the European conquerors and American aboliginees, i.e., the difference of fire arms vs. axes and arrows. Minoru ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Clark To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 12:22 PM Subject: RE: A clue to understand USA So is your position as follows? The Yamato people arrived on the Japanese islands about 2000 years ago and took the land from the Ainu who were occupying it. This situation has not changed in the intervening centuries. Peter Clark --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages prior to posting, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
