Cultivating Ezo: Indigenous Innovation and Ecological Change during Japan’s Bakumatsu Era

Abstract

This article explores the shifting social and ecological conditions of northern Japan in the mid-nineteenth century and the impact these changes were having on one group of Ainu. I draw on the history of the region to show how political instability, changes in cultural proscriptions, and ecological change affecting the fishing grounds on the east coast of Hokkaido were presenting the Ainu working the Chashikotsu fishing grounds with a new array of choices in terms of cultural traditions, norms of behavior, and modes of subsistence. I highlight the case study of Chaemon, an Ainu headman who, along with his followers, decided to take up large-scale agriculture to better cope with declining catches in the area. I read Chaemon’s project of agricultural development as a “serious game” of navigating the ecological, political, and economic impacts of Japan’s extractive industries and the political and cultural policies that furthered the consolidation of its northern frontier.