#Iomante Ceremony | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

intogenshin · 5 months

Text

Tsurumi Island is also uncomfortable

I wrote a series where I dissected the underlying themes and narratives of the Inazuma chapter because most of the intent behind the poorly written storyline was lost in their ambition to pull a shocking plot twist. Unlike the other nations, the player doesn’t get to look into the archon’s inner world (figuratively) until the climax of the last act, save for some vague foreshadowing dialogues from Yae, so the most important part of the story was hidden from the audience.

I found the story they wrote compelling, but at the same time I couldn’t push away the uncomfortable feeling of knowing how that story was built by detaching it from its historical parallel: Tokugawa Japan.

It is one thing to make fantasy dictatorship into a benevolent measure for protection, where the ruler was rather a subordinate to the major power and whose motivations were based on fear, if (if) the real life historical parallel of a feudal military dictatorship isn’t a big issue for Japanese people then it doesn’t matter much in the end. But it is another to blur the narratives around the parallels of indigenous people that were invaded and occupied by imperial Japan.

Chinese media has strict restrictions regarding what they can and cannot portray or show, and revisionism of imperial japan is prohibited. I know it goes beyond even fiction, because an actor from a cdrama I liked was accused of praying at a temple that honors a Japanese general, and was unofficially banned from working in the industry (his name cannot even be used for registering a phone number). The actor in question has explained he was only walking outside, unaware of what the location really was since it is promoted as a tourist spot, yet he is still unofficially blacklisted.

All this to say, no, this criticism is not implying hoyo is endorsing Japanese colonialism + mentioning an instance of just how serious the issue is in China. Let’s not waste time arguing in extremes. Moving on now.

Names and terms in Tsurumi Island come from Ainu language, but it seems there’s very little that honors their culture.

(Please check resources and research for yourself, don’t take my words at face value, as I might make mistakes)

Ainu cosmology sees their relationship with their environment in a symmetrical order, meaning there is a reciprocity between animals and humans, as well as humans and kamuy, the spirits that inhabit the heavenly world and watch over humans.

Kamuy manifest in the human world (Ainu Moshir) through disguises of natural phenomena (wind, fire, water), parts of nature (animals, plants, mountains), and material culture (boats, pots), so when Ainu hunt or use these elements they are receiving the gifts of the kamuy in these forms. And they perform rituals in which they also give back to the kamuy in return, showing how important reciprocity between humans and nature is in their worldview.

There is a ritual for “sending off” damaged, old or unwanted daily utensils to the the realm of the spirits called Iwakute, and one of salmon called Ascircep-nomi, but the most known ritual is Iomante, the ceremony of the bear, in which a cub is raised by the community for a couple of years and then sacrificed as a “sending off” of the kamuy of the mountains, Kim-un-kamuy, who manifests in the form of bears.

The Ainu bear ritual has been recorded by varios explorers and researchers. It was so famous and attractive that it was performed in the presence of Emperor Meiji in the Shiraoi village in 1881.

Ainu believe that kamui live in the form of human beings in their own world Kamui-moshir. Plants and animals in this world are regarded as temporary forms of the kamui which are endowed to humans by deities themselves as gifts. Kindaichi states that the kamui who came down to Ainu-moshir can return happily to Kamui-moshir only by willingly being eaten and being respected.

—The Ainu Bear Ceremony and the Logic Behind Hunting the Deified Bear, by Takako Yamada

This type of ceremony or festival is very common in northern cultures:

As is revealed by Watanabe, the sending-off ceremonies for a variety of animals, including the caribou, the seal, and the whale, are commonly observed among northern hunting-gatherer peoples. Moreover, considering the northern cultures in terms of relationships between religion and ecology, Irimoto suggests two significant characteristics: first, the notion of reciprocity that exists between man and game spirits, and, second, the original oneness of both sets of beings.

—The Ainu Bear Ceremony and the Logic Behind Hunting the Deified Bear, by Takako Yamada

Ainu is the name for the people that lived in the islands of Hokkaido, possibly Honshu, Kuril and Sakhalin (the latter two passed to soviet control following World War II), who lived in kotar (small villages) of people related by blood, but the groups shared similar religious beliefs and eventually came to be known collectively as Ainu.

The history of the Ainu is intertwined with that of Northeast Asia, namely, Japan, Mongolia, and Siberia. The geography of these regions influenced various groups of Ainu and created obvious differences in their lifestyles. Nevertheless, all these Ainu groups seemed to share similar religious beliefs and subscribed to a similar philosophy.

The identification of the Ainu culture is based more on “the Hokkaido Ainu” than other groups. This is because the Hokkaido Ainu were the largest of the Ainu groups and survived the Japanese and Russian conquests.

—Symbolism of Symmetry in the Ainu Culture from the Viewpoint of Analytical Psychology, by Kazuko Kosaka-Tanaka

So, how did Hoyoverse portray this culture in the story of Tsurumi Island?

The people of Tsurumi are extinct due to their own actions, born of ignorance and naivety: the creature they revered as their god, Kapatcir, had no interest in them and didn’t regard herself as a deity or protector either, and the rituals of human sacrifice had no meaning for her.

First of all, Ainu is a culture under threat of erasure after a long time of Japanese colonial/settler violence, but they are very much living and dedicate their lives to preserve their culture.

Hoyoverse portrayed the island as a ghost civilization that only survives in memory and broken objects left behind, and that seems to be the way they also went about borrowing bits and pieces of their culture, as if they were taking different candies from a store, and carelessly used them to adorn their story.

Tsurumi’s civilization doesn’t honor Ainu’s cosmology of reciprocity with nature, nor the respectful relationship between Ainu and Kamuy, nor their rituals or ceremonies performed in gratitude. It doesn’t even recognize them as a living people.

I keep wondering just how many people might uncritically and subconsciously believe Ainu performed human sacrifices after playing this game. And I have to question why this narrative was used in this context at all alongside the recurrent justification of a civilization causing their own demise when it can make their main characters, the product they sell through their gacha, look bad.

The Japanese themselves considered the Ainu to be barbarians, and this led to uneasy relationship from the start and to repeated efforts on the part of the Ainu to expel the Japanese from their lands. After a few centuries of sporadic conflict, including the last “pan-Ainu” uprising against the Japanese in 1669 (Shakushain’s War).

Meiji government embarked on a policy of (forced) assimilation —a policy whose ultimate aim was to eradicate Ainu culture. Under this regime, the Ainu were systematically stripped of any Ainu identity and were “made” Japanese.

The Japanese government redoubled its efforts at assimilating the Ainu into Japanese society and eradicating Ainu culture. As part of the act, Ainu families were granted small plots of land, in order to transform them from hunters into (more easily managed) farmers. Much of the best farmland had already been claimed by Japanese settlers.

—Language Conflict and Language Rights: the Ainu, Ryūkyūans, and Koreans in Japan, by Stanley Dubinsky and William D Davies

What it seems is, much like they did with Watatsumi Island and Ryukyu culture, the company intends to mimic the consequences of settler colonialism and the violence of occupation by framing the loss of these fantasy cultures in tragedy, but fails to address the historical parallels that inspired them in the first place so as not to damage the marketing of their product. Who would want to buy a colonizer ruler, even if it’s made in the vessel of a gacha waifu?

The archon and shogunate in Inazuma are portrayed initially as benevolent (by allowing Orobashi to maintain the island he brought from the depths nearby their territory), and their violence against Watatsumi and against Kapatcir is justified (Orobashi invaded Yashiori Island, the resistance broke the seals that suppressed the Tatarigami instigated by an undercover Fatui, and Kapatcir’s grief was out of control and therefore represented a danger to Seirai Island). Not to mention there is no contact between the Thunder Civilization of Tsurumi and the Shogunate or the archon.

I don’t know if any allegory can work with Kapatcir at all. If she represents the power of the archon (thunder) and the destruction of Tsurumi’s civilization is an indirect reference to Japan’s genocide of Ainu, then it’s just weird that the people of Tsurumi were worshipping her in the first place. If Kapatcir is meant to represent the entirety of Tsurumi’s people and Ei sealing her in Seirai island is a reference to the genocide and forced assimilation, then it’s just weird that Kapatcir had such disregard and indifference for the people of Tsurumi in the first place. It doesn’t work in any cohesive way.

Moreover, the human sacrifice narrative is at best distasteful and very unfortunate, and at worst malicious.

There is a folklore Ainu legend that includes human sacrifices, though I couldn’t find much about it: Sitonai. A village is terrorized by a snake monster who demands human sacrifices and a girl, Sitonai, bravely volunteers in order to slay the snake with her wit and aided by her dog. This story however is about defeating a invasor, completely different from the narrative of ignorance and submissive acceptance portrayed by Ruu.

There is no evidence of the Ainu ever performing human sacrifice, but given the racism against Ainu and this disrespectful notion of “barbarism”, it seems something malicious to imply. The only thing I could find was something that looks like an offhand comment by a researcher, with no evidence other than pointing out that a ceremonial object looks like ceramics in the shape of a person, nothing else.

I did find, however, an instance of human sacrifice of Ainu people perpetrated by Japanese settlers.

Ainu men and boys were exploited in Takobeya forced labor by the settlers, while women and girls were abused as Comfort Women. The laborers were kept incarcerated in small rooms and stripped off their human rights, and those who tried to escape were subjected to harsh punishments and brutally assaulted.

Decades later, skeletal remains were found in a nearby tunnel in Hokkaido, and it is believed these remains were the result of Hitobashira, a Buddhist practice of human sacrifice where people are buried alive in a construction, perpetrated against some of these Tako laborers.

Takahashi refers to these victims as “countless bloodstained human pillars” (hitobashira人柱). Although hitobashira usually refers to someone who sacrifices his or her life for a cause, it can also refer to the ancient practice of sacrificing people by burying them in the foundation of a building, castle, or bridge in order to appease the gods during a particularly difficult construction project. Takahashi does not elaborate on his word choice, but it is possible that hitobashira refers to the abstract notion of “sacrifice” for the nation’s “colonization” of Hokkaido, or the physical form of “sacrifice” involving the buried bodies upon which the “colony” was built. There were local rumors that there were “human pillars” buried within the Jōmon Tunnel walls, suggesting that Takahashi might have also been referring to the actual buried bodies at former construction sites.

—From “Convict” to “Victim”: Commemorating Laborers on Hokkaido’s Central Road, by Jesús Solís

So why, just why, would the writers use the human sacrifice narrative in the fantasy island inspired by Ainu culture, while simultaneously butchering their religious beliefs of coexistence with kamuy, and ignoring the nature of the rituals they are known for?

When I wrote my post The Allegory of the Puppet Ruler (first version on hoyolab, revised version on reddit), I could tell that the narrative of Inazuma’s chapter was trying to examine the beliefs around the bushido, a code of conduct that Tokugawa used to incentivize nationalism and military submission, which is something that plays into the expansionist colonial invasions of imperial japan. The NPC character leader of the Kujou clan also was portraying a quest for power, authority and control that scapegoats the rest of the nation (the shogunate and the archon) from this fault, especially with the way Kujou Sara vehemently rejects his delusions to follow the “true eternity” of the shogun instead, you know, the one that is benevolent and protective.

From the way they disrespectfully borrowed from Ainu and Ryukyu culture, the writing was on the wall for the fiasco that was Sumeru, but there’s something especially revolting about doing it to cultures under threat of erasure. And I’d be surprised if they improve at all in their depiction of indigenous America or Africa.

Anyway, please check these resources if you made it down here.

Ainu Mythology: the Cuckoo and Pon-Oki-Kurumi, by Hosana Fukuzawa

Symbolism of Symmetry in the Ainu Culture from the Viewpoint of Analytical Psychology, by Kazuko Kosaka-Tanaka

The Concept of Shared Destiny in the Ainu Spiritual Belief, by Junhong Wang

Language Conflict and Language Rights: the Ainu, Ryūkyūans, and Koreans in Japan, by William D Davies and Stanley Dubinsky

The Ainu Bear Ceremony and the Logic Behind Hunting the Deified Bear, by Takako Yamada

From “Convict” to “Victim”: Commemorating Laborers on Hokkaido’s Central Road, by Jesús Solís

Forced Labor in Imperial Japan’s First Colony: Hokkaidō, by Pia M Jolliffe

#Genshin impact #tsurumi island #Genshin lore

14 notes · View notes