Shigeru Kayano

Portrait of Shigeru Kayano

A prominent figure in the Ainu movement, Shigeru Kayano was the first Ainu representative in Japan's legislature, the National Diet, and worked tirelessly to preserve Ainu culture. As a minority and indigenous people of Japan, the Ainu have faced hardships for hundreds of years. Ainu inhabitants of the Tohoku region gradually had to abandon their language and culture starting in the 14th century due to pressure from the central government (Tahara, “The Saga of the Ainu Language”).

Further north in Hokkaido, however, as well as in the southern part of Sakhalin Island (the northern part belonging to Russia) and in the more isolated Kuril Islands, they were able to preserve their culture until the islands were annexed by the new Meiji government in 1869. By 1872, the government seized Ainu land and distributed it to Japanese farmers. Their language was banned, Ainu people were made to take Japanese names, and, under the guise of speeding up assimilation, the Hokkaido Former Aboriginals Act of 1899 prohibited the Ainu from performing traditional and distinctive activities, which were economically necessary for their survival (Cotterill). By 1926, this was the environment that Shigeru Kayano was born into and one of the main reasons he became a staunch advocate for the Ainu people.

After graduating from Nibutani Elementary School in 1939 at the age of 12, Shigeru Kayano started working in afforestation, planting trees to establish forests. In an excerpt describing his youth and how his work was dangerous with little pay, he writes, “There was no insurance for work-related accidents in those days, so I was told to pay for my own injuries and lunch” (Kyodo 17). That fall, he began working as a lumberjack, but by 1941, his work consisted of surveying in the summer and making charcoal in the winter.

The experiences he had during this time were very valuable to him because an Ainu man he worked with in surveying taught him many things as they walked in the mountains (Kyodo 17). This was a stark contrast to how he experienced being Ainu when it came to the Ainu scholars. In his memoir titled Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir, he writes of the scholars:

There were a number of reasons I hated them. Each time they came to Nibutani, they left with folk utensils. They dug up our sacred tombs and carried away ancestral bones. Under the pretext of research, they took blood from villagers and, in order to examine how hairy we were, rolled up our sleeves, then lowered our collars to check our backs, and so on.

My mother once staggered home after I don’t know how much blood had been taken. I felt that no one should go if that was how we were treated, but the village leaders rounded up people with this argument and that. And the Ainu were also compensated a certain amount.

There was also portrait photography. People not only were photographed from the front, the side, and an assortment of angles but induced to wear large number plates such as criminals wear in mug shots. Among the photographs of my mother is one in which a number plate hangs from her neck. After having her blood taken, her back checked, and being photographed while wearing this label, how much money did she receive, I wonder? My mother’s pained expression in the photo always stings me to the quick (Kayano).

Kayano married Reiko Nitani, also Ainu, in 1951, and the following year began devoting himself to the collection and recording of folktales and articles used by the Ainu. He then founded the Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum in 1972. Despite the work he was doing, there were still obstacles to overcome in advocating for the Ainu. The Ainu Association of Hokkaido drafted a new law in 1984 setting out six sections including rights to education, fishing rights, cultural rights, and, crucially, rights to political participation (Cotterill). The proposal’s most explicit objective was “to recognize the existence of the Ainu people,” however, their request for a new law met little response from the government.

The '80s and '90s were a pivotal time in Kayano’s advocacy as he fought against the construction of the Nibutani Dam on the Saru River in Hokkaido. The Hokkaido Development Agency (HDA) had started purchasing properties in the area to make way for the construction to begin, but could not come to an agreement with Kayano and fellow politician Tadashi Kaizawa. The HDA requested arbitration by the Hokkaido Land Expropriation Committee (HLEC), which decided that the HDA could take the land under Eminent Domain Law, which gives government entities the ability to take land from private owners for public utilities (Tahara).

Kayano and Kaizawa still tried to appeal to the Minister of Construction to withdraw the HLEC’s decision, but were denied. It was then that Kayano and Koichi Kaizawa, Tadashi’s son, filed an appeal to the Sapporo District Court in 1993. In their dispute, they challenged the HDA and HLEC’s decision, saying, among other issues, that the area of construction included sacred areas and that the original proposal for the construction of a dam did not take into account the loss to Ainu culture that the flooding of these sites represented (Tahara).

The District Court made important rulings in this case, finding the HLEC’s decision to take the Ainu’s land was illegal, that the Ainu are indigenous people of Hokkaido according to the Court’s own definition of indigenous people, and it was mentioned that Ainu people have the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to enjoy their own culture, guaranteed by Article 13 of the Constitution of Japan and Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Unfortunately, even before the case was being litigated, construction had already begun on the dam and was completed before the Court’s ruling. The toll of the construction on the surrounding environmental has been significant. Through the original research, it was determined that Nibutani Dam would not be filled with sediment for 100 years, but due to the destruction of the forests, sediment has accumulated in 10 years and it has become quite shallow (Kaizawa). Additionally, with typhoons, because the mountains are barren, trees get washed away by rain. So not only was there harm to the Ainu culture, there will also be a lasting impact to the surrounding area.

In 1994, Shigeru Kayano was elected to the House of Counselors in the National Diet. As the first Ainu representative in the Diet, he was also the first (and, so far, only) Diet member to address the assembly in Ainu. While in office, the Japanese government did pass an act to promote Ainu culture, but failed to address issues of political participation, land rights, and the Ainu’s indigeneity (Cotterill). A 2008 resolution officially acknowledged the Ainu as indigenous, though, arguably, it still failed to lay the foundations for proper anti-discrimination legislation. Even so, steps were being made in the direction of promoting Ainu culture in part thanks to Kayano’s preservation work.

Shigeru Kayano died of pneumonia in 2006 at the age of 79. The advocacy and preservation work he accomplished throughout his life is astounding. He has written about 100 books on Ainu culture and language including Shigeru Kayano’s Ainu Language Dictionary in 1996. In January 2025, Basic Research on Shigeru Kayano’s Materials was published which catalogues 2600 paper documents including writings, manuscripts, notebooks, and diaries, he left behind (Yomiuri Online). It even includes documents from the Nibutani Dam lawsuit and minutes of meetings from his time as a Biratori town councilor and a member of the House of Councilors. Through this, his legacy remains firm not only through his own work, but also through future generations.

Shiro Kayano, Shigeru’s son, devotes himself to the management of the Ainu Language Times (twice a year), the Mini FM Broadcast Pipaushi (once a month), the Nibutani Ainu Language School, the Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Ainu Museum, and more (CEMiPoS). In order to maintain and develop the Ainu language, he believes that Ainu should be part of the curriculum in Japanese schools and recognized as an official language in Japan, particularly in Hokkaido where Ainu language is still taught at the local primary school in Nibutani and announcements in Ainu on local bus routes can be heard.

Ainu is classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, but the work Kayano did throughout his life made certain of the preservation of their language and culture for future generations to come.

Works in English

The Romance of the Bear God (1985)

Yukar, the Ainu Epic and Folktales (1988)

The Ainu: A Story of Japan’s Original People (2004)

The Ainu and the Fox (2006)

Visit

Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Ainu Museum in Nibutani, Hokkaido: https://kayano-museum.com/

Saru River History Museum in Nibutani: https://www.town.biratori.hokkaido.jp/soshikikarasagasu/kankoshokoka/kankoshokokakari/1/2/1/406.html

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Works Cited

CEMiPoS. “Ainu Keynote Speakers: Shiro Kayano.” CEMiPoS, 23 June 2017, cemipos.org/ainu-speakers-kayano/. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Cotterill, Simon. “Ainu Success: The Political and Cultural Achievements of Japan’s Indigenous Minority　アイヌの成果−−日本先住少数民族の政治的文化的業績.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 21 Mar. 2011, apjjf.org/2011/9/12/Simon-Cotterill/3500/article. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Kaizawa, Koichi. “今こそ先住民族の権利保障を | ヒューライツ大阪(一般財団法人アジア・太平洋人権情報センター).” Hurights.or.jp, Sept. 2008, www.hurights.or.jp/archives/newsletter/sectiion3/2008/09/post-29.html. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Kayano, Shigeru. Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir. Translated by Kyoko Selden, edited by Mark Selden, Westview Press, 1994.

Kyodo 17. I Never Forget When I Was Young. web.archive.org/web/20030305213520/ch-k.kyodo.co.jp/17kyodo/number02/age17.html. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Tahara, Kaori. “Nibutani Dam Case.” Indigenous Law Bulletin, vol. 18, 1 Aug. 1999, www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/journals/IndigLawB/1999/70.html. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Tahara, Kaori. “The Saga of the Ainu Language.” The UNESCO Courier, Oct. 2009, pp. 15–16, unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000185911. Accessed 11 July 2025.

Yomiuri Online. “Cataloging Shigeru Kayano’s Legacy, Helping Revive Ainu Culture 北海道：萱野茂氏の遺業目録化　アイヌ文化復興に力：地域ニュース.” Yomiuri Online 読売新聞オンライン, 28 Jan. 2025, www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/hokkaido/news/20250129-OYTNT50010/. Accessed 11 July 2025.