User:Cdjp1/ranks

National sections

The international has sections in Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), France, and the United Kingdom, with its most notable sections being in Australia, Germany, and the United States.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socialist_Equality_Party_(UK)&oldid=1253727805
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socialist_Equality_Party_(Sri_Lanka)&oldid=1299681526
• https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/28/pers-j28.html
• https://southasiacommons.net/artifacts/5034232/socialist-equality-party/5799691/
• https://documents.gov.lk/view/extra-gazettes/2022/12/2312-31_E.pdf
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Equality_Party_(Sri_Lanka)
• https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2012/05/sri1-m25.html
• https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2023/11/24/ratn-n24.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Youth_and_Students_for_Social_Equality&oldid=1299582317
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mehring_Books&oldid=1301316749
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socialist_Equality_Party_(France)&oldid=1296611934

Ainu in Russia

Subgroup	Location	Description	Population	Year
Sakhalin Ainu	Sakhalin	Sakhalin Ainu: Only a few in remote interior areas remained when the island was turned over to Russia. Even when Japan was granted Southern Sakhalin in 1905, only a handful returned. The Japanese census of 1905 counted only 120 Sakhalin Ainu (down from 841 in 1875, 93 in Karafuto, and 27 in Hokkaidō). The Soviet census of 1926 counted 5 Ainu, while several of their multiracial children were recorded as ethnic Nivkh, Slav, or Uilta. North Sakhalin: Only five individuals of sole Ainu ancestry were recorded during the 1926 Soviet Census in Northern Sakhalin. Most of the Sakhalin Ainu (mainly from coastal areas) were relocated to Hokkaidō in 1875 by Japan. Howell 2005, p. 187?	100	1949
†Northern Kuril Ainu	Northern Kuril islands	Northern Kuril Ainu (no known living population in Japan; existence is not recognized by the Russian government in Kamchatka Krai): Also known as Kurile in Russian records. They were under Russian rule until 1875; they first came under Japanese rule after the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875). The majority of the population was located on the island of Shumshu, with a few others on islands like Paramushir. Together, they numbered 221 in 1860. These individuals had Russian names, spoke Russian fluently, and were Russian Orthodox in religion. Only about half remained under Japanese rule. To derussify the Kurile, the entire population of 97 individuals was relocated to Shikotan in 1884, given Japanese names, and the children were enrolled in Japanese schools. Unlike the other Ainu groups, the Kurile failed to adjust to their new surroundings; by 1933, only 10 individuals survived (plus another 34 multiracial individuals).	Extinct	20th century
†Southern Kuril Ainu	Southern Kuril islands	Southern Kuril Ainu (no known living population): This group numbered almost 2,000 people (mainly in Kunashir, Iturup, and Urup) during the 18th century. In 1884, their population had decreased to 500.	Extinct	1973
†Kamchatka Ainu	Kamchatka	Kamchatka Ainu (no known living population): Known as Kamchatka Kurile in Russian records. They ceased to exist as a separate ethnic group after their defeat in 1706 by the Russians. Individuals were assimilated into the Kurile and Kamchadal ethnic groups. They were last recorded in the 18th century by Russian explorers.	Extinct	18th century
†Amur Valley Ainu	Amur River (Eastern Russia)	Amur Valley Ainu (probably none remain): They were probably assimilated into the Slavic rural population. Although no one identifies as Ainu today in Khabarovsk Krai, there are a large number of ethnic Ulch with partial Ainu ancestry.	Extinct	20th century

uh

Ainu

Karafuto Ainu house at the Colonisation Exposition in Tokyo, 1912
Total population
300 (2021 census)
Regions with significant populations
Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai
Languages
Russian, formerly Ainu languages (Kuril, Sakhalin), Itelmen, and Nivkh languages
Religion
Russian Orthodox and Shamanism (see Ainu mythology)
Related ethnic groups
Hokkaido Ainu, Kamchadals, Ryukyuans, Jōmon, Matagi

The Ainu in Russia are an Indigenous people of Siberia located in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai. The Russian Ainu people (also Aine; Russian: айны, romanized: Ayny), also called Kurile (курилы, kurily), Kamchatka's Kurile (камчатские курилы, kamchatskiye kurily / камчадальские айны, kamchadalskiye ayny) or Eine (эйны, eyny), can be subdivided into six groups.

Although only around 100 people currently identify themselves as Ainu in Russia (according to the census of 2010), it is believed that at least 1,000 people are of significant Ainu ancestry. The low numbers identifying as Ainu are a result of the refusal by the government of the Russian Federation to recognise the Ainu as a "living" ethnic group. Most of the people who identify themselves as Ainu live in Kamchatka Krai, although the largest number of people who are of Ainu ancestry (without acknowledging it) are found in Sakhalin Oblast. Many local people are ethnically Ainu or have significant Ainu ancestry but identify as Russian or Nivkh and speak Russian as mother tongue, often not knowing of their Ainu ancestry.

History

The Sakhalin Ainu used the autonym Enchiw to distinguish themselves from other Ainu.

Ming and Qing periods

Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, "the Chinese god", and motifs such as dragons, spirals, and scrolls spread among the Ainu, Nivkh, and Amur natives such as the Udeghe, Ulchi, and Nanai. These groups also adopted material goods and practices such as agriculture, husbandry, heating technologies, iron cookpots, silk, and cotton.

French map from 1821 shows Sakhalin as part of Qing Empire, and the Kuril Islands are a part of Japan.

Qing China, which the Manchu people established in 1644, called Sakhalin "Kuyedao" (Chinese: 庫頁島; pinyin: Kùyè dǎo; lit. 'island of the Ainu') or "Kuye Fiyaka" (ᡴᡠᠶᡝ
ᡶᡳᠶᠠᡴᠠ). The Manchus called it Sagaliyan ula angga hada 'Island at the Mouth of the Black River'. The Qing first asserted influence over Sakhalin after the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, which defined the Stanovoy Range as the border between the Qing and the Russian Empire. In the following year the Qing sent forces to the Amur estuary and demanded that the residents, including the Sakhalin Ainu, pay tribute. This was followed by several further visits to the island as part of the Qing effort to map the area. To enforce its influence, the Qing sent soldiers and mandarins across Sakhalin, reaching most parts of the island except the southern tip. The Qing imposed a fur-tribute system on the region's inhabitants.

The Qing dynasty ruled these regions by imposing upon them a fur tribute system, just as had the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Residents who were required to pay tributes had to register according to their hala (ᡥᠠᠯᠠ, the clan of the father's side) and gashan (ᡤᠠᡧᠠᠨ, village), and a designated chief of each unit was put in charge of district security as well as the annual collection and delivery of fur. By 1750, fifty-six hala and 2,398 households were registered as fur tribute payers, – those who paid with fur were rewarded mainly with Nishiki silk brocade, and every year the dynasty supplied the chief of each clan and village with official silk clothes (mangpao, duanpao), which were the gowns of the mandarin. Those who offered especially large fur tributes were granted the right to create a familial relationship with officials of the Manchu Eight Banners (at the time equivalent to Chinese aristocrats) by marrying an official's adopted daughter. Further, the tribute payers were allowed to engage in trade with officials and merchants at the tribute location. By these policies, the Qing dynasty brought political stability to the region and established the basis for commerce and economic development.

— Shiro Sasaki

The Qing dynasty established an office in Ningguta, situated midway along the Mudan River, to handle fur from the lower Amur and Sakhalin. Tribute was supposed to be brought to regional offices, but the lower Amur and Sakhalin were considered too remote, so the Qing sent officials directly to these regions every year to collect tribute and to present awards. By the 1730s, the Qing had appointed senior figures among the indigenous communities as "clan chief" (hala-i-da) or "village chief" (gasan-da or mokun-da). In 1732, 6 hala, 18 gasban, and 148 households were registered as tribute bearers in Sakhalin. Manchu officials gave tribute missions rice, salt, other necessities, and gifts during the duration of their mission. Tribute missions occurred during the summer months. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1795), a trade post existed at Deren, upstream of Kiji (Kizi) Lake, according to Rinzo Mamiya. There were 500–600 people at the market during his stay there, and he additionally recorded how the Ainu of the Amur valley were descended from migrants from Sakhalin.

Local native Sakhalin chiefs had their daughters taken as wives by Manchu officials as sanctioned by the Qing dynasty when the Qing exercised jurisdiction in Sakhalin and took tribute from them.

Russian expansion to Kamchatka

Sakhalin Ainu chief, c. 1885–1899

Ainu trading expeditions with the Kamchatka Peninsula and other northern regions which today are part of Russia began very early on, despite the traditionally sedentary customs of Ainu society. Ainu migrations to Kamchatka and the Amur River area from Hokkaido were increasingly limited after the 16th century however, as Japanese merchants and officials increasingly limited their ability to migrate.

Through continual contact and trade with other indigenous groups on the Kamchatka peninsula, such as the Aleuts, Chukchi, Itelmens, and Yupik, the Ainu of the northern Kuril Islands often spoke other languages alongside Ainu as well as adopting and developing clothing styles and boat building that shared similarities with these other groups and diverged from the material culture of the Ainu inhabiting the southern Kuril Islands and Hokkaido. The Ainu in the southern Kuril Islands engaged in trade relations with Japanese people, often trading hunted seal skins for Japanese dishware and side arms.

The Kamchatka Ainu first came into contact with Russian fur traders by the end of the 17th century. With Ivan Petrovich Kozyrevsky conducting the first Russian expedition to the Kuril islands in 1713. Contact with the Amur Valley Ainu in the 18th century. Russians began to settle on the northern Kuril Islands during the 18th century. During Martin Spanberg's Great Northern Expedition, he visited many of the Kuril Islands, baptising many Ainu. By mid-18th century more than 1,500 Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship.

During this period the Ainu acted as crucial parties to Russian-Japanese relations, where they participated as guides in expeditions, provided information about Japan and Russia to each other, acted as translators between Russian and Japanese individuals, and provided intermediary trade services. The importance of the Ainu in facilitating contact between Russians and Japanese is recorded in Russian images depicting official meetings at the time, where the Ainu were included alongside Russian and Japanese figures.

From 1778 to 1779 a Russian delegation met with Japanese individuals at trading posts in northern Hokkaido. Japanese and Russian records of the meeting detailed how, despite two Russian individuals being able to speak Japanese, the discussions were conducted in Ainu. Where a Japanese individual would speak in broken Ainu, then an Ainu individual from Hokkaido would correct it, and Ainu guides who had come from the Kuril islands with the Russians would translate it from Ainu to Russian.

From 1785 to 1786, Mogami Tokunai explored Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. He reported that on his visit to Iturup in the Kuril Islands he met multiple Russians who were living there with the Ainu. In 1792, Adam Laxman conducted the first official Russian expedition to Japan meeting with the Matsumae clan in Hokkaido. Due to information that had been continually passed to Russian officials by the Ainu of the Kuril islands, as part of this expedition Laxman was asked to discuss the Menashi–Kunashir rebellion which had occurred three years earlier.

Resettlement in the 19th century

Ainu in the Northern Kuril Islands in front of traditional pit-houses, 1899

Kuril Ainu people within their traditional dwelling, 1903

When Russian captain Vasily Golovnin visited the northern Kuril Islands in 1811 he reported on meeting Ainu who could speak and read Russian. Due to this, he employed local Ainu into his expedition to act as guides and translators. Golovnin was subsequently arrested by the Japanese for violating sakoku.

In 1858, Russia established a penal colony on the island of Sakhalin. After visiting the island and its penal colony, Russian jurist, historian, and economist Nikolai Novombergskii published Ostrov Sakhalin in 1903, which was critical of the government's actions on the island, reporting on the negative impacts on the native peoples including the Ainu. The prisons had disrupted fishing grounds, Russian settlers prevented native peoples from hunting, and settlers and officials engaged in widespread exploitation of the native peoples.

In 1868, the estimated populations of the Ainu were around 2,000 in Sakhalin, and around 100 across the Kuril Islands.

As a result of the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg, Japanese-administered Sakhalin was given to Russia, while the Kuril Islands—along with their Ainu inhabitants—came under Japanese administration. While the treaty recognised the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands as permanent residents, it explicitly denied them any rights as citizens between the two imperial powers.

More than a hundred Ainu left the Kuril Islands for Kamchatka as a result, with a total of 83 North Kuril Ainu arriving in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on 18 September 1877.

The Commander Islands were originally designated as a refuge for the Aleut people (from the islands of Atka, Attu, Fox, Andreanof, etc.), who were forced to flee Alaska after Russia sold it to the US. In 1827, 110 people were living on Bering Island (of which 93 spoke either Aleut or Aleut-Russian creole). Since the Northern Kuril Ainu had a similar experience due to the Treaty of St. Petersburg, the Tsar hoped to resettle them near the Aleut. But the Ainu were skeptical of the offer and rejected it, as they wanted to stay in Kamchatka mainland, whose geography was familiar to them. By 1879, the islands were home to a total of 168 Aleut and 332 Creole, plus around 50 to 60 people from other nationalities including Russians, Komi-Zyrians, Roma, and Kyrgyz. All the Creole spoke the Aleut language, as it was the language of their mothers. The Ainu, along with other minorities were quickly assimilated by the Aleut within a few decades. In 1888, 26 individuals, including Aleuts, Alutiiqs, and North Kuril Ainu, moved from cape Zheltov to Bering Island.

An agreement was reached in 1881 between the North Kuril Ainu and Russian authorities which saw the Ainu settle in the village of Yavin, Kamchatka. In March 1881, the group left Petropavlovsk and began the long journey to Yavin by foot. Four months later, they reached their new homes. Another village, Golygino, was founded later. Nine more Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. According to the 1897 Census of Russia, Golygino had a population of 57 (all Ainu) and Yavin a population of 39 (33 Ainu & 6 Russian). Later, under Soviet rule both villages were forced to disband, and the inhabitants forcibly moved to the ethnic Russian-dominated Zaporozhye rural settlement in Ust-Bolsheretsky Raion. As a result of intermarriage, the ethnic groups assimilated to form the Kamchadal community.

The Japanese authorities did not trust the Ainu of the formerly Russian controlled Kuril Islands to be loyal to Japan, and so forcefully displaced most of them from the islands to Hokkaido where they were expected to work as farmers for Yamato Japanese landlords. During the transfer of Sakhalin, Japan also forcefully relocated 841 Sakhalin Ainu to Hokkaido (around 35% of the Ainu population of Sakhalin), with many subsequently dying due to the spread of disease in the overcrowded settlements that they were forced in to. Due to these conditions 203 Ainu managed to emigrate back to Sakhalin by 1905. Those Ainu that had remained in Sakhalin lived in the more remote interior of the island, with many married to Russians.

The Ainu (especially those in the Kurils) supported the Russians over the Japanese in conflicts of the 19th century. However, after their defeat during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned their allies and left them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were executed and their families were forcibly relocated to Hokkaido by the Japanese.

During the Tsarist period, the Ainu living in Russia were forbidden to identify themselves by that name, since the Japanese officials claimed that all areas inhabited by the Ainu in the past or present belonged to Japan. The Ainu were referred to as "Kurile", "Kamchatka Kurile" or simply as Russian. As a result, many Ainu changed their surnames to Slavic sounding ones.

20th century

Sakhalin Ainu men, photographed by Bronisław Piłsudski

Rapuri, Kuril Ainu bird skin coat

In the early 20th century, Bronisław Piłsudski reported that there were a few Amur Valley Ainu individuals, with many being married to either ethnic Russians or ethnic Ulchi. Only 26 individuals of sole Ainu ancestry were recorded during the 1926 Russian Census in Nikolaevski Okrug.

After the Russo-Japanese War the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth saw southern Sakhalin annexed by Japan as the Karafuto Prefecture.

The 1933 it was recorded that there were only 41 Southern Kuril Ainu left on the island of Shikotan of the eastern coast of Hokkaido, while the 1935 Japanese census recorded 1,512 Ainu in Sakhalin.

In 1941, the last groups of 20 northern Kuril Ainu were evacuated by Japan to Hokkaidō. During the final year of World War II, Soviet forces Invaded southern Sakhalin, during which Japan evacuated about 100,000 people from Sakhalin, including almost all the Ainu to Hokkaidō. The remaining 300,000 Japanese subjects in southern Sakhalin stayed behind, some for several more years, which may have included isolated Ainu individuals. In 1949, there were about 100 Ainu living on Soviet Sakhalin. Japan renounced its claims of sovereignty over southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. Soon after World War II the last 50 southern Kuril Ainu were evacuated by Japan to Hokkaidō.

The Soviet authorities removed the Ainu from the list of nationalities which could be mentioned in the passport, as they feared the Ainu could be possible Japanese spies. Due to this, children born after 1945 were not able to identify themselves as Ainu.

The last Southern Kuril Ainu of sole Ainu ancestry was Suyama Nisaku, who died in 1956, with the last person identified as a member of the southern Kuril Ainu, Tanaka Kinu, dying on Hokkaidō in 1973.

On 7 February 1953, K. Omelchenko, the Soviet Minister of the Protection of Military and State Secrets banned the press from publishing any information on the Ainu still living in the USSR. The order was finally revoked after two decades.

In 1979, the USSR removed the term "Ainu" from the list of living ethnic groups of Russia, the government proclaiming that the Ainu as an ethnic group was now extinct in its territory.

The Ainu emphasise that they are the original inhabitants of the Kuril islands and that both the Japanese and Russians were invaders.

21st century

According to the 2002 Russian Federation census, no one was record as Ainu in boxes 7 or 9.2 in the K-1 form, though individuals had tried to write in Ainu as their identity.

In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Kamchatka Krai wrote to Vladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to return the Southern Kuril islands to Japan. In the letter, they accused the Japanese, the Tsarist Russians, and the Soviets for crimes against the Ainu, including killings and forced assimilation; they also urged him to recognise the Japanese genocide against the Ainu people. Putin rejected this proposal.

In 2010 the Russian Association of the Far-Eastern Ainu (RADA) was formed to advocate for indigenous rights under Rechkabo Kakukhoningen (Boris Yarovoy). During the 2010 Census of Russia, almost 100 people tried to register themselves as ethnic Ainu, but the governing council of Kamchatka Krai refused to do so and enrolled them as ethnic Kamchadal. In 2011, the leader of the Ainu community in Kamchatka, Alexei Vladimirovich Nakamura requested that Vladimir Ilyukhin (Governor of Kamchatka) and Boris Nevzorov (Chairman of state Duma) include the Ainu in the central list of Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East. This request was also denied.

Most of the 888 Japanese people living in Russia as of 2010, are of mixed Japanese–Ainu ancestry, although they generally do not acknowledge it, since full Japanese ancestry gives them the right of visa-free entry to Japan. Similarly, although no one identifies as Ainu today in Khabarovsk Krai, there are a large number of ethnic Ulch people with partial Ainu ancestry.

According to Alexei Nakamura, as of 2012, Kamchatka Ainu community consisted of 205 Ainu, compared to just 12 people who self-identified as Ainu in the 2008 Russian census. They, along with the Kuril Kamchadals, are fighting for official recognition. Since the Ainu are not recognised in the official list of ethnic groups living in Russia, they are either counted as people without nationality or as ethnic Russian, Nivkh, or Kamchadal. As of 2012, both the Ainu and Kamchadals in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands lack the fishing and hunting rights that the Russian government grants to the indigenous tribal communities of the far north. In March 2017, Alexei Nakamura revealed that plans for an Ainu village to be created in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and plans for an Ainu dictionary are underway.

As of 2015, the North Kuril descended Ainu of Zaporozhye form the largest Ainu subgroup in Russia.

According to the Census authority of Russian Federation, the Ainu are extinct as an ethnic group in Russia, and that those who identify as Ainu, neither speak the Ainu language, nor practice any aspect of the traditional Ainu culture. In social behavior and customs, they claim the Ainu are almost identical with the Old Russian settlers of Kamchatka and therefore the benefits which are given to the Itelmen cannot be given to the Ainu of Kamchatka.

In 2018, at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Andrei Babushkin raised the issue of recognition of the Ainu people, with Vladimir Putin agreeing to officially recognise the Ainu as an indigenous people in Russia. During the meeting Babushkin reported that there were 105 Ainu living in Kamchatka Krai.

Demographics

A flag adopted by some to represent Ainu in Russia.

According to the 2010 Russian census, a total of 109 Ainu lived in Russia. Of this, 94 lived in Kamchatka Krai, 4 in Primorye, 3 in Sakhalin, 1 in Khabarovsk, 4 in Moscow, 1 in Saint Petersburg, 1 in Sverdlovsk, and 1 in Rostov. The real population is believed to be much higher, as hundreds of Ainu in Sakhalin refused to identify themselves as such. Additionally many local people are ethnically Ainu or have significant Ainu ancestry, but identify as various recognised groups, such as Nivkhs and speak Russian as mother tongue, often not knowing about their Ainu ancestry.

Present populations

Alexei Petrov, an Ainu rights activist from Sakhalin.

Ainu of Ust-Bolsheretsky

Out of a total of 826 people living in the village of Zaporozhye in Ust-Bolsheretsky Raion, more than 100 people reported on the 2010 Census that they were Ainu. They are former residents of the liquidated villages Yavin and Golygino. The number of people with Ainu ancestry is estimated to be many times this amount, but in general, there is reluctance from the individuals themselves and from the census takers to record the nationality as "Ainu" (although not on a scale which is seen in Sakhalin). The majority of the population in Zaporozhye refers themselves as either Kamchadal (a term used for the natives of Kamchatka to refer to them without acknowledging their ethnic Ainu or Itelmen identity) or Russian, rather than identifying with either of the two native ethnic groups (Ainu and Itelmen). Although identifying as Itelmen can give additional benefits (hunting and fishing rights), the residents seems to be wary about ethnic polarisation and response from full-blooded Russian neighbors. Identifying as Ainu is not beneficial in any way. As an unrecognised nation, the Ainu are not eligible for either fishing or hunting quotas.

Families who are the descended from Kuril Ainu include Butin (Бутины), Storozhev (Сторожевы), Ignatiev (Игнатьевы), Merlin (Мерлины), Konev (Коневы), Lukaszewski (Лукашевские), and Novograblenny (Новограбленные) among other unknown ones.

Nakamura family

Akira (Alexei) Nakamura (b. 1897) was descended from the Northern Kuril Ainu, Southern Kuril Ainu, and the Kamchatka Ainu. In the early 18th century, Nakamura's ancestors emigrated to Kurile Lake in Kamchatka from Kunashir in the early 18th century, after a failed rebellion against Japan. Kurile Lake, was inhabited by the Kamchatka Ainu and North Kuril Ainu. In 1929, the Ainu of Kurile Lake fled to the island of Paramushir after an armed conflict with the Soviet authorities. At that time, Paramushir was under Japanese rule. During the Invasion of the Kuril Islands, Nakamura was captured by the Soviet army and his eldest son Takeshi Nakamura (1925–1945) was killed in the battle. Nakamura's only surviving son, Vladimir (Keizou) Alexeyevich Nakamura (1927–1978) was taken prisoner and joined the Soviet Army after his capture. After the war, Vladimir moved to Korsakov in Sakhalin to work in the harbour. In 1963, he married Tamara Timofeevna Pykhteeva, a member of the Sakhalin Ainu, who was also of Russian and Gilyak ancestry. Their only child, Alexei was born in 1964. Vladimir was later arrested in 1967 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Tomari. At this time Tamara and Alexei moved to Manila in Kamchatka Krai. When Vladimir was released in 1982 he was deported to Japan by Soviet authorities.

Ainu of Commander Islands

In 1877, the Badaev (Бадаев) family split from the rest of Northern Kuril Ainu and decided to settle in the Commander Islands, along with the Aleut. They were assimilated by the Aleut and currently identify themselves as Aleut. Two of the families residing there are believed to be of partial Ainu ancestry: the Badaevs and the Kuznetsovs.

As of 2016, one individual was recorded as Ainu in the Aleutsky District.

Language

The Ainu language is extinct as a spoken language in Russia. Traditionally the Ainu in what is now Russia spoke the Sakhalin and Kuril languages of Ainu. Alongside this they also spoke other indigenous languages, Russian, and Japanese, depending on who they had frequent contact with.

The Ust-Bolsheretsky Ainu stopped using the language as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Only 3 fluent speakers remained in Sakhalin as of 1979, and the language was extinct by the 1980s there. Although Vladimir Nakamura was a fluent speaker of Kuril Ainu and translated several documents from the language to Russian for the NKVD, he only partially passed on the language to his son. Take Asai, the last speaker of Sakhalin Ainu, died in Japan in 1994.

See also

• Ainu flag

References

Works cited

• Bellwood, Peter; Ness, Immanuel (10 November 2014). The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-97059-1.
• Bukh, Alexander (2010). "Ainu Identity and Japan's Identity: The Struggle for Subjectivity". The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. 28 (2): 35–53. doi:10.22439/cjas.v28i2.3428.
• Burkhardt, Frederick; Secord, James A., eds. (2015). The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Vol. 23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316473184. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
• Chapman, Tim (2001). Imperial Russia, 1801–1905. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-23109-4.
• Deusen, Kira Van (Autumn 1997). "Ul'chi Shamans and Storytellers: Field Report, August 1995". Shaman: an international journal for Shamanistic research. 5 (2): 155–164.
• Dolgikh, Marina; Nakamura, Alexei (17 January 2012). "Aleksey Nakamura: Rukovoditel' obshchiny "Aynu"" Алексей Накамура: Руководитель общины "Айну" [Alexei Nakamura: Leader of the Ainu community]. Natsional'nyy aktsent (in Russian). Archived from the original on 16 May 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
• Forsyth, James (1994) [1992]. A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581–1990. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47771-9.
• Gentes, Andrew (2010). "The Salience of the Sakhalin Penal Colony" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 May 2023. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Golovnin, Vasily (1824). Memoirs of a Captivity in Japan during the Years 1811, 1812 and 1813 with observations on the country and the people. Vol. 1. Henry Colburn & Co.
• Harrison, Scott (2007). The Indigenous Ainu of Japan and the 'Northern Territories' Dispute (PDF) (MA). University of Waterloo. hdl:10012/2765. Archived from the original on 29 March 2012.
• "`Ainu' o senjūmin-zoku ni ― Roshia ni hatsu no dantai" 「アイヌ」を先住民族に―ロシアに初の団体 ["Ainu" to the indigenous people: the first organization in Russia]. Hokkaido Shimbun (in Japanese). 28 May 2008.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
• Howell, David L. (1997). "The Meiji State and the Logic of Ainu 'Protection'". In Hardacre, Helen (ed.). New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 612–634. doi:10.1163/9789004644847_049. ISBN 978-9-00410-735-9.
• Howell, David L. (2005). Geographies of Identity in 19th Century Japan. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24085-8.
• Inoue, Koichi (31 March 2016). "A Case Study on Identity Issues with Regard to Enchiws (Sakhalin Ainu)". 北方人文研究 [Northern Humanities Research]. 9: 75–87. hdl:2115/61294.
• Kartavtsev, Kirill S.; Latushko, Yurii V. (2021). "The Ratio of Social and Ethnic Identity of the Commander Island Aleuts". In Latushko, Yurii V. (ed.). Integrated Studies of Island Communities of the Far East (Collection of Materials) (PDF). Translated by Bland, Richard L. National Park Service. pp. 97–105. ISBN 978-1-7371282-1-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
• Kim, Loretta E. (2019), Ethnic Chrysalis, Harvard University Asia Center
• Klimov, V. Yu. (2023). "A Brief List of Japanese Writings About the Ainu Lands and Russia Until 1799". Russian Japanology Review. 6 (1): 88–100. doi:10.55105/2658-6444-2023-1-88-100.
• Lu, Sidney Xu (August 2019). "Eastward Ho! Japanese Settler Colonialism in Hokkaido and the Making of Japanese Migration to the American West, 1869–1888". The Journal of Asian Studies. 78 (3): 521–547. doi:10.1017/S0021911819000147.
• Lyapunova, Roza G. (2017). Aleuts: An Outline of the Ethnic History. Translated by Bland, Richard L. National Park Service. ISBN 978-0-9965837-1-8.
• March, G. Patrick (1996). Eastern Destiny: Russia in Asia and the North Pacific. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-95566-4.
• Mason, Michele M. (2012b). "Writing Ainu Out/Writing Japanese In: The "Nature" of Japanese Colonialism in Hokkaido". In Mason, Michele M.; Lee, Helen J. S. (eds.). Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique. Stanford University Press. pp. 33–54. ISBN 978-0804781596.
• Morris-Suzuki, Tessa (1998). "Becoming Japanese: Imperial Expansion and Identity Crises in the Early Twentieth Century". In Minichiello, Sharon (ed.). Japan's competing modernities: issues in culture and democracy, 1900–1930. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 157–180.
• Morris-Suzuki, Tessa (15 November 2020). "Indigenous Diplomacy: Sakhalin Ainu (Enchiw) in the Shaping of Modern East Asia (Part 1: Traders and Travellers)" (PDF). The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. 18 (22): 1–20. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 8, 2024. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
• Nakagawa, Yukata (2024). Ainu kotoba kō Fuminori アイヌ語広文典 [Comprehensive Dictionary of the Ainu Language]. Hakusuisha. ISBN 978-4560099636.
• Nakayama, Taisho (2015). Japanese Society on Karafuto. Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border: Karafuto / Sakhalin. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-75268-6 – via Google Books.
• Narangoa, Li (2014). Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590–2010: Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Siberia. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-16070-4.
• "Text of Treaty; Signed by the Emperor of Japan and Czar of Russia". The New York Times. 17 October 1905. Archived from the original on 30 May 2025.
• Piłsudski, Bronisław; Majewicz, Alfred F. (2004). The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski. Trends in Linguistics Series. Vol. 3. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110176148.
• Rimer, J. Thomas (1995). A Hidden Fire: Russian and Japanese Cultural Encounters, 1868-1926. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804725132.
• Sasaki, Shiro (1999). "Trading Brokers and Partners with China, Russia, and Japan". In Fitzhugh, W. W.; Dubreuil, C. O. (eds.). Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Arctic Study Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
• Sasaki, Shiro (2016). "'A History of the Far East Indigenous Peoples' Transborder Activities Between the Russian and Chinese Empires". Senri Ethnological Studies. 92: 161‒193.
• Schlesinger, Jonathan (2017). A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-0068-3.
• Shchepkin, Vasiliy Vladimirovich; Kartashov, Kirill Mikhailovich (2018). "Ritual and Law: Reception of Adam Laxman's expedition in Japan" (PDF). Russian Japanology Review. 1: 149–158. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 August 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
• Shchepkin, Vasiliy Vladimirovich (2023). "Ayny v istorii rossiysko-yaponskikh otnosheniy XVIII–XIX vekov" Айны в истории российско-японских отношений XVIII–XIX веков [The Ainu in the History of the Japanese–Russian Relations in the 18th and 19th Centuries]. Humanities and social sciences. 2023 (1): 58–70. doi:10.22204/2587-8956-2023-112-01-58-70.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36918-3. OCLC 19456186.
• Smith, Norman, ed. (2017). Empire and Environment in the Making of Manchuria. University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-3290-8.
• Taksami, Chuner; Kosarev, Valery Dmitrievich (1990). Kto vy, ayny?: ocherk istorii i kul'tury Кто вы, айны?: очерк истории и культуры [Who are you, Ainu?: An essay on history and culture] (in Russian). Mysl'.
• Tanaka, Takayuki (3 March 2017). "Russian Ainu leader calls for greater respect". Nikkei Asian Review. Archived from the original on 21 December 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
• Tangiku, Itsuji (2022). "Differences between Karafuto and Hokkaido Ainu dialects". In Bugaeva, Anna (ed.). Handbook of the Ainu Language. De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-1-5015-0285-9.
• Tokutomi, Masato (March 2024). "Ainu to setorā koroniarizumu: Indian-shi to Ainu-shi no hikaku" アイヌとセトラー・コロニアリズム : インディアン史とアイヌ史の比較 [Ainu and Settler Colonialism: Comparing Native American and Ainu History]. アイヌ・先住民研究 [Ainu and Indigenous Studies] (in Japanese). 4: 161–179. doi:10.14943/Jais.4.161. hdl:2115/91285.
• Walker, Brett L. (2006). The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590–1800. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24834-1.
• Walker, Brett L. (April 2007). "Mamiya Rinzo and the Japanese exploration of Sakhalin Island: cartography and empire". Journal of Historical Geography. 33 (2): 283–313. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2006.05.007.
• Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Mühlhäusler, Peter; Tryon, Darrell T. (1996). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-013417-9.
• Yamada, Yoshiko (2010). "A Preliminary Study of Language Contact around Uilta in Sakhalin". Journal of the Center for Northern Humanities. 3: 59–75. hdl:2115/42939.
• Yampolski, Vladimir (8 December 2004). "Tragediya Aynov - Tragediya Rossiyskogo Dal'nego Vostoka" Трагедия Айнов - Трагедия российского дальнего Востока [The Tragedy of the Ainu - The Tragedy of the Russian Far East]. Kamchatskoye Vremya (in Russian). Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2012.

Further reading

• Sinelschikova, Yekaterina (27 June 2019). "Who are the Ainu and why do authorities still deny their existence?". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 19 July 2019.

• https://astv.ru/news/mir/2017-05-15-lider-obshchini-aynov-aleksey-nakamura-o-probleme-naroda-kotorogo-net
• https://nazaccent.ru/content/24086-lider-rossijskih-ajnov-problemy-est-no/
• https://artdoc.media/movie/istoriya_zabytogo_nar_2014_26
• https://kurilskiy.ru/tpost/j8zghtyhc1-god-kulturnogo-naslediya-narodov-rossii
• https://ru.gw2ru.com/read/40325-who-are-ainu-people
• https://www.kamchadaly.ru/index.php/kunena/kamchat_imena/166-ajnu-nakamura
• https://www.kamchadaly.ru/index.php/kunena/korennye_narody/56-kamchatskie-ajnu-kto-oni?start=12
• https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/cultures/na06/documents/023
• Pestushko, Yu S. (2022). "K istokam svoyeobraziya aynskoy kul'tury. Retsenziya na kollektivnuyu monografiyu «Novyye istochniki po istorii i kul'ture aynov»" К истокам своеобразия айнской культуры Рецензия на коллективную монографию «Новые источники по истории и культуре айнов» [To the origins of the originality of the Ainu culture. Review of the collective monograph "New Sources on the History and Culture of the Ainu"]. Yaponskiye issledovaniya [Japanese Studies in Russia] (in Russian). 3: 131–143. doi:10.55105/2500-2872-2022-3-131-143.

Moriori genocide

The Moriori genocide was the mass murder, enslavement, and cannibalisation of the Moriori people, the indigenous ethnic group of the Chatham Islands, by members of the mainland Māori New Zealand iwi Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from 1835 to 1863. The invaders murdered around 300 Moriori and enslaved the remaining population. This, together with diseases brought by Europeans, caused the population to drop from 1,700 in 1835 to 100 in 1870. The last individual of sole-Moriori ancestry, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933.

Background

Moriori

The Moriori are the indigenous population of the Chatham Islands (Moriori: Rēkohu), specifically Chatham Island and Pitt Island. It is thought that Moriori have the same Polynesian ancestry as Māori people. According to oral tradition the Moriori came to the Chatham Islands from Eastern Polynesia around 1500 AD, a couple of hundred years after Māori first arrived on the mainland, and that later migration came from mainland New Zealand. Mainstream academic opinion holds that Moriori did arrive around 1500, but from New Zealand. By the time of invasion, Moriori had formed their own culture adapted to their isolated island environment and its marine resources. The Moriori population peaked at around 2,000 people, divided among nine tribes.

After bloody inter-tribal conflict on the islands, high-ranking Moriori chief Nunuku-whenua introduced a philosophy of non-violence in the 16th century, known as Nunuku's Law. This law became engrained in Moriori culture.

In November 1791, the British survey brig, HMS Chatham, was blown off course to the islands which were then claimed for Britain in a formal flag raising ceremony by the ship's commander, Lieutenant William Broughton. In a misunderstanding with the ship's crew, a Moriori man, Tamakaroro, was shot dead. Moriori elders believed Tamakaroro was partly at fault for the shooting and planned appropriate visitor greeting rituals.

Māori invaders

The two invading Māori tribes, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama, were originally from Taranaki. They had been driven out of their homeland during the Musket Wars against other iwi and had settled around Wellington Harbour.

Invasion

Landing of the Chatham

Māori landing site

Map of the Chatham Islands. Chatham Island is the largest, Pitt Island is the second largest, and South East Island is the small island to the right of Pitt.

In 1835, with the forced assistance of the crew, several hundred Māori, mostly of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama at Port Nicholson, sailed to the Chatham Islands aboard the brig whaler Lord Rodney in two sailings. The hijacked ship carried 500 people on the first sailing, which arrived on 19 November 1835. The second sailing arrived on 5 December 1835. With the arrival of the second group "parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories" and "curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals." When some Moriori argued back, they were killed.

Due to the new arrivals' hostility, a council of 1,000 Moriori was convened at Te Awapātiki, on the eastern side of the island, to debate possible responses. Younger members argued that the Moriori should fight back as they outnumbered Māori two-to-one. Elders, however, argued Nunuku's Law should not be broken. Despite knowing Māori were not pacifist, Moriori ultimately decided to stay pacifist against the invaders, describing Nunuku's Law as "a moral imperative".

Although the council decided in favour of peace, the invading Māori inferred that the meeting was a prelude to war. They launched a pre-emptive attack on Moriori in their homes as soon as they had returned from the council. Around 300 Moriori were killed, with hundreds more enslaved. The Māori ritually killed around 10% of the population. Stakes were driven into some of the women, who were left to die in pain.

During the period of enslavement the Māori invaders forbade the speaking of the Moriori language. They forced Moriori to desecrate sacred sites by urinating and defecating on them. Moriori were forbidden to marry Moriori or Māori or to have children. This was different from the customary form of slavery practised on mainland New Zealand.

At the time of the invasion in 1835 there were around 1,650 Moriori on the islands, with a total of 1,561 Moriori dying between the invasion and the release of Moriori from slavery by the British in 1863, and in 1862 only 101 Moriori remained. In addition to the many who were killed by homicide, many others died of diseases brought by Europeans.

Government dealings

Moriori people in the late 19th century

Moriori petitioned the New Zealand Government from the 1850s for recognition of their status as the indigenous population of the islands and for restoration of their lands. The release of Moriori from slavery in 1863 occurred via a proclamation by the resident magistrate of the Chatham Islands.

In 1870, a Native Land Court was established to adjudicate competing land claims; by this time most Māori had returned to Taranaki. The court ruled in favour of the Māori, awarding them 97% of the land. The judge ruled that since the Moriori had been conquered by Māori they did not have ownership rights of the land.

In modern times

The last individual of sole-Moriori ancestry, Tommy Solomon, died in 1933, though there remain just under a thousand people who identify as Moriori.

Moriori culture underwent a revival beginning with a 1980 documentary, which corrected lingering myths about Moriori. These myths include the claim that Moriori were extinct and that Moriori inhabited mainland New Zealand before Māori.

Waitangi Tribunal hearings began in 1994 for recognition of the continued identity of Moriori as the original inhabitants of the Chatham Islands and compensation. The tribunal's report, released in 2001, agreed with Moriori claims. In 2020 a treaty settlement, including an agreed account of history, a transfer of lands significant to Moriori, and $18 million in compensation, passed in Parliament.

The first Moriori marae on Chatham Island, Kōpinga Marae, was opened in 2005. A central pou (post) in the building displays the names of over 1,500 ancestors alive in 1835, compiled by Moriori elders in 1862 and sent to Governor George Grey.

References

Bibliography

• Brett, André (2015). "'The miserable remnant of this ill-used people': colonial genocide and the Moriori of New Zealand's Chatham Islands". Journal of Genocide Research. 17 (2): 133–152. doi:10.1080/14623528.2015.1027073.
• Brett, André (2017). "Australia and the Secretive Exploitation of the Chatham Islands to 1842". Journal of Australian Studies. 41 (1): 96–112. doi:10.1080/14443058.2016.1275745.
• Crosby, R. D. (2012). The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-iwi Conflict, 1806–45. Libro International. ISBN 9781877514449 – via Google Books.
• Dwyer, Philip; Ryan, Lyndall (2016). "Reflections on genocide and settler-colonial violence". History Australia. 13 (3): 335–350. doi:10.1080/14490854.2016.1202336.
• Dieffenbach, Ernest (1841). "An Account of the Chatham Islands". Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 11: 195–215. doi:10.2307/1797646. JSTOR 1797646.
• King, Michael (2000) [First ed. 1989]. Moriori: A People Rediscovered (Rev. ed.). Penguin. ISBN 0140103910.
• King, Michael (2011). The Silence Beyond. Penguin. ISBN 9780143565567.
• MacDonald, David B. (2003). "Daring to compare: the debate about a Maori "holocaust" in New Zealand". Journal of Genocide Research. 5 (3): 383–403. doi:10.1080/1462352032000154624.
• Petrie, Hazel (21 September 2015). Outcasts of the Gods? The Struggle over Slavery in Maori New Zealand. Auckland University Press. ISBN 9781775587859 – via Google Books.
• Ramonet, Ignacio; Piedragil, America Bustamante (3 October 2022). "Matar, exterminar, aniquilar" [Kill, exterminate, annihilate]. Andamios (in Spanish). 19 (50): 277–282. doi:10.29092/uacm.v19i50.952.

Bonin Islanders

Bonin Islanders

欧米系島民
The Gonsales family, one of the earliest families on the Bonin Islands, sometime in the first half of the 20th century
Regions with significant populations
Japan (Bonin Islands)	200
United States	unknown
Languages
Bonin English, Japanese, American English
Religion
Irreligious, Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto
Related ethnic groups
Austronesians, White Americans, Europeans, Native Hawaiians

The Bonin Islanders, also known as the Ogasawara Islanders or Ōbeikei tōmin (欧米系島民; lit. 'European–American Islanders') in Japanese, are a Euronesian ethnic group native to the Bonin Islands (or Ogasawara Islands). They are culturally and genetically distinct from other Japanese ethnic groups such as the Yamato, Ainu, and Ryukyuans as they are the modern-day descendants of a multitude of racial and ethnic groups including the Europeans, White Americans, Polynesians, and Kanaks who settled Hahajima and Chichijima in the 19th century.

History

The first documented instance of human occupation of the Bonin Islands took place in 1830, when Matteo Mazarro, a British citizen from the city of Genoa (now in Italy), who would serve as governor, settled the island of Chichijima. He was accompanied by Nathaniel Savory, a White American from Massachusetts, Albin B. Chapin, also from Massachusetts, Richard J. Millinchamp, an Englishman, Charles Johnson, a Dane, Harry Bolla Otaheite, a Tahitian, John "Judge" Marquese, from Nuku Hiva, and approximately twenty Native Hawaiians, whose personal names were not recorded. Though Savory was American, his expedition had been commissioned by British forces, making it a British settlement.

In the following years more Westerners settled the islands. Including Thomas H. Webb, an Englishman from Surrey, Louis Leseur, a Frenchman from Brittany, Frederick Rohlfs (Rose) and William Allen, both from Bremen (now in Germany), Joaquim "John Bravo" Gonsales, a Portuguese man from Brava in Cape Verde who was described as a "mulatto", William Gilley, Joseph Cullins, George Augustine Washington, who was Malagasy, George Robinson, Benjamin Pease and John Ackerman, who was also from Tahiti.

Surnames

• Savory (セボレー, Seborē) → Sebori (瀬堀)
• Ackerman (アッカーマン, Akkāman) → Akaman (赤満)
• Washington (ワシントン, Washinton) → Ōhira, Kimura, Ikeda, Matsuzawa (大平・木村・池田・松澤)
• Gilley (ギリー, Girī) → Minami, Nozawa (南・野澤)
• Gonsales (ゴンザレス, Gonzaresu) → Kishi, Ogasawara (岸・小笠原)
• Webb (ウェッブ, Uebbu) → Uwabe / Uebu (上部)

See also

• Americans in Japan
• Indigenous peoples of Asia
• Japanese Americans

huh2

• https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NMlQEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=iranian+air+force+%22rank+insignia%22&ots=J7IRmjhPNo&sig=2UyA4vuG69oeKsWbGzqb5h-paRs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=rank%20insignia&f=false
• https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315039152-12/armed-forces-islamic-republic-iran-assessment-michael-eisenstadt

beothuk

Claims of genocide

Scholars disagree in their definition of "genocide" in relation to the Beothuk. While some scholars believe that the Beothuk died out as an unintended consequence of European colonization, others argue that Europeans conducted a sustained campaign of genocide against them.

Writing in 1766, Governor Hugh Palliser reported to the British secretary of state that "the barbarous system of killing prevails amongst our people towards the Native Indians — whom our People always kill, when they can meet them".

If such a campaign did occur, it was explicitly without official sanction after 1769, any such action thereafter being in violation of Governor John Byron's proclamation that "I do strictly enjoin and require all His Majesty's subjects to live in amity and brotherly kindness with the native savages [Beothuk] of the said island of Newfoundland", as well as the subsequent Proclamation issued by Governor John Holloway on July 30, 1807, which prohibited mistreatment of the Beothuk and offered a reward for any information on such mistreatment.

By 1790, John Bland, who had been an advocate for the Beothuk since he arrived in Newfoundland, wrote to of the "extirpation" of the Beothuk in letters to governor Mark Milbanke.

Mohamed Adhikari collects various accounts of violence by Europeans directed against the Beothuk; one significant example was a raid which occurred in the winter of 1781. John Peyton Sr., who was involved in multiple acts of violence against the Beothuk, led two other men in an expedition up the Exploits River, to recover fishing gear and other material believed taken by the Beothuk. According to Peyton Sr. after three days, they came upon a Beothuk encampment (of likely 30 to 50 people); he and his men fired on the Beothuk, killing some and wounding others, with the exact number of victims unknown. There was at least one uninjured survivor, and Peyton Sr. is recorded as having beaten an injured Beothuk to death with an animal trap. The surviving Beothuk who were able fled, and Peyton and his men collected what furs, skins and gear they could carry and left. Though those Peyton Sr. told about the encounter believed he did not tell them the full details of what occurred.

Adhikari argued there was an intentional nature of destructive violence from colonizers, and that this is part of the evidence that makes this a case of genocide. Harring argued there are parallels between the violence inflicted upon the Beothuk and the genocidal violence inflicted upon the Aboriginal Tasmanians, and that the government's knowledge of such violence while not actively and successfully preventing and stopping it implies a tacit approval of the violence.

• Codata, Mike (Spring 1994). "Hunger Pains In A Cold Forest: A Reexamination Of The Disappearance Of The Beothuk". Totem. 1 (1): 50–56.
• Cariou, Warren (2016). "Indigenous Rights and the Undoomed Indian". European Romantic Review. 27 (3): 309–318. doi:10.1080/10509585.2016.1163784.

• https://www.storre.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/30077
• https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BienvenueAnimals
• https://memorial.scholaris.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/54688ae7-468f-481b-adcb-b112c29d5c38/content
• https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/uwoja/article/download/8724/6918
• https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/download/582/752
• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/c4ccdc37-34dd-4753-aab4-02201a152e90/download
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14680181231201948
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10509585.2016.1163784

WAAF

WAAF recruitment poster

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (/ˈwæfs/), was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.

History

A Women's Royal Air Force had existed from 1918 to 1920 but had been disbanded in the wake of the end of the First World War, alongside the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (1917–1921) and the first iteration of the Women's Royal Naval Service (1917–1919).

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force was created on 28 June 1939, absorbing the forty-eight RAF companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service which had existed since 1938, following the Munich Agreement. The WAAF was called up to service on 28 August 1939, to begin to free up the RAF for the impending war. Conscription of women did not begin until after December 1941 when the UK Government passed the National Service Act (No. 2), which was issued by Royal Proclamation on 10 January 1942. It only applied to those between 20 and 30 years of age and they had the choice of the military auxiliary services, the civilian Women's Land Army or factory work in support of the war effort.

By August 1939, the WAAF had 234 officers and 1,500 other ranks. The number of women in the WAAF peaked in 1943 at 181,835 (15.7% of the RAF), with around 250,000 women having served with the WAAF by the end of the Second World War. By this point, WAAF enrolment had declined and the effect of demobilisation was to take the vast majority out of the service. The remainder, now only several hundred strong, was renamed the Women's Royal Air Force on 1 February 1949.

Training

A WAAF corporal serving as an air traffic controller during the Second World War. Many jobs formerly held by men were filled by WAAFs due to wartime labour shortages.

On initial formation, WAAF companies were affiliated with squadrons in the Auxiliary Air Force, who were to provide training to WAAF officers and non-commissioned officers to prepare them administer the WAAF and lead airwomen should the WAAF be called up. After the WAAF was called up in August 1939, women recruited into the WAAF were given basic training at one of five sites, though not all of the sites ran training simultaneously. The five sites were at West Drayton, Harrogate, Bridgnorth, Innsworth and Wilmslow. All WAAF basic recruit training was located at Wilmslow from 1943.

Roles

The Operations Room at RAF Fighter Command's No. 10 Group Headquarters, RAF Rudloe Manor (RAF Box), Wiltshire, showing WAAF plotters and duty officers at work, 1943

When the WAAF was established 10 roles were available: driver; cook; clerk; mess orderly; equipment assistant; fabric worker; teleprinter operator; telephonist; plotter; radio operator. WAAFs did not serve as aircrew, with the use of women pilots being limited to the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which was civilian organisation, but 30 WAAFs did transfer to serve as pilots in the ATA. As the war progressed more officer branches and airwomen trades were introduced, where at the end of the war there were 24 branches for WAAF officers, and 93 trades for airwomen. These additional roles included the crewing of barrage balloons, radar operation, aircraft maintenance, transport, meteorology, and policing.

WAAFs were a vital presence in the control of aircraft, both in radar stations and iconically as plotters in operation rooms, most notably during the Battle of Britain. These operation rooms directed fighter aircraft against the Luftwaffe, mapping both home and enemy aircraft positions.

Although WAAFs did not participate in active combat, they were exposed to the same dangers as any on the "home front" working at military installations, such as the bombing raids at Biggin Hill.

Additionally WAAFs worked in intelligence operations, working with codes and cyphers, analysing reconnaissance photographs, with several WAAFs also being selected to engage in special reconnaissance and espionage as part of the Special Operations Executive.

While the official terminology for the WAAF at barrage balloon sites was barrage balloon operator, they were often referred to in the press as the balloon girls.

Air Force nurses belonged to Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service instead. Female medical and dental officers were commissioned into the Royal Air Force and held RAF ranks.

WAAFs were paid two-thirds of the pay of male counterparts in RAF ranks.

Flying Nightingales

Leading aircraftwoman Myra Roberts, corporal Lydia Alford and leading aircraftwoman Edna Birkbeck, the first WAAF nursing orderlies selected to fly on air-ambulance duties to France, 1944

Nursing Orderlies of the WAAF flew on RAF transport planes to evacuate the wounded from the Normandy battlefields. They were dubbed the Flying Nightingales by the press. The RAF Air Ambulance Unit flew under 46 Group Transport Command from RAF Down Ampney, RAF Broadwell, and RAF Blakehill Farm. RAF Dakota aircraft carried military supplies and ammunition so could not display the Red Cross.

Training for air ambulance nursing duties included instruction in the use of oxygen, injections, learning how to deal with certain types of injuries such as broken bones, missing limb cases, head injuries, burns and colostomies; and to learn the effects of air travel and altitude. Although supplied with parachutes, they were instructed not to use them if the plane was shot down on its return from Europe and instead stay with the wounded soldiers onboard and provide medical support should anyone survive the crash.

The first three Flying Nightingales to arrive in France, a week after D-Day, were corporal Lydia Alford, leading aircraftwoman Myra Roberts and leading aircraftwoman Edna Birkbeck.

In October 2008 the seven known nurses still living were presented with lifetime achievement awards by the Duchess of Cornwall.

Directors

WAAF Recruitment poster, 1941

On 1 July 1939, Jane Trefusis Forbes was made director of WAAF, with the rank of senior controller, later, air Commandant. On 1 January 1943 she was appointed to the rank of air chief commandant with its creation. On 4 October 1943, while Forbes toured Canada, assessing the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division, she was relieved by Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who had been commandant of the WAAF since 1939, again with the rank of Senior Controller, then, air Commandant, being gazetted to air chief commandant on 4 March 1943. The post of director was given to Mary Welsh, who was appointed air chief commandant. Forbes later retired in August 1944. After the war, the rank of air chief commandant was suspended and in October 1946, the final director of WAAF, Felicity Hanbury, was appointed.

Director of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force

Image	Name	Rank	Years
	Jane Trefusis Forbes	Senior controller	1 July 1939–January 1940
		Air commandant	January 1940–1 January 1943
		Air chief commandant	1 January 1943–4 October 1943
	Mary Welsh	Air chief commandant	4 October 1943–November 1946
	Felicity Hanbury	Air commandant	12 October 1946–January 1949

Commandant of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force

Image	Name	Rank	Years
	Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester	Senior controller	1939–12 March 1940
		Air commandant	12 March 1940–4 March 1943
		Air chief commandant	4 March 1943–August 1944

Ranks

Initially, the WAAF used the ATS ranking system, although the director held the rank of senior controller (equivalent to brigadier in the British Army and air commodore in the RAF) instead of chief controller (equivalent to major-general or air vice-marshal) as in the ATS. While the rank names were different, the rank insignia used were the same as those used by the RAF. In December 1939 the title of senior controller was changed to air commandant, when all ranks in the WAAF were renamed and reorganised. Other ranks now held identical ranks to male RAF personnel, but officers continued to have a separate rank system, although now different from that of the ATS. From February 1940 it was no longer possible to enter directly as an officer; from that time all officers were appointed from the other ranks. From July 1941 WAAF officers held full commissions. On 1 January 1943, the rank of air chief commandant (equivalent to air vice-marshal) was created with the director's appointment to that rank.

Officers

Rank group	Air officers										Field officers						Junior officers
Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1939–1940)
									Senior controller		Controller		Chief commandant		Senior commandant		Company commander		Deputy company commander			Company assistant
Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1940–1949)
							Air Chief Commandant		Air Commandant		Group Officer		Wing Officer		Squadron Officer		Flight Officer		Section Officer			Assistant Section Officer
Royal Air Force
	Marshal of the RAF		Air chief marshal		Air marshal		Air vice-marshal		Air commodore		Group captain		Wing commander		Squadron leader		Flight lieutenant		Flying officer			Pilot officer /acting pilot officer
NATO code	OF-10		OF-9		OF-8		OF-7		OF-6		OF-5		OF-4		OF-3		OF-2		OF-1

Other ranks

Rank group	Senior NCOs																						Junior NCOs						Enlisted
Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1939–1940)																																No insignia
									Senior Section Leader		Section Leader												Assistant Section Leader									Aircraftwoman 1st Class			Aircraftwoman 2nd Class
Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1940–1942)																																No insignia
	Under officer								Senior sergeant		Sergeant												Corporal									Aircraftwoman 1st Class			Aircraftwoman 2nd Class
Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1942–1949)																																No insignia
	Warrant officer								Flight Sergeant		Sergeant												Corporal						Leading Aircraftwoman			Aircraftwoman 1st Class			Aircraftwoman 2nd Class
Royal Air Force (1939–1950)																																No insignia
	Warrant officer								Flight sergeant		Sergeant												Corporal						Leading aircraftman			Aircraftman 1st class			Aircraftman 2nd class
NATO code	OR-9						OR-8		OR-7		OR-6						OR-5						OR-4				OR-3		OR-2						OR-1

Notable members of WAAF

WAAFs serving with SOE

Noor Inayat Khan in WAAF uniform, 1943

Several members of the WAAF served with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.

• Assistant section officer Noor Inayat Khan (9901), posthumously Mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star and the George Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry not in the face of the enemy.
• Section officer Yvonne Baseden
• Section officer Yolande Beekman, posthumously awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
• Assistant section officer Sonya Butt (9910)
• Section officer Muriel Byck
• Flight officer Yvonne Cormeau, awarded the MBE, Croix de Guerre, the Légion d'honneur, and the Médaille combattant volontaire de la Résistance.
• Flight officer Alix D'Unienville
• Flight officer Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville), awarded the OBE, George Medal and Croix de Guerre.
• Section officer Mary Katherine Herbert
• Section officer Phyllis Latour, awarded the MBE and the Croix de Guerre.
• Section officer Cecily Lefort, posthumously awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
• Section officer Patricia O'Sullivan, awarded the MBE and the Croix de Guerre.
• Sergeant Haviva Reik (aka Ada Robinson)
• Assistant section officer Lilian Rolfe, posthumously awarded the MBE and the Croix de Guerre.
• Section officer Diana Rowden, posthumously awarded the MBE and the Croix de Guerre.
• Section officer Anne-Marie Walters, awarded the MBE.

Other notable WAAFs

• Section leader Constance Babington Smith, imagery intelligence specialist, first to identify launch ramps for V-1 flying bomb. Awarded MBE.
• Sarah Churchill, photographic interpreter.

Gallery

• 
  WAAF Operation Corona Radio Operators
• 
  Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, Commandant of the WAAF, 1944
• 
  WAAF Barrage Balloon crews at RAF Cardington.
• 
  Members of the WAAF repair and pack parachutes for use by airborne troops during the Normandy invasion, 31 May 1944.
• 
  Grave of an Irish WAAF corporal Bridget White, in Clonmacnoise. White was serving with the No3 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit based at RAF South Cerney when she died in a road accident.
• 
  WAAFs working on an aircraft fuselage at Ultimo Technical College, Sydney, 1943

See also

• Air Transport Auxiliary
• Auxiliary Territorial Service
• National Association of Training Corps for Girls
• Women Airforce Service Pilots (US)
• Women's Army Corps (US)
• Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force
• Women's Royal Naval Service
• Military ranks of women's services in WWII

References

Works cited

• Berg, Sanchia (13 October 2023). "Phyllis Latour: The secret life of a WW2 heroine revealed". BBC News. Archived from the original on 18 April 2026. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
• Crang, Jeremy A. (2020). Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01347-6.
• Dennis, Cheryl; Nally, Carys (13 June 2024). "Flying Nightingales celebrated 80 years after first flight". BBC News. Archived from the original on 15 September 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
• Escott, Beryl E. (1989). Women in Air Force Blue: The Story of Women in the Royal Air Force From 1918 to the Present Day. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 9781852600662.
• Escott, Beryl (1991). Mission Improbable: A salute to the RAF women of SOE in wartime France. London: Patrick Stevens Ltd. ISBN 1-85260-289-9.
• Escott, Beryl (2010). The Heroines of the SOE: Britain's Secret Women in France F Section. Gloucestershire UK: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-8729-8.
• Field, Andrew; Grehan, John; Mace, Martin (19 December 2012). Unearthing Churchill's Secret Army: The Official List of SOE Casualties and Their Stories. Casemate Publishers. ISBN 9781783376643.
• Foot, Michael R. D. (1966). SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944. Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
• Hall, Archie (1985). We, Also, Were There: A Collection of Recollections of Wartime Women of Bomber Command. Merlin Books. ISBN 0-86303-269-9.
• Harby, Jennifer (24 October 2015). "Lilian West: The last of the Flying Nightingales". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 July 2025. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
• Harby, Jennifer (28 October 2017). "Margaret Wilson: Flying Nightingale, 95, seeks fellow nurse's family". BBC News. Archived from the original on 30 July 2024. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
• Harris, Carol (17 February 2011). "Women Under Fire in World War Two". BBC. Archived from the original on 30 April 2025.
• Kramer, Rita (1995). Flames in the Field. London: Michael Joseph. ISBN 978-1-4538-3427-5.
• Levine, Josh. "Muriel Byck". RAF Stories. Royal Air Force Museum. Archived from the original on 14 March 2026.
• Masson, Madeleine (1975). Christine: A Search for Christine Granville, G.M., O.B.E., Croix de Guerre. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 978-0241892749.
• Miller, Sarah-Louise (2023). Women Behind the Few: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence during the Second World War. [S.l.]: Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78590-785-2. OCLC 1349452266.
• Mills, Albert J. (2006). Sex, Strategy and the Stratosphere: Airlines and the Gendering of Organizational Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-59570-5.
• Narracot, A. H. (1941). "9 - Woman in Blue". How The R A F Works. Frederick Muller Limited. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
• "Flying Nightingales' bravery commended". Nursing Standard. 23 (8): 7. 29 October 2008. doi:10.7748/ns.23.8.7.s6.
• Philpott, Ian M. (2005). "9. Personnel". The Royal Air Force: An Encyclopedia of the Inter-War Years. The Trenchard Years, 1918–1929. Vol. I. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Aviation. ISBN 1-84415-154-9.
• Pitchfork, Graham (2008). The Royal Air Force day by day. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 9780750943093.
• Retter, Emily (12 May 2024). "The forgotten story of the Nightingales – the first British women flown into a 1944 war zone". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 May 2024. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
• "Women at RUSI: 75 years, 1942–2017". The RUSI Journal. 162 (6). Royal United Services Institution: 66–68. 2017. doi:10.1080/03071847.2018.1434933.
• Sherit, Kathleen (15 February 2020). Women on the Front Line: British Servicewomen's Path to Combat. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-9685-0.
• Simpkin, Jake (January 2006). "The Flying Nightingales". Hampshire the County Magazine. Vol. 46, no. 3. Archived from the original on 24 March 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2008.
• Sloan, E. M. (2016). When Songbirds Returned to Paris. Seattle: Booktrope Editions. ISBN 978-1-945419-04-1.
• Smith, Michael (7 January 2015). "Sonia d'Artois obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 August 2025.
• Stokes, Tim (12 May 2024). "Flying Nightingales: Women who flew into WW2 battles celebrated". BBC News. Archived from the original on 17 September 2024. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
• Stone, Tessa (1999). "Creating a (Gendered?) Military Identity: the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in Great Britain in the Second World War". Women's History Review. 8 (4): 605–624. doi:10.1080/09612029900200227.
• Turner, John Frayn (2011). The WAAF at War. Barnsley, Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Aviation. ISBN 978-1-84884-539-8.
• Vigurs, Kate (2021). Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-20857-3.
• Wadge, D. Collett (2003). Women in Uniform. Imperial War Museum. ISBN 978-1-901623-61-1.
• Welsh, Mary (1946). "The Women's Auxiliary Air Force in the War". RUSI Journal. 91 (563). Royal United Services Institution: 376–381. doi:10.1080/03071844609433943.
• Younghusband, Eileen (2011). One Woman's War. Cardiff: Candy Jar Books. ISBN 978-0-9566826-2-8.

Further reading

• Escott, Beryl, Our Wartime Days, The WAAF in World War II, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1995. ISBN 0-7509-0638-3
• Escott, Beryl, The WAAF : A History of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Shire Publications, 2003. ISBN 0-7478-0572-5 (also quoted at in context of Czech WAAFs)
• Gane Pushman, Muriel, We All Wore Blue: Experiences in the WAAF, Tempus, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7524-4130-6
• Halsall, Christine, Women of Intelligence. Winning the Second World War with Air Photos, The History Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7524-6477-0
• Manning, Mick & Granström, Brita: Taff in the WAAF (English Association Award Winner), Janetta Otter-Barry Books (Frances Lincoln), 2010. ISBN 978-1-84780-093-0
• Miller, Sarah-Louise, The Women Behind the Few: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence during the Second World War Biteback Publishing, 2023. ISBN 978-1-7859-0785-2
• Rice, Joan, Sand In My Shoes: Coming of Age in the Second World War: Wartime Diaries of a WAAF, Harperpress, 2006. ISBN 0-00-722820-1
• Settle, Mary Lee, All the Brave Promises: The Memories of Aircraft Woman 2nd Class 2146391 (1966)
• Stone, Tessa. "Creating A (Gendered?) Military Identity: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force in Great Britain in the Second World War", Women's History Review, October 1999, Vol. 8, Issue 4, pp. 605–624, scholarly study
• Watkins, Elizabeth, Cypher Officer, Pen Press Publications, Brighton, 2008. ISBN 978-1-906206-27-7 A first-hand account by a young WAAF cypher officer on active duty in the Egypt, Kenya, the Seychelles and Italy in World War II.
• Wyndham J., Love is Blue, Heinemann, 1986. ISBN 0-00-654201-8
• Younghusband, Eileen, Not an Ordinary Life. How Changing Times Brought Historical Events into my Life, Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Cardiff, 2009. ISBN 978-0-9561156-9-0 (Pages 36–70, 251–55 and 265–67 describe the experiences of a WAAF radar Filterer in World War II.)