ABSTRACT
A minority in modern Japan, the Ainu became objects of anthropology and prehistorical archeology; notably, within the Anthropological Society of Tokyo. The present chapter concerns itself with the emergence of these new fields of knowledge, which constructed northern autochthonous populations in terms of alterity, a foil for the national identity. The Ainu was not the only minority to be an object of anthropology. The Burakumin, pariahs since the Ancien Regime, also became objects of study for physical anthropology, beginning in the 1880s, in order to affirm their racial difference and their radical alterity. Myths from the eighth century, which were mobilized in the nineteenth century to legitimize imperial dynasty, formed a backdrop for these narratives and were often afforded the same status as archeological models and methods, guiding discourse on prehistoric times, and reflecting onto the present. An active member of the Society for the Education of Hokkaido's Ancient Natives, he traveled Japan promoting the national integration of the Ainu.
