Hamada, Shingo Department of Anthropology, Indiana University
How Kamuy Čep Became Phantom Fish: A Review of Japan’s Herring Cultural History The objective of this paper is to explore the historical and cultural importance of herring in Ainu Mosir. In the Japanese historical perspective, herring made its historical importance when the Matsumae domain established their territory and expanded their contract-fishery system in Hokkaidō in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The examination of the impact of Japanese herring fishery in the process of industrialization and colonialism in Hokkaidō is inseparable from the discussion of the decline of Ainu traditional social structures and cultures. For the coastal Ainu, like the Tlingit and other indigenous peoples of the North Pacific Coast, spring herring fishing was an integral part of their subsistence patterns However, the tendencies to overlook the regional variation in Ainu culture and to crystallize their culture as ‘salmon culture,’ a pattern we also find on the Pacific Northwest Coast, leave herring relatively unmentioned in the discussions of Ainu culture and history. Further analyses of Hokkaidō historical ecology will reveal why both salmon and herring are sacred in Ainu culture. The collapse of herring fishery in Japan alerts potential tragedy of commons/commoditization of herring in Southeast Alaska. The regulation of herring fishery is an urgent matter to prevent further overexploitation and conserve herring for future generations across the Pacific.
