双方的会面


阿伊努的商贸活动范围

Overview
During their early history, the Ainu mastered seafaring, both as hunters and traders. From the 14th through 17th centuries, they were important intermediaries between Japanese, Korean, Russian, Chinese, Manchurian, and Dutch markets. But as some of these states expanded, the Ainu could not maintain their advantage. During the 18th and 19th centuries Japanese merchants essentially indentured the coastal Ainu during the fishing season. The final blow came in 1868, when the Japanese government encouraged Japanese settlement on Hokkaido and prohibited the Ainu from observing their daily customs.

概述
在早期的历史里，阿伊努人同时作为渔业者和生意人，掌握着出色的航海技术。从14到17世纪，他们是日本、韩国、俄国、中国、中国东北，甚至荷兰贸易市场上的重要中介者。但随着周边国家势力的扩张，阿伊努人无法长久保持既有的优势。18至19世纪间的日本商人总是有意地利用契约，限制沿岸的阿伊努人于捕鱼旺季的活动。1868年，日本政府鼓励人民往北海道迁移开发，对阿伊努人的传统生活习俗，构成了严重的干扰。


Twined Basket
Basketry traditions around the globe have ancient roots and are often indicators of cultural contact and change. Ainu basketry has interested anthropologists because of its similarity with that of other North Pacific cultures. Twined-grass baskets like this saranip with a braided rim are nearly identical to baskets made by Yup''ik Eskimos in southwestern Alaska, but whether this is due to ancient connections, recent contact,or chance remains a mystery.
篮子(搓制)
编篮手工艺在全球范围内都有久远而深厚的根底，同时也做为文化圈之间，互相交流和转变的暗示者。阿伊努的编篮技艺与一些北太平洋文化于此方面的相似性，引起了人类学家的兴趣。就像这个所展示的搓草篮子(Saranip 阿伊努语，和名：树皮系制的袋)，其辫子状的篮边，与居住于阿拉斯加西南的Yup''ik(*)爱斯基摩人所制的篮子几乎雷同。这代表了什么呢？远古时的交往？近代的接触？或纯属巧合？依然是个迷。

Sealskin Boots
Like other North Pacific peoples, the Ainu of Sakhalin Island utilized sea mammals for food, oil, and many types of clothing. Sealskin boots were more durable and waterproof than any other type of footgear until the invention of rubber and were usually worn with grass insulation. This pair, collected from Sakhalin before 1893, seems never to have been used.
海豹皮靴
定居于库页岛上的阿伊努人像许多北太平洋沿岸民族一样，捕用海生哺乳类动物，作为食粮、油料、以及衣服的主要来源。在橡胶未发明以前，海豹皮靴一直是他们足下的首选，比起其它材料，海豹皮更加柔韧耐用，防水性能也甚佳。穿着时，多习惯在靴与脚的空隙塞上些干草作保暖之用。这对皮靴在1893年于库页岛收集，看上去还从没使用过。

Ikotoi, Chieftain of Atsukeshi
From the mid-1700s until the early 1900s, Japanese artists produced a vivid record of Ainu life. Many of these painters never actually saw their subjects. They often based their works, called Ainu-e, on reports of explorers or merchants.
“Ikotoi”，厚岸(Atsukeshi)的头人。出自蛎崎波响原作：“虾夷群酋像”，1843年由児岛帝纪临摹。从1700年代中到1900年初这段时间，日本艺术家创作了一系列关于阿伊努人的作品Ainu-e(**)，生动逼真地描绘了北海道原住民们当时的风貌。其实大部分画家根本未亲眼见过他们的题材，他们的创作经历，皆奠基于去过当地的探险者和商人的情报。

Early Maritime Vessel
This work by an unknown artist is the oldest known painting (ca. 1798) of an oceangoing canoe (itaomachip). Seven Ainu in yellow, elm bark robes power the boat with oars and a woven-mat sail; two men in kimono are Japanese. The inscription in Japanese reads, "passage to Kunashiri and Iturup Island," two of the southern Kurile Islands. The painting documents the use of Ainu boats to transport Japanese officials and trading partners, but as competition increased, the Ainu lost their competitive edge in trade between Japan, Korea, and the Amur River region, and their maritime tradition faded away. Boat-building traditions have been resurrected as community and museum projects, aided by Ainu-e illustrating boats.
航海画
这是己知的最早(1798) 一幅，描绘出海远航的阿伊努船只(itaomachip)的画像，作者佚名。图中有七位身着黄色长袍的阿伊努人，负责划桨和掌舤；另两名穿和服的则是日本人。图右上角的日文附字写着：“前往国后岛(Kunashiri)同择捉岛(Iturup)的航线。”他们的目的地并不陌生或遥远，国后、择捉是千岛群岛南端近北海道的两个比较大的岛屿。此画作反映了阿伊努商船搭载日方官员和贸易伙伴的事实，随着竞争日益激烈，阿伊努人丧失了于日本、韩国，以及黑龙江流域的商机，曾盛极一时的海上交易传统也逐渐没落，仅余下现今博物馆内依靠阿伊努图绘重组的船只模型供后人一窥究竟了。

Sea-going Canoe
The Ainu made sea-going canoes from hollowed-out logs, building up the sides with two or more planks overlapped and sewn in place. The largest vessels, which were more than 50 feet long and 10 feet wide, were equipped with sails and oars and could sail on the open sea. The skills to build these vessels survive among the Ainu today. This model was built by Masahiro Nomoto,an Ainu curator at the Ainu Museum Shiraoi, Hokkaido. Using traditional Ainu tools and a
yellow cedar log, Mr. Nomoto carved the model at Smithsonian Institution during the summer of 1998.
远航之舟
阿伊努人习惯用整条掏空的原木，建造航行于大海的长舟。为了加固船身侧面，还用两条或以上的厚木板重迭钉在一起。记录中最大的船，超过50英呎长，10英呎宽(大约15.24米长，3米多宽)。配备有织舤和大桨，足以胜任在外海的航行。有幸在今天，这项工艺得以保留，是次展出的船模由来自北海道白老阿伊努博物馆馆长，同时也是阿伊努人的野本正博(Masahiro Nomoto)先生以一棵黄柏树(***)为材料，加上传统工具于98年夏的史密生学会(****)亲手制作。

Commentary on Trade by Curator William Fitzhugh
"This room is dedicated to trade, Ainu trade and contacts with foreign and neighboring peoples, which extended all the way south into Japan on the one side, to Korea on the west and north to Sakhalin and the Amur basin and Siberia, as well as up the Kurile Islands to Kamchatka. So they were in a real wonderful sort of crossroads area of East Asia, maritime East Asia, and they were the people who traded and moved materials around that part of the world for probably the last thousand or maybe even two thousand years. In this room we see lots of trade materials that were brought into Ainu culture, enriched Ainu culture, and actually were transformed into what Ainu culture really stood for, much of it being foreign materials. They also were suppliers for the Japanese, bringing silks from China, down across the seaways into Japan, and moving other materials even across the Kurile Islands and up to Kamchatka. So they were great sailors and their boats were capable of open sea travel, and some may even wonder if they didn''t get across the North Pacific to Northwest America."
馆长William Fitzhugh关于贸易的解说
“这个展庁是专为阿伊努人与外国，包括其它睦邻民族的来往和贸易而量身订做的。向南，他们的足迹遍及日本全境。西边，他们到达朝鲜；在北方，库页岛、黑龙江流域、西伯利亚、千岛群岛……深入堪察加半岛。可能在之前的一两千年间，他们一直都扮演着交易和运送货物的主要角色。阿伊努人在当时东亚的海上贸易信道中，真可谓是一个举足轻重的仲裁者。这里我们所见的那些关于贸易的展品，它们汇入了阿伊努文化、充裕了它的蕴涵，也显示出阿伊努人善于吸收外来事物精华的特性。他们从中国带来丝绸，提供给日本人；又满载着生活物资，穿梭于千岛群岛、堪察加附近的航线，繁荣了周边经济。他们的船能顶得住大洋上的风浪，他们是群了不起的水手、航海家；有人甚至猜想阿伊努人是否曾横跨太平洋，到达北美大陆。”

Commentary on Canoe by Exhibit Producer Joe Madeira
"When we set out to do this exhibit we wanted to get a full size scale or a full size feeling of what an Ainu ocean-going canoe is like. Basically we wanted to do a type of diorama with just the bow of a ship coming out and then the rest of the ship would be portrayed in a painting or something in the background. So I went through several people to try to find a tree big enough. What I ended up doing was finding a tree on the internet and when Mr. Nomoto arrived here the first thing he said was "No we can''t do just half a ship or half a canoe because in this log that you have there''s already a canoe there", and to me that was amazing, was that this tree already contained a full canoe and if we were to make just part of a canoe we would definitely be disturbing the Kamuy, or the gods and it just wasn''t even an option. So what we had to do was rearrange some things and we ended up having a scale model of a full sized canoe and the diorama in the back was a type of Ainu-e painting which showed almost in the same length a picture of an ocean-going canoe with people in it so you could get the scale. What happened was amazing. This canoe really became one of the focal points of the exhibition."
展览总监Joe Madeira的话
“当我们开始谋划该次展出的节目时，就想到应做一个实物原大，至少看起来逼真的阿伊努舟船。最初的构思是以全景透视的方式，就是背景用壁画描绘船的一部分，剩下一比一的船首伸出来给人参观，这样觉得比较立体一点。于是我们就四处张罗原木，没多久在网上找到了一棵好树。与此同时，野本正博先生也到了这里。听了我们的要求，他第一句话就是：“不行！”“我们不可以只造半条船，因为在这株原木里的是一艘完完整整的船。”他的看法让我很讶异，单由这一根树便可造出整条船，如果只弄一截船，那便会侵扰了里头的『卡姆伊』。所以原方案绝对行不通，我们随之稍改了安排，正博先生制作了原物同等比例的船模，我们把那幅阿伊努出海的画放在模型后面的墙上当背景。画和船搭配得非常好，人们心目中对船身的大小也有了概念。出乎我们意料之外，这个节目结果成为了全展览的焦点。”

Commentary on Boots by Curator Chisato Dubreuil
"These are seal-skin boots and these were collected before1893. Looking at these delicate designs, beautiful, vivid red that was surrounding the top of the boots I think they are made by the Sakhalin Ainu. Looking at the garment and the boot designs we can see the cultural connection with other neighboring people in the Pacific Rim."
“这是一对海豹皮靴，收集自1893年前。看看这精细的设计，靴筒顶端那鲜明的红圈。我想它是生活在库页岛上的阿伊努人制作的。从这皮靴所使用的布料和样式，我们可以对阿伊努与环太平洋的其它民族的联系略知一二。”
------------------------


(*)Yup’ik爱斯基摩的居住地，Yukon-Kuskokwim 三角洲(上图)。那里的自然环境并非常人对阿拉斯加的印象：冰封、荒凉、苦寒的恶地。相反，由于不在北极圈，它是一片比较平坦、湿润、肥沃而河川纵横的土地，气候也较温和，Yup’ik爱斯基摩以村为单位，人数大约在50-250之间，伴有季节性迁移。他们最著名的手工艺并非籃子，而是挺搞笑的面具(见图)。当然这里也有一些籃子，至于是否与阿伊努有关，就见仁见智了。




(**)“Ainu-e”，解为Ainu illustrations、阿伊努图绘。它的传世，对于我们探求阿伊努人生活的状况，四季举行的仪式等相当有帮助。但值得注意的是，这些画作中的阿伊努形象，不可避免地存在着日本艺术家抱持的偏见。视阿伊努为珍奇的土著，劣等民族，甚至凶悍的野蛮人，是他们多数的观点。


(***)黄柏(见图)，学名chaemacyprus nootkatensis，只生长在北美山区、英属哥伦比亚、阿拉斯加。可长至24米高，成熟期短，覆盖面大。质地坚硬耐用，是美国常用的建筑材料。
(****)Smithsonian Institution，史密森学会。于1846年成立，资金源于英国科学家詹姆斯˙史密森﹙James Smithson﹚对美国的遗赠，其目的是「积累和传播知识」。旗下有眾多展馆极研究机构，是全世界最大的博物馆系统，也是该阿伊努展览的“幕后黑手”。有兴趣可到这里看看。