Volume 18 | Issue 23 | Number 5 | Article ID 5513 | Dec 01, 2020 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Indigenous Diplomacy: Sakhalin Ainu (Enchiw) in the Shaping of Modern East Asia (Part 2: Voices and Silences) Tessa Morris-Suzuki In the summer of 1853, the Russians appeared in the Sakhalin village of Nayoro, in the person Abstract: Indigenous people are often depicted of Naval Lieutenant Dmitrii Ivanovich Orlov, as helpless victims of the forces of eighteenth accompanied by six companions, of whom five and nineteenth century colonial empirewere indigenous Saha (Yakut) troops recruited building: forces that were beyond theirby the Russians on the mainland.1 They may not understanding or control. Focusing on the story have been the first Russians whom Nayoro of a mid-nineteenth century diplomatic mission villagers had encountered. Over the course of by Sakhalin Ainu (Enchiw), this essay (the the past couple of decades, several Russian second of a two-part series), challenges that ships had been wrecked on the shores of view, suggesting instead that, despite the Sakhalin, and at least three Russians had enormous power imbalances that they faced, reportedly lived for years near the village of indigenous groups sometimes intervened Mgach on the northwest coast, probably energetically and strategically in the historical passing through Nayoro as they travelled south process going on around them, and had some to trade with the Japanese.2 But, for Nayoro’s impact on the outcome of these processes. In Ainu villagers, the size and formality of Orlov’s Part 2, we look at the Nayoro Ainu elder party must have been disconcerting; and it was, Setokurero’s intervention in imperialas it turned out, just one ripple from a very negotiations between Japan and Russia in the large new wave of Russian power which was early 1850s, and consider what impact this may expanding in many directions across the Asian have had on the experiences of Sakhalin Ainu continent. during the early phases of Russian and Japanese colonial rule in Sakhalin. Keywords: Sakhalin; Sea of Okhotsk; Ainu; Japanese Empire; Russian Empire; indigenous people; Russo-Japanese relations. This is Part 2.Part 1 - Traders and Travellers appeared in the November 15 issue. Тhe Arrival of the Russians 1 18 | 23 | 5 APJ | JF The Changing Sino-Russian Border: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries (Source: Central Intelligence Agency map, 1960, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA DIGITAL ID g7822m Yevfimii Putyatin’s Ship, the Pallada, in the ct002999 ) Public domain. Edited to Port of Nagasaki 1854, Artist Unknown replace place name “USSR” with place name “Russia” (Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain) Relations between the Russian and Chinese empires were also once more in a state of flux, To the west, the imperial ambitions of Tsar as Russia sought to overturn the Treaty of Nicholas I were raising tensions with the Nerchinsk and gain control of the crucial strip Ottoman Empire, and just a few months after of coast from the mouth of the Amur to the Orlov’s arrival in Nayoro, in October 1853, this northern border of Korea. To press these would result in the outbreak of the Crimean claims, Tsar Nicholas had (after some War. Meanwhile, following hard on the heels of hesitation) sanctioned a major expedition under Matthew Perry, Russian Admiral Yevfimii the leadership of Captain (later Rear Admiral) Vasilyevich Putyatin had arrived in Nagasaki to Gennadii Ivanovich Nevelskoi, which arrived in press Japan to open its ports to Russia. the Lower Amur region in 1849 and established Negotiations with the Japanese Shogunate the Russian settlement of Nikolaevsk near the were to drag on until February 1855, when mouth of the river in 1850.4 From then until Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimoda, 1855, Nevelskoi dispatched a series of smaller and during those negotiations a key sticking parties to investigate the situation on Sakhalin point was the location of the frontier between Island and determine whether Russia could lay Japan and Russia in Sakhalin.3 claim to the island. Orlov’s was the second of 2 18 | 23 | 5 APJ | JF these. The first consisted of just two people: a and Japanese were wary of one another and young military officer, Nikolai Konstantovich were conscious of the sensitive negotiations Boshnyak, and his Amur Nivkh guide Pozvein, between their nations going on in Japan. They who travelled to the northwest coast oftherefore spent almost nine months living in Sakhalin and along the River Tym in 1852. uneasy but generally peaceful proximity, until Boshnyak’s expedition was poorly prepared and Russia’s worsening fortunes in the Crimean sparsely supplied5, and he returned to the Amur War led to the temporary abandonment of Fort weak and exhausted after six weeks. Muravyov at the end of May 1854. Important parts of the everyday relationship between the Dmitrii Orlov had been commissioned to Japanese and their new Russian neighbours ‘describe the western coast of the island from were looked after by prominent local Ainu, who 51° north to its southern tip and to scout out were entrusted with the task of managing the the position of the Japanese possessions in Japanese storehouses in Kushunkotan during 6 Aniwa Bay’. In true imperial fashion, on arrival the winter months, while most of the Japanese in Sakhalin he raised the Russian flag near an traders, officials and fishermen retreated to the Ainu village a little north of Nayoro. But when slightly less hostile climate of Hokkaido.10 he reached Nayoro on a stormy summer’s night, he encountered the local Setokurero Kanchomante, Setokurero’s son, having arrived (whose background we explored in Part 1 of in Kushunkotan with Orlov and his expedition, this essay). Setokurero had just returned from also stayed on there, and helped to guide Busse a trip to the southern part of Sakhalin, and he and other Russians along the lower reaches of warned Orlov that the Japanese had heard of the nearby Susuya River, a crucial waterway the Russians’ arrival, and were planning to extending into the fertile valleys of southern ambush them.7 He also brought tidings of the Sakhalin.11 Setokurero, in other words, was arrival of a separate Russian expedition, carefully preparing his own intervention in the headed by Nikolai Busse, which had just set up negotiations going on between the Japanese camp next to the Japanese trading post at and the Russians, first by scouting out the Kushunkotan. Setokurero then offered Orlov activities of the Russians himself, and then by the services of one of his five adult sons, strategically placing his son as their guide – a Kanchomante8, who could guide him to safety position which would give him further inside through the forest. With Setokurero’s son as intelligence about the people with whom their guide, Orlov and his party fled inland, Setokurero hoped to negotiate. leaving much of their equipment behind in Nayoro. They crossed the island to the east The 1853‒1854 Russian occupation of Fort coast, from where they made their way south to Muravyov was enlivened by the fact that Major join Busse at the makeshift fort which he had Busse and his second-in-command, Lieutenant set up at Kushunkotan and named ‘Fort Nikolai Vasilyevich Rudanovskii, heartily Muravyov’ (Muravyovskii Post).9 loathed one another, and spent as much time as possible avoiding each other’s company. In Nikolai Busse’s expedition to Kushunkotan was order to rid himself of the presence of on a very different scale from Boshnyak’s and Rudanovskii, whom he variously described as Orlov’s ventures. He arrived in Sakhalin in being rude, impatient, stupid and ‘real early September with a party of about sixty poison’12, Busse did his best to encourage his people, and instructions to build a fortified deputy to travel around the island mapping its encampment a short distance from theterritory, and it was on one of these expeditions Japanese settlement of Kushunkotan. This was in December 1853 that Rudanovskii not a violent invasion, though. The Russians encountered Setokurero and his entourage of 3 18 | 23 | 5 APJ | JF twenty or so other indigenous elders as they his seat and asked several times, “Russkii i travelled southward on their mission toSisam uneno, Russkii i Sisam uneno?”’ which Kushunkotan with their convoy of heavily laden Rudanovskii interprets as meaning ‘do the sleighs: they were bringing with them, perhaps Russians and the Japanese get along fine?’16. as a goodwill gesture towards the Russians, the The last word of Setokurero’s question, though, equipment and supplies that Dmitrii Orlov had clearly seems to be the Sakhalin Ainu word left behind in their village when he fled from ‘unino’ – ‘equal’ or ‘the same’17 – which would Nayoro a few months earlier.13 give the whole sentence a rather different meaning. The conversation then moved on to Learning that a Russian officer was in the trade, as Setokurero questioned Rudanovskii neighbourhood of the village where he and his about the items that could be purchased from companions were staying, Setokurero went to the Russians, expressing interest in ‘silver visit Rudanovskii at the Ainu house where he earrings, sabres and other requisites that they had taken shelter for the night. Rudanovskii cherish’.18 Setokurero also asked about the was accompanied by Ainu guides and assistants availability of alcohol, which may have meant who must have been able to provide some form (as Rudanovskii clearly assumed) that he liked of interpretation, because he managed to have a drop himself, but which more likely reflected a conversation with Setokurero which went on the fact that saké was a valuable trade item late into the night, and – despite his generally and an essential gift to the gods used in all condescending attitude towards the ‘natives’ – Ainu religious ceremonies, but (even given a he was impressed by the Ainu elder’s ‘natural supply of the necessary ingredients) was 14 intelligence’.