Kayano Shigeru

Ainu politician of Japan (1926–2006) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kayano Shigeru (萱野茂, Kayano Shigeru; June 15, 1926 – May 6, 2006) was a Japanese politician and a leading figure in the Ainu ethnic movement in Japan. He was one of the last speakers of the Ainu language.

Preceded byEiichi Matsumoto

Succeeded byMulti-member district

ConstituencyNational PR

Born15 June 1926

Biratori, Hokkaido, Japan

Quick facts Member of the House of Councillors, Preceded by ...

Kayano Shigeru
萱野茂


Member of the House of Councillors
In office 5 August 1994 – 25 July 1998
Preceded by	Eiichi Matsumoto
Succeeded by	Multi-member district
Constituency	National PR
Member of the Biratori Town Council
In office 1975–1994

Personal details
Born	(1926-06-15)15 June 1926 Biratori, Hokkaido, Japan
Died	6 May 2006(2006-05-06) (aged 79) Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Party	Democratic (1998–2006)
Other political affiliations	JSP (1992–1996) SDP (1996) DP (1996–1998)
Awards	Yoshikawa Eiji Cultural Award (1989) Order of the Sacred Treasure third class (2001)

Early life

Kayano was born in Nibutani village in Biratori, Hokkaido, Japan. His family name at birth was Kaizawa, but he was adopted out by name to his aunt's family. He was raised in poverty by his alcoholic father and devout Buddhist mother, and gained his first appreciation of Ainu culture from his grandmother, Tekatte, who would share traditional stories in Ainu with him.

Cultural leader

Though he did not reach a high level of formal education,^{[citation needed]} he undertook an impassioned study of Ainu folklore, art, language and history. He successfully led efforts to record Ainu religious practices.^[1] His activism helped bring about the founding of the Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum in 1972.^[2] He was an acknowledged living master of the Ainu oral tradition, an expert in its folk arts and language, having collected hundreds of tales and artefacts and publishing multiple books on the topics.^[3] He led the effort to found 15 Ainu language schools.

Political career

He served five terms in the Biratori Town Council before winning a seat in the House of Councillors for the Japan Socialist Party.^[4] There he served from 1994 to 1998 and he was the first Ainu politician to sit in the Diet of Japan.^[5] In the Diet, he often posed questions in the Ainu language.

Kayano Shigeru was also known for leading the protest movement against the Nibutani Dam. The dam over the Saru River, completed in 1997 despite legal attempts to stop it, flooded land sacred to the Ainu.^[6]^[7]^[8] Though unsuccessful, the legal effort did result in a ruling by the Sapporo District Court, acknowledging the Ainu as the indigenous people of Hokkaidō for the first time.^[9]^[10] He also succeeded in his quest for abolition of Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act (北海道旧土人保護法公布) and enacting the Act for the Promotion of Ainu Culture & Dissemination of Knowledge Regarding Ainu Traditions in 1997.^[11]^[12] In 2001 he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure third class.^[13] He died of pneumonia at a hospital in Sapporo, Hokkaidō on May 6, 2006, just over a month short of his 80th birthday.

Works

Kayano Shigeru has written about 100 books about the Ainu language and culture, including 28 yukar collections. Some of his works were translated into English:

The Ainu and the Fox – 2006
The Ainu: A Story of Japan's Original People – 2004
Our Land was a Forest: an Ainu Memoir – 1994
Yukar, the Ainu Epic and Folktales – 1988
The Romance of the Bear God – 1985

References

[1]
Sjöberg 2003, p. 337.
[2]
Sjöberg 1993, p. 155.
[3]
Sjöberg 1993, pp. 155–156.
[4]
Uemura & Gayman 2018, pp. 34–35.
[5]
Sjöberg 2003, p. 340.
[6]
Sjöberg 2003, pp. 341–342.
[7]
Levin 2008, pp. 82–83.
[8]
Huambachano & Sakakibara 2025, pp. 50–51.
[9]
Stevens 2001, p. 181.
[10]
Noguchi 2025, pp. 49–50.
[11]
Tzagernik 2021, p. 39.
[12]
Act for the Promotion of Ainu Culture & Dissemination of Knowledge Regarding Ainu Traditions
[13]
"2001-Nen aki no jokun kunsantō ijō to zaigai hōjin, gaikoku hito jokun no jushō-sha ichiran" 2001年秋の叙勲　勲三等以上と在外邦人、外国人叙勲の受章者一覧 [List of recipients of the Order of Merit of the Third Class or higher in the fall of 2001 and Japanese and foreign nationals living abroad]. Yomiuri Shimbun (in Japanese). 3 November 2001.

Works cited

Huambachano, Mariaelena; Sakakibara, Chie (2025). "Unsettling the Polarization against Global Climate Change and Food Insecurity: Transnational Voices from the Global Indigenous Environmental Humanities". The Global South. 17 (2): 33–59. doi:10.2979/gbs.00018.
Levin, Mark A. (February 2008). "The Wajin's Whiteness: Law and Race Privilege in Japan". Horitsu Jiho. 80 (2): 80–91. SSRN 1551462.
Noguchi, Kumiko (March 2025). "Fighting Invisibility: Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Empowerment during the COVID-19 Pandemic". Meiji Gakuin University International & Regional Studies. 66. Meiji Gakuin University: 43–56.
Sjöberg, Katarina (1993). The Return of the Ainu: Cultural Mobilization and the Practice of Ethnicity in Japan. Studies in Anthropology and History. Vol. 9. Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers. doi:10.4324/9781315077130. ISBN 978-3-71865-401-7.
Sjöberg, Katarina V. (2003). "Rethinking indigenous religious traditions: The case of the Ainu". In Olupona, Jacob K. (ed.). Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity. Routledge. pp. 325–353.
Stevens, Georgina (2001). "The Ainu and Human Rights: Domestic and International Legal Protections". Japanese Studies. 21 (2): 181–198. doi:10.1080/10371390120074354.
Tzagernik, Tacchana (March 2021). "Torauma no gainen o Ainu no bunmyaku ni atehameru: Hikaku to kōsatsu" トラウマの概念をアイヌの文脈に当てはめる : 比較と考察 [Applying the concept of trauma to the Ainu context: a comparison and reflection]. アイヌ・先住民研究 [Ainu and Indigenous Studies] (in Japanese). 1: 35–51. doi:10.14943/97142. hdl:2115/80885.
Uemura, Hideaki; Gayman, Jeff (2018). "Tagen shugi kara miru nihonkokukenpō no aitaiteki igi: senjūmin-zoku no shiten kara kindainihon no kihon-hō o kangaeru" 多元主義から見る日本国憲法の相対的意義: 先住民族の視点から近代日本の基本法を考える [The Relative Significance of Japan's Constitution in terms of Pluralism: An Examination of Modern Japan's Basic Law from the Perspective of the Indigenous Peoples]. 恵泉女学園大学紀要 [Keisen University Bulletin] (in Japanese). 30: 21–38.