Insights to Humanity's "Nature Religions": Introduction

This is a six part series of short postings of a longer article viewable at this link: Insights to Humanity's "Nature Religions".  These shorter periodic postings may make reviewing the article more time efficient for you.

This paper is largely founded upon a paper by Atsushi Honjo found at this link:  AINU: The Indigenous People of Northern Japan.  While many of the traditions and observations apply specifically to the Ainu I strongly feel that these general descriptors likely apply to many of humanity's ancient peoples.

The Ainu are an indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan and southeastern Russia, and other regional areas.  The Ainu are one of the few ethnic minorities native to the Japanese islands. They were subject to forced assimilation and colonization by the Japanese since at least the 18th century. Japanese assimilation policies in the 19th century around the Meiji Restoration included forcing Ainu peoples off their land. This, in turn, forced them to give up traditional ways of life such as subsistence hunting and fishing. Ainu people were not allowed to practice their religion and were placed into Japanese-language schools, where speaking the Ainu language was forbidden.

Analyses of Ainu bones and genes show that their ancestors lived in the mainland of East Asia and migrated from India approximately 40,000 years ago. These ancestors are the forbears of both the first North Americans, and possibly even before them, of the Ainu, which may have entered the Japanese islands from the mainland through a land-bridge in the extreme south approximately 25,000 years ago. 

Next: The Hunter-Gatherers