Samurai--Were They of Ainu Extraction?

[Steel Tiger]

Yup. I read stuff of Dobzhansky's that was arguing eloquently that `race' as a concept had no biological status that he wrote in the late 1950s... there was a great phrase he used: `nothing more than a cross section of arbitrarily chosen gene frequencies'. I still remember that from my undergraduate physical anthro courses, forty-five years ago... that long ago? Please, not that long ago!... sigh... that long ago, eh?

Now that is interesting. To think that the concept of race was being challenged at the same time as things like apartheid were being conceived and implemented. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.

The stuff going on with ethnic `mixing' and exchange of genes in subarctic Asia is—if the truth were known—sufficiently complex and heterogeneous to pose a gigantic threat to that Japanese conviction of racial superiority which has been such a prominent part of Japanese culture—and which has earned them the limitless hostility of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian peoples....

Well anything that can get rid of thoughts of racial superiority is a good thing. Most cultures have plenty to offer without such things. Japanese culture is definitely one of them.

I've wondered about that sort of thing. Too bad reliable information is so hard to come by at those time depths...

The best we can come by are various annals from China, Japan ,and Korea. Unfortunately, they are anthologies and have many controdictions in them. The Chinese works of the time seem more reliable, but do not discuss Japan very much beyond recognition of the existence of states and some trade relations.