The Intersection between Nation and Empire Building: The Case of Okinawa and Hokkaido

Fushine articulated a notion of imperial subjecthood in which he as an Ainu could also be a loyal subject. In contrast, Okinawans protested the inclusion of Okinawans in the display, arguing that there were no ethnic distinctions between them and the Japanese. How did this happen, that the Japanese state was so successful in melding nation and empire together, that by 1903 the Okinawan people proclaimed themselves to be Japanese? As Alan Christy (Reference Christy1993, 610) has asserted, despite projects of cultural assimilation being carried out in all the colonies, “the fact that in Okinawa alone did the targets of the project widely come to identify themselves as ‘Japanese’ has no doubt contributed greatly to the propensity to ignore the possibility of ethnic contradiction in Okinawa.” Why did the Ainu, as exemplified by Fushine's thoughts and actions, view their inclusion in the empire so differently? Furthermore, how did Japanese reactions differ when confronting imperial subjects being displayed next to those from foreign nations?

In order to answer these questions, I examine the debates that arose over the controversial Human Pavilion, which on the surface level seemed to be concerned about notions of civilization and barbarity, if the display of people violated notions of what it meant to be human, as well as whether Japan was aping the West by displaying its colonial others. However, on a more discrete level, issues of imperial subjecthood and colonial subjecthood were also fleshed out and debated. Some Japanese argued that compatriots (dōhō) like the Okinawans and Ainu should not be treated in the same manner as people from foreign nations. Others saw the inclusion of the Taiwanese in the empire, much in the same way as the Ainu and Okinawans, calling them “new Japanese” (shin Nihonjin) and not colonial subjects.

Before returning to the Human Pavilion, I will first address the specific circumstances regarding the inclusion of Okinawa and Hokkaido in the Japanese empire, which occurred at the same moment when Japan was simultaneously engaging in a nation-building project (Mason Reference Mason2005, 4). I will attempt to answer what has become a “swept under the rug problem” of modern Japanese national and imperial history—how to characterize the inclusion of Okinawa and Hokkaido in the empire. Certainly, for scholars of Ainu or Okinawan studies, this problem is not a problem at all but the central tenet for relating their histories with national ones. For these scholars, discussions about Hokkaido and Okinawa are addressed as problems of colonialism or internal colonialism. The answer to the problem of Okinawa and Hokkaido lies in an ambiguous space, somewhere between empire and nation.

The problem of whether Hokkaido and Okinawa should be discussed as colonies or as part of the nation-state is further amplified for other reasons. First, in the Japanese case of empire building, similar to the British and French empires, the processes of nation and empire building occurred at the same time, and extricating which is which is difficult, all the more so because these latter projects were not always couched in the professed goal and aim of perpetuating colonialism.Footnote ⁷ For example, David Askew (Reference Askew2006, 275) argues that the violence directed toward the Ainu was masked in terms of law: “Indeed if the law of the colonizer can be defined as modern and universal, while the law of the colonized denigrated as primitive and particularistic, the violence is not only disguised but even justified. As Peter Fitzpatrick notes ‘the violence of imperialism was legitimated in its being exercised through law.’” Thus, the development of Hokkaido's frontier was naturalized as incorporating into the nation land sparsely populated by the indigenous Ainu, and not talked about in terms of promoting colonization that resulted in deaths and uprooting many people, whose way of life was threatened by economic displacement and attempts at forced acculturation. In the same vein, the geopolitical concerns that prompted the Japanese state to accelerate the inclusion of Okinawa in the empire was not done under the rubric of colonization, but as a natural fusion of two regions that had shared cultural affinities for hundreds of years.

So was Hokkaido a colony of Japan? Yes. The development of Hokkaido led by the Development Agency (Kaitakushi) resulted in the encouragement of a mass influx of Japanese settlers to develop a land that was reimagined to be an open frontier. They soon outnumbered the indigenous population, whose land was confiscated and redistributed, and who faced further restriction of hunting and fishing rights. Although by the turn of the nineteenth century the majority of Ainu were engaged in wage labor or trade with the Japanese, with the passage of the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Act the government attempted to turn the Ainu into farmers (Howell Reference Howell2004, 6–7).Footnote ⁸

By being named “Northern Sea Route,” Hokkaido became linked with an imperial past it had not previously been a part of, and its association with the gokishichidō (five provinces, seven highways) was meant to “disassociate the island from its vulgar past,” Michelle Mason (Reference Mason2005, 17) asserts.Footnote ⁹ The catalyst for colonization efforts in Hokkaido was the fear of imperial Russia, whose advances induced the Tokugawa shogunate to assume control of Ezo from the Matsumae domain two times, from 1790 to 1821 and then from 1855 to 1868, the latter period filled with rising tensions with the arrival of various Western ships at Japan's shores (Walker Reference Walker2001, 227–28).

I characterize Hokkaido as a colony, because of the following characteristics: the reappropriation and distribution of land, the extraction of resources, the influx of Japanese settlers, and attempts at forced acculturation of the Ainu. Using these same criteria to evaluate the status of Okinawa as a colony, Okinawa does not match all the criteria, largely because there was never a large influx of Japanese settlers into Okinawa. Rather than the rich agricultural and fishing resources found in Hokkaido, in Okinawa, its value was primarily derived from its strategic location in being “the defense of the southern borders of the nation” (Christy Reference Christy1993, 611). With regard to the extraction of resources, at first the government was interested in developing sugar production in Okinawa, but soon it put its energy into developing the sugar industry in Taiwan, which had more favorable conditions (611–12). Similar to the case of Hokkaido, when foreign threats from Russia and other foreign powers induced the Tokugawa government to assume direct control over the region two times, the sudden incursion of foreign powers near the Ryūkyū kingdom resulted in the acceleration of placing the Ryūkyū kingdom under Japanese sovereignty. Due to geopolitical concerns, primarily with national defense and international commerce, the Meiji government had to erase any doubt that the Ryūkyū kingdom could be “up for grabs” during a time when the Western powers were quickly claiming outposts in the Southeast Asian region (Mizuno Reference Mizuno2007, 685). The establishment of Ryūkyū han in 1872 (administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no less), one year after the domain (han) system was abolished nationwide, bespoke of the retrograde attempt to naturalize the kingdom's incorporation into the nation. This process was completed in 1879 when Ryūkyū han officially became Okinawa prefecture. Like the Ainu, Okinawans faced similar assimilation policies: the encouragement of Japanese over local languages and the banning of certain social customs deemed backward and primitive (like tattooing, in the case of both the Ainu and Okinawans). By banning markers of a distinct ethnic identity apart from the Japanese, the government tried to subsume Okinawan and Ainu cultures into a Japanese one.

Therefore, with this background describing the intertwining processes of nationalization and imperialization carried out in Hokkaido and Okinawa fresh in our minds, we can better understand that the different reactions of the Ainu and Okinawans to their inclusion in the 1903 Human Pavilion was the result of distinct ethno-racial peoples trying to understand their place in the nation—as imperial subjects—which, worryingly at times, seemed at risk of being more akin to that of people from a foreign nation. The messiness of the imperial projects that Japan was engaged in resulted in a questioning of who the Ainu and Okinawans were vis-à-vis the imperial state and the Japanese. The answers were not self-evident, a reminder that imperial mentalities were not bestowed upon the masses, but created and reconfigured within larger arenas of public discourse, in which colonial subjects also participated.

Ainu Fushine Kōzō

Fushine appeared in the Human Pavilion as a way to raise money for the native schools (dojin gakkō) that were set up for Ainu children. One reporter remarked favorably on Fushine's resemblance to someone from the metropolis (naichijin) and provided evidence of Fushine's loyalty as a subject, for he had “contributed money to the land army during the 1894–5 Sino-Japanese war and frequently gave money to charity” (Mainichi (Yokohama), April 23, 1903).

The very presence of Fushine Kōzō, who appeared to be Japanese in his patriotic actions, was nonetheless Ainu, as distinguished by the attention reporters paid to his speech given in Japanese and his non-Japanese facial features that looked more akin to those of Caucasians. For example, one of the reporters, in reference to one of the older Ainu in the Human Pavilion, had said he “bore a striking resemblance to Tolstoy” (Miyako, April 29, 1903). Fushine blurred the expectations that the audience had about what place the Ainu should have in the empire. Furthermore, the principle of the Human Pavilion—the idea of humans displaying other humans—was called into question. The exhibitors and their motivations came under scrutiny, as debates broke out in the public arena over who should be in the Human Pavilion, if anyone. This debate was embodied in the person of Fushine Kōzō, a man who was both Christian and modern, who usually dressed in Western clothing, such as a frockcoat and trebly hat, and carried a gold pocket watch worth over one hundred yen, but donned traditional Ainu clothing for the display. Fushine embodies the complexity of the lives of those caught in between the boundaries of colonial subjecthood.

Fushine asked the audience for donations to construct an Ainu school in Fushiko (Osaka mainichi, March 6, 1903; Osaka asahi, April 8, 1903). At this time, Ainu children were segregated from attending school with Japanese children, in accordance with legislation that was not abolished until 1937 (Siddle Reference Siddle1996, 72). Although article nine of the 1899 Protection Act stipulated that funds for establishing native schools for the Ainu were to be provided by the national treasury, in reality, money was not immediately or systematically provided.Footnote ¹⁰

As Fushine had mentioned in his speech, he had worked many years toward advancing educational opportunities for Ainu children. Fushine had met evangelical Christian missionaries John Batchelor and Charles Nettleship in the late nineteenth century and was greatly impressed by their dedication to helping the Ainu people. Fushine had been a wild youth growing up with a penchant for gambling and drinking. The Protestant missionaries who came to Hokkaido and who were involved in the temperance movement appealed to Fushine. He converted to Christianity. By adhering to the missionaries' encouragement of temperance, Fushine heeded his mother's dying wish for him to stay away from sake. She had reminded him of the evils of drinking and how Ainu who exchanged sake with the Japanese traders for goods often ended up dependent on the traders for alcohol, losing their livelihoods as a consequence (Yoshida 1958, 19). When Christian missionaries opened the Hakodate Training School in the late 1890s, Fushine paid the fees to send two Ainu children to attend the school, and provided for their travel expenses and new clothes (20). He taught children in his own house, and hired Buddhist monk Yamagata Ryōon to teach them at a time when there were no schools yet built in his village (Hisaki 1980, 8). He began to raise money in 1899 for a school in Fushiko; it was established in 1901. With the help of missionaries, he found a teacher to teach the first class, which included twenty-five Ainu children (Hokkaido kyōiku kenkyūsho 1998, 813).

However, because of the difficulties in maintaining the school, Fushine asked the local government officials for funding, which they denied. However when they told him about the Osaka Exposition as a venue where he potentially could raise money for the school's operational costs, Fushine embraced the opportunity (Osaka mainichi, March 6, 1903). Before Fushine began appearing in the Human Pavilion in April, he toured the country to raise funds, visiting Hakodate, Sapporo, and Otaru in northern Japan, and Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Maebashi in central Japan (Hokkaido kyōiku kenkyūsho 1998, 813; Yoshida 1958, 21). His decision to go to Osaka to raise public awareness of the Ainu is clearly reflective of his dedication to improving the lives of the Ainu members of his community. Fushine was no stranger to the metropolis; he had first traveled to Tokyo in 1898, visiting the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he met with politicians Gamō Sen (1856–1908) and Saigō Tsugumichi (1843–1902) about education and the development of agriculture for the Ainu people (Hokkaido kyōiku kenkyūsho 1998, 813; Murakami 1942, 55; Otaru, February 26, 1898).

Few Ainu would have had the funds to travel to the metropolis, but Fushine's background helps explain how he was able to do so. Fushine was one of the Ainu elite and one of the richest men in his village; in his lifetime he employed forty to fifty Japanese and Ainu workers in his six fisheries (Arai 1992, 28).Footnote ¹¹ He had been born in 1874, descending from the family lineage of Sansōtona, son of the Ainu chief Shatsunai and mother Perupune (Hokkaido shinbusha henshū 1981, 349). His father owned over one hundred horses that he raised in a large field (Umeki 1986, 110). His father had interactions with Japanese traders and often told Fushine and his siblings about the importance of education (Yoshida 1958, 18). Therefore, Fushine grew up in an environment conducive to learning Japanese. It was Fushine's conversion to Christianity and his interactions with missionaries, most notably John Batchelor, however, that enabled him to actively support education for the Ainu.Footnote ¹²

Although Fushine was from a well-to-do background and was regarded by some newspapers to be the chief of the Tokachi region, and even designated by others in quite hyperbolic fashion to be the chief of all the Ainu in Hokkaido, he was not in fact a chief (Osaka mainichi, March 6, 1903; Osaka chōhō, April 5, 1903). Although he was a man of influence in his region and in his later years would become a leader within the larger Ainu community in general, he was humble about his status as someone who was uneducated. Fushine could speak Japanese fluently and was a fine orator, but he keenly felt his lack of education. He did not hide from audiences that he could not read and that he could only write a little (Takakura 1936, 92).

In a speech given on April 5 in the pavilion, Fushine further delineated the disadvantages the Ainu faced due to their lack of education. First he explained how in the past, the Ainu, as a people who had never had a written language, tied knots in ropes to secure contracts, and looked at the changing seasons—when the snow melted in the mountains, or when the first green leaves appeared in spring—in order to know when a specific task needed to be carried out. Therefore, with the recent influx of Japanese who came to Hokkaido and relied upon money to arrange contracts, the Ainu were prone to mistakes when doing business on Japanese terms. Second, Fushine once again touched upon the fact that although the Ainu were eligible for military conscription, they could not be hired because many could not read. Fushine emphasized that although he himself was uneducated, he was the one teaching over eighty Ainu children in his village. Fushine's actions portrayed the dire situation of the Ainu, for he, an uneducated man himself, had taken on the task of educating so many children. In his closing remarks, he told the audience how his everyday life was affected by not having an education. He relayed how when he first came to Osaka for the exposition, he had mistaken an udon (noodle) shop for the police station. He tried to convey to the Japanese audience how simple things they might take for granted—such as reading signs—were something that was an everyday struggle for him and other uneducated Ainu. He ended his appeal by affirming that the Ainu people, although a race distinct from the Japanese, were united to the Japanese under the bonds of subjecthood: “The Ainu people, 16,000 in number, are a pitiful race (jinrui); ladies and gentlemen, if you embrace the concept that we are all subjects of the empire (teikoku no shinmin), raise your hand if you would like exert your efforts in helping Ainu education” (Osaka chōhō, April 5, 1903).

Fushine demonstrated in his speech that he did not believe he had to deny being Ainu in order to bolster his stance as an imperial subject. In the closing lines of his speech, Fushine urged the audience not to miss out on seeing the only authentic house displayed in the pavilion, which Fushine said was a chance for the audience to see a representation of the Ainu way of life. The house had been purchased from its occupant at the time, an Ainu named Itakupaku from Horobetsu village, Iburi province, and then moved to Osaka, where it was displayed with a storage house and an inaw netopa (a large piece of wood to which inaw—whittled pieces of willow, lilac, and other wood shavings, seen as offerings to gods—are tied) (Miyako, April 29, 1903; Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903).Footnote ¹³ Therefore, while Fushine urged the audience to give money for Ainu education, he also believed in the imperative of educating the Japanese about the Ainu's distinctly non-Japanese culture.

In the pavilion, besides giving speeches in Japanese, Fushine, his wife Fumi (Ainu name Arushito), and his twelve-year-old nephew Keiichi (Ainu name Ukantokuaino) also operated a booth selling Ainu handicrafts, which was sponsored by wealthy Osaka resident Kanda Kahei (Osaka mainichi, March 6, 1903). Fushine also informed the audience of the Ainu's current situation by handing out pamphlets entitled “An account on the protection of the Ainu” (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903; Mainichi (Yokohama), April 23, 1903). A reporter described him in the following way: “[Fushine] as a believer in Christianity is a man of exemplary conduct, and as he sells goods in this exposition, at the same time he solicits contributions from public-spirited persons. He has a subscription list open to support the expansion of education for the natives, and it shows many donors who made contributions of fifty sen or one yen” (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903). By the end of the exposition, Fushine raised an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 yen for the running of the school.Footnote ¹⁴ The next year, the school that Fushine had originally established was promoted to the status of a public school and renamed No. 2 Fushiko Elementary School (Hokkaido kyōiku kenkyūsho 1998, 813; Umeki 1986, 113).

Okinawan Women Nakamura Kame and Uehara Ushi

With the display of the two Okinawan women, Nakamura Kame and Uehara Ushi, in the Human Pavilion, representing reality was not as important as meeting the expectations of visitors and, to a certain extent, providing entertainment. Critic Robert Bogdan (Reference Bogdan1988, 178) has written that the exhibition of non-Western peoples generally was “exotic, but exotic is an understatement for what [occurred]. Showmen elaborately embellished the exotic and wrapped it with a profusion of creative tales and twists, finally packaging it all within a pseudo-anthropological framework.” This could be seen with the Okinawan women's display: they were presented as aristocratic members of the Shuri royal family, when in reality they were prostitutes from the Tsuji red-light district in Okinawa (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903).

Two contrasting narratives emerged relating to how the Okinawan women were treated in the Human Pavilion and their attitude toward their time there. Importantly, one account has emerged as the dominant narrative of the tragedy of the display of the Okinawan women in the Human Pavilion, and it is the one that Okinawan histories rely upon when pointing to a long history of Japanese discrimination against Okinawans (Christy Reference Christy1993; Engeki “Jinruikan” 2005; Ota 1967). It is intriguing that some evidence points to an alternative story, but it has not been considered in depth.Footnote ¹⁵ I argue that the second narrative is not considered because it opens up the possibility that the women might have been complicit in their display, suggesting that instead of a black-and-white case of Japanese oppression, there were some grey areas. While I do not have enough evidence to prioritize one narrative over the other, it is important to consider how the two narratives diverge and what the implications are for each one.

One narrative about Nakamura and Uehara published in the Okinawan Ryūkyū shinpō claimed that they were tricked into coming to Osaka, having been told that they would work in a shop selling Okinawan goods. They were promised one yen a day and an advance payment of 200 yen as well as adequate food and shelter (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 27, 1903). However, once they arrived in Osaka, they were taken to the Human Pavilion. An Okinawan resident living in Osaka at the time, Mr. Gachō, sent a letter to the Ryūkyū shinpō claiming that he saw the Okinawan women in the Human Pavilion moving at the command of a man holding a whip, who pointed at them “no different than how one would point at a monkey or animal.” He wrote that the guide commanded the women, whom he referred to as “broads” (koitsu), to move their arms and legs (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903). According to another report, the women were prohibited from leaving the pavilion (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 27, 1903). Mr. Gachō further asserted, “We cannot but be troubled to understand the reasons for restrictively confining man—who is the spiritual head of all beings—and turning him into a spectacle” (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903; emphasis added).

In contrast to the above characterization of the Okinawan women as captives, a second narrative emerged that suggested that at least one of the Okinawan women was complicit in their display. In response to the reports printed in the Ryūkyū shinpō, the Osaka asahi investigated the matter and concluded that there had been no ill treatment of the women:

According to the Osaka asahi, one of the women, Nakamura Kame, wanted to return to Okinawa, but the other woman, Uehara Ushi, wanted to remain in Osaka. Nakamura wanted to return to Okinawa because of homesickness, and Uehara wanted to stay in Osaka because of lovesickness:

A week after the report in the Osaka asahi, the Ryūkyū shinpō reported the arrival of the Satsuma ship at the Naha port, carrying both women (Ryūkyū shinpō, May 19, 1903). It was reported that although they were promised 400 yen, each received just 126 yen, leaving 148 yen unaccounted for (Ryūkyū shinpō, May 21, 1903). Whether Uehara had a disagreement with her boyfriend or changed her mind, or the organizers forced her to leave in order to quell the protests, can only be left to speculation. The discovery of a second photograph of the Human Pavilion in 2010 confirms the presence of an Okinawan man who could have been the lover of Uehara. On the back of the photograph, it is recorded that there was an Okinawan man, although official reports do not count him in the tally of participants (Okinawa Times, September 5, 2010). Therefore, a second narrative is possible, that one of the women regarded Osaka as an opportunity, or a better alternative to the red-light district of Tsuji. Only one newspaper reported that there was a man with a whip in the pavilion, commanding the women to move, just as only one newspaper reported that one of the women wanted to remain in Osaka. However, today only the story of the man with the whip has endured, and the story of how Uehara wanted to stay is never considered.

In order to substantiate the reports printed in the Ryūkyū shinpō regarding the existence of the man with a whip, I surveyed a variety of newspapers from the metropolis for any reports on the Okinawan women. The few reports that did describe the women depicted scenes of boredom and in certain cases when reporters visited, their absence, suggesting they were sometimes in places other than their Okinawan house. An account published in the Miyako described their lack of interest in showing their wares: “Next came the Ryūkyū booth, where ceramic tobacco pipes, fans, and lacquerware were lined up on the floor, but the proprietress was in the middle of a noon nap, lying in a corner with her clothing pulled over her head” (Miyako, April 26, 1903). Another account published in the Osaka asahi described the shop with its various products from Ryūkyū: “These Ryūkyūans are such shiftless types that they never bothered to show up in the shop, so it seems none of the goods are sold. I peeked in, wondering how they were doing, and saw the two together lying on their stomachs and shelling peanuts” (Osaka asahi, April 17, 1903). Their reported listless behavior stands in sharp contrast to Fushine's ardor, which was fueled by his efforts to raise money for the Ainu schools, his ability to communicate with the audience, and his position as a well-to-do Ainu who had Japanese supporters. The Okinawan women, on the other hand, exhibited the tedium of being on display with no other purpose than exhibiting their Okinawaness. These reports, which depicted the women as sleeping or absent, contrast with the indelible image of a man with a whip, ordering them to move on command. Of all the numerous depictions and articles written about the Human Pavilion at that time, the only paper that mentions him is the Ryūkyū shinpō. This is not to contend that the man with the whip did not exist, but it does cast doubt on how dominant a presence he was.Footnote ¹⁶

While the previous accounts only described the general scene of the Okinawan section of the pavilion, one account from the Osaka chōhō gives a more personal description of the two women. The reporter found them attractive, writing: “Their hair was done up in the usual coiled bun fastened by silver hairpins, but unlike the Korean girls, they had a very simple and somewhat refined manner about them.” He described Uehara as dark-skinned and Nakamura as fairer and very attractive. The reporter even claimed sensationally, “Miss Kame sometimes makes eyes at men she thinks are handsome” (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903). Both women could speak Japanese well enough that they could talk to reporters without a translator. Kame demonstrated to one reporter that she could write her name, and both women were said to be elementary school graduates (Osaka asahi, May 8, 1903).

Once Okinawan residents living in Osaka learned of the display of the Okinawan women in the Human Pavilion, word quickly traveled back to Okinawa. Beginning in April, Ōta Chōfu, one of the founders of the Ryūkyū shinpō newspaper, in which the majority of the protests were printed, led the protests. Ōta had been part of a group of Okinawan students selected to go to the metropolis to study at the government's expense in the late nineteenth century right after the Ryūkyū Kingdom was abolished and incorporated into the Japanese empire.Footnote ¹⁷ By the turn of the century, Ōta was a well-known advocate for Okinawan assimilation, believing that becoming Japanese meant modernizing, and that once Okinawans were modernized they would receive equal treatment from the Japanese government. At this time, a number of discrepancies existed in how Okinawa was administered in comparison to the other prefectures (Mizuno Reference Mizuno2007), something Ōta strove to fight with his encouragement of assimilation.Footnote ¹⁸ In 1900, Ōta gave a speech, subsequently referred to as Kushameron (On sneezing), in which he argued that Okinawans must assimilate to the point that they even sneezed the same as the Japanese (Uechi 2005, 22).Footnote ¹⁹

It is important to note, however, that before Ōta urged Okinawans to assimilate, he had tried to encourage Okinawan rule by Okinawans. After the Ryūkyū Kingdom was abolished, the former king Shō Tai had been forced to move to Tokyo. The first governor of Okinawa, and all the subsequent ones, were all appointed from Tokyo (similar to the appointment of governors of the other prefectures), a practice that continued until 1945 (Smits Reference Smits and Walthall2002, 102). Ōta had been one of the founding members of the Kōdōkai, a group that advocated Okinawan leadership of Okinawa. The Kōdōkai hoped to install the former king Shō Tai as the governor of Okinawa and proposed that a hereditary governorship be maintained through the relatives of the former king. According to historian George Kerr, it was hoped that “if the king was granted the nominal title and honors of governorship, the most stubborn anti-Japanese elements in Okinawa would unite with the liberal advocates of modernization” (Kerr Reference Kerr2000, 425). The Kōdōkai was short-lived, as Tokyo abolished it not long after it was formed, seeing it as a threat to the legitimacy of the newly appointed Tokyo governor. Therefore, Ōta's support of assimilation can be seen as something he came to gradually, after he and others failed to preserve some aspects of the traditional Okinawan leadership structure after its incorporation into the Japanese empire.

Even before the controversy over the Human Pavilion erupted, Ōta had already expressed his concern over the presence of Okinawan dancers at the Osaka Exposition, which he believed was counterproductive to Okinawan attempts to assimilate. He believed that cultural performances, such as the Okinawan “hand dance” (teodori), planted the idea in the heads of the yamato (Japanese) that Okinawan culture was inherently different, overshadowing their commonalities with the rest of the nation. These differences become exaggerated and the grounds to justify discrimination against Okinawans (Ryūkyū shinpō, February 25, 1903).

When reading about Ōta's conviction that anything that highlighted Okinawan difference inevitably led to discrimination, one can understand more fully his critique of the Human Pavilion. In a column protesting the pavilion, Ōta wrote that Okinawans had already become Japanese, and that although there were certainly small regional differences between Okinawans and the Japanese, these regional variances could be found in all the prefectures, and none were so large as to mark the Okinawans as drastically different from the Japanese (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 11, 1903). The display of Okinawans not only singled out the Okinawans as being distinct from the Japanese through their display alongside those of other nationalities, it also portrayed them in a primitive manner by placing them inside a grass-covered hut, with Goguryeo (ancient Korean kingdom) ceramic tobacco pipes (kōrai enkan). For Ōta, this primitive and inaccurate depiction of Okinawan culture implied that Okinawans were no different than the Ainu and Taiwanese Aborigines (whom he viewed as uncivilized), next to whom they were displayed (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903). The presentation of Okinawan culture in this manner, where “two prostitutes from the Tsuji district of Naha” were displayed as royalty, not only insulted the legacy of the former kingdom, it made a mockery of everything that Ōta was trying to promote, namely that Okinawans were modern and advanced (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 10, 1903).

Ōta's unhappiness with the association of Okinawans with other primitive people was similar to the discontent of earlier Chinese protestors. One Chinese writer asserted that it was intolerable to be displayed side by side with races that were known to be inferior, such as “the Indians and Ryûkyûans who came from dying countries and were now under the control of the British and Japanese, and the Koreans, who relied upon the protection of Russia and Japan, and the Javanese, the Ainu, and the barbarians from Taiwan who are among the lowest races in the world, and are no different than deer and pigs” (Sakamoto 1995, 78). The inclusion of the Chinese among such a motley crew of colonial subjects in the Human Pavilion, including a Turk from the Ottoman empire (referred to as the “sick man of Europe” at the time) suggested the vulnerability of Chinese political sovereignty. Protests from the Chinese students studying in Japan at the time and from the Chinese embassy convinced the Japanese foreign ministry to pull the Chinese people from the exhibit before it officially opened. Despite this resolution, shortly afterward word reached a group of Chinese students living in Tokyo that there was a Chinese woman displayed in the Human Pavilion, and so they sent a delegation to investigate the conditions inside. There they found a Taiwanese girl dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, with bound feet, serving tea to visitors to the pavilion. They negotiated for her removal and transfer “to a decent tea house in Osaka thereby putting the issue to rest” (Hur Reference Hur2012, 78). According to Hur (Reference Hur2012, 78), one of the student protesters, Zhou Hongye, believed that since “Taiwan officially belonged to Japan as its colony . . . further problematization of this issue could lead to an international conflict.” The important point here is that the Chinese students' intervention did not extend to the other Taiwanese displayed in the Human Pavilion; they stayed throughout the duration of the exposition. The students intervened in the case of the Taiwanese girl dressed in Chinese clothing, only because her presence in the pavilion continued to (mis)represent China. The other Taiwanese Aborigines in the pavilion were of no concern because they represented Japan's colony, Taiwan.

In contrast to the Chinese, the Koreans who protested, like the Okinawans, used their affinity to the Japanese, in having the “same race and same language” (dōshudōbun) as the rationale for protesting the pavilion. Korea was increasingly losing its independence under the growing influence of Japan at this time, and protesters turned to the notion of a pan-Asian identity as the reason why Koreans should not be in the pavilion:

While the Korean protestors attempted to transcend national boundaries by promoting a pan-Asian identity, the Osaka mainichi illustrated the blurring of national identities when it reported a scene where a Western woman asked a Korean woman in the Human Pavilion if she was Korean. She replied: “No, I am not Korean, I have become Japanese” (Osaka mainichi, March 15, 1903). Here, being Japanese was not something that was imposed from the top down by a colonial power, but was asserted willfully by a Korean woman who had not yet become a Japanese subject. (That would occur in seven years). The Korean protests, like those of the Chinese, were successful and resulted in the Korean women's withdrawal from the pavilion.

Ōta reasoned that if the Chinese and Koreans, as people from foreign countries, were upset about their inclusion in the pavilion, the Okinawans, who were compatriots, felt the insult twice over (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903). Other letter writers joined in Ōta's anger and denounced the Japanese public as enemies for remaining silent and therefore complicit in the operation of the pavilion (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 27, 1903). One of the last articles in the Ryūkyū shinpō presented one of the harshest depictions of the pavilion, likening it to a zoo in which young Okinawan girls (shōjo) (previously referred to as women or prostitutes) had been among black slaves (dorei) in huts (Ryūkyū shinpō, July 23, 1903).

Ōta's optimism in 1903, that if only Okinawans were the same as Japanese there would be no basis for discrimination, eventually weakened as Okinawa continued to be treated as a second-rate prefecture.Footnote ²⁰ In 1915, Ōta was obviously dismayed, writing that “to put it simply, although Okinawa prefecture is part of the empire's internal lands (naichi) the Okinawan residents are natives of a colony (shokuminchi no dojin)” (Ishida Reference Ishida Masaharu2001, 188).

In November 2008, Okinawan activist and founder of the Kansai Okinawa Bunko (Culture Center) Kinjō Kaoru told me that in Okinawa it is said that one of the women from the Human Pavilion built a large house with the money she earned after she returned to Okinawa. While I was in Okinawa, I talked with several people who had heard this story (including a government official and the director of a documentary about the pavilion), but they could not identify anyone who could elaborate. The question that revolves around their treatment is, if indeed one of the women wanted to stay, would the meaning behind their return to Okinawa change slightly? Is it possible that in a contestation over female bodies, and who has the right to display or violate them, their subjectivity was erased, their mistreatment overemphasized, in order to strengthen the claim of injustice and facilitate their eventual removal, fulfilling the interests of the Okinawan elite who worried that their presence tarnished their image? Thus, the story of Nakamura and Uehara illustrates that the power politics involved were not dictated just by Japanese-Okinawan relationships, but the Okinawan male elite played a key role in affecting the fate of the Okinawan women as well.

During a research trip to the Okinawa Prefecture library, I was looking through numerous volumes of the bound Ryūkyū shinpō when I stumbled upon a short article. Written on October 27, 1912, it reported the suicide of a prostitute named Nakamura Kame (twenty-eight), the daughter of a farmer. According to the article, she began to work as a prostitute in the Tsuji red-light district in 1903. She was described as a quiet girl who had lately turned despondent; she had killed herself by jumping into the sea. I believe this is the same Nakamura from the Human Pavilion who had wanted to return to Okinawa because she missed her father, who was a farmer, and her siblings. The age matches, for in 1903 she was reported to be twenty, and in 1912, nine years later, she was reported to be twenty-eight years old. These unsubstantiated stories that linger, one about a woman building a house upon her return, and a newspaper clipping about a suicide, are whispers of their subjectivity that prevent us from completely transforming them into representational objects of discrimination.

Debating Human Rights and Who Belongs to the Nation

The different Japanese voices that debated the legitimacy of the Human Pavilion illustrated that Japanese perspectives were just as multifarious as those of the colonial subjects. The controversy over the Human Pavilion sparked an interesting debate among Japanese writers in several newspapers about whether Japan could be called a civilized country when the countrymen of Japan condoned turning its compatriots into a sideshow. Some Japanese writers sympathized with the Okinawans, seeing them as compatriots (dōhō) and therefore deserving better treatment (Osaka asahi April 27, 1903). Shortly after the Korean protests erupted, a writer from the Osaka chōhō reported that the Osaka city mayor Tsuruhara went to see the Human Pavilion for himself. Tsuruhara declared that at the Human Pavilion “humans were being treated like animals” and that the “Japanese were insulting their compatriots” (Osaka chōhō, April 1, 1903).

In a consecutive two-day front page special in the Miyako in May, a column entitled “Human Spectacles” proclaimed its support for the Okinawans and Ainu:

In this excerpt, it is notable that the Japanese writer saw the insult toward fellow compatriots—Okinawans and Ainu—as the basis for critiquing the civilized nature of Japan. The writer accepted that there were different degrees of civilized races. He was not critical of the treatment of the Okinawans and Ainu because he considered them as civilized as the Japanese; rather, he believed that countrymen, regardless of their civilized level, should be treated with decency. He did not believe that the level of civilization of a certain race depended upon immutable characteristics inherent to specific races, as currents of social Darwinism suggested. Instead, such uncouth actions as displaying humans lowered a nation's standard of civilization. The writer's critique of the pavilion was therefore more a rallying cry in the spirit of nationalism.

Moving beyond whether Japan's national prestige was tarnished by the display, another report questioned the boundaries between empire and nation. Lines between imperial and colonial subjects were blurred, and as one reporter remarked, “It has revealed one kind of humanitarian problem directed toward the Ainu, Ryūkyū and Taiwanese” (Osaka mainichi, March 21, 1903). This type of critique, in which treatment of the Taiwanese was considered alongside that of the Ainu and Okinawans, is noteworthy in illustrating that divisions between colonial subjects (those from Taiwan) and imperial subjects were not yet crystallized. In fact, in all the reports, at no time were the Taiwanese referred to as colonial subjects, and in one report they were even called “new Japanese” (shin Nihonjin) (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903).

Significantly, the incorporation of Taiwan into the empire was often talked about in the same language used when referencing the inclusion of Hokkaido and Okinawa into the empire. In lieu of colony (shokuminchi), Taiwan was described as having become a part of Japanese territory (hanto ni hairimashita), the latter also used to describe Hokkaido and Okinawa's inclusion (Tsuboi 1908).Footnote ²¹

Attention to Japan's first display of colonial subjects (the Taiwanese) was overshadowed by concern that imperial subjects were on display next to those of other foreign countries. If imperialism was on display in the Human Pavilion, it had less to do with Japan's actions towards what many historians call Japan's first colony, Taiwan, and more to do with how the people from Hokkaido and Okinawa were implicated in the entanglement of imperialism and nationalism.

The sympathy directed toward participants varied. A reporter from the Osaka chōhō felt sympathy only for the Okinawan women, saying, “I don't think one can feel very good about having compatriots from the same homeland put up for exhibit as human specimens” (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903). With regard to the Ainu, some were confused by the contradiction between how the Ainu acted (with grace and therefore Japanese-like) and the differences that marked them as Ainu—their clothing, tattoos, and speech. Some compared the Ainu to the Taiwanese Aborigines, as both had tattoos and customs that the Japanese viewed as distasteful. One reporter likened the impression he received when he visited the Ainu section as similar to that which he had when he visited the Taiwanese Aborigines: “Next to the storage bin stood a fence made of staves out of which the inaw netopa or votive poles projected with three bear skulls displayed on the tips. The bear ritual of the Ainu leaves us with a strange feeling little different from that of the headhunting ritual of the Taiwan savages” (Miyako, April 29, 1903).

Other reporters commented that Fushine and his wife seemed more like the people of the metropolis (naichijin) than natives (dojin) (Osaka asahi, May 8, 1903). Another reporter praised Fushine's wife, stating that “the way [she] makes the beads fly on the abacus, you can tell that some of the inhabitants of the big cities of Japan are several degrees inferior to her in mastery” (Osaka chōhō, March 14, 1903). Her tattoo was a source of debate, one reporter remarked: “Although she is called a beauty among the Ainu I must say that the tattoo on her lips makes her an odd kind of beauty indeed” (Osaka chōhō, March 13, 1903). While another commented, “It was amusing the way the young woman who was his wife also with a dark tattoo on her upper lip conveyed an image of metropolitan grace as she offered pictures of the exposition for sale” (Miyako, April 29, 1903). Fumi's tattoo contradicted the refined manner in which she moved, which the reporter viewed as a distinctly metropolitan. Their nephew, Keiichi, was described as having “set his heart on enlisting in the army and serving as a soldier although he was a native” (Osaka chōhō, March 13, 1903). Rather than confirming their primitive nature, the Ainu's presence in the pavilion made spectators question their similarity to them.

Furthermore, in the Nihon newspaper, Professor Takebe articulated a notion of imperial subjecthood that was premised on all being children of the emperor—the basis from which Fushine had earlier made his appeal. Takebe proclaimed:

He further attacked the Human Pavilion on a universal humanist premise, saying that displaying people in any type of human spectacle was tasteless:

Professor Takebe protested the pavilion by arguing that the Japanese were engaging in a practice that had been inflicted on them at previous expositions. He referred to a previous English exposition, which had a “Japanese village in which our countrymen were put on show,”Footnote ²² and the 1900 Paris Exposition and the “Around the World” panorama, which featured fifteen Japanese geisha (Berg Reference Berg1995, 369–71). He wrote that while the envoys stationed in France brought this display to the attention of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the ministry “whose concern with financial profit was unparalleled was completely insensitive to the issue of human character (jinkaku mondai) and humanitarian concerns (jindō mondai), and proceeded to inflict upon the honor of our nation a great disgrace by such behavior.” He criticized the Human Pavilion as aping Western practices: “Sure enough the people appearing in exhibits earlier which ignored human character, are now the exhibitors who blithely view these entertainments” (Nihon, May 4, 1903).

When the Osaka chōhō reported on the Korean protests, it also referred to the Paris Exposition where two or three Japanese were displayed (Osaka chōhō, April 1, 1903). Both references to the Paris Exposition served as a reminder to the audience that not too long ago the Japanese were protesting the same thing that the Koreans, Chinese, and Okinawans were, with the same rationale. In the Osaka mainichi's letters to the editor, the “loud debate” (yamashi giron) over the Human Pavilion and the Chinese and Korean women was brought up in reference to a London exposition held in 1902 at Earls Court in which women from Europe, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Persia, and other countries were gathered in a panorama. “In front of each room there was a sign on which was written ‘talking with the women is allowed’ which the writer likened to being similar to a zoo with signs that read ‘do not give food to the animals without reason.’ In 1902 it had been argued that ‘although the displays show manners and customs because the Japanese were placed together with barbarians it was distasteful.’” (Osaka mainichi, March 23, 1903). The newspaper writer in 1903 highlighted the irony of an argument, which had been previously employed by the Japanese in 1902, falling on deaf Japanese ears one year later.

While some saw displaying humans as distasteful, and even hypocritical, others thought the issue was more complex when taking into account the position of the displayed people. A famous writer of the time, Kamitsukasa Shōken (1874–1947), remarked:

Kamitsukasa compared the pavilion to other Meiji entertainment called tableaux vivants or living pictures (katsujinga). In these shows, actors posed amidst an elaborate backdrop of, for example, the countryside or a Renaissance scene. Kamitsukasa thought that since the people in the pavilion let themselves be displayed, its characterization as a humanitarian problem was not straightforward.

More importantly, Fushine Kōzō, who himself was in the pavilion, did not view it as a humanitarian problem. He believed that the Human Pavilion was a respectable venue for him and other Ainu. It was reported that one afternoon, while Fushine was walking across the exposition grounds, he encountered a group of Ainu selling seal meat and singing Ainu songs to attract the attention of customers. A crowd had gathered around them, and Fushine, perhaps assuming the crowd was there more to gawk at them than to buy their wares, was angered. He urged the Ainu to work inside the Human Pavilion with him (Hokkai taimusu, April 15, 1903; Otaru, April 14, 1903). Bringing to mind Ōta's unhappiness with Okinawan prostitutes representing Okinawa, Fushine could have been worried that what he viewed as embarrassing behavior may reflect poorly upon the image of the Ainu that he wanted to promote.

In the 1930s, Fushine spoke about his time in the Human Pavilion with Japanese educator Yoshida Iwao, who had dedicated his life to teaching the Ainu. Fushine recalled that his primary purpose was to educate the audience about the Ainu. He said, “In the Human Pavilion, I personally undertook the task of explaining such customs as the Ainu bear festival that could serve as scholarly reference under the leadership of the late Dr. Tsuboi. I even saw how seiban (savages) and Indians turned blood red while fighting. It was also the time of stupidity where I had the money in my sleeve stolen by a pickpocket” (Yoshida 1958, 21).

Furthermore, Fushine remembered his time in Osaka not for the controversy over the pavilion, but for a different humanitarian problem that occurred at the same time. It involved a group of Ainu who were performing in the Dōtonbori entertainment district of Osaka, near the exposition grounds. Fushine described their situation as a violation of their human rights:

To Fushine, the principle of Ainu performing or exhibiting themselves was not the issue (he was doing this himself), but the conditions under which the performance was carried out were crucial. Although Fushine's account did not detail what about the Dōtonbori Ainu group constituted a humanitarian problem, other sources shed light on their circumstances. The Ainu group from Shiraoi, led by Ainu chief Nomura Shpanram, talked with a theater critic about their working conditions. They said having to constantly dance in circles and sing on stage was intolerable and hot and more labor than the work they did in their villages (Heishi 1903). According to the critic, the play was not successful because it was conducted in the Ainu language, and no one in the audience could understand what was going on. Although all the Ainu performers could speak Japanese, the manager did not want them to perform in Japanese. The true extent of their ill treatment was further confirmed in an account written by Waclaw Sieroszewski, a companion to scholar Bronislaw Pilsudski, who encountered the Ainu group in Hakodate in 1903. Nomura told Pilsudski that a Japanese visitor had tempted him with a promise “of a huge income” if he, his wife, and his neighbors went to Osaka and imitated an Ainu village and demonstrated the bear festival. However, “they kept ‘demonstrating’ it for three months; the Japanese entrepreneur cheated them, did not pay a single sen, got bankrupt and escaped.” When Pilsudski heard about their plight, he gave them food and money in exchange for Nomura's pledge of assistance with his research (Sieroszewski [1926] Reference Sieroszewski and Majewciz1998, 3:667–68).Footnote ²³ Even after hearing about their plight, everything was still a transaction with the Ainu.

That their plight reached Fushine's ears while he was in the Human Pavilion and he worked to set them free illustrated the complexities of determining what constituted a humanitarian problem. While an Okinawan writer wrote that he could not understand how in the age of enlightenment the organizers were not ashamed of infringing upon human rights (jinken no jūrin) (Ryūkyū shinpō, April 7, 1903), Fushine did not see the pavilion in the same way.

Although Fushine had many Japanese friends, he was not blind to the injustice inflicted on the Ainu, and he condemned those Japanese policies and people who treated the Ainu unjustly (Fushine Reference Tadashige1926). For example, a reporter from the Osaka asahi relayed how one of Fushine's speeches in the pavilion criticized the Japanese who cheated the Ainu. Fushine had pointed to their storehouse and explained:

The reporter remarked, “Fushine is most eloquent in expressing his indignation and seems quite capable of speaking with logical clarity” (Osaka asahi, April 17, 1903). Although Fushine was trying to raise money for Ainu education, his view of his place in the empire was colored by both good and bad experiences and he felt no need to hold his tongue in critiquing Japanese who exploited the Ainu.

The debates about the Human Pavilion opened up a space for members of the empire to articulate what it meant to be an imperial subject. Although Fushine did not enter these debates in the same way as those who sent letters of protest, the story of why he came to Osaka and the speeches he gave were printed in the same newspapers. His voice added to the cacophony of voices that debated imperial subjecthood.

This article challenges arguments regarding the formation of the boundaries of imperial subjecthood articulated by Oguma Eiji (1998) in The Boundaries of the “Japanese” (“Nihonjin” no kyōkai). Oguma relies upon a conception of imperialism where the Japanese elite decide who is within or outside these boundaries. In his view, according to the changing interests of the state, the Japanese decide when to assimilate (subsumption, hōsetsu) or exclude (haijo) various colonial subjects. Oguma focuses on the debates and writings of Japanese intellectuals and government officials to illustrate these fluctuating boundaries, while I emphasize from the ground level how colonial subjects, like Fushine, as well as the Okinawans, and ordinary Japanese people understood these boundaries of imperial subjecthood. Ōta's shame about the primitive grass hut versus Fushine's pride in the Ainu house is a telling point of comparison of how colonial subjects articulated their place as imperial subjects differently in a nascent empire. Some Japanese disagreed with Tsuboi's racial division of imperial subjects (although they supported civilizational differences) and were allies of their compatriots, belying a characterization of the Human Pavilion as an indefatigable symbol of Japanese imperialism. Rather than perpetuating the myth of an established and coherent imperial taxonomy—Japanese created and supported—this article highlights the messy and complicated nature of imperial realities and the numerous people involved in the formation of imperial mentalities.