The Japanese 
 are not Hebrews! 

Japan

Certain parties have begun claiming that the Japense were descended in part from Ancient Israelites. Similarity of religious customs and the like are adduced as evidence of Hebrew origin. The following article examines the evidence and refutes it. There may however be a non-Israelite Semitic element (such as Edom) in Japan as explained below.

 Brit-Am 
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Japan

Contents:
1. Are the Japanese Descended from Israelites?
Introduction
Japan judged by Ephraimite Criteria
Answers to Claims that Japanese are Israelites
2. Who Are the Japanese?
A Mixed People
Seir, Ainu, Edom, and the Samurai
Conclusion
Ancient Greek Connections?
Cranial differences between Japanese Samurai and [Edo-Tokyo Period] townsfolk.

1. Question: Publications and web-sites exist that claim to produce evidence that "Israelites came to Japan". Are the Japanese Descended from Israelites?
Answer: The most telling aspects of the "evidence" in question is quoted and answered below. The Japanese are descended primarily from Japhet though amongst their ruling classes there may be elements of Edom and other groups. If descendants of Israelites are to be found at all amongst the Japanese (which is doubtful) then it is only as a small minority.
Are the Japanese Israelites?

Introduction.
It may be that people of Israelite or Jewish origin reached Japan and settled there but if so they were a minority. Chances are that the descendants of any (if any) Israelites who did reach Japan are now those Japanese who have since migrated to the west..
 
Japan judged by Ephraimite Criteria
Brit-Am applies seven criteria to determine whether or not a nation descends from Israel. The criteria are:
  1. Blessings: Economic and Physical Blessings as promised to Israel in Scripture.

  2. Indications of Scripture: Biblical Evidence predicting whereto the Lost Ten Tribes would go, what type of religion and government they would have, etc.

  3. Groundwork: Historical, Archaeological, and Related Proofs showing paths of migration.

  4. Judah and Israelite Identification: This entails proven feelings of kinship and sympathy with the Jews and a Relative Lack of Anti-Semitism when compared with others.

  5. Originality: Innovation and Intellect: A minimal degree of national Intellectual Wisdom and Honesty.

  6. Bravery: Proven Military Prowess in the past at least and at present in potential

  7. Empathy: The Doing of Social Justice.


Applying these Criteria to the Japanese situation we find:
  1. Blessings: Japan today may be considered to be a blessed nation according to its production compared to other nations.
     
  2. Biblical: Japan is both in islands and at an end of the earth (geographical extremity) which were Biblical signs. The Bible does emphasize the west but the east is also mentioned (Genesis 28:14). The "east" could apply to Australia and New Zealand which are referred to in Isaiah 49:8 as the Land of Sinim or it could apply to Japan if Japan was indeed settled by Israelites though it would seem (as shown below) it was not.
     
  3. Groundwork: This comprises archaeological and related historical evidence. Brit-Am disputes the Groundwork that is claimed for Japan but others may not agree with the Brit-Am position.
     
  4. Sympathy for Judah and Israelite Identification: Japan in our opinion is a strongly anti-Semitic entity. They protected a handful of Jews in WWII but several times considered massacring them. Japan produces more anti-Jewish literature than anywhere else in the world. Japan is a strong supporter of the Palestinian terrorist State-in-Being. Japan works against the State of Israel and the Jewish people despite the fact that very few Jews dwell in Japan and little overlap exists between the sphere of the Jews and Israel and that of Japan.
     
  5. Originality: Innovation and Intellect:  The Japanese may not think the same way as westerners but they do think and they do contribute to the total world sum of knowledge and capability.
     
  6. Bravery: The Japanese possess this quality.
     
  7. Empathy:  Within their own society the Japanese have attained relative harmony, communality of purpose, little crime, respect for the aged, social benefits for all, etc. There is also much that is wrong but relatively speaking in accordance with their own mentality the Japanese may pass the test for Social Empathy.
  8. There are however RESERVATIONS on this point.
    (a) Contempt for self and for those lower than self: Traditionally the Japanese were taught to consider themselves the property of the Emperor and that their lives were subservient to however was socially above them.  If a person had not fulfilled the expectations of his superiors he could be expected to commit hara-kiri meaning to put himself to death in a most painful manner.
    (b) Contempt for the "other": The Japanese attitude towards others (as seen in WWII) was that of a PREDATOR State marked by selfish cruelty.  Such an attitude never prevailed amongst Brit-Am recognized Israelite nations. The Japanese treated those they conquered with malicious sadism. Prisoners-of-war were mistreated and sometimes tortured.
    The father of Yair Davidy had a sister who was a nurse in the British Armed Forces in WWII. The ship she was on was captured and she was taken into captivity from which she never returned.
Japan fulfils some of the Brit-Am Israelite criteria but not all of them. It is also to be remembered that Esau was also blessed and we have determined a strong Esau element amongst the elites of Japan.

[Genesis 27:38] AND ESAU SAID UNTO HIS FATHER, HAST THOU BUT ONE BLESSING, MY FATHER?  BLESS ME, EVEN ME ALSO, O MY FATHER. AND ESAU LIFTED UP HIS VOICE, AND WEPT.                     
 
[Genesis 27:39] AND ISAAC HIS FATHER ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HIM, BEHOLD, THY DWELLING  SHALL BE THE FATNESS OF THE EARTH, AND OF THE DEW OF HEAVEN FROM ABOVE;                     
 
[Genesis 27:40] AND BY THY SWORD SHALT THOU LIVE, AND SHALT SERVE THY BROTHER; AND IT SHALL  COME TO PASS WHEN THOU SHALT HAVE THE DOMINION, THAT THOU SHALT BREAK HIS YOKE FROM OFF  THY NECK.

It may be that the Criteria ONLY fully hold when comparison is made between Israelite and non-Israelite entities. Esau is in a different category and should be judged by other measures.  
 
Out of the seven Criteria Japan passed four (and a half?) of them. The question of empathy was sufficient for internal application but not for the external one. Japan does not pass the criteria of relative lack of anti-Semitism and Israelite Identification. 
Some claim that Japan does pass the Groundwork (history and archaeology etc) test whereas Brit-Am disagrees.
 
The present article will concentrate on this point.

Answers to Claims that Japanese are Israelites

We will begin by examining sources that claim the Japanese to be descended from Israel.

#Source 1.
1. Joseph EIDELBERG, "The Japanese and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel", 1980, Jerusalem Israel. Eidelberg quotes from what he describes as "the official history of the Japanese", the "Nihongi". [The "Nihongi" seems to be referred to as "Nihon shoki" elsewhere on the Web].

<<Nihongi, meaning "Chronicles of Japan", was written in 720 A.D. and, like the Old testament, is considered a sacred book of history describing the origin of the Japanese nation and the formation of the Japanese Empire.>>
 
Another work that Eidelberg quotes is the Kojiki which seems to be more or less similar to the Nihongi.
We have only Eidelberg's extracts from this work. Eidelberg says that due to historical accidents the sources got jumbled up. He admits to pick those aspects out of the source that most suit his purpose. We will take Eidelberg at his word.
He says that:
<<In 667 B.C. Emperor Jimmu assembled his elder brothers in the palace of Mount Takachi-Ho, in the Sohori Mountains of  Hiuga, and pointed out to them that in the east there was a beautiful country, surrounded by blue mountains, which the Heavenly Gods had given to their ancestors. He referred to that country as the land of Reed-Meadows, and proposed to go and settle there>>
<<Having secured the approval of his elder brothers, the emperor prepared a fleet of ships and set sail in the direction of the mysterious land of Reed-Meadows.>>
(pp.52-53).
Eidelberg identifies the Sohori Mountains with Mount Seir in the Land of Edom.
The group went eastward. After four years they had already entered what appears to be Japan and fought with a Prince Nakasune who began to overcome them. The goddess Amaterasu sent them help in the form of a Divine Crow who guides them to Lower Uda (in Japan?). They fought with "Akagane bandits, Yebisu warriors, and pit-dwelling tribes of the Tada hills in the district of Sofu". After that they defeated a Prince Shiki. They then turned their energies to a renewed struggle against Prince Nakasune. They defeated Nakasune due to hailstones and a flashing light from heaven. 
The first kingdom was called Yamato.
 
After ca 500 years Emperor Sujin bcame to the throne. He initially worshipped two deities. An epidemic struck the kingdom. The Emperor had a dream in which the "God of Yamato".. "told him that the epidemic would cease of itself if he would appoint a priest to worship him. Abiding by this oracle, the emperor ordained a man from Idomo to be priest to the god of Yamato, and the epidemic ceased" (p.56). Emperor Sujin was obliged to subdue a rebellion and a battle was fought "near a river in the Yamasiro region of Idomi".  The Empire thrived and many foreign tribes came to offer their allegiance.
 Emperor Sujin decided to appoint one of his two favorite sons as his successor. He requested that they dream something and tell him what they dreamt. Both sons told the Emperor that in their dream they had ascended Mount Mimoro. One had turned east and dealt eight blows with his sword in that direction. The other had drove away the sparrows that had fed upon the grain there.  

And so on in like vein.
Brit-Am Comment: These are all stories that Eidelberg says expressly that he chose due to their similarity with Biblical tales.
Eidelberg suggests that Mount Mimoro is based upon Mount Mamre in Scripture. It could be. In order however to be convincing or at least receive some consideration the accompanying tale should resemble something from the Bible and several other names bear some resemblance to Biblical ones. This does not hold.

Christian Influences?

It should also be remembered that due to the activitiy of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries in the 1500s there were more than 300,000 Christians in Japan. Christianity was later extirpated due to the wish of the Japanese rulers to exert total control over their subjects. Christianity was driven underground and Christian influences were absorbed by Jaapanese culture and made "Japanese". An example of Japanese assimilation of Christian influences is the legend that Jesus escaped the crucifixion and come with his mother Mary to Japan where they are buried in the North Japanese village of Shingo. Such assimilations of foreign lore appear to be a Japanese characteristic. Some of the claimed Hebrew-like practices may also be due to Christian influence.
 
Nevertheless there are points on which Eidelberg may have a valid claim though not one he would entirely agree with. 

Eidelberg suggests that the land of Reed-Meadows is the Land of Canaan.
[It could have been the Nile Delta].
Eidelberg (p.67): <<Emperor Sujin's army fought in Yamasiri, in Idomi. But "Yama-Siro" actually means "Mount Siro", and this may have been the Japanese way of pronouncing "Mount Seir". Could it be that there were two sites named "Mount Seir",one in the Edom of the Hebrew realm, and the other in  the Idomim of the Japanese Empire?>>
<<Emperor Suinin build the first national shrine at Ise.>>

Eidelberg suggests (p.68) that "Ise" is a form of "Jebus" meaning Jerusalem but it could just as easily by a form of "Esau" whose name is pronounced similarly to "Ise"  by the Arabs. He identifies the Yebisu with the Jebusites, the pit-dwelling Tsuchi-Gunmo with the "Edomites, described in the Old Testament as dwelling in the "clefts of the rock" (Obadiah 1:3). There are references to the Kumaso whom he identifies as the Moabite people of Kemosh. There is a Mount Ibuki which he relates to the Biblical Jabbok River east of the Jordan. A "Moor of Nobo" becomes connected to Mount Nebo.
 
Our impression is that a group of Edomites did come to Japan and conquer it. They were preceded by other peoples who probably included Canaanites and other groups from the Middle East possibly also Moabites, Ammonites, and others.
There may have been Israelites amongst them but if so they were a minority and more proof of their existence is needed.
According to archaeology Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Canaanites all spoke languages similar to Hebrew. They had been conquered by the Hebrews several times as well as having in their turn ruled over parts of Israel at different periods. They had influenced the Hebrews and intermarried with them and doubtless would have also  received Hebraic influence. If in Japanese there are words that sound similar to Hebrew ones and if in Japanese religion and custom some things appear reminiscent of Hebraic practice then this does not prove Hebrew origin. It can indicate a geographical proximity in the past.
Greek Mythology is full of tales based on Biblical Prototypes. See the instructive articles by John Salverda for examples. The Greeks received their culture from the Middle East as demonstrated in "Black Athena" by Martin Bernal and in works by Cyrus Gordon and others. In addition to Ancient Japanese links to the Middle East, some kind of direct connection appears to have also existed between the Ancient Greeks and Japan.

2. The Scythians. Brit-Am traced a portion of the Lost Ten Tribes to the Royal Scythians and related groups who migrated to the west.  Scythian influence was also felt in Korea and Japan and a group of Scythians at one stage may have conquered Japan. We do not know if this was so and if it was we do not know that the Scythians concerned are the same as those with whom the Israelites amalgamated or another group. Dolmens of an "Eastern" type and different from the type known from Ancient Israel and Western Europe are also found in Japan. Dolmens and megalthic monuments are signs of Israelite presence but insufficient in themselves.

#Source 2
3. Israelites Came To Ancient Japan
Arimasa Kubo

This writer has been influenced by the Rabbi Avichail group that insists on looking for the Lost Ten Tribes ONLY in the East, in a kind of reverse racialism. Arimasa Kubo concentrates on what he perceives as a similarity between Japanese religious customs and those of Ancient Israel.
<<In Nagano prefecture.. there is a large Shinto shrine named "Suwa-Taisha" (Shinto is the national traditional religion peculiar to Japan.) At Suwa-Taisha, the traditional festival called "Ontohsai"...
<<At the back of the shrine "Suwa-Taisha," there is a mountain called Mt. Moriya ("Moriya-san" in Japanese). The people from the Suwa area call the god of Mt. Moriya "Moriya no kami," which means, the "god of Moriya." This shrine is built to worship the "god of Moriya."
<<At the festival, a boy is tied up by a rope to a wooden pillar, and placed on a bamboo carpet. A Shinto priest comes to him preparing a knife, and he cuts a part of the top of the wooden pillar, but then a messenger (another priest) comes there, and the boy is released. This is reminiscent of the Biblical story in which Isaac was released after an angel came to Abraham.
 
<<People call this festival "the festival for Misakuchi-god". "Misakuchi" might be "mi-isaku-chi." "Mi" means "great," "isaku" is most likely Isaac (the Hebrew word "Yitzhak"), and "chi" is something for the end of the word.>>

Brit-Am Comment:
The festival was held in one place in Japan and was a local custom NOT a national one and could therefore have pertained to a small number of people.
The source of this tale could be the binding of Isaac. Isaac was the father of the twin brothers Esau and Jacob (Israel) so there is no reason why the descendants of Esau should not celebrate it.
The Arabs also celebrate this event only in their version they substitute the figure of Ishmael for Isaac.

Arimasa Kubo points to the Japanese Imperial crest that could resemble a 16 petalled sunflower. This was also a symbol found on Herod's gate in Jerusalem. [It has no known significance however in Jewish tradition. Herod himself was an Edomite].

Arimasa Kubo: <<Japanese Religious Priests "Yamabushi" Put A Black Box on their Foreheads Just As Jews Put A Phylactery on their Foreheads
<<On the forehead of "Yamabushi," he puts a black small box called a "tokin", which is tied to his head with a black cord. He greatly resembles a Jew putting on a phylactery (black box) on his forehead with a black cord. The size of this black box "tokin" is almost the same as the Jewish phylactery, but its shape is round and flower-like.

Brit-Am Comment: Jewish phylacteries ("tefilin" in Hebrew) are hard leather boxes containing parchment on which are written Biblical passages. They were always square-shaped. There is however a similarity between the Japanese custom and the Jewish one that could suggest Jewish influence at some time in the past. The same applies to references to a "tora-no-maki" (a scroll of the "tora") which has magical powers. "Tora" could derive from the Hebrew word "Torah".

On the other hand the Ancient Egyptian were influenced by the Israelites and also influenced them. When the Almighty took the Hebrews out of Egypt HE related to them as having been under Egyptian influence. One of the reasons for the initial subjection in Egypt was to "liberate" positive elements that the Egyptians had subverted to their own culture. The Egyptians also placed black boxes on their foreheads similar to tefilin. This was explained by Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg in an article, "Tefillin -made in Egypt?", in the Jerusalem Post weekend supplement, "Upfront", September 1, 2006:
In many depictions Pharaoh is shown wearing a snake crown from which there projects above his brow a sacred asp or viper and a cobra in aggressive attitudes. They represent the Pharaoh's power of protecting his land by means of serpents that can both defend the land and attack the enemy when necessary.
Such powers were essential to the rulers of Egypt, whose rich but extended land was always in danger of invasion from the less fortunate peoples of the sur­rounding deserts.
The deities that supported the Pharaoh also wore appropriate headgear, but in their case not on the brow but further up on the head, above the hairline. In many cases this headgear was in the form of an animal's head, such as the jackal or the ibis-bird; but in some cases it was just a small black box on a black plate.
Was this a form of tefillin?
A case in point is the goddess Isis, who stands behind her deceased husband, the Pharaoh Osiris, wearing such a black box on her head, as depicted on the The goddess Isis and Pharaoh-of-the-next-world Osiri mummy of Kep-ha-eses of the second century BCE in the Copenhagen Glyptotek Museum. Another example comes from the tomb of Anher-Khaou in Thebes, of 1,000 years earlier, where it is again the lady Isis, wearing a black, box-like headdress, lead­ing a boat-load of gods that take the deceased to his place in the next world. What was this black box?
It has a stepped profile and represents the royal throne of the dead Pharaoh Osiris, who ruled over the next world. Isis, his sister and wife, by wearing this black box, could assist the suppliant to reach the world of everlasting life presided over by Osiris....
....a reminder of such customs was to be one purpose of the tefillin, which were to be a "remembrance between your eyes... that with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:9).


rose
There was an Egyptian connection to Ancient China and through China to Japan.

See also: "Brit-Am Now"- 466
#4. Chinese scholar traces Israelites and Esau to China

Arimasa Kubo mentions blowing with a sea-shell like a Jewish ram's horn;  carrying a box about on the shoulders of adherents like an "ark"; purification in sea-water; waving a tree branch; ringing a bell; Impurity During Menstruation and Bearing Child;

Brit-Am Comment: The Japanese are related to the peoples of Japhet who include both European and Asiatic types. The Japanese also received influxes from the Edomites, Canaanites, and other peoples as we shall explain elsewhere. Some of the said customs may be due to Israelite or Jewish influence. Some of them are universal and are found in many ancient religions all over the world and especially those of the Middle East area. These similarities are not proof of Israelite origin. They are of interest and worth looking into but nothing more than that.

Arimasa Kubo compares photographs of Jewish and ancient Japanese hairstyle
<<Ancient Japanese Samurai's hair style "mizura" (left) and Jewish "peyot" (right)
..<<"Peyot" is a unique hair style for Jews and the origin is very old. There is a statue from Syria, which is from the 8th or 9th century B.C.E..  It shows a Hebrew man with peyot and a fringed shawl.  >>

Brit-Am Comment: One statue is produced as evidence that in Ancient Japan the "peyot" (Biblical earlocks such as found amonst some Orthodox Jews) hairstyle was known but it is unclear from the example that the "earlocks" really are part of the hairstyle or some kind of earflap attached to the helmut made of cloth or metal. Apart from that the use of "peyot" was also practised by non-Israelite nations. In the past we published an article showing that the ancient so-called "Libyans" also used this hair-style. We identified these "Libyans" as Israelites in accordance with the work of Alessandro Nibbi, "Canaan and Canaanite in Ancient Egypt", UK, 1989. Alessandro Nibbi regarded the so-called "Libyans" as Israelites or at the least as "Canaanite" residents of the Nile Delta and Canaan. This hair-style was also found on a well-known statue of "Baal" from Northern Syria. The style may well have been Israelite in origin but other peoples also used it.
 
There is a comparison of the layout of a Japanese Shinto temple and that of the Temple in Jerusalem. There is some similarity in outline but the same similarity is found all over the Ancient Middle East as may be noted from almost any popular work on archaeology concerning the area.

2. Question: Who Are the Japanese?

A Mixed People
The Japanese are a mixed people like everybody. The Japanese include a great many people from Korea. They also include elements similar to those of Indonesia and Polynesia. In some ways they are similar to the Northern Chinese and Manchurians. According to DNA (for what it is worth) half the males of Tibet and almost half those of Japan have Haplotype 3C i.e. they had the same common ancestor probably within recent times and are almost unique in this respect. There is also some kind of connection with Ancient Mycenean Greece and Hittite Anatolia! Some members of the Japanese aristocracy are said to have "Semitic" features. If this all sound bewildering when one goes deeper into the subject it becomes much more complex..
 
Seir, Ainu, Edom, and the Samurai
Ricardo Lopez Crespo in an article ("Hyksos Vedan and Odin") (first posted on Craig White's "Origin of Nations" e-mail discussion list) traces descendants of Esau.
 
<<One of Esau's wives was the Horite Oholibamah. Her grandfather Zibeon is identified as a Hivite in Gen. 36: 2, but Gen. 36: 20 mentions his Horite roots.
<<Amalek was the son of Esau's firstborn Eliphaz by his concubine Timna, a Horite (Gen. 36: 12, 22). "Oriental" genes were passed through Oholibamah and Amalek's maternal line.

 Crespo traces the Horites to the "Hairy Ainu" of Japan who intermixed with the Japanese population.
<<Hrozny regards the North Mesopotamian town Urfa, Greek Orrhoe, Edessa, [Also known as Idume, i.e. Edom] as the centre of the empire of Khurri [of the Horites]>>
 
<<Because of intermarriages and cultural borrowings between the Edomite families and Horites, it became the norm for their collective association. Red-headed Esau himself was hirsute, a coincidental similarity.>>

Brit-Am Comment: Even though the Japanese today are largely of darkish Mongolian-type with sparse body hair they contain a brownish red-haired element which was once much more common amongst their warrior "Samurai-class". In Japanese cartoons and popular illustrations of themselves this brown-reddish element is still emphasized. A few years ago an American researcher  (C. Loring Brace, see below) caused a scandal when he claimed that the Samurai warriors were originally of despised "Ainu" origin. Since the Ainu are often of a relatively fair coloring this could explain the reddish-brown aspect of the Samurai.

# They [the Ainu] were exploited for slave labor until the Meiji era (1868-1912). The government policy of assimilation prohibited them from observing [their own] daily customs and discrimination against them still remains today, a major social problem. ##

Crespo traces the Horites to Tibet which however he identifies with Gog and sees a union in this area between Gog and Edom

Brit-Am Comment: There is also a link with China and through China to Japan.

<<Jim Bailey, "Sailing to Paradise", pp. 146, 147, 158-"In China it is certain that the irrigation society on the Yellow River in the Anyang area was started by western Semites (Edomites), as the potters' marks of the Shang Dynasty, 1700-1200 B.C., clearly prove.>>

Conclusion

The research of Crespo alongside our own findings will be discussed elsewhere. At all events the Japanese are not of Israelite descent though there may be a small minority of Hebrews amongst them in the same way as there could be such amongst any other group.
It may be that the "Hairy Ainu" are descended from the original Horites of Seir who were conquered by descendants of Esau (Edom). it is almost certain that amongst the Samurai and ruling classes of Japan there was a lighter element of "Caucasian" type and build. These have been identified as a clan of the Ainu since they seem the most likely candidiates and their descendants are still to be found in Japan. The Ainu are distantly related to both the Polynesians and the Aborigines of Australia. They are light skinned and combine aspects of both Caucasian and Mongoloid peoples. The possibility however should be considered that not the Ainu but a separate group (that was later thoroughly assimilated) of Edomites from the west comprised this determining element.

Some Sources of Interest Concerning Japan, the Samurai, and the Ainu.

See Also: "The Origins of Japanese Populations"
by KINo.
http://www.canadiancontent.net/en/jd/go?Url=http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf065/sf065a01.htm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1060005/posts

THE SAMURAI AND THE AINU
[Extracts Only]
Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu.

Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with:

"Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related Samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royalty and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."

[Extracts Only]
To: Leroy S. Mort; Sam Cree; VOA
My Comments from a previous thread:

"The Samurai were descended from the Ainu and were tall and somewhat Caucasian looking, tall, light-skinned and hairy (even today the Ainu are the hairest people). The Samurai were once the ruling class in Japan and some anthropologists suspect the Japanese practice of 'white-face' originates from that period as a way of emulating the 'royals'."

To: blam
More of my comments:

"Kennewick Man's DNA, although ruled 'inconclusive', showed a high relationship to the Ainu.

"Further, the Jomon culture (which precedes the Ainu in Japan) is identified with a specific type of pottery labeled 'Cord Pottery'. This 'Cord Pottery' has been found in Olmec (1400BC-300BC) ruins in Mexico.

To: Straight Vermonter
The level of racism in Japan never ceases to amaze me.

The Japanese go farther and designate occupations for the lesser races.  No pure blood can be an undertaker, plumber, garbage collector, etc.-- those jobs are for the servant races.

I knew a female engineer from Okinawa who said that the Japanese discriminated against them terribly. She 'looked' Asian to me except that she had real curly hair.

See also
THE AINU NATIVES OF JAPAN
http://www.geocities.com/ominobu/ainu.htm
 
http://www.kto.co.jp/2004sep/article1.html
<<Japanese sources like the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, mention a separate group of people known as the Emishi or Ezo (also the ancient Japanese name for Hokkaido). Whether these words refer to a distinct race (or races) that preceded the Ainu or were simply another name for the Ainu themselves is, however, unclear.>>
 
http://www.jref.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6095.html
I noticed that many Japanese names sound strikingly similar to Hawaiians, Indonesians and other Pacific people. Also the fact the Japanese are a mainly seafood and vegetable based diet is pointing to this similarity with Pacific Southeast Asians.

I honestly think Japanese are for most part from the base stock of Southeast Asians, but maybe a 10% infusion from Korea changed their language a bit (i.e. some borrowed features).

I notice Japanese are very slightly built compared to Koreans. But, both Japanese and Koreans have more slanted eyes compared to Chinese from what I have seen.

Ancient Greek Connections?
Fingerprint patterns may indicate Mongoloid affinities among ancient Greek lower class

Author: Paul Astrom and Sven A. Eriksson
Filed: 11/02/2003, 00:40:34
Source: Fingerprints and Archaeology

[The authors examined fingerprints on ancient Greek pottery.]


Combining the values into a loop/whorl-pattern index (Fig. 161) we find that the figure for Mycenaean Greece (1.1%) may be compared with that of present-day America (1.2%). Cyprus and Crete have the same index (0.8%) to be compared with North America (0.7%) and China (0.9%). . . .

It is . . . interesting to note that Professor Marinatos has observed mongoloid features in Minoan-Mycenaean art, e.g. in the representations of oblique slit eyes. It is possible that fingerprints of the scribes and potters show that they belonged to a lower class emanating from the indigenous, non-Indo-European substratum of the population. Fingerprints of the Mycenaean rulers would no doubt have given us Indo-European patterns.

Astrom, Paul and Sven A. Eriksson. Fingerprints and Archaeology. Goteborg 1980. p88.

Cranial differences between Japanese Samurai and [Edo-Tokyo Period] townsfolk
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/11/cranial-differences-between-japanese.html

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology DOI: 10.1002/oa.1215

Evidence for temporal and social differences in cranial dimensions in Edo-period Japanese

Tomohito Nagaoka et al.

# This study examined the craniometric traits of the Edo-period (AD1603–1867) human skeletons from the Hitotsubashi site in Tokyo... The observations revealed that the Hitotsubashi samples were more dolichocephalic than any other Edo series and were different from subsequent Edo series in terms of larger maximum cranial length and smaller maximum cranial breadth. The Hitotsubashi samples were definitely in contrast with those of Tentokuji and Shirogane, both of which included a samurai (warrior) class of the late to final Edo period and exhibited the most brachycephalic crania. #

In other words the early urban group (who were also the ruling class?) at the beginning of the Edo (Meiji) period had much longer head shapes than most Japanese and certainly than the previous Samurai Oligarchy who were particularly round-headed. This changed later possibly due to inter-marriage or environmental influences. The difference in head shape may be attributed to different racial origins or to some other factor.

See:
"Brit-Am Now"-731
#2. Japan and Germany
"Brit-Am Now"-804
#1. Japanese are [Not] Israelites article and Brit-Am Comment
"Brit-Am Now"-806
#1. Is Turkey Edom? Ireland? Japan?
Jerusalem News-241
#4. Japanese Longevity


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