Iboshi Hokuto

Iboshi Hokuto (違星 北斗) was an Ainu waka poet and social activist.

He devoted his life to improving the standing of the Ainu people, expressing his ideas as tanka in newspapers and magazines and influencing the Ainu youth of the time.

He also circulated around the Ainu kotan (villages) of Hokkaido, preaching of the need for unity and the formation of an Ainu identity.

Along with Yaeko Batchelor and, Iboshi is counted as one of the "Three Great Ainu Poets" (アイヌ三大歌人).

He has been called the "Takuboku of the Ainu".

Manjirō went in 1872 to study in Tokyo on the grounds of Zōjō-ji, at the "Aborigine Education Facility" associated with the Kaitakushi (Hokkaido Development Commission).

With excellent grades, he remained in Tokyo as an official of the Kaitakushi.

Manjirō was one of the first Ainu permitted to adopt a Japanese name.

His family possessed a hereditary symbol called an ikashishiroshi (イカシシロシ) — something like a Japanese kamon crest — consisting of two lines crossed in an "X" and two round dots to the top and bottom, situated between the lines (like ※ without the left and right dots).

From the special terminology of kamon, which refers to the cross shape as chigai (違い) and the dots as hoshi (星), he derived the name "Chigaiboshi" (違星).

In the course of usage, though, the name took on the shorter reading of "Iboshi".

Hokuto's official name in the family register was thus Takijirō Iboshi (違星 瀧次郎) – but the first name was a misprint by the scribe, who had been told the boy's name was Takejirō Iboshi (竹次郎).

His friends called him Takejirō or just Take, and he himself wrote his name either way, or even as "竹二郎".

When Hokuto was young he was a ringleader for the local children.

Hokuto was born in 1901 in the first district of Ōgawa-chō in the town of Yoichi, the third son of his father Jinsaku and mother Haru.

Jinsaku made his living fishing for herring, but was also an accomplished bear hunter.

The Iboshi family name dated back to the time of Hokuto's grandfather Manjirō.

In 1908, though, his education-minded mother Haru sent him to the 6-year Jinjō Elementary School (尋常小学校), rather than the 4-year "Former Aborigine School" most of the local Ainu children attended.

With only a few Ainu peers at the school, he endured severe discrimination.

When he was in his fifth year, his mother died, and he abandoned aspirations for educational advancement, instead beginning to work upon his graduation in 1914.

In addition to helping with his father's fishing work, he did manual labor away from home in forestry and agriculture, but continued to meet with societal discrimination as an Ainu.

Perhaps from the severe pressure of demanding manual labor and discriminatory treatment, the already frail Iboshi fell seriously ill at 17, and from this point on came to take an interest in more ideological pursuits.

Around the same time, he saw two tanka in the Hokkai Times that showed disdain for the Ainu, further increasing his bitterness towards the Japanese.

Around this time, though, he was deeply moved by some small words a Japanese school principal he sat beside spoke to him at a meeting.

As minor a thing as it was, this event completely changed his opinion of the Japanese he'd seen as cold-blooded.

Influenced by his old schoolteacher Naoya Nara, Iboshi became interested in ideas of culture and character.

He became involved in youth groups and made an effort to get along with the Japanese, coming to believe that the Ainu needed to develop their own cultural awareness, as well as a consciousness of their status as Japanese nationals, and develop both people and a society of splendid character that would contribute to society alongside the Japanese.

During this time he was also conscripted, in 1923, as a logistics officer in the 7th division of the Imperial Japanese Army, but after a little more than a month he was discharged, perhaps for illness.

From this time on, Iboshi formed the culture group Chawashō Gakkai (茶話 学会) with other Ainu youth from Yoichi, including his childhood friend Totten Nakazato (中里凸天), under the guidance of his teacher Nara.

Holding study sessions and publishing a bulletin called Chawashi (茶話誌), they held various activities to raise awareness.

By Nara's introduction, Iboshi became a devoted reader of Mitsujirō Nishikawa's culture magazine Jidō Dōwa (自働道話) and met Nishikawa in person when the latter visited Hokkaido.

It was also around this time that Iboshi began producing haiku under the tutelage of Nara and the newly appointed teacher Kenji Yoshida.

He participated in gatherings of haiku poets in Yoichi and began submitting his work to the Tokyo poetry magazine Nihihari.

In February 1925, through the kind offices of Mitsujirō Nishikawa, Iboshi obtained a job as a clerk with the Tokyo Market Association (東京府市場協会) and was thrilled to move to the capital.

The Market Association managed a public market, and its offices were then located in Yotsuya ward (now in Shinjuku, in the vicinity of Golden Gai).

When he arrived in Asagaya, where Nishikawa lived, off of a steam train ride taking a full two days, Nishikawa's wife was shocked to hear that Iboshi had drunk only one cup of milk during the entire trip.

Iboshi visited the linguist Kyōsuke Kindaichi shortly after his arrival, and was impacted by the story of Yukie Chiri, an Ainu girl who wrote A Collection of the Ainu Epics of the Gods (アイヌ神謡集) before dying at the age of 19.

The picture she book painted of Hokkaido as a lost paradise of the Ainu impressed Iboshi, and that vision had a great influence on his later work.

Speaking with Kindaichi also gave him his first knowledge his fellow Ainu and future compatriots, the adopted daughter of the Anglican missionary John Batchelor Yaeko Batchelor and Yukie Chiri's younger brother Mashiho Chiri.

Kindaichi invited Iboshi to the Tokyo Ainu Conference (東京アイヌ学会), where he gave lectures to scholars of some standing, including the folklorist Tarō Takayama and the "father of Okinawaology" Iha Fuyū.