HOW IS THE JAPANESE ARCHIPELAGO AN ISLAND?
A PERSPECTIVE FROM INDIGENOUS JAPANESE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY Japanese archaeologists, ethnologists and historians have used a concept of “kai-jin” that means a maritime (=kai) people (=jin). The kai-jin was pronounced as “ama” in Japanese classical literatures to indicate fishing and salt-making people, and later it came to mean particular maritime clans who were responsible for specialized fishing as well as for piloting and naval war in the Yamato Dynasty. In recent usage, ama means specialized diver-fishers. In this presentation, I will argue that the “kai-jin” concept that has been used by Japanese archaeologists, historians and ethnologists for years is useful for grasping the maritime groups living in insular situation in Asia and the Pacific. In addition to “sea nomads” who live in house boats, I propose to include other type of groups in the concept of “kai-jin”: e.g. the group who has a permanent costal village but a part of the family (usually men) emigrate for several
