Ethnic Japanese gradually settled Hokkaido and in 1899 enacted the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, under which the Ainu were forced to give up their land, language and traditions, and shift from hunting to farming.
The act was repealed only in 1997 and replaced by legislation calling for “respect for the dignity of the Ainu people.”
That law, however, stopped short of recognizing the Ainu as Aborigines or, as some activists have demanded, setting up autonomous areas along the lines of Native American reservations in the US.
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