Origins of the Japanese

This is probably one of the most readable and succinct pieces I've seen online about Japanese origins. I write that as plural because there is more than one major group of DNA in Japan. 

During the last Ice Age, which ended approximately 15,000 years ago, Japan was connected to the continent through several land bridges, notably one linking the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and Kyushu, one linking Kyushu to the Korean peninsula, and another one connecting Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the Siberian mainland. In fact, the Philippines and Indonesia were also connected to the Asian mainland. This allowed migrations from China and Austronesia towards Japan, about 35,000 years ago. These were the ancestors of the modern Ryukyuans (Okinawans), and the first inhabitants of all Japan.

I love how the Ainu dude with the mouth harp is playing along with the Hawaiians (at the 4:15 mark).

Some interesting documentary footage from Japan about the Ainu.

This video is more about the warfare between the Ainu and later settlers of Japan. Lots of cultural information, photos, music.

I can't think of another ethnic group that actually hunts (or used to hunt) bears. Gnarly!

Step by step to Guge

Guge? Never heard of it until early this morning.

Michael Wood's documentary (BBC) aired on PBS and caught my attention. Somehow, the sight of solitary people walking through deserts (and mountains) has always captured me (re: Kwai Chang Cain in Kung Fu, circa 1976?).

My understanding of Buddhist history is scant, but in this place tucked away in Western Tibet is a place that once was home to 100,000 people. Almost impossible to imagine. It's in a mountainous desert. Dry. Bone dry. Not a fertile valley in sight.

But the story of Guge's prominence as a key trading post and bridge to India's Buddhist scholars is very intriguing. No, I don't believe in Buddha. But the history and how the Chinese came to both destroy its amazing relics, then go beyond the call to preserve what still remains, is perplexing. Those wacky Chinese and their kooky Cultural Revolution. Talk about a lack of tolerance.

But as for Guge, Michael Buckley has much to say about it in this excerpt from his 2002 book, Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World.

The tiny bit of research I've done doesn't satisfy me: 1. Where did the descendants of the Guge people go when they were violently driven from their homes? Who are they today? 2. Was there any lasting impact of the Catholic church built there by Andrade in the 1600s?

To think that the Catholic church drove a wedge between neighbors in that region and caused a war is not shocking. But to think that nobody lives there -- no Buddhists, no Catholics -- is really a mystery.