Chashi (チャシ also 砦) is the Japanese term for the hilltop fortifications of the Ainu. The word is of Ainu origin, from チャシ (casi, /t͡ɕasi/), which means palisade or palisaded compound; a rival theory relates this to the Korean term 잣 (cas, jat, /t͡ɕa̠t̚/) of roughly the same meaning.[1][2] Over 520 chashi have been identified in Hokkaidō, mostly in the eastern regions of the island; others are known from southern Sakhalin and the Kurils; similar phenomena such as the ostrogu of Kamchatka and the gorodische of northeast Asia may have developed independently.[3][4] A few, including the Tōya casi of present-day Kushiro, date to the Muromachi period; the remainder date largely to the early seventeenth century.[1] As such their construction may be related to increased competition for resources as a result of "intensification of trade" with the Japanese.[1]
- ^ a b c Walker, Brett L (2001). The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800. University of California Press. pp. 36–8, 58–67, 93–4, 123–6. ISBN 0-520-22736-0.
- ^ "Chashi". Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System. Retrieved 21 June 2012.
- ^ Hudson, Mark (2000). Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 216–7. ISBN 978-0-824-82156-2.
- ^ Ushiro Hiroshi. "Establishment process of Chashi and Fortified Settlement Sites in Northeast Asia and their environmental change". National Institute of Informatics. Archived from the original on 19 December 2012. Retrieved 24 June 2012.