 During the Meiji period there was a significant reimagining of the histories of Ryukyu and of Ezo, which was annexed at the same time, and an insistence that the non-Japonic Ainu of Hokkaidō and the Japonic Ryukyuan people were "Japanese", both racially/ethnically and linguistically/culturally, going back many centuries, despite the evidence they were a significantly different group of people.The primary institution for assimilation was the state education system, which by 1902 occupied over half of the prefectural revenue, and produced a collective identity as well as training Okinawan teachers and intellectuals who would become a front "Japanese" nationalistic Okinawan elite.Maehira Bokei noted that this narrative considered Okinawa a colony and rejected Okinawa's characteristic culture, considering it barbaric and inferior.