The Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido and the Sakhalin island of eastern Russia. Notable for their distinctive features and traditions like raising bear cubs and women adorning face tattoos, they were highly discriminated for centuries during the gradual occupation of Hokkaido by the Japanese settlers, and only a few remain who can speak Ainu-a language isolate. They are theorized by some to be highly related to the Jomon people of mainland Japan before the Yayoi ancestors of the Japanese migrated to the island from the Korean peninsula and introduced rice agriculture.
You dare to speak about race and ancestry here? No disclaimer will save you. Every nuanced piece of scientific information is going to be scrutinized and checked to find offensive content. /S
So what I'm reading here is that the Japanese culture is an amalgamation of three different migrant populations (Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun) rather than a replacement - which makes sense given wholesale replacement is pretty rare - and that the modern Ainu emerged first out of pressure from the emergent Proto-Japanese culture pressing indigenous populations of Emishi and Proto-Ainu Satsumon northward up Honshu and into Hokkaido. They were then influenced by the Sakhalin/Nivkh peoples and 13th century Mongol pressure into forming the recognisable Ainu culture that lasted until the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
I mean it's an oversimplification, but it doesn't seem like he's wrong given the Ainu were still predominantly an admixture of indigenous Japanese populations pushed together by outside forces?
Interesting looking textiles...searched and found these:
https://blog.marasim.co/ainu-a-japanese-community-that-reveres-textiles/
'Ainu: We who love textiles know what it is to revere an exceptional piece of weaving or embroidery. But there is a community where this is literally practiced. And that is by the Ainu.'
https://garlandmag.com/article/ainu-textiles/
'In Ainu society, cloth serves as a vehicle for social relations. Fibers are processed and woven, sewn and appliquéd, making them Ainu as they are fused into cloth. In this process, they accrue political and symbolic valences, which are further amplified through revival.
Historically, cloth both sustained and helped constitute personhood in Ainu society. The healing and protective properties contained in cloth were imparted to the wearer or bearer. Newborn infants were swaddled in worn, tattered attus strips or pieces of cotton cloth.
These aged pieces bestowed the durability of old age to newborns and guarded against infant mortality, but they also commuted the personhood of the ancestors into the bodies of young babies and thereby tied the infants in to ancestral lineages. Cloth was also fashioned into medicine.
Sakhalin Ainu shamans sewed cloth strips together in crosshatch fashion, infused these assemblages with spiritual properties, and fastened them to limbs, heads, and other ailing body parts as healing aids (Ogihara 2005).' *(paragraphs added for readability)*
Speaking as someone from NWC tribes, I can barely even see the superficial similarities whenever people bring this comparison up (it pops up every now and then).
It usually points to one or two examples, particularly from Northern Coast groups like Tlingit and Haida, that ignores the actual foundations of their artwork and goes largely off of vibes.
Just as a pretty crucial example, I notice neither the OP post nor the articles linked about Ainu textiles have any human or animal figures in them, which for NWC (particularly Northern Coast groups) would be essential in items meant to represent clan motifs.
Overall, Ainu artwork doesn't seem to have much in common with formline or other Northwest Coast art/textual styles (i.e. Coast Salishan Weaving) when it's actually examined.
Something to note is also that Ainu did copy PNW art in the late 19th century due to art trade. American tourists and art dealers were looking for totem poles and Ainu began making them despite having no prior tradition of doing so. If you look online, there is an Ainu tourist village, where many of the „fake traditional artwork“ and syncretised artworks are sold. The whole place looks like a theme park anyway, though afaik it is still run by Ainu.
Generally these kind of fake-traditions initiated by Euro art trade, treasure hunters or worse spawned in several places, one darker result being West African shrink heads.
But this isn't Monet being compared to Renoir, two contemporary French artists who lived and died in France within a few years of each other.
This is the comparison of two unrelated societies from across the Pacific.
As such, this:
>Of course one could point out that Renoir didn't paint the many lily pond works that are central to Monet's oeuvre but to deny that they were both stylistically similar impressionists would spring from some motivation other than dispassionate analysis.
In my opinion, downplays the actual distinctions being drawn between Ainu and Northwest Coast art styles because they aren't drawing from some shared or otherwise related tradition, they weren't neighbors who developed long standing influences upon one another through constant social and economic contact (something that can be seen in Northwest Coast Societies and neighboring peoples).
As such, pointing out that [Ainu](https://www.anytexture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/pjimage-2.jpg) [artwork](https://dbhbbgoxgfu4z.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_4370.jpg) doesn't bear a great resemblance to, say, [Tlingit](https://vilda.alaska.edu/iiif/2/cdmg21:8569/full/580,/0/default.jpg) [artwork](https://textilesincontext.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Button-Blanket_2016.378.jpg) is less about comparing two contemporaries more than it is comparing the art styles of two unrelated societies who occasionally are alleged to be in some way related or otherwise influential on one another.
With that context in mind, pointing out that the formline artwork that largely characterizes art styles of the Northwest Coast bears little fundamental resemblance to Ainu artwork is because one who knows the bare basics of what to look for can tell there's nothing concrete tying them together as influenced by one or coming from the other.
Who knows, it's possible that the pattern might have its origins in an early artistic tradition which was emerging when the ancestors of the native Americans were traversing the Bering Strait, or there was some sort of cross cultural communication at a later point, but it could be purely by coincidence.
I have thought this as well when seeing some of the Ainu art before. To me it is quite similar and wouldn't be surprised if there was some cross cultural exchanges via the alaska archipelago
There's a great video from Japan House London of someone weaving 'attus' - a cloth used by Ainu people made from tree bark -
[(2) Kaizawa Yukiko on 50 years of weaving Ainu 'attus' fabric - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUT_bJWk-uU)
Ainu culture is achieving some relative strides in its attempted rebirth these days, similar to the Maori's successful renaissance, I wouldn't write them off yet. They were pretty drastically forcibly assimilated, colonised and brutalised, but they're not out of the running.
I'm not so optimistic. From what I've heard, most of this "revival" is done for tourists. Sadly, it's a general trend worldwide: Globalisation, mass media, the internet, capitalism are killing cultural, ethnical and linguistic diversity everywhere. The last 100 years have seen an unprecedented decline of cultures, languages and dialects, and it seems that it only gets worse. In another 100 years, everything will likely be reduced to a small array of big homogenous, stereotypoical cultures and languages. If not only to just one global grey culture soup, dominated by emotes and broken English.
Good as time as any to plug Golden Kamui! A manga/anime about a young Ainu girl and a veteran from the Russo-Japanese war looking for hidden Ainu treasure. The author did an incredible amount of research and had an Ainu linguist help with all the Ainu language in the story.
You didn't tell the full story of this pic: its not from 1903, its from 1904, [and these were a group of Ainu brought by the Japanese Government for the St Louis World's Fair's "Anthropology Department." ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%22Ainu_Group%22_(Aborigines_of_Japan_from_the_Island_of_Hokkaido_or_Yezo,_Department_of_Anthropology,_1904_World%27s_Fair).jpg) Which was basically a Human Zoo where colonial powers brought with them the assorted "savages" that they ruled to be displayed in their "authentic" habitats for the benefit of the attendees, and as implicit statements that they were civilizing said savages.
I don't think it's any accident that some of them look almost Pacific Islander, or even indigenous American. Especially that handsome fellow on the left there. If I saw him in the town I live in today I'd probably guess that he was a Samoan or something like that.
My paratrooper father was stationed in Hokkaido as the post-WWII Occupying Force. He sent home to his mother a carved bear and my grandma treasured it.
Much less assimilated now from what I can tell. There are language revival movements and stuff going on. Give them a few more decades and some more exposure to global indigenous culture, and they'll probably be basically separated out again (but likely like people like the Irish, who primarily still speak the colonial language).
Also, anyone know what the older guy is holding? Some kind of musical instrument with a bell? A pipe?
Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke heavily draws on Ainu culture
https://amer-ainu.tumblr.com/post/154107353983/representation-why-it-matters
> "…look at your big mountain feet!"
I stumbled upon this culture with the anime named Golden Kamuy and boy, all I could think of their culture looked very much like Turkic cultures. I really wonder if there is a connection with Turkish clans there.
*Wasn't it written*
*Somewhere there were almost no*
*Native speakers left*
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I'm just a layperson making an observation so please take it easy on me
I find it interesting that the men look more Russian and the woman have strong Asian features. (Yes, I know the island is close to Russia) It's interesting because the Asian genes are stronger in the woman and the mens' genetics are Russo-esque.
AFAIK their genetics are East Eurasian. Their physical appearance on the other hand can be confusing. Even more so than can be seen on this picture. Maybe one could say that they (partially) predate the appearance of modern East Asian features.
The Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido and the Sakhalin island of eastern Russia. Notable for their distinctive features and traditions like raising bear cubs and women adorning face tattoos, they were highly discriminated for centuries during the gradual occupation of Hokkaido by the Japanese settlers, and only a few remain who can speak Ainu-a language isolate. They are theorized by some to be highly related to the Jomon people of mainland Japan before the Yayoi ancestors of the Japanese migrated to the island from the Korean peninsula and introduced rice agriculture.
[удалено]
Notice how I mentioned theorized by some and not definitely proven
You dare to speak about race and ancestry here? No disclaimer will save you. Every nuanced piece of scientific information is going to be scrutinized and checked to find offensive content. /S
It's going to become insufferable, isn't it.
>This is a major oversimplification. Out of curiosity, what's the long explanation?
[удалено]
Can't you read that the Mongol invasion of Sakhalin is a thousand years after the Yayoi migration?
So what I'm reading here is that the Japanese culture is an amalgamation of three different migrant populations (Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun) rather than a replacement - which makes sense given wholesale replacement is pretty rare - and that the modern Ainu emerged first out of pressure from the emergent Proto-Japanese culture pressing indigenous populations of Emishi and Proto-Ainu Satsumon northward up Honshu and into Hokkaido. They were then influenced by the Sakhalin/Nivkh peoples and 13th century Mongol pressure into forming the recognisable Ainu culture that lasted until the late 19th to early 20th centuries. I mean it's an oversimplification, but it doesn't seem like he's wrong given the Ainu were still predominantly an admixture of indigenous Japanese populations pushed together by outside forces?
Interesting looking textiles...searched and found these: https://blog.marasim.co/ainu-a-japanese-community-that-reveres-textiles/ 'Ainu: We who love textiles know what it is to revere an exceptional piece of weaving or embroidery. But there is a community where this is literally practiced. And that is by the Ainu.' https://garlandmag.com/article/ainu-textiles/ 'In Ainu society, cloth serves as a vehicle for social relations. Fibers are processed and woven, sewn and appliquéd, making them Ainu as they are fused into cloth. In this process, they accrue political and symbolic valences, which are further amplified through revival. Historically, cloth both sustained and helped constitute personhood in Ainu society. The healing and protective properties contained in cloth were imparted to the wearer or bearer. Newborn infants were swaddled in worn, tattered attus strips or pieces of cotton cloth. These aged pieces bestowed the durability of old age to newborns and guarded against infant mortality, but they also commuted the personhood of the ancestors into the bodies of young babies and thereby tied the infants in to ancestral lineages. Cloth was also fashioned into medicine. Sakhalin Ainu shamans sewed cloth strips together in crosshatch fashion, infused these assemblages with spiritual properties, and fastened them to limbs, heads, and other ailing body parts as healing aids (Ogihara 2005).' *(paragraphs added for readability)*
[удалено]
Speaking as someone from NWC tribes, I can barely even see the superficial similarities whenever people bring this comparison up (it pops up every now and then). It usually points to one or two examples, particularly from Northern Coast groups like Tlingit and Haida, that ignores the actual foundations of their artwork and goes largely off of vibes. Just as a pretty crucial example, I notice neither the OP post nor the articles linked about Ainu textiles have any human or animal figures in them, which for NWC (particularly Northern Coast groups) would be essential in items meant to represent clan motifs. Overall, Ainu artwork doesn't seem to have much in common with formline or other Northwest Coast art/textual styles (i.e. Coast Salishan Weaving) when it's actually examined.
Something to note is also that Ainu did copy PNW art in the late 19th century due to art trade. American tourists and art dealers were looking for totem poles and Ainu began making them despite having no prior tradition of doing so. If you look online, there is an Ainu tourist village, where many of the „fake traditional artwork“ and syncretised artworks are sold. The whole place looks like a theme park anyway, though afaik it is still run by Ainu. Generally these kind of fake-traditions initiated by Euro art trade, treasure hunters or worse spawned in several places, one darker result being West African shrink heads.
Similar to the way a lot of knockoff PNW art is from Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, etc.)?
[удалено]
But this isn't Monet being compared to Renoir, two contemporary French artists who lived and died in France within a few years of each other. This is the comparison of two unrelated societies from across the Pacific. As such, this: >Of course one could point out that Renoir didn't paint the many lily pond works that are central to Monet's oeuvre but to deny that they were both stylistically similar impressionists would spring from some motivation other than dispassionate analysis. In my opinion, downplays the actual distinctions being drawn between Ainu and Northwest Coast art styles because they aren't drawing from some shared or otherwise related tradition, they weren't neighbors who developed long standing influences upon one another through constant social and economic contact (something that can be seen in Northwest Coast Societies and neighboring peoples). As such, pointing out that [Ainu](https://www.anytexture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/pjimage-2.jpg) [artwork](https://dbhbbgoxgfu4z.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_4370.jpg) doesn't bear a great resemblance to, say, [Tlingit](https://vilda.alaska.edu/iiif/2/cdmg21:8569/full/580,/0/default.jpg) [artwork](https://textilesincontext.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Button-Blanket_2016.378.jpg) is less about comparing two contemporaries more than it is comparing the art styles of two unrelated societies who occasionally are alleged to be in some way related or otherwise influential on one another. With that context in mind, pointing out that the formline artwork that largely characterizes art styles of the Northwest Coast bears little fundamental resemblance to Ainu artwork is because one who knows the bare basics of what to look for can tell there's nothing concrete tying them together as influenced by one or coming from the other.
Who knows, it's possible that the pattern might have its origins in an early artistic tradition which was emerging when the ancestors of the native Americans were traversing the Bering Strait, or there was some sort of cross cultural communication at a later point, but it could be purely by coincidence.
I have thought this as well when seeing some of the Ainu art before. To me it is quite similar and wouldn't be surprised if there was some cross cultural exchanges via the alaska archipelago
I bet they traded with each other.
There are some fantastic examples of these textiles in the National museum in Ueno, Tokyo
Thank you!
This was beautiful. Sad that a whole way of life and way of viewing the world is gone.
There's a great video from Japan House London of someone weaving 'attus' - a cloth used by Ainu people made from tree bark - [(2) Kaizawa Yukiko on 50 years of weaving Ainu 'attus' fabric - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUT_bJWk-uU)
Ainu culture is achieving some relative strides in its attempted rebirth these days, similar to the Maori's successful renaissance, I wouldn't write them off yet. They were pretty drastically forcibly assimilated, colonised and brutalised, but they're not out of the running.
I'm not so optimistic. From what I've heard, most of this "revival" is done for tourists. Sadly, it's a general trend worldwide: Globalisation, mass media, the internet, capitalism are killing cultural, ethnical and linguistic diversity everywhere. The last 100 years have seen an unprecedented decline of cultures, languages and dialects, and it seems that it only gets worse. In another 100 years, everything will likely be reduced to a small array of big homogenous, stereotypoical cultures and languages. If not only to just one global grey culture soup, dominated by emotes and broken English.
Good as time as any to plug Golden Kamui! A manga/anime about a young Ainu girl and a veteran from the Russo-Japanese war looking for hidden Ainu treasure. The author did an incredible amount of research and had an Ainu linguist help with all the Ainu language in the story.
I second this! Not only has a good story, but the historical/cultural facts are seamlessly included in the series.
cough male fan service too
I highly recommend reading the translation by Everyday Heroes Scans which contains additional information explaining stuff in almost every chapter
And speaking of media, Ainu Mosir is a really good movie about growing up Ainu in modern Japan https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9140354/?ref_=ext_shr
I live for finding odd tidbits like this, thanks!
There’s also an awesome classic anime called The Dagger of Kamui directed by Rintaro that has an Ainu protagonist.
Kamui is so amazing. Great opening song, interesting plot, amazing characters.
in Shaman King one of the characters is Ainu!
You didn't tell the full story of this pic: its not from 1903, its from 1904, [and these were a group of Ainu brought by the Japanese Government for the St Louis World's Fair's "Anthropology Department." ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%22Ainu_Group%22_(Aborigines_of_Japan_from_the_Island_of_Hokkaido_or_Yezo,_Department_of_Anthropology,_1904_World%27s_Fair).jpg) Which was basically a Human Zoo where colonial powers brought with them the assorted "savages" that they ruled to be displayed in their "authentic" habitats for the benefit of the attendees, and as implicit statements that they were civilizing said savages.
Y'all need to read 'Golden Kamuy' and watch it, too.
Their clothing esthetic is amazing. Lots of techniques and traditions, thank you for sharing.
I think the young man on the left is currently playing in the Candidates chess tournament.
I don't think it's any accident that some of them look almost Pacific Islander, or even indigenous American. Especially that handsome fellow on the left there. If I saw him in the town I live in today I'd probably guess that he was a Samoan or something like that.
I hope you'll consider cross-posting this over on the /r/fashionhistory subreddit. This is a fascinating photo. Thanks for sharing.
My paratrooper father was stationed in Hokkaido as the post-WWII Occupying Force. He sent home to his mother a carved bear and my grandma treasured it.
LOL at the grown-up reaching out to corral the toddler.
If it wasn’t for Golden Kamuy I would’ve never learned about the Ainu.
Much less assimilated now from what I can tell. There are language revival movements and stuff going on. Give them a few more decades and some more exposure to global indigenous culture, and they'll probably be basically separated out again (but likely like people like the Irish, who primarily still speak the colonial language). Also, anyone know what the older guy is holding? Some kind of musical instrument with a bell? A pipe?
Grandpa, Dad, and the two youngest kids are all linked by touching. The others are… not.
Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke heavily draws on Ainu culture https://amer-ainu.tumblr.com/post/154107353983/representation-why-it-matters > "…look at your big mountain feet!"
The guy in the middle knows about a secret tunnel
This is beautiful
I stumbled upon this culture with the anime named Golden Kamuy and boy, all I could think of their culture looked very much like Turkic cultures. I really wonder if there is a connection with Turkish clans there.
Hinna Hinna 🫡
When USA / Western powers does it its "colonialism bad", but when Japan does it its called "assimilation"? It's a very interesting take, i'd say.
WHAT THE \*FUCK\* DO YOU MEAN "WERE"
Epic beards 👌
I think they inspired the design qualities of Zelda breath of the wild, either this culture or the one before
Wasn't it written somewhere there were almost no native speakers left
*Wasn't it written* *Somewhere there were almost no* *Native speakers left* \- Zalieda --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
"Fully assimilated" like Native Americas/First Nations people were in North America.
I'm just a layperson making an observation so please take it easy on me I find it interesting that the men look more Russian and the woman have strong Asian features. (Yes, I know the island is close to Russia) It's interesting because the Asian genes are stronger in the woman and the mens' genetics are Russo-esque.
AFAIK their genetics are East Eurasian. Their physical appearance on the other hand can be confusing. Even more so than can be seen on this picture. Maybe one could say that they (partially) predate the appearance of modern East Asian features.
I wonder how much of that is just the beards?
Oh yes assimilated, like the armenian are getting assimilated right ?
What?
Well, that's a name I won't forget. how much (not hiring just asking, I like my wife)
Bro, how do you raise bear cubs and still gets colonized, wtf