Ainu

Ainu (ī`n), aborigines of Japan who may be descended from a Caucasoid people who once lived in N Asia. More powerful invaders from the Asian mainland gradually forced the Ainu to retreat to the northern islands of Japan and Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in what is now the Russian Far East; today, they reside mainly on Hokkaido. Reduced in number, they live by hunting, fishing, and small-scale farming. The Ainu have attracted the attention of tourists, and some now make a living by selling reproductions of their cultural artifacts. Physically, they seem related to European peoples, i.e., they have much more body hair than typical East Asians, but intermarriage has introduced Asian traits among them. Contact with the Japanese has led also to culture change and assimilation, which the Ainu have resisted in the past, with decreasing success. Their religion is highly animistic and centers on a bear cult; a captive bear is sacrificed at an annual winter feast and his spirit, thus released, is believed to guard the Ainu settlements.

Bibliography

See N. G. Munro, Ainu Creed and Cult (1963); I. Hilger, Together with the Ainu (1971).

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Ainu

Ainu couple in ceremonial dress, Hokkaido, Japan.

(credit: Courtesy of the Consulate General of Japan, New York City)

Indigenous people of what is now Japan. Pushed north by the Japanese people over the last 2,000 years, the remaining Ainu today live principally in northern Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. Once physically and culturally distinct from the Japanese, their origins and their role in Japanese history and prehistory have been the subject of scholarly debate. Many contemporary Ainu claim some connection to the prehistoric Jomon culture. The Ainu language, which has no known relationship to any other language, is virtually extinct, having been supplanted by Japanese. The Ainu were traditionally hunters, fishermen, and trappers; their religion centred on spirits believed to be present in animals and the natural world.