East Asian Foragers

The Ainu

These are the indigenous people of northern Japan, who, although are classified as foragers, their society has still undergone drastic changes. The encroachment of modern Japanese society had, at one point, completely subsumed their identity.

These articles provide more about the Ainu:

• "Ainu Who?" by Virginia Marin

• "The Ainu and Japanese Modernity: The Assimilation and Ethnocide of Japan's Aborigines" by Tyson Yunkaporta

• "The Ainu of Japan" by Andy Thomason

• "Ainu Religion" (complete with bibliography).

The two best-known museums about the Ainu are in Hokkaido. The website for The Ainu Museum is available in English, but the recreated village of Nibutani, known as Niputay in Ainu-itak, is called The Ranko Museum and is only in Japanese. The Ranko Museum is one example of an attempt to revitalize the language (Ainu-itak) from near extinction, considering onlu 15 known people in the world speak the language today. The greatest interest to those who speak English is John Batchelor's A Grammar of the Ainu Language. Also, an Ainu-English Dictionary is currently available here.