Obihiro Centennial City Museum

Ainu Culture
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Ainu Culture in Tokachi

The Ainu are an indigenous people who live in Hokkaido and surrounding areas,

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Casi

Casi means “fence” in Ainu.

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Hunting and Fishing

The Ainu hunted in the mountains using tools such as arrows tipped with poison.

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Plant Gathering

Hundreds of plants were eaten and used for medicinal purposes in the Ainu tradition.

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Common Ainu Cuisine

One traditional everyday dish is ohaw (soup),

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Clothing

In Tokachi, kimono were made with wood-fiber cloth,

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Cise [House]

Houses are called cise.

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Kamuy [Gods]

In the traditional belief of the Ainu,

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Iomante [Bear Festival]

A ritual for sending back animals’ kamuy (god) spirits to the kamuy realm.

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From Birth to Death

After a child has grown to a certain extent,

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Itaomacip [Bound-board boat]

A boat made of bound boards.

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Reconstruction of a cise

The Ainu in the Tokachi area built their cise (houses) with a window for kamuy (gods) to come and go.

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Takeshiro Matsuura

In the 19th century, Takeshiro Matsuura explored Hokkaido,

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Tokachi Ainu in Modern Times

The lives of the Ainu became difficult once they were assimilated as Japanese citizens by the Japanese government.

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Preserving the Ainu Culture of Tokachi

The people of Tokachi have made efforts to preserve Ainu traditions. In order to hand down traditional dances,

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The Ainu and Settlers

The Ainu aided the mainland Japanese settlers in various ways,

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Owls

The Blakiston’s fish owl is known as kotankorkamuy (“the god who possesses the village”).

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Komni [Japanese emperor oak]

The Japanese emperor oak is a common tree in Tokachi.

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Cironnop [Ezo red fox]

Cironnop means “that which we kill many of”. There were many uses for the Ezo red fox.

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