Traditional Ainu clothing was made with animal or fish skin, or woven with tree bark or nettle fibres (Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images) ...

Japan’s indigenous people, the Ainu, were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. But most travellers will not have heard of them.

The traditional Ainu ritual of Kamuynomi is performed at the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on May 3, after Ainu people’s remains are returned from Britain.

On the windswept coasts of Hokkaido, a language once thought to be vanishing is echoing back into life. The story of Ainu, Japan’s indigenous language, is not just a tale of words and grammar ...

The film features scenes of Sachiko Kibata teaching students the Ainu language and helping them rehearse for speech competitions, Reiko Kayano teaching sewing lessons for traditional Ainu clothing, ...

How traditional clothing, ... 100 years ago or more, going to Hokkaido, they will be able to recognize that, ‘Oh, that person is Ainu,’ a native of this island, ...

Man in traditional dress from La Gomera in Spain’s Canary Islands, ... In “Rare Tongues,” she explores languages teetering on the brink of oblivion, including Ainu, ...

Amanai revived traditional Ainu salmon fishing over a decade ago, a practice nearly lost to modernity, part of his efforts to do what he can to preserve and pass on his people’s ways.

The ranks of the Ainu have shrunk so low that in the last official survey, taken in 2017, only 13,118 people identified as Ainu in Hokkaido, which has a total population of about 5.2 million.

The event began at around 11 a.m. as participants connected with the Sapporo Ainu Association gathered in a traditional Ainu dwelling known as a "cise." Donning ethnic clothing, ...