Japan's indigenous people, the Ainu, were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, Japan's northern island. But most travelers will not have heard of them. Our coverage during coronavirus While ...

Discover the fascinating culture of the Ainu people of Hokkaido and their deep connection with bears. Learn about their traditions, history, and spiritual relationship with nature in this ...

To the Ainu, bears represent the ultimate incarnation of a god. So, a less-skilled translator — perhaps lacking a flair for marketing — might have rendered it as “Kamui Mintara, A ...

There are inevitably more serious moments in Ainu Puri.Amanai questions why he must get a special permit from the authorities to fish, a centuries-old practice on land taken from his people by ...

Takeshi Fukunaga's documentary Ainu Puri screened at the ... He was there with a tiny crew to shoot a bear ritual of the indigenous Ainu people of Japan’s northernmost islands that was being ...

He is not of Ainu descent: “I visited the Ainu village in 1999 after making a ring in the shape of a bear’s paw, and was deeply impressed by the culture. ...

An Ainu ceremony known as Iyomante, in which people shoot arrows at a brown bear cub regarded as a god. It’s based on the belief that sending the bear’s spirits back to the divine world will ...

For the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaidō, the bear was not simply an enemy or an animal to be hunted. Traditional Ainu culture understood the brown bear as a pair of mutually opposed spirits.

Documentary investigating a film made of the Ainu bear ceremony by Neil Gordon Munro, who studied the Ainu culture for thirty years before settling in Nibutani for the last twelve years of his life.

Ghost of Yotei teases a ton of details about 1603 Japan, the Ainu, the Tokugawa Shogunate, and more that has us hyped for the new setting. Set as a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei ...

There are also a few more Ainu restaurants; in 2005, there was only one Ainu restaurant in Sapporo, run out of a family home, which closed two years later due to lack of interest.