NEWSWORTHY
Hokkaido celebrates 150th anniversary of its naming with a plug for ethnic diversity
Hokkaido formally celebrated the 150th anniversary of its name Sunday in Sapporo, with the Emperor and Empress in attendance and Ainu representatives performing traditional dances. The island prefecture was officially named Hokkaido on Aug. 15, 1869, and formally put under the control of the government. ...
Japan's indigenous Ainu sue to bring their ancestors' bones back home
Activist group's hardball tactics expose rifts in the Ainu community over the fate of bones held at universities.
Japan Times 1918: Teacher's house stoned after racial epithet
Twenty-three students of the Odate Middle School in Akita Prefecture in northwestern Japan attacked the house of Mr. Kishida, instructor of natural history in the school, twice on the night of June 2, throwing stones and destroying the windows and paper slides of the ...
Poetry can be a vital record of the past. Anarchist and poet Genzo Sarashina (1904-1985) was the son of first-generation Japanese settlers in Hokkaido. Later he became an expert on Ainu culture, working tirelessly to conserve the language, fables and songs of Japan's indigenous ...
Japan's government to stipulate Ainu as 'indigenous people' for first time
The central government is likely to stipulate for the first time in law that the Ainu are an "indigenous people" of Japan, according to sources. Using the phrase "indigenous people" in a law would be an additional step by the government to clarify its stance ...
The government said Monday it will start negotiations with Australia toward returning the remains of indigenous Ainu people being held at Australian museums. Australia's ambassador to Japan, Richard Court, is expected to meet with representatives of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido as soon as Thursday ...
Hokkaido's ancient place in the modern world
"Even the birds do not fly to Ezo," went a popular 19th-century saying about Japan's northernmost island. "Ezo" means "land of barbarians." Settlement tamed it into "Hokkaido" — "north sea road." But it was a rough passage. Pioneers from the mainland — for centuries a ...
Hokkaido University agrees to return remains of Ainu to descendants
Hokkaido University has agreed to return to descendants of the Ainu, an indigenous ethnic group concentrated in Japan's northernmost main island, ancestral remains exhumed from a cemetery for research in the 1930s, the descendants said this week. The agreement, reached in a court-mediated settlement at ...
Seeing Ainu as they want to be seen
Portrait project on show in Tokyo is the result of months spent living as part of Hokkaido village community.
Japan Times 1992: 'George Bush collapses during official dinner'
U.S. President George Bush collapsed in the middle of an official banquet Wednesday night and returned early to the Government Guesthouse in Tokyo's Akasaka district.
Photographer helping to hand down Ainu culture with new photo book
Hokkaido photographer Taka Maesawa plans to publish a sequel to her photo book documenting the life of the Ainu indigenous people in the country's northernmost prefecture to help efforts to hand down their culture to future generations. The 69-year-old hopes to achieve her goal of ...
New law eyed to improve living, education standards for indigenous Ainu
The central government might enact a law aimed at bettering living standards and education for the indigenous Ainu, who once occupied much of Hokkaido, sources say.
