Japan's shrine meant to celebrate Hokkaido's Ainu divides them
On a wooded lake shore in southwest Hokkaido, the government is building a modernist shrine that has divided the indigenous Ainu community whose vanishing culture it was designed to celebrate. At a cost so far of ¥20 billion, the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony is ...
Tomoko Keira's 'The Spirit of Huci': A year of living with an Ainu elder — review
One part Ainu cookbook and three parts a cultural record of Ainu values and beliefs, Tomoko Keira's "The Spirit of Huci" offers, for the first time, the voices of Ainu women in English.
Hokkaido’s ethnic minority will get a promotional boost, but not the rights to education and self-determination spelled out in the U.N’s 2007 declaration on indigenous people.
'Empty words': Rights groups say Japan's bill recognizing Ainu as indigenous group falls short
Rights groups criticize the government over a recent bill recognizing the Ainu people for the first time as “an indigenous group.”
Japan's Ainu recognition bill: What does it mean for Hokkaido's indigenous people?
In a first for Japan, a bill to legally recognize the Ainu as the indigenous people of Japan is about to be submitted to the Diet. The bill includes clauses that oblige the government to adopt policies to support and protect the cultural identity of ...
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 ...
