The immediate predecessors of the Ainu, who are the native people of northeastern Japan, occupied the site. Many archeologists consider the Ainu to be the last living descendants of the Jomon ...

The Ainu believe that the world rests on the back of a giant trout, that otters caused human beings to be flawed, and that seeing an owl fly across the face of the moon at night is cause for great ...

Exploring the presence of her traditional Ainu culture in contemporary life is central to the work of Mayunkiki (born 1982), an artist, language teacher, musician and cultural worker from ...

The Ainu people are the indigenous people of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan's northernmost main island. They developed their own distinct language, history and culture, which were quite different from ...

A new national museum is putting the spotlight on Japan’s Ainu indigenous people. Upopoy, a sprawling complex also known as the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony, opened in the northernmost ...

An Ainu woman is no longer remaining silent but speaking out against a lawmaker’s continued discriminatory remarks toward the Ainu indigenous people, which have been officially recognized as hum ...

A film inspired by the story of a young Ainu woman who translated into Japanese an epic poem passed down orally among the indigenous people of Hokkaido will soon have a wide domestic release.

After centuries of forced assimilation, Japan’s indigenous Ainu population, language and culture are emerging once more thanks to anime, the country’s thriving sub-cultures and YouTube.

But in early 20th-century Japan, Teru is excluded because she is Ainu. Instead of writing, the Ainu—indigenous people from Japan’s Hokkaido island—pass down their traditions through yukar ...