Japan Original Tribe (Ainu)

The Ainu are an aboriginal people of the northern Pacific, who live principally on Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, and in the southern part of Soviet island is Sakhalin. Until recently, they also occupied the Sovyet Kuril island , where their population is now extinct. The Ainu population is rapidly dwindling is result of intermarriage of and cultural assimilation by the Japanese. Only a small percentage of the estimated 12. 000 Ainu on Hokkaido and 600 on Sakhalin are of unmixed descent.

Unlike other East Asian people, Ainu possess wavy brunette hair, light skinned complexions, and abundant body hair. They also lack the epicanthic fold of skin over the upper eyelids, a mongoloid racial characteristic. Their language is unrelated to any known Asian linguistic family.

The Ainu, a hunting and gathering people, formerly lived throughout the Japanese archipelago but were gradually pushed north to their present location by the invading Japanese. The men used the bow and arrow to hunt bear, deer, fox, otter, and other land animals during the winter.

In summer they fished the sea and rivers. The women gathered wild foods such as roots, berries, mushrooms, and nuts and also engaged in small-scale agriculture based on crop rotation.

Traditionally the Ainu traced their genealogical descent through both parents, and the family was the most important social and economic unit. The men were skilled woodcarvers ; women were experts in embroidering and weaving.

They had many songs, games, epic tales, and riddles, and their chief musical instruments were the drum and flute. Their highly animistic religious belief includes many gods of the mountains, land, sky, and sea. Most important the bear cult which each year culminated in an elaborate ritual sacrifice of a captive bear raised from a cub in the Ainu community.