Ainu Culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Introductory museum trail

Who are the Ainu?

Ainu collections at the Museum

Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

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IRANKARAPTE

Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

There are approximately 374 objects and 140 photographs related to the Ainu culture in the Museum, primarily collected between the late 19th- early 20th century. This was at time of intense discrimination of the Ainu by the Japanese government, and Japanese colonial expansion. The means of acquisition of these objects reflect these tensions, though this narrative is not explicit in the Museum’s current display and historic interpretation of the Ainu objects. Group portrait of four Ainu men, eight women and two children at the Japan-British Exhibition in London, 1910.

Overview of Ainu collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum

How did Ainu collections come to be in the Museum?

Henry Balfour - the Museum's first curator

Untold Stories in the Museum: Missionaries

Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

The Ainu are an indigenous people historically from the northern part of the Japanese archipelago, especially Hokkaido and Sakhalin. The word Ainu means human being in the Ainu language. This digital trail does not attempt to speak for the Ainu but attempts to bring into focus narratives relating to the Ainu collection at the Museum that have historically been untold. We also recognise that the information in the trail is but brief distillation of Ainu pasts, presents and futures, and that what it means to be Ainu today is varied.

Who are the Ainu?

Introductory Museum trail

Untold Stories in the Museum: Missionaries

Henry Balfour - the Museum's first curator

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Loom and attush (bark robe)Natural fibres are used in a variety of clothing, bags, baskets, mats, etc. in Ainu culture. The inner bark of elm, Japanese linden and nettles were woven into textile fabrics. Bark was stripped and woven into saranip (backpack baskets), attush (coats) and tara (carrying straps) on looms like this one.

MAKING: WEAVING

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Makiri (Knives) It was said that Ainu men were only considered full-fledged after becoming hunters and woodcarvers. The Ainu created beautifully patterned carved woodwork using the makiri. Such patterns can be seen on the sheath and hilts of the makiri. Today, Ainu craftspeople continue to make woodcarvings using similar techniques.

MAKING: CARVING

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Attush, Embroidered Hos (Arm and Leg cuffs) Ainu embroidery patterns are very distinct and can be specific regions in Hokkaido and Sakhalin. The embroidery patterns can have different meanings, and are often protective in nature. Embroidery is often founds on the neck, cuffs, hems and backs of the garment, with the back having the boldest pattern as it viewed as a vulnerable part of the body in need of protection. As well as bark, garments were also made out of cotton and silk fabrics that were available through trade with Honshu and continental China.

CLOTHING & ADORNMENTS

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Tamasay Tamasay are large ceremonial necklaces worn by Ainu women. The beads and metal pendants were acquired through trade with merchants from Honshu.

CLOTHING & ADORNMENTS

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Cep-keri (Salmon Boots) Apart from bark, the Ainu also used fur and fish skin to make winter clothing. To see the process of making salmon skin boots watch artist Eiko Soga’s short film Autumn Salmon which through the process of making explores the role economic, religious and spiritual role of salmon in Ainu culture and highlights present issues of cultural heritage and land rights.

CLOTHING & ADORNMENTS

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Mukkuri Mukkuri is an Ainu musical instrument and a type of mouth harp found in various parts of the world. The mukkuri is made from bamboo and is played by pulling hard on the string with a bar and vibrating the inside ‘tongue’. The player can freely alter the tonal colour of the instrument by changing the shape and size of your mouth and breath. The mukkuri often accompanies Ainu songs and dance. There are various kinds of Ainu dances such as those to make offerings to the kamuy (gods), for good hunting and fishing, and those that mimic daily activities or animal movement, such as the crane dance.

MUSIC, DANCE & CEREMONY

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Ainu culture at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Iyomante (The Bear spirit-sending ceremony) Iyomante is a ritual performed to return the spirit of a bear, which believed to visit the Ainu Mosir (human world) to provide the Ainu people with its hide, fur, and meat, back to the Kamuy Mosir (kamuy/spirit world). Ikupasuy are libation sticks that were used during Iyomante convey prayers ad offerings of rice wine to deities. Inao/Inaw are prayer sticks used when praying to the spiritual world and features heavily in Iyomante. Inao are whittled from willow branches which itself serves as kamuy.

MUSIC, DANCE & CEREMONY

Group portrait of four Ainu men, eight women and two children at the Japan-British Exhibition in London, 1910. Based on Kimio Miyatake’s research their names from right to left are: Kaizawa Shiraheno, Kaizawa Kanakatoku, Monbetsu Shinotsutekan, Kaizawa Kenji, Monbetsu Nukatsutoke, Kaizawa Anretoku, Kaizawa Ratarashino, Kaizawa Sue, Kaizawa Zensuke and Kaizawa Chukicki. PRM 1998.233.3

On 26th October 1910, curator Henry Balfour purchased 38 objects from the ‘Ainu Village’ at the Japan-British Exhibition in White City, London for £6, just before the exhibition closed three days later on the 29th October. Aimed at strengthening the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and to establish Japan as a modern empire, the exhibition included complete recreations of a Japanese temples, gardens and Ainu and Formosan (Taiwan) villages. In the reproduced village, 10 Ainu people were essentially on ‘display’, a familiar occurrence in many colonial-era exhibitions rooted in imperialism. The 38 objects purchased by Balfour for the Museum were used by those 10 Ainu at the exhibition during the six months that they were in Britain. However, for over a century those Ainu representatives have remained nameless within the walls of the museum, despite being named in the work of scholar Kimio Miyatake. This trail hopes to step towards redressing this omission.

Japan-British Exhibition

Missionaries were the source of much of the Pitt Rivers Museum’s collections, although they rarely get spoken about especially in the role of colonialism and Indigenous cultural heritage. At least 134 Ainu objects in the museum were acquired in the field by missionaries, in particular British Anglican missionary John Batchelor and French missionary Julien Jean Marie Rousseau who both ran missions in Hokkaido in the late 19th century. All the objects collected by Rousseau were from the region of Hakodate, the southern part of Hokkaido. Hakodate was key base for missionary work as it became an open port in 1859, allowing foreign businesses to flourish. Rousseau’s letter that accompanied the Ainu objects reflected the 19th –early 20th century idea of ‘salvage ethnography’: ‘The race is diminishing and extinguishing itself like all vanished races-…and shows signs of disappearing, but we can, for science, save some of its debris, some traces, they are becoming rarer and rarer-… I hope that there will at least be some more beautiful relics of this fascinating race in the souls regenerated by the waters of the baptism, who will represent the Ainu tribe in heaven.’ Rousseau’s words also illustrates the contradiction of missionary work and its role in colonial epistemicide. On one hand he espouses the ‘beautiful relics’ of the Ainu, while simultaneously seeking to undermine their practices through religious conversion. Rousseau collected and sold these objects to the Museum as remnants of a ‘vanishing people’, and for the past century the Museum has perpetuated the notion of the Ainu as a static or disappearing peoples, despite the continuation of Ainu culture since this time, and there being many contemporary ways of being Ainu today.

Missionaries

‘I often use a simple makiri, the sheath of which is made from cherry bark. I’d like to make the sheath more decorative, but it remains untouched since I’m not yet skilled enough at carving. At least I can dream of finishing the handle to make it look more beautiful. Traditionally Ainu men gave menokomakiri-makiri made for women-to those they loved. Considering this affectionate gesture surviving into our modern days, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to learn wood carving as well as embroidery.’ Mayunkiki, Siknure, Let me live, Ikon Gallery, 2022

‘I’ve always admired Ainu women with the tamasay hanging from their necks in old photos. Tamasay weigh too much to wear on a daily basis, but still, I would like to have one. I fantasise about myself in a kimono with a tamasay around my neck, which would be quite impressive. .’ Mayunkiki, Siknure Let me live, Ikon Gallery, 2022

Cep-keri (Salmon Boots) You can find these in the museum in the tall glass wall case displaying footwear on the first floor of the museum (on your left as you enter the floor).

Mukkuri (mouth harp) You can find these in the museum a case near the centre of the ground floor, displayed with other mouth harps from around the world.

Ikupasuy (libation sticks) You can find these in the museum a tall glass wall case displaying items made from wood on the first floor, just over half way down the aisle on your left as you enter the floor.

Inao/Inaw (prayer sticks) You can find these in the museum a tall glass wall on the ground floor in the south aisle, with a bear skull also displayed nearby.