Heyhey, this is a bit of a long shot but does anyone know how I could get ahold of someone of Ainu descent/is part of that culture today? Something I'm working on features imagery/references to their culture and I want to be 1000% sure my depictions are accurate and respectful.
Of course I'm using my best judgement and doing research and such, I just want to be extra sure. These people have had a history of subjugation and having to play into tropes/stereotypes for museum goers and I want to do my best to give them the respect they deserve. #ainu#representation
A year ago I started a little personal #Fedi project to every week share #newRelease music + a variety of other tracks from all sorts of eras & genres too.
I called it #BearTracks for my own humour & just to sort of see what I was doing.
It's over 500 tracks now. Lots of good music, quite a bit you might not have heard.
An amazingly mind expanding journey reading the history of this people and language, encounters with other nations and ideologies, and attempts to assimilate or erase them.
Thanks & well done to the many authors of that Wikipedia page, who have contributed in hundreds of edits & have had respectful conversations in the talk.
'For centuries, Japanese assimilation policies have stripped the Ainu of their land, forced them to give up hunting and fishing for farming or other menial jobs, and pushed them into Japanese-language schools where it was impossible to preserve their own language.'
If you're ever in #Hokkaido, #Japan, make sure to visit the new National #Ainu Museum #Upopoy in Shiraoi! It's easy to get lost there for a whole day to learn, reminisce, experience, and change perspective. If you haven't heard about it's history before, Japan's northernmost island will not feel the same again.
Handbook of the Ainu Language (2022), by Anna Bugaeva (doi.org)
Requires institutional access....
Japan’s Native Ainu Fight to Restore a Last Vestige of Their Identity (www.nytimes.com)
A group representing the Indigenous people has sued to regain the right, lost over a century ago, to freely fish for salmon in a Hokkaido river.