Native creative collection japan free#

But after the Meiji Restoration (about 150 years ago), people from mainland Japan started emigrating to Hokkaido as Japan colonised the northernmost island, and discriminatory practices such as the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act displaced the Ainu from their traditional lands to the mountainous barren area in the island’s centre.

They mainly lived along Hokkaido’s warmer southern coast and traded with the Japanese. The Ainu called Hokkaido “Ainu Moshiri” (“Land of the Ainu”), and their original occupation was hunting, foraging and fishing, like many indigenous people across the world. Their origins are murky, but some scholars believe they are descendants of an indigenous population that once spread across northern Asia. That’s because although they were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, they were oppressed and marginalised by Japanese rule for centuries. The Ainu have long been of interest to anthropologists because of their cultural, linguistic and physical identity, but most travellers will not have heard of them. She is Ainu, an indigenous people who now live mostly on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, but whose lands once spanned from northern Honshu (the Japanese mainland) north to Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands (which are now a disputed part of the Russian Federation). Kimiko Naraki is 70 but looks decades younger. Having treated the bear well in life, her people believe the spirit of the sacred animal, which they worship as a deity, will ensure the continued good fortune of their community.

Native creative collection japan free#

When the time came, we set one free back into nature and killed the other to eat.” They shared our food and lived in our village. “We caught the bears as cubs and raised them as a member of the family. She pointed at a wooden structure made of round logs, raised high above the ground on stilts. A blue hat was perched on her head and her short tunic, embroidered with pink geometric designs, was tied sharply at the waist. “This is our bear hut,” the short, vivacious woman shouted through a hand-held loudspeaker, her smile creasing her forehead with deep wrinkles. (This year, we published many inspiring and amazing stories that made us fall in love with the world – and this is one our favourites.