Who are the Ainus

The Indigenous Ainu people are an ethnic group native to northern Japan, Hokkaido, some in Northeast Honshu, the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, Sakhalin, Kuril Islands, Kamchatka Peninsula, and Khabarovsk Krai, they have  occupied these areas known to them as “Ainu Mosir” the land of the Ainu, since before the arrival of the modern Japanese and Russians. They were hunter gatherers who live in Japan during the Jomom period.

The Ainu had a unique culture and way of life different of the Japanese until they were colonized and subjected into forced population of the Japanese in the 18 th century. They were forced off their land, and forced to give up their traditional way of life, not allowing them to practice their religion, and Bear worshiping. Bear worship was a religious practice among the Ainu in Finn, Nivkh, Sami, as well as the folks from Okhotsk. The Ainu are traditionally animists, believing that everything in nature has a God on the inside. The most important is the Goddess of the hearth, God of bears and mountains, God of the sea, fishing, and marine animals. Kotan-kar-kamuy is regarded as the creator of the world in the Ainu religion. Ainu craftsmen, and the Ainu as a whole, traditionally believed that anything made with deep sincerity was imbued with spirit and also became a God.

They also held the belief that ancestors and the power of the family could be invoked through certain patterns in art to protect them from malignant influences. Their clothing differs from the Japanese and from each village in
design of the motifs with spiritual meaning behind them. They had no priest, but a village chief that would perform ceremonies, using willows, and other items from nature, saying prayers to the Gods. Items are placed on an altar outside, that is used specifically to send back the spirits of killed animals and especially the bear. These ceremonies are called Iyomante.