Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People [Hardcover]

William W. Fitzhugh (Editor), Chisato O. Dubreuil (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000

As soon as the Ainu became known outside Japan in the early 1800s, scholars recognized that their history was different from that of surrounding Japanese, Korean, and Siberian peoples. This book presents a broad range of contemporary scholarship on Ainu studies by leading European, American, and Japanese scholars, and by native Ainu artists and cultural leaders. Using materials from early, unpublished Ainu collections in North America, supplemented by archaeological, archival, and modern Ainu art from Japan, Ainu culture is presented here as a rich blend of traditional and modern belief. Like other extant native cultures, the Ainu have survived by resisting political and economic pressure to assimilate. Although they have lost their northern lands and are confined largely to Hokkaido, their culture and language have recently received official recognition, in Japan and internationally. This book, jointly planned with scholars and the Ainu people, helps bring Ainu history, culture, and art into focus as a rich living tradition. William Fitzhugh is director of the Arctic Studies Center and curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Chisato O. Dubreuil, of native Ainu descent, is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ainu, a term meaning "humans," is used by native peoples of northern Japan to refer to themselves. Formerly, the Ainu also inhabited the Kurile Islands, southern Sakhalin Island, and a portion of northern Honshu, but now their only homeland is Hokkaido. This book, which accompanied an exhibit at the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies Center, is the most in-depth treatise available on Ainu prehistory, material culture, and ethnohistory. The clearly written text is divided into six parts, each dealing with an aspect of Ainu culture and each authored or coauthored by noted authorities of Ainu prehistory and culture and benefiting from contributions by Ainu scholars themselves. Included are chapters on theories regarding Ainu origins prehistory; the early scholars of Ainu culture, such as Hiram Hiller and Jenichiro Oyabe; religion and cultural practices; and material culture. Perhaps most significant is the last part of the book,which addresses Ainu social and cultural issues, maintenance of traditional cultural practices, and the future of Ainu language. Recommended for all larger public libraries and academic libraries.DJohn E. Dockall, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"The most in-depth treatise available on Ainu prehistory, material culture, and ethnohistory." -- Library Journal

"The most in-depth treatise available on Ainu prehistory, material culture, and ethnohistory." -- Library Journal --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press; First Edition edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295979127
• ISBN-13: 978-0295979120
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,225,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fresh and Thorough Look at the Ainu and Their Culture, January 31, 2000

By 

Austin H. Moore (Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (Hardcover)

Despite the fact that I have lived in Japan for more than fifteen years, my visit to the Smithsonian's fabulous "Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People" exhibit last year provided my first meaningful look at this long overlooked or misunderstood part of East Asian cultural heritage. I ordered a softcover copy of the (at the time yet to be released) book right away and have since poured through it time and again. Written largely by anthropologists, as a layman I feared that it might well be too scientific to appreciate; happily such is not the case. The book is beautifully written, edited, and illustrated. Anyone with an interest in Japan's northern culture and/or the animist nature of the nation as a whole will find this book profoundly enlightening. I regret that a hardcover edition was not available sooner.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly an excellent volume, April 3, 2000

By 

Fenevad - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (Hardcover)

Often scholarly volumes have excellent content but are poorly produced and edited while musem volumes are often well produced and edited but lack serious and contemporary scholarly material--they become catalogues of artifacts without real contextualizing material.

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People manages to overcome both of these problems. As a scholarly volume it has excellent content (much of which has not been previously available to non-Japanese speakers) and is well-produced and beautifully laid out.

Aside from some small quibbles I have with some other articles seeming truncated for space concerns and others for not presenting enough information (notably the articles dealing with Ainu language/linguistics), I find little to find fault with. Even my concerns about some aspects of the volume are only a request for more, not a complaint with what is in the volume.

Overall this volume does a wonderful job of making contemporary Ainu research accessible to the lay reader while also presenting enough scholarly material to make it worth-while reading for those with a deeper interest in the Ainu. Even though the volume does not deal directly with the area of my research, the amount of knowledge it conveys has foced me to rethink aspects of my own work.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must have" book for the Ainu researcher, December 6, 2004

By 

Guy de la Rupelle (Japan) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (Paperback)

In addition to what the other readers have written I would also add that this book is truly a "must-have" for anyone having an interest either in the Ainu specifically, or native peoples such as the Aleuts, the Inuits, the Polynesians, the Moari, etc. This, in part, because anyone interested in the Ainu will be hard-pressed to find a great deal of books in print regarding this topic, in any case in English. Photographs or Ainu artifacts are perfect and highly details, and there are a great deal of reproductions of "Ainu-e", or paintings done by the Japanese when they were slowly but surely in the process of taking over what is today Hokkaido. These are invaluable because they are rich in detail and depict a way of life that no longer exists, much in the same way that Edward Curtis' photographs of the Native Indians in the US are. I would personally recommend the hard-cover version though more pricy is a much better book to own in one's collection.