How a Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group in Japan Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance
For a long time, Japanese anthropologists and officials tried to bury the Ainu. It didn’t work
By Jude Isabella, Hakai Magazine
The bear head is small. Cradled in Hirofumi Kato’s outstretched palm, its mouth a curving gap in bone, the little carving could be a child’s toy, a good luck charm, a deity. It may be 1,000 years old.
Voices swirl around Kato, a Japanese archaeologist. He stands in the middle of a school gym that now serves as a makeshift archaeological lab on the northern Japanese island of Rebun. The room is filled with smells: of earth, with an undertone of nail polish, overlaid with an aroma that takes a minute to decipher—the pungence of damp bone drying.
Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-bear-worshipping-group-in-japan-fought-for-cultural-relevance-180965281/#XL0TByclc6UsjTYI.99
