A bearded Ainu man in traditional dress and holding a sword performs a ceremony in a graveyard in front of a bear's skull decorated with wood shavings on the island of Hokkaido in northern Japan. There were only 300 pure-blooded Ainu (pronounced I-noo) still living when he posed for this historical photograph in 1962. Since then the Ainu have assimilated into Japanese society and their age-old crafts, customs and ceremonies are only kept alive in special villages for tourists. Earlier denigrated as “hairy aborigines,” the Ainu were officially recognized as indigenous people of Japan in 2008.
A bearded Ainu man in traditional dress and holding a sword performs a ceremony in a graveyard in front of a bear's skull decorated with wood shavings on the island of Hokkaido in northern Japan. There were only 300 pure-blooded Ainu (pronounced I-noo) still living when he posed for this historical photograph in 1962. Since that time the Ainu have assimilated into Japanese society and their age-old crafts, customs and ceremonies are only kept alive in special villages for tourists. Earlier denigrated as “hairy aborigines,” the Ainu were officially recognized as indigenous people of Japan in 2008.
Size: 2700px × 4059px
Location: island of Hokkaido, Japan, East Asia
Photo credit: © Michele and Tom Grimm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1960s, 1962, aborigine, aborigines, ainu, animism, animists, aynu, bear, beard, beards, bears, cemeteries, cemetery, ceremonies, ceremony, costume, costumes, crowns, culture, cultures, custom, customs, dress, ethnic, ethnicity, graveyard, graveyards, historical, history, hokkaido, indigenous, japan, japanese, living, native, natives, people, peoples, photograph, portrait, shavings, skull, skulls, societies, society, sword, swords, tourism, tradition, traditional, traditions, travel, vertical, wood
