The resilience of the crow

The Ainu, native people’s, struggle to preserve their culture after assimilation and discrimination. Living together between demands, reconciliation and compromise : stories of activists, artists, community harmony... and ordinary people.

Hokkaido, Japan's northern island. Wide-open spaces of wintry beauty. A land of forests, volcanoes, lakes and wild coastlines. A land of bears and the Ainu, a people of hunter-fishermen with deeply animistic beliefs, present since the 9th century. Formerly known as Ainu mosir, Hokkaido was colonized and integrated into the Empire of Japan only 150 years ago.

Political organization, religion, oral mythology, women’s ritual tattoos, the arts, a language with no confirmed kinship with others, and a physical appearance different from that of the Japanese were all indicators of a strong identity.

In a story that echoes the fate of many other indigenous peoples around the world, the Ainu were persecuted and subjected to a long policy of forced assimilation. Forbidden to communicate in their language, to hunt and fish, uprooted, forced to renounce their rites, arts and way of life, they were the object of calculated discrimination.

Traditional culture is hard to figure out today because of this repression and miscegenation, but the Ainu are increasingly proud of their origins, gradually moving away from the shame linked to the discrimination still present.

Despite the difficulties, the profile of a multicultural Japanese society, including the Ainu, is gradually taking shape. The way of life and customs of yesteryear no longer exist, but the inheritors of this culture are working to reappropriate it, even if it means reinventing it at times, due to the lack of continuity in transmission. But behind the image given to visitors, the community struggles to preserve a form of authenticity despite - and with - modern society, revealing the ambivalences of its heritage.

This work reflects on what it means to live together today, between demands, reconciliation and compromise; it addresses the sense of belonging within a community in the dual process of preserving and reinventing its own culture. Thanks to the resilience of its people, ainu culture is alive and well, and constitutes a strong identity. Stories of activists, artists, community harmony... and above all, ordinary people.