Open links in new tab
  1. Ainu textiles: Cloth weighted with affection and prayer

    • Ainu knowledge is embodied knowledge. According to Ainu value systems, ethnicity and knowledge are rooted in one’s flesh, bones, blood, and heart. Rote memorization and recitation will not help a perso… See more

    Self-Craft Through Replica-Making

    Crafting reproductions or replicas of ancestral cloth is an act of Ainu self-craft, as artists seek to acquire and reembody this ancestral knowledge by incorporating it as somatic … See more

    Garland Magazine
    References

    Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture 2007. Message from the Ainu 2007: From Now to the Future. Sapporo: Nakanishi Insatsu. Hasegawa, Osamu. 2005. “Indi… See more

    Garland Magazine
    Author

    ann-elise lewallen is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Since 2000, lewallen has lived and worked with Japan’… See more

    Garland Magazine
    Feedback
     
  1. Ainu crafts: woodcarving and embroidery - Japan …

    Two Ainu crafts have been designated ‘Officially Designated Traditional Crafts’, the only two in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. These are the weaving of Nibutani attus, bark-cloth textiles, and the carving of Nibutani ita, wooden …

  2. Power and Beauty: Textile Art of the Ainu Culture – …

    Jan 18, 2021 · Ainu woman weaving a garment. The change of seasons, love and celebrations of culture are all popular themes in Japan. But with the minority people known as Ainu, these are mixed with more mystical ideas about the …

  3. Ainu Craftsmanship | TOTA

    Nov 6, 2016 · Ainu Weaving and Needlework. Weaving was the domain of women. Mothers and grandmothers created clothing for their entire households. By custom, this meant converting soft elm bark into attush fabrics. In later …

  4. The Ainu people of northern Japan: contemporary …

    The Ainu belief system holds that kamuy, spirit-deities who inhabit the distinct world of kamuy and who then can be embodied by natural phenomena in the human world, offer provisions for human survival. In return, Ainu rituals and …

  5. Robe | Japan (Ainu) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    The Ainu's distinctive attush cloth is made from the inner bark of the elm tree or from linden or nettle plants. Men were responsible for collecting the bark, but, as with all Ainu costume, the design, weaving, sewing, and decorating were done …

  6. Ainu culture — Google Arts & Culture

  7. Nibutani bark cloth(Nibutani attoushi)- KOGEI JAPAN

    This weaving machine has a unique shape where one end is fixed to a pillar or a leg of a table, while the other side is fixed around the weavers waist, and the weaver uses his body to pull the threads.

  8. Attushi - Ainu People’s Traditional Coats - The Magic …

    Jun 8, 2016 · The attushi is the traditional coat of the indigenous Ainu people who live in northern Japan. The Tokyo National Museum keeps a collection of attushi gathered in the 19th century.

  9. Nibutani-attus | 平取町へ。アイヌ文化へ。

    Attus is a traditional Ainu plain-weave fabric woven from tree bark fibers. Clothing made from the fabric is also called attus. Nibutani-attus is a traditional craft that has inherited those techniques and materials.