The Ainu believe that the world rests on the back of a giant trout, that otters caused human beings to be flawed, and that seeing an owl fly across the face of the moon at night is cause for great ...

The ringing telephone broke the evening silence. It was the fall of 1983, and my research partner, Professor Masakazu Yoshizaki, was calling from Japan. "Gary, I have some news," Yoshi said.

An invaluable record of Ainu culture is finding an international audience almost 100 years after it was first published. "Ainu Shinyoshu," or "Collection of Ainu Songs of Gods," compiled by author ...

A new national museum is putting the spotlight on Japan’s Ainu indigenous people. Upopoy, a sprawling complex also known as the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony, opened in the northernmost ...