Biratori/Naha (Japan) (AFP) – In a forest in northern Japan's Hokkaido, Atsushi Monbetsu kneels on the moss in the thick morning fog and begins to pray in a language that has nearly disappeared.

Indigenous student Mizuki Orita (2nd L) practices a traditional dance with members of the Ainu culture club Sapporo University AFP When Yuko Honda, a professor at Japan's Sapporo University, tried to ...

The ainu of japan have long been almost invisible in a society that likes to consider itself racially homogenous. Often they hide themselves. Yuki Hasegawa, for instance, grew up thinking she was ...

There is only one group of white people on earth who have persisted almost unchanged from the Stone Age; will they survive World War II? The odds that they will are not too good, for they live on one ...

Scholar of Japanese culture examines how indigenous Ainu women use textile art as a means of maintaining and celebrating their identity While traveling through Tokyo 16 years ago, ann-elise lewallen ...

Hokkaido Jomon cultures continued during the Yayoi period long after the Jomon ended in southwestern Japan, but these continuing (or Epi-Jomon) sites developed a new character. Most sites consist of ...

Japan's indigenous Aibu people show their folk dancing at Nibutani Ainu Museum at Biratori in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. Japan's Ainu ethnic minority have launched an ambitious bid to win 10 ...

Like a growing number of Ainu, Atsushi Monbetsu has reclaimed his identity and some of the Indigenous group's traditional practices - Copyright AFP Yuichi YAMAZAKI ...