Ainu weaving and embroidery
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
“My husband and his father were trying to protect and preserve Ainu culture and language. My husband’s aunty was an Ainu language expert”.
Duration
3.00
Director
Peter and Andrea Hylands
Cinematography
Andrea Hylands
Ainu craft traditions continue and of the great skills handed down to the current generation of women is the art of Nibutani-attus weaving and embroidery.
In this film Miwako Kaizawa (who is not Ainu but has married into the Ainu culture) is working on the embroidery of a ceremonial garment.
Ainu attus coats are woven from the inner bark of trees including from the Manchurian Elm and Japanese Linden. The inner bark is split into its fibrous strands, which are then spun into threads, a loom is used to produce the final material which is thick and relatively course. The material is light brown in colour. Fibres are also dyed using the pigment of walnut trees, rugosa roses, mugworts and a variety of other locally available plants.
As we are told by the Ainu people, the attus (a kind of Ainu coat) is used as a day to day item of clothing. It has always had a ceremonial role, which is its main function today. The ceremonial attus is decorated in traditional Ainu patterns on both the back of the attus and on its sleeves. The pattern is powerful and is placed to keep evil spirits at bay.
Making a major piece of Ainu clothing takes many weeks of work so much of the production is now made for personal or ceremonial Ainu use.
The second dimension to Ainu textile production is the embroidery of Ainu designs onto textiles, again by women who pass on the traditional designs from mother to daughter.
Names
In the film clip Miwako san talks about Ainu names and the naming of children. Ainu culture did not use surnames in the traditional sense. Surnames were introduced more recently by the Japanese so that Ainu naming conformed more fully with the broader Japanese culture.
Ainu names were given to suit the persona and ability of the child and to reflect the parent’s wishes for them. The idea was to give new names endowed with direct meaning for that person and not to repeat the names of ancestor snow departed.
Kayano Shigeru
Miwako san also mentions the greatly respected Kayano Shigeru, the first Ainu politician to sit in the Japanese Diet, who was born in Nibutani (1923) and into a crowded household. His name at birth was Kaizawa, he was adopted using his aunt’s name. As a young man he rejected his Ainu culture but then came to understand “the great treasures of the Ainu people”. His latest book Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir is translated to English by Mark Selden.
Our warm thanks to Mari Yamada.
In this film Miwako Kaizawa (who is not Ainu but has married into the Ainu culture) is working on the embroidery of a ceremonial garment.
Ainu attus coats are woven from the inner bark of trees including from the Manchurian Elm and Japanese Linden. The inner bark is split into its fibrous strands, which are then spun into threads, a loom is used to produce the final material which is thick and relatively course. The material is light brown in colour. Fibres are also dyed using the pigment of walnut trees, rugosa roses, mugworts and a variety of other locally available plants.
As we are told by the Ainu people, the attus (a kind of Ainu coat) is used as a day to day item of clothing. It has always had a ceremonial role, which is its main function today. The ceremonial attus is decorated in traditional Ainu patterns on both the back of the attus and on its sleeves. The pattern is powerful and is placed to keep evil spirits at bay.
Making a major piece of Ainu clothing takes many weeks of work so much of the production is now made for personal or ceremonial Ainu use.
The second dimension to Ainu textile production is the embroidery of Ainu designs onto textiles, again by women who pass on the traditional designs from mother to daughter.
Names
In the film clip Miwako san talks about Ainu names and the naming of children. Ainu culture did not use surnames in the traditional sense. Surnames were introduced more recently by the Japanese so that Ainu naming conformed more fully with the broader Japanese culture.
Ainu names were given to suit the persona and ability of the child and to reflect the parent’s wishes for them. The idea was to give new names endowed with direct meaning for that person and not to repeat the names of ancestor snow departed.
Kayano Shigeru
Miwako san also mentions the greatly respected Kayano Shigeru, the first Ainu politician to sit in the Japanese Diet, who was born in Nibutani (1923) and into a crowded household. His name at birth was Kaizawa, he was adopted using his aunt’s name. As a young man he rejected his Ainu culture but then came to understand “the great treasures of the Ainu people”. His latest book Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir is translated to English by Mark Selden.
Our warm thanks to Mari Yamada.
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