Ainu Ethnobiology

Book excerpt: This book examines the ethnobotany and ethnozoology of pre-20th Century Ainu, the indigenous people of the North Pacific islands of Hokkaido (Japan) and Sakhalin, and the Kurils (Russia). Ainu of this time were fishing hunter-gatherers. When colonized by Japan and Russia at the turn of the 20th Century, Ainu had no written language, but strong oral traditions, which Japanese, Russian and western ethnographers recorded. Ainu Ethnobiology is a linguistic work as well as an ecological one. Williams analyses over 100 old texts, mostly translating from Japanese, with other original sources in Russian, French, German and English, thereby amassing a work with perhaps the most comprehensive bibliography of primary sources on the Ainu. Williams also spent many months in the field building a working knowledge of the environment in which the Ainu lived and worked. He presents the native flora and fauna of Ainu daily life, and explains their use in terms of activities, rituals, and material culture.