NOVA Online (click here for NOVA home)
Island of the Spirits
Site Map

Resources
Web Links | Books | Credits


Web Links
Ainu: The Anatomy of an exhibit
http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/html/ainu.htm
The companion Web site to a Smithsonian exhibit, "Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People," provides background information on the Ainu and also gives an insider's view on how a museum show is pulled together.

Collection from the Ainu and the Amur area
http://www.neprajz.hu/bbb/coll.htm
Benedek Baráthosi Balogh, a school teacher from Hungary, first became fascinated with the Ainu people during a visit in 1908. The Museum of Ethnography in Budapest offers an impressive online "sample" of the hundreds of photographs, sketches, and artifacts Baráthosi Balogh brought home from his travels among the Ainu.

The Ainu Museum
http://www.ainu-museum.or.jp/english/english.html
Hosted by the Ainu Museum in Shiraoi, Hokaido, this site presents several essays on the history, practices, and beliefs of the Ainu.

The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC)
http://www.frpac.or.jp/english/e_index2.html
Committed to researching, restoring, and reproducing Ainu culture, FRPAC actively lobbies the Japanese government and people to acknowledge and honor the Ainu's contributions to Japanese culture.


Books
The Ainu and Their Folklore by the Rev. John Batchelor. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1901.
After nearly 25 years proselytizing and observing among the Ainu in the second half of the last century, Batchelor wrote this, his second book on the Ainu. Highly detailed and profusely illustrated with the author's own photographs and drawings, it covers everything from fetiches to fishing, education to exorcism. See Ainu Legends.

Ainu Creed and Cult by Neil Gordon Munro. New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996.
First published in 1962, 20 years after the author's death, this authoritative book was written by a Scot who spent the last 12 years of his life among the Ainu of Hokkaido. It is an amateur anthropologist's take on Ainu ceremonies, funerary practices, spirit beliefs, and other customs.

Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir by Kayano Shigeru. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994
A highly personal memoir of three generations of a contemporary Ainu family, and by extension of Ainu culture and history in general, this book serves as Shigeru's fervent contribution to preserving the Ainu's fast-dwindling cultural heritage.


Credits
Lauren Aguirre, Senior Producer
Maureen Dolan, Intern
Rick Groleau, Hot Science Developer
Sarah Ince, Intern
Brenden Kootsey, Technologist
Rob Meyer, Production Assistant
Jeffrey Oar, Intern
Rick Pinchera, Illustrator
Carla Raimer, Associate Producer
Peter Tyson, Producer
Anya Vinokour, Senior Designer



Origins of the Ainu | Ainu Legends | Find Your Way
Resources | Transcript | Site Map

Editor's Picks | Previous Sites | Join Us/E-mail | TV/Web Schedule
About NOVA | Teachers | Site Map | Shop | Jobs | Search | To print
PBS Online | NOVA Online | WGBH

© | Updated November 2000