Ethnography: Ainu Essay example -- Cultural Anthropology

Ethnography AinuWorldview The Ainu, japans native uncreated people, argon very much an isolated people, living now except in the northern island of Japan, Hokkaido. They number, as of a 1984 survey, 24,381, continuing a sneak from a low point in the mid nineteenth coulomb due to forced labor and disease, and give largely left their aged(prenominal) ways and integrated into standard Japanese society, though even the volume of those still reside in Hokkaido. The animistic religion of the Ainu is firmly ensnarl with every other aspect of the culture.Family and Kinship Most Ainu organize in groups of nuclear families, the nuclear family being the basic social unit (Encyclopedia). more or less groups, however, have extended families, but are non as common. Families are both patrilineal and matrilineal, the sons get the fathers clan and the daughters inheriting the mothers clan (. Both males and females do not embrace cousins, but only from their mothers family (Encyclopedia). Also, polygyny is practiced by the higher-status males in a community (Encyclopedia). During the bear ritual, relatives of the host in other settlements ordinarily come to participate (Encyclopedia). Marriages traditionally were either arranged or of unwashed consent (Museum, Life 1). Also, as a result of the twentieth ampere-seconds attempted Japanese integration, often through exogamy, now not even a third of all Ainu have four Ainu grandparents (Bowring 244). economicsThe Ainu traditionally were hunters and gatherers, but rather than wandering nomadically, they settled in virtuoso location, on one section of a river, where they could fish and hunt (Museum People). However, in more recent times, Ainu seeking to integrate into Japanese society have taken jobs in ... ... Apr. 2002. Encyclopedia of World Cultures. CD-ROM. Old Tappan, NJ Macmillian.Forbis, William H. Japan Today People, Places, Power. New York Harper, 1975.Law to preserve Ainu culture was Passed. 1 Feb. 2002. Buraku liberation and Human Rights Research Institute. 25 Apr. 2002. .Takasugi, Shinji. Numbers in world languages. 25 Apr. 2002. .Thomason, Andy. The Ainu of Japan. 2 July 1999. Suite101.com Inc. 25 Apr. 2002. .Wright, Mike. Ainu-English Word List. 13 Nov. 1999. Costal Fog Net. 25 Apr. 2002. .