At the entrance to Akan-Mashu National Park, known for its lakes and bubbling mud pools, red torii gates stood out against the white snow that had blanketed this part of eastern Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island.
On a park path, I suddenly saw a Yezo sika deer, with its spotted brown coat and fluffy white tail. I have encountered them before, but this sighting seemed significant because of their connection to the Ainu, the Indigenous people who live on Hokkaido and in other parts of Japan’s northern archipelago. It was an Ainu village I had come here to visit.
The Ainu belief system holds that animals and plants have spirits, called kamuy, that are always watching over humans and manifest in the world as gifts such as meat, fur and food. In the case of this type of deer, its meat is a primary component of Ainu cuisine, and parts of the animal, such as its heels and horns, are used in crafts and jewelry.
According to Upopoy, the national Ainu museum on Hokkaido, the roots of the Ainu go back about 30,000 years. No one is sure how many Ainu live in Japan today; there are no official tallies and ethnicity is based on self-identification. But a survey last year by the Hokkaido prefecture found that almost 30 percent of the Ainu respondents said they had encountered discrimination in highly homogeneous Japan.
Still, the Ainu have maintained their own language, crafts and cultural practices. And one place where their arts and crafts can be found is Ainu Kotan, a village inside the national park. The settlement, built by the Ainu themselves in the 1950s, now has about 120 residents living in homes and apartment buildings, which Kushiro city officials said was one of the largest concentrations of Ainu on Hokkaido.
It was not built to be a tourist attraction, residents said, but it has become one. Its central street, lined with rustic wooden buildings that look a bit like ski lodges, houses an art gallery, a theater and about 20 shops selling handicrafts such as wooden carvings, embroidery, musical instruments and jewelry.
During my visit, I met with three residents who create some of those crafts.
Erika Katsuya, embroiderer
Ms. Katsuya’s shop, Hapo’s Store, stands right in the village center. Woven bags and cotton Ainu garments line the walls and hang from the ceiling, and mukkuri, a type of Ainu mouth harp made of bamboo, sit on tables.
She uses one corner, near the window, for her workshop (“It’s so messy,” she said apologetically). Photographs on an opposite wall caught my eye, including a picture of Ms. Katsuya’s maternal grandmother in traditional Ainu garb and one of Ms. Katsuya herself and an imposing, bearded Ainu leader, both standing near a bonfire.
“I was born and raised here and learned embroidery from my mother and grandmother,” said Ms. Katsuya, 49, referring to the general region. “That was when I was 17 or 18.”
Ms. Katsuya is mainly an embroiderer and traditional Ainu dancer, and she teaches both art forms. Her work focuses on chinjiri, a traditional Ainu embroidery technique that uses colored thread to embroider directly on fabric such as hemp that has been dyed.
She also makes jewelry pieces, such as necklaces (3,800 yen, or $25) using a perennial vine called ikema, or Cynanchum caudatum.
Ms. Katsuya said residents gathered the vines in the nearby mountains, then washed and dried them. “We use only its root, and it’s been used as a talisman, or charm, in Ainu culture,” she said, displaying a small beige piece of dried vine surrounded by wooden and glass beads.
“Ikema is the Ainu language word,” she said. “I remember my grandmother used to wear it in her necklace.”
Hiroyuki Shimokura, silversmith
Mr. Shimokura’s workshop, about a 10-minute walk from the main street, is inside Karip, a cafe and gallery equipped with a wood-burning stove.
He is not of Ainu descent: “I visited the Ainu village in 1999 after making a ring in the shape of a bear’s paw, and was deeply impressed by the culture.”
Sometimes Mr. Shimokura, 49, makes art pieces, such as the silver feather that I saw displayed on a shelf. (He said it had been exhibited in 2023 at a museum in Ichinomiya, north of Nagoya.)
But mostly he makes pieces for sale. “I create silver jewelry and accessories featuring Ainu patterns,” he said, which typically are geometric, with recurring motifs such as spirals, which the Ainu call moreu.
“I started making jewelry as a hobby when I was around 20 years old” and still living in Tokyo, he said. “I was making jewelry at home for about two years by trial and error, but then I happened to learn about jewelry schools.”
He enrolled in the Japan Jewelry Craft School in Tokyo and, after graduating in 1998, started to work part time at different workshops, honing his skills. “However, I could not meet anyone who was doing Japanese carving at that time, so I was basically self-taught.” About 2003 or 2004, he said, he came across the work of Bill Reid, a descendant of the Haida, one of the Indigenous people of Canada. Since then, Mr. Shimokura said, Mr. Reid’s style has had a great influence on his own work.
As he prepared coffee, Mr. Shimokura explained that he came back to the region in 2013 and opened his workshop and shop six years later.
Now with his wife, Emi, a singer and artisan, he runs a brand called Ague, making silver pieces such as a crescent-shaped pendant on a chain (¥77,000 yen), a chunky embossed cuff with Ainu patterns carved inside (¥359,700) and delicate rings that he hammers by hand (¥17,600).
His signature item is the bear claw, called the Kimun Kamuy ring (¥52,250 to ¥260,700, depending on the gemstone customization), a silver piece that wraps around a finger, with every hair of the fur highlighted. I asked how he got the fur to be darker that the rest of the ring, and he demonstrated by dipping a ring into gold chloride acid, setting off a chemical reaction that instantly darkened the silver.
Mr. Shimokura’s creations are sold through his online shop and at retailers around Japan, including through the Fennica label of the popular shop Beams, which also collaborates with other village artisans.
He said that he hoped his work was a contribution to Ainu culture: “I believe that passing on the traditions and also using them in our daily lives today will, of course, help people around us recognize them and contribute to the development of the Ainu culture.”
Fukiko Goukon, jewelry maker
Poronno is a restaurant at the village entrance that serves Ainu dishes such as venison sashimi, fermented potatoes and vegetable and deer curry. It also offers a neon green cocktail that uses marimo algae, a rare species that forms green spheres and is harvested from a nearby lake.
The restaurant is run by Ms. Goukon, 49, an artisan and singer, and her husband, Yoshifuru. “I grew up in this village,” she said. “This restaurant was started by my parents, although my husband and I are now the main owners.” (Her mother, Midori Toko, happened to come by during my visit.)
Along with performing with her sister, Emi, Mr. Shimokura’s wife, Ms. Goukon also weaves bracelets and chokers.
She pointed at a woven bracelet, called an emush-at, in a glass display case at the restaurant’s entrance, explaining that the style originally was a kind of sword belt Ainu men wore over their shoulders.
“I learned the weaving technique from my grandmother and aunt,” she said. “Later, I started making my own bracelets and chokers by arranging them in my own way.”
Ms. Goukon uses a kind of thread made from the fibers of a tree called the Nikko elm; its scientific name is Ulmus laciniata.
“From June to July, the outer rough bark is removed, and we keep the inner bark,” she said. “After that, the wood fibers are peeled off using different methods, such as soaking in hot spring water or boiled with wood ashes.”
The fibers are then dried in the sun, soaked again in water, stripped into thinner pieces and, finally, dyed before they are woven into bracelets and chokers (¥55,000 for a bracelet, ¥48,000 for a choker).
Ms. Goukon had been working on a new bracelet made of Yezo deer skin, with deer antler buttons and a fastener made from the deer’s Achilles’ tendon. Once finished, the bracelet also would be sold through the Fennica label.
“The spiritual culture of the Ainu people is rooted in all of the methods used to collect these materials from nature, including the time of year, the condition of the trees and plants, and not to collect too much and not to waste,” she said. “I am deeply grateful to my grandmother and other Ainu ancestors for passing on such beautiful handicrafts to those of us living today.”
