Wood Carvings of Ainu !

by Kazu

The wood crafts carved by the famous and popular indigenous artists were displayed on the shelves in the corridor of the museum. It must require so long time to carve out such art works from the trunk of spruce, I think. 

The design of the textiles were so simple and wooden table wares were thick and robust. They did not cultivate crops but picked up the fruits of trees, wild grapes,Acorns, mushrooms, hunt deer, rabbit and brown bears and fish salmon and other kinds of fish.   

But they have the time for ceremony, to carve out the table wares form trees and to design the textiles and patterns.The wooden boxes drifted in the ocean reached the coast of Hokkaido and the nails of the boxes were used to make knives and swords by Ainu people.