Japan, Hokkaido, 2023. The first nation Ainu, after 150 years of forced assimilation, is regaining strength in his quest for identity, recognition and reconciliation.

Hokkaido is a vast territory of wintry beauty, forests, volcanoes, lakes and wild coastlines. Here, the land breathes. Before Japanese colonization, it was home to the Ainu, a people of hunter-fishermen with deep-rooted animist beliefs and a strong culture. After a century and a half of assimilation and discrimination, the traditional way of life, customs, language and beliefs came very close to disappearing.

Political organization, religion, oral mythology, women’s ritual tattoos, the arts, a language with no confirmed kinship with others, and a physical appearance different from that of the Japanese were all indicators of a strong identity. In a story that echoes the fate of many other indigenous peoples around the world, the Ainu were persecuted and subjected to a long policy of forced assimilation. Forbidden to communicate in their language, to hunt and fish, uprooted, forced to renounce their rites, arts and way of life, they were the object of calculated discrimination. Today, traditional culture is hard to pin down due to this repression and miscegenation, but the Ainu are increasingly proud of their origins, gradually moving away from the shame linked to the discrimination still present.

After long years of political and social demands, signs of progress appeared, albeit ambiguous. Despite the difficulties, the profile of a multicultural Japanese society, including the Ainu, is gradually taking shape. This work is the story of the reappropriation of a collective identity by those who embody it in today’s world: between assertion, preservation and adaptation, Ainu identity is as powerful as the complexity of its resilience.