Justifiably, the Ainu seemed a relic of a primitive hunting-and-gathering people who had inhabited northeastern Japan for thousands of years.

In recent years, there has been a fresh wave of interest in the Ainu people, due partly to “Golden Kamuy,” a manga series about a man hunting for lumps of gold left by the Ainu people ...

The Ainu believe that the world rests on the back of a giant trout, that otters caused human beings to be flawed, and that seeing an owl fly across the face of the moon at night is cause for great ...