无论在古早时期或是今天，阿伊努人像世界各地其它原居民的处境一样，在周遭大国的扩张和同化下，渐渐失去土地、资源与自主。阿伊努人的故有栖居地，如本州北部落入日本人之手，千岛群岛、南库页岛则被俄国人占领。1400到1945年，阿伊努族的人口介于25,000—50,000之间，而北海道是他们仅存的家园。

本展览共为7个展庁，分别是：
1 Faces Of Ainu (介绍与考古发现)
2 A People''s Past(历史与贸易)
3 A Life Guided By Kamuy(体现在各方面的信仰)
4 Chise The Ainu House(日常生活)
5 A Vital Cultural Look(熊之灵送)
6 Rising From Adversity (传统艺术)
7 Renewal (今天的阿伊努)

Room1 Faces of Ainu(介绍与考古发现)

概述
Ainu means "human" - Ainu means "us"; the Ainu of northern Japan call themselves by a name that asserts their identity. An intensely spiritual culture, the Ainu believe that living and non-living things are kamuy (gods visiting the earthly world.) Their culture has roots stretching back more than ten thousand years. Recent DNA research shows that they are descended from the ancient Jomon people of Japan. Physically, the Ainu differed from Japanese and other nearby Asian peoples in language and especially in appearance; their eyes were deep-set, their bodies muscular and hairy. Over the centuries, the Ainu have maintained their sense of what being Ainu means through beautiful craftsmanship, a rich oral tradition, and complex rituals. This exhibit is the first to celebrate both the contemporary expression of Ainu ethnicity and the experiences of the Ainu past.

“阿伊努”指的是“人类”、“我们”。这一词语极为切合他们的民族身份。居住于日本北方的阿伊努人享有高度的灵性文化，他们相信所有生物及非生物都是“卡姆伊”(kamuy) 的化身。这种植根于阿伊努人心中的信仰有超过一万年的历史；近年来的DNA研究结果，倾向阿伊努人是日本远古时期绳纹族(*)的后裔。阿伊努人的外貌与日本人截然不同，他们眼窝深陷、肌体健壮、毛发浓密。多个世纪以来，阿伊努人一直透过精堪的手工艺、传统歌谣、宗教仪式等去向世人阐述“阿伊努”所代表的含义。是次展觉，将向各位展现多姿的彩的阿伊努文化以及历史，同时分享阿伊努艺术在现今社会重生的的喜悦。


北海道网走的阿伊努人(1888)


老人(1888)


妇女(1888)


山岳猎手

Bear Effigy Vessel(replica)
Effigies of animals have been found in many Okhotsk sites, whose pithouses sometimes have ritual altars. This bear head (ca A.D. 800) was carved on a large wooden bowl that was carbonized in a house fire; it was recovered from the Matsunorikawa Kitagishi site, Rausu, Hokkaido. The presence of a design resembling the Ainu itokpa (ancestral mark) of repun-kor-kamuy, the killer whale and god of the sea, suggests the vessel had a ceremonial function. Similar effigy vessels (without itokpa) were used by Northwest Coast Indians.


熊形器具(仿制品)
鄂霍次克(**)一带，特别是一些祭坛的遗址，考古工作者发掘出许多以动物为题材的塑像。上图的熊头(公元800年)便是一个例子，它原本是雕刻在一个大木碗上的，一场火灾将木碗炭化，剩下了这装饰品。它是在北海道的罗臼，Matsunorikawa Kitagishi遗迹出土的。此器具与被阿伊努人奉为海洋之神的杀人鲸偶像有相似的地方(二者皆有“itokpa”祖先的图腾)，可见这熊形器有仪式上的功用。居住在美洲西北岸的印第安人也曾使用类似的东西，但区别是没有“itokpa”。

Duck Effigy Flute (replica)
This ceramic figurine was found at Bibi-4 site, Chitose, Hokkaido, and dates from the Final Jomon period (1,000 B.C.). Most Japanese archaeologists interpret this ceramic effigy as a duck in flight, but it is clearly not exactly a duck but rather some kind of transformational spirit (duck/sea otter?) whose form is not fixed in nature. Nor is its function understood; holes in its bottom, chest, and lower body make it useless as a normal vessel, but it could have been used as a kind of flute. It is covered with Jomon designs and has red ocher pigment around the eyes, mouth and vessel openings. Designs like these are still used in Ainu art today.


鸭笛(仿制品)
这用陶泥烧制的小雕像是从北海道的千岁，Bibi-4遗迹发现的。属于绳纹最后时期(公元前一千年)的文物，它的姿势，大多数日本考古学者认为这是一只飞行的鸭。但显然，它变形的外观，令人觉得它是否代表一种没有固定形态，存在于自然界中的灵。(鸭？/海獭?)而且，它的作用尚未为人所知，胸口、下身、低部的洞使其无法作为一般容器使用。最有可能的说法是它是一种像笛的乐器。赭石调制的红色装点它的眼、口及张开的地方，充满了绳纹文化的风格，即使在今天的阿伊努艺术中也屡见不鲜。

Inaw
Inaw are sacred shaved sticks that symbolize birds, which accompany a man''s prayers to the god world. Willow branches were gathered a week (and sometimes as early as a month) before a ceremony; the bark was then peeled and the wood was dried for several days. The sticks were carved into a wide variety of beautiful shapes, each intended for a specific god or function.

“Inaw”是阿伊努语，日文解为“木の御币”。顾名思义，它是刨过的细木，十分神圣，像征鸟类——祈祷的人与神的天空相通的伙伴。离仪式还有一星期甚至有时一個月前，阿伊努人就会收集柳枝，剥去皮，烘上几天直到干为止，尔后刻成眾多五花八门的样子，每一种都有与其相应的神灵和作用。

Killer Whale Effigy (replica),
Middle Jomon The Ainu know the killer whale (orca) as the god of the sea (repun-kamuy). In the past orcas were both feared and revered as the most powerful predators in the ocean. Although they endangered fishermen, they also drove whales ashore into human hands. This sculpture was probably used for rituals involving this animal; it dates from the Middle Jomon period (3,000-2,000 B.C.) and was found at the Kikyo-2 site. Hakodate, Hokkaido. Effigies of bear, deer, and turtles also date to this period.


杀人鲸像(仿制品)
阿伊努人相信杀人鲸是海洋之神(repun-kamuy)，对这海洋中最强大的猎食者既畏惧又崇敬。虽然杀人鲸对渔民造成不小的威胁，但它们也会将鲸鱼驱赶入人们的手中。现展出的塑像也许就是在有关于这种动物的仪式上使用的吧。这件文物于北海道函馆Kikyo-2遗迹出土，可以追遡到公元前3000~2000年，同一时期的动物例如鹿和龟也有发现。

Ceramic Figurine (Final Jomon)
Jomon ceramic figurines reveal ethnographic information through hairstyles, clothing, and garment designs. This figurine (Final Jomon, 700-400 B.C.) from the Motowanishi site, Muroran, Hokkaido, establishes that Jomon clothing utilized spiral-band ornamentation at the base and shoulders of their garments similar to the morew patterns produced by Ainu seamstresses. Such figurines were probably used for protection against illness, infertility, and the dangers of childbirth.


陶瓷小人像(绳纹末期)
这一绳纹末期(公元前700-400年)的小人像，出自北海道室兰的本轮西。绳纹陶瓷人像从发型、衣着和服装设计揭示了当时人的形象，肩部和下身的布料上有螺旋形花纹----极为近似于阿伊努人服饰上的传统纹理。这小人像估计是用来避免疾病、失收和小孩出生时的危险的。

Bone Spoons(replicas)
These spoons, from the Epi-Jomon Esan site, are of bone and one has a killer whale on its handle; they date from ca. A.D. 1. They were probably used in animal-related rituals. Siberian peoples used similar effigy spoons to feed spirits until modern times. Recently, spoons like these dated to 4,500-5,000 years ago have been found in British Columbia, Canada.


骨头匙 (复制品)
发掘于恵山，现存北海道历史博物馆。同样地是用于与动物有关联的仪式，完全用兽骨雕成，其中一只的手柄还刻成杀人鲸的模样。西伯利亚人直至今天仍使用相仿的匙羹喂饲精灵。最近，在加拿大的英屬哥伦比亚也发现了4500-5000年前的类似器物。

Commentary on Ainu Origins by Curator William Fitzhugh
"This room is called "Faces of the Ainu" and it deals with the diversity of Ainu people. When Japan opened to the west in the 1860s Westerners were really surprised to discover people in Hokkaido among the Ainu culture who looked very much like Caucasians. The question of the origins of the Ainu, the biological origins of the Ainu is still very much up in the air. For a long time it''s been thought that they were related to Caucasians because they looked very unlike the Mongoloid peoples. Today DNA testing has been done and despite some evidence that there is some sort of non-Mongoloid features in the Ainu, in another words perhaps some Caucasian or central Asian, there still is no definite answers to the questions of their origin. Some people think see the relationships to North American Indians, to Alaskan Eskimos, some even to Southeast Asians. So although they are definitely not related to Korean and Japan biological origins they look like some late Paleolithic peoples who became isolated at the end of the ice age and who occupied these islands and who later on were sort of swamped by invasions of Mongoloid related peoples. So they are really a special and distinct racial and biological group that has long, long roots in the area."


馆长William Fitzhugh有关阿伊努起源的解说
“正因阿伊努民族有着丰富多彩的多样性，这一展庁名叫’Faces of the Ainu’。直至现在，阿伊努人的起源还是众说纷纭，疑云重重；1860年代，西方人惊讶地发现居往在日本北海道的阿伊努人的外表非常像高加索人。长久以来，阿伊努人被认定与高加索人有着某种联系，因为他们看上去根本不像黄种人。DNA测试也证明阿伊努人具有非黄种人的特征，换句话说是高加索或中亚人种。虽然如此，他们的源头还未有一个明确的答案。有说来自北美印第安人的、有的认为是阿拉斯加爱斯基摩人，甚至东南亚一带。阿伊努人在起源上和韓國人、日本没有任何关连。照推测，他们也许是在冰河纪末期被海洋隔断出路的一群晚石器时代人，定居在岛上，后来与亚洲裔人渐渐融合，就形成了今天的阿伊努人。所以说这群札根于那片土地，有着渊远历史的人们是极为特殊和非比寻常的。”

Commentary on Archeology by Curator William Fitzhugh
" Ainu origins have been investigated archeologically for many years, and we have a few materials here that represent some of the precursors to Ainu culture including Jomon materials which is one of the old cultures of Japan seen here and some Okhotsk culture materials in the next case. It''s a very spiritual culture and these spiritual features of the art are expressed in pottery and bone and wood. (And) we see here a Jomon figure, a really beautiful piece with a lot of curvilinear designs on the clothing that look kind of similar to the kind of clothing designs that Ainu people wear today even though this is 4,000 years ago. And another piece here really represents the kind of mystical, spiritual, nature of their culture. This may be otter, or may be flying duck we''re not quite sure. It''s some sort of transformational figure. But it seems to have been used in a ritual context as was this mask and the ceremonial bear. The mask was found at an old cemetery site. It was found on the surface of the ground so we think that it may have been used as a kind of an emblem on a post marking a cemetery."


馆长William Fitzhugh关于考古的解说
“考古学者对阿伊努人的起源研究了许多年，我们手头上有一些展品是处于阿伊努文化之前的，比如说古日本文明的其中之一，绳纹时期的器具，另一边还有些鄂霍次克文化的物品。阿伊努是一个十分讲究灵性的文化，他们用陶泥、骨和木的艺术去表达对灵的信仰。这里有绳纹人偶，它身上服装的设计、线条与现今阿伊努人传统服装极其相似，即使已是4000年前的了。另一件使我们进一步认识到阿伊努文化那种神秘和信灵精神的本质，这东西可以是海獭，或是飞鸭，谁也不清楚，只能说它是一种扭曲了的形态，应用于仪式之中。再看这面具和熊，面具是在一个古墓的遗址处发现的，就在泥土表面，故我们判断它可能是个挂在墓桩上的徽章。”

Commentary on Origins by Curator Chisato Dubreuil
"Hi. My name is Kitty (Chisato) Dubreuil. I''m co-curator of the Ainu exhibition, "Ainu, Spirit of a Northern People". Why are we interested in the Ainu at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States? That''s really an interesting question. Because the Ainu have been a mystery race, our origin is still a mystery. Our language is isolated. And looking at this old archival photograph, [the] Ainu look completely different from Japanese. Some of the scholars consider Ainu as the "Lost Caucasians." And so [we are] organizing this kind of exhibition to raise the questions and hopefully we can give some kind of answers for the visitors."


助理馆长 Chisato Dubreuil 于起源上的解说
“嗨！ 我叫Kitty Dubreuil. ，是次阿伊努展览的助理馆长。为什幺我们会对阿伊努那幺感兴趣？这真是个好问题，因为阿伊努是个充满迷思的民族，我们的源流尚未清楚，我们的语言是孤立的，请看这些资料照片，阿伊努人的长相和日本人完全不同，一些学者称阿伊努人为『迷失的高加索人』。因此我们筹办这样的展出目的就是让大家思考一下这问题，也希望我们能替来参观的人解答他们的疑团。”

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(*)绳纹时代、绳纹族(Jomon)，公元前10000到300年，日本最早的史前文明。其制作的有绳子压花图案的陶器，因而得名。日本人的祖先并非绳纹族，而是后来从亚洲其它地方来到日本的其它人种。在日本人的身上仍然可以发现绳纹族的一些特征。事实上，绳纹族这个人种兼具如今亚洲人种和欧洲人种的某些特征，反而与阿伊努人更加接近。

(**)鄂霍次克海(Okhotsk) 位于日本北部的「北海道」的东北方「道东」，北纬44度左右，和加拿大的多伦多或法国的马赛大致位于同一纬度 ，流冰的接岸纬度为世界最南方，故常有旅行团乘破冰船观赏浮冰。


北海道、北方四岛、库页岛三地之间的海便是鄂霍次克海