AP: Milwaukee Public Museum has rare collection of Ainu pieces

 

By Carrie Antlfinger

Associated Press Writer

MILWAUKEE, WIS. (AP) — The aboriginal Ainu who lived along the water and in the wooded areas of northern Japan believed that killing a tenderly raised bear during a ritual ceremony would enable his spirit to act as their protector.

A bear skull from such a ceremony at least 120 years ago is kept at the Milwaukee Public Museum in one of the larger collections of Ainu artifacts in the nation.

Those items and others from Asia are being highlighted in the museum’s “Celebrations of Culture” series. The 11-year-old series will focus on African culture next month, the Middle East in April, and Middle America in May.

Museum spokeswoman Ellen Burmeister said the events bring the collections alive.

“It really helps visitors more fully understand what these objects are for ... what their value is,” Burmeister said.

Museum officials and explorers collected the Ainu items in the late 1800s and early 1900s, said Al Muchka, an associate curator of history at the museum.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History borrowed some of the items for its Ainu exhibition in 1999 and 2000, said Dr William Fitzhugh, one of the exhibit’s curators and director of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. Milwaukee’s collection is one of the best of about a dozen collections in the country, he said.

“It’s small but has some wonderful material in it,” Fitzhugh said.

The Ainu population is estimated at about 20,000, mostly in the northern island of Hokkaido, Fitzhugh said. In the late 1800s, they were thought to be European decedents because of their curly hair and more Caucasian features.

The Ainu have lost much of their culture and early artifacts because the government tried to assimilate the group with the rest of Japan, much like the United States government did with the American Indians, Fitzhugh said. Many Ainu decedents have married the Japanese, he added.

“A lot of the finest Ainu collections cannot be duplicated and only exist in American and European museums,” he said.

The Milwaukee museum renovated its 35-year-old Ainu exhibit about 2½ years ago, Muchka said.

Among the 35 or so Ainu items on display are a glass-beaded necklace with a large bronze pendant, worn for ceremonies; carved prayer sticks; ceremonial arrows; pipes; and kitchen utensils such as wooden spoons, spatulas and serving trays.

Muchka said a representative from an Ainu group spent an afternoon a few months ago photographing its collection of about a dozen dark-colored robes and taking notes on the stitch patterns. The robes are stored to prevent light and environmental damage, but visitors can see two life-size photographs in the display.

The museum’s Asian area also includes items and miniature and life-size dioramas from Thailand, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Borneo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Tibet, Nepal and Malaysia.

The museum was one of the first to have dioramas. In 1890, taxidermist Carl Akeley created his first habitat diorama, of a muskrat with brush and fake water, still on display today. Akeley later went on to work at natural history museums in Chicago and New York, Burmeister said.

“The Milwaukee Public Museum has a significant role in the way things are exhibited in museums today,” Burmeister said.