Featured Japanese Hokkaido Ainu Carved Wooden Bear

This is ~12" long, ~6" wide, ~7" high; weight is ~3 lbs 9 oz.
It's a garage sale purchase from the late '90s, here on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Pic 5 shows where the crudely removed upper fangs were sawn out of its mouth, prior to my acquisition. The seller was vague about its history; I suspected a bit of dementia at the time. His price was negligible.
I only know that the Ainu are native to Hokkaido, with their own language, an' that they are a distinct people in physical appearance.
Offered to y'all for illumination as may be possible, an' for incidental delight. Thanks for lookin'!

 

Wow,what a great looking thing and nice size and weight. Pity and a bit weird about the upper canines. But maybe not sawn out just removed? Could be easy to replace. That would have been a keeper for me also,I really dig it. Thanks for sharing

 

Read about the Ainu people and the Ainu bear sculptures (traditionally known as Kibori Kuma) now. The cultural & spiritual meaning was interesting.

 

Apparently these were traditionally finished with a Salmon in their mouth. Perhaps anchored by those canines. in a move or other mishap, the fish was broken out of the mouth? The saw marks are plainly visible in pic 5.

 

I think that may be just the grain of the wood exposed in the break.

 

On further look, you may be right...broken, not sawn. Thanks!

 

Looks to me like the upper teeth fell out of their sockets.

 

A magnificent beast, love it.

It is an interesting culture, very different from the Japanese colonizers. Even though I find them fascinating, I don't know much about them. I do know that they wear coats with beautiful, bold motifs, worship bears, the men have impressive beards, and the women used to have facial tattoos.

Ditto. Those can be replaced if you have small pieces of bone.

 

Ainu coat:

 

I'm gonna look into the Ainu people's culture...that stunning garment was my trip-wire, AJ...Thanks!

 

Great piece Whit !

 

Beautiful, isn't it.

 

Great carving and a very animated figure! As you are on the Olympic Peninsula, I will wave to you from Victoria.

 

I should have added that I love the bear's face.

Ainu art has some uncanny (and perhaps not unrelated) similarities to NW Coast formline art.

 

Yes...I had the same thought as soon as I saw that garment!

 

I'm not seeing it........








Wait...What....? , u were not expecting pushback from the only NWC 1st Nations art dealer on the board...???

.................

 

Nice collection of Robes Komo- for sale ?

 

already sold..

 

Yes it does. How shapes are finished, and the 'horror vacui'.
And you're right, it may not be unrelated. The Ainu also live in northeastern Russia, not far from the Bering Strait.

 

I should not have limited the comparison to form lines. There are other similarities as well.

All these from the British Museum -




And some other types of artifacts -






The Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle has arranged some cultural exchanges between some Northwest Coast tribal representatives and the Ainu. A Makah representative noted that -
"The most striking thing to me is there are so many similarities between us,” she said. “They, of course, hunt for land and sea mammals much in the same way we do. The implementation of how those are used in their material culture is also interestingly similar.” She said that at the museums [in Japan], she viewed clothing and bags made of elm bark that are much like those the Makah once made of cedar bark. “I was also really interested in how they also made shoes out of salmon skin,” she said. “They crafted roses out of salmon skin and they look very similar to how some of our artists make roses out of cedar bark.”
https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/...similarities-with-ainu-of-japan-during-visit/