Traditional and Non-Traditional Means of Visualizing the Ritе: The “Bear Festival” of the Nivkhi and Ainu (Mid-19th – Late 20th Centuries) [Traditsionnye i netraditsionnye (spetsificheskie) sredstva vizualizatsii obriada: “medvezhii prazdnik” nivhov i ainov (seredina XIX – konets XX v.)].

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Abstract

This article is an attempt to discuss the ritual complex of the Nivkhi and Ainu, called the “bear festival of the Amur-Sakhalin type”, by examining a wide range of visual means such as painting, drawing, photography, films, etc. I explore both the typical means of visualization that are commonly addressed by researchers (drawings, paintings, photos, and films), and the means that have received less attention (arts and crafts, decorative arts, particularly depictions on various ritual objects). I argue that a broader contextualized study of the latter is important both as a way of expanding ethnographic knowledge and as a way of helping those inquiring into the topic of bear festivals among native peoples of the Pacific coast better understand the range of available verbal and non-verbal information pertaining to what essentially has been one of the most significant rites of the Nivkhi and Ainu.

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About the authors

Marina V. Osipova

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: ainu07@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9486-1861

к. и. н., доцент, старший научный сотрудник отдела этнографии Сибири

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

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2. Fig. 1. Bear festival among the Gilyaks. Bear skin with head (L.I. Shrenk “On the foreigners of the Amur region”, 1903; Table XLIX)

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3. Fig. 2. Hirasawa Byozan. Pulling a dead bear out of its den. Not earlier than 1862. BUK “Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after M.A. Vrubel”. Inv. No. Gz3700 (paper, watercolor, gouache, whitewash, ink)

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4. Fig. 3. “Bear Festival of the Ainu”. Author: Kimura Shoji. State Budgetary Cultural Institution “Sakhalin Regional Museum of Local History”. SOKM KP-5752-47/Zh-47

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5. Fig. 4. Games with a bear. Uvarki camp, February 1951. Photo by A. Mikhailovich. KGBNUK “Khabarovsk Museum of Local History named after N.I. Grodekov”. HKM KP 1705/1

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6. Fig. 5. Taking a bear out for a walk. Uvarki camp, February 1951. Photo by A. Mikhailovich. KGBNUK “Khabarovsk Museum of Local History named after N.I. Grodekov”. HKM KP 1705/3

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7. Fig. 6. “Bear Festival” of the Nivkhs; Veni village, Sakhalin Island, 1986. Author V.I. Dyachenko

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8. Fig. 7. Postcard “The Bear Festival of the Ainus (Hokkaido)”. https://ldr.lafayette.edu/concern/images/1c18dg98b

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9. Fig. 8. “Bear Festival among the Sakhalin Ainu”. 1880. State Budgetary Cultural Institution “Sakhalin Regional Museum of Local History”. SOKM NFV-1772

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10. Fig. 9. a) Wooden spoon with carving. Unknown master. KGBUK “Far Eastern Art Museum”. H-271 DVHM KP-2643; b) Ikunishi with a bear’s head. From the collection of M.V. Osipova

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