A Study on the Cultural Characteristic and Folk Costume of AINU

아이누人의 문화적 특성과 복식에 관한 연구

It has been since 15 century when Ainu realized themselves as a race. Their folk culture had been formed with the effect of East-northern Asia and cultural exchange with Japanese through the northern trade during 17 -18 centuries. It can be ascertained from the typical festival food and clothing. clothing style and the ornaments of Ainu people. The basics of Ainu people are composed of an unfolding clothes which men and women had wort in one-piece style even though they had lived in the northernmost cold climate. Atousi is their typical clothing which had been made of the grass fiber. Ainu people had imported the old cotton clothes from the trading with the mainland roughly in the late E-do (late 18 century). Ainu's clothing is divided broadly into Aiusi and Moreu pattern. Ainu people had decorated their back, shoulder, collar, burial clothes, waist and hem by changing and mixing them. These are the expression of their desire to prevent themselves from the wicked plot or the devil. There is no similar Ainu patterns or skill in Kimono, while it is known to be rather related to the area of Amur River, Sakhalin, and the distant Mongolia. Therefore, the traditional pattern of Ainu should be the continental conception which had been skilfully shaped through the trading with the north adding the series of Ainu People.