Ainu

The Ainu (Ainu: アィヌ, Aynu, Айну; Japanese: アイヌ) are an ethnic group who are indigenous to present-day northern Japan (Hokkaidō) and neighboring Russia (Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands). They are also called Aino (アイノ) and in historical Japanese texts Ezo (蝦夷).

Most of those who identify themselves as Ainu still live in this same region, the large majority in Hokkaidō, though the exact number of living Ainu is unknown. This is due to confusion over mixed heritages and to ethnic issues in Japan resulting in those with Ainu backgrounds hiding their identities. Intermarriage with Japanese has blurred the concept of a pure Ainu ethnic group. Official estimates of the population are of around 25,000, while the unofficial number is upward of 200,000 people.

Music genres include the oldest, yukar (mimicry), which is a form of epic poetry, and upopo, in which "the second contrapuntal voice had to imitate the musical formula in the first contrapuntal voice (not heard until the last moment), at an interval much shorter than that in our western canons, since the second voice attacks the preceding musical formula before the first voice has finished it." (Nattiez 1990, p. 71)

Ainu music carries spiritual resonance in almost all of its forms, and it has played an important role in both the cultural history and the cultural renaissance of the Ainu people. Almost every type of Ainu song is sacred, and even the musical instruments are said to be imbued with souls (Ohnuki-Tierney 53). Traditional Ainu music can be divided into two major groups — everyday songs and epic songs. Everyday songs in Ainu tradition were sung in many situations and on an impromptu basis. They were often accompanied by the two most prevalent Ainu musical instruments: the tonkori, a plucked zither, and the mukkuri, a jaw harp played by women.

The most famous contemporary performer of Ainu music appears is the revivalist Oki, while the most famous upopo singer was Umeko Ando (1932-2004).