Large Ainou Bear - 60 Cm -circa 1960- Kg #13

Large bear, solid wood, wear, small visible dents - a broken lower fang. Shipping by DHL. ask us. ---------The Ainu are an aboriginal population living in northern Japan. During the Meiji era, forced assimilation prohibited their culture, dispossessed them of their lands, until the complete annexation of Hokkaido. For the Ainu, in nature are divine spirits "kamuy," male or female, some good, others malevolent. A major ceremony concerns the Kamuy Kim-un (bear). The village captures a cub, carefully cares for it for a whole year, before taking its life with an arrow. Its flesh is then consumed to free the spirit, which can then return home, carried by a ceremony. For the Ainu, this is a charity ceremony: the Kim-un kamuy was pampered for a year, and only its "body shell" was consumed. It is believed that the origin of the statuettes is in the miniature animist "inoka" figurines of stylized bears, showing the animal's power of metamorphosis. Kimun kamuy, when he descends from the mountains, dons his bear costume. The bear thus becomes "a man of the mountains." Just like the Eskimo populations of Canada, the Chukchi of Siberia, the Ainu, perceive the bear as equal to humans. From 1924, bears were produced - In 1933 Emperor Hirohito commissioned sculptures, this event brought public attention to this craft.