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Learn Northern Peoples

Northern Peoples Museum

 The museum houses information and materials describing the culture of northern peoples native to Hokkaido and the vicinities, focusing on the Ainu. Materials collected in the Meiji and the early Showa periods (late 19th and early 20th centuries) include clothings, ritual utensils, and hunting gears that were practically used and models of a dwelling and traps made for educational and research purposes. On the left side of a display of an altar (a structure for making offerings to spirits), a documentary film on Kumaokuri or Iyomante (a ritual ceremony of the Ainu to sacrifice brown bear) is shown.

Northern Peoples Ethnobotanical Garden

 Approximately 200 species of plants used by northern peoples of east Asia (the Ainu, Nivkh and Uilta) are displayed with their usages (i.e., weaving, dying, foods, household and ritual utensils, medicine, hunting gears, etc.). Northern Peoples Museum (on the 2nd floor of the main office building) exhibits artifacts made of these plants.

Batchelor Memorial Building (only be viewed from the exterior)

 This is a former residence of an English missionary John Batchelor (1855-1944). He lived among the Ainu communities and worked on the education of the Ainu and research on the Ainu language. The building houses items left by him, but it is not open to the public and can only be viewed from the exterior. Constructed in 1898 and relocated at the present place in 1962, the building was designated as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2000.

- Contact -
Botanic Garden, Hokkaido University
North3, West8, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, 060-0003, Japan
TEL:011-221-0066 FAX:011-221-0664 hubg(at)fsc.hokudai.ac.jp