Making Cloth from Tree Bark with Ainu in Japan

Hello world. Today, if I'm being accurate, last year, I went to Hokkaido and spent a couple days with Ainu, indigenous people in Japan's north. My host was Maya-san, whose grandma happens to be one of the leading weavers of traditional Ainu cloth called Atushi, which are made from tree bark. This is such a unique occasion that, besides me, there's lots of local media covering the event. This is fun! You can twist it a bit more. There's a branch there, so you can cut it. Twist it and cut it as hard as you can. Yes, that's it. Then put it all together and bring it up. So, every year, we have a lot of people come and learn a lot of things from the people who know the technique and pass it on to the next generation. And I think that's what we're doing this time as well. You can't cut it. Don't cut my finger. Ouch! Oh! Now, this tree and that tree are designated by the country, and we cut down those trees to get a whole tree. So let me give you a rundown of what's going on in the forest. The first step is to peel the bark from the trees. As Maya mentioned, nowadays, they take the whole tree, so chainsaws are used. They bundle up the bark and bring it back up the road to peel the inside layer from the outer. Only the inside layer is needed. This part takes longer than stripping the bark from the trees, so eventually everyone joins in on the action. If you look from the side, you can see that the bark is cut like this. And that's it. The thickness and length of the bark can change the sound. Right now, we have dogs and people who aren't dogs working together like this, but this isn't a ritual that can only be done by dogs, or something that can only be done by dogs. I'm sure the people who are dogs see people as human beings, so it's great to see so many people working together like this. It's great to be able to meet people like this. It's fun, and I'm happy. I'm going to go home. It's okay. He can walk. I don't know when I'll get home. Out of the forest, all the inner layers got boiled in a wood ash mix. This softens them up, making them easier to separate into thinner layers. To do that, we head to the river. I'm going to peel it off. I'm going to make it thinner, about one or two layers. I'm going to make it thinner, wash it, squeeze it, and then add color to it. I'm doing all the inner layers on the river. After that, the fiber is dried out again and then shredded into smaller pieces. It's then twisted into a thread to make skeins. Then finally, the thread can be used to weave into a big piece of fabric. And with that, you can make something like this kimono. Traditionally, Ainu used trees for many of their day-to-day as well as ceremonial items. You have everything from baby swings and weapons behind it, to canoes carved out of entire trees, to the prayer sticks that would be dipped in sake and then sprinkled over sacred shaved objects as part of prayers to the Kamui. At the museum, they also have an outdoor section where you can see what a typical village used to look like. There are traditional houses with redhatched huts. They would consist of a single large room with a fireplace in the center. Ainu community is really small. If you have three or four houses here, you can say it's a Kota village. With that kind of calculation, with the number of the river, maybe the number of the Ainu is not so different from today, maybe 25,000 or so. My number one takeaway from the whole experience is how welcoming the Ainu are. Special thanks to Maya for helping to arrange the visit. She's currently attending university in Kanagawa. But on the side, she participates in Ainu language study groups. She also runs a YouTube channel teaching Ainu language and culture. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye. What's a traditional craft like where you're from?