Originally all Ainu garments were made of skin, fur, and feathers, and these types of clothing survived in Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands into the twentieth century. Salmon skin was highly prized for making strong, light, durable waterproof…

Sakhalin Ainu shamans produced abstract wooden figurines called nipopo ("wooden baby"), used primarily as amulets for curing or warding off childhood disease. The addition of strips of red and blue cloth or a blue bead (on the upper figure) was…

As Japanese cotton became more affordable, garments known as chikarkarpe, meaning "our embroidered thing," were developed by substituting cotton for attush (elm-bark cloth); Ainu often used old Japanese kimonos or yukata for the base fabric. The use…