Tokyo National MuseumCritiques

This is a catalog of an exhibtion of objects mainly from Germany and dealing with the Ainu people of northern Japan. The three essays (Europe and the Ainu, The Ainu Collection in the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde [Museum of Ethnology] and The Ainu Collection in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig) are in Japanese and German. The objects are nicely presented (textiles, household implements, weapons, ect,), however the detailed descriptions are in Japanese only with very short text in German. The Library of Congress catalogued this with German as principal language, but this is not the case. This is a beautiful catalogue, as one would expect from the Japanese. The color photograps are mainly of Ainu clothing. This book can certainly be highly recommended for anyone interested in the Ainu culture.½