Living along the Saru River: Ainu Lives from Ancestral Times to the Present

In a 1950 photograph, Nitani Kunimatsu performs the ritual that comes before building a house. The house was going up in Tokyo, at the Japanese Society of Ethnology's museum, and this show rebuilds it along with the ceremony.

The Saru River runs from the Hidaka Mountains to the Pacific, and its valley has kept more Ainu objects and records than almost anywhere else. The curators chose only pieces whose maker or user is known, and hang them beside photographs, documents and words from those people's descendants. Nitani's own photos, manuscripts and tools get a section, and so does Kayano Shigeru, the first Ainu member of Japan's Diet, and his long ties to Minpaku.

It is a reading show, built on names and archives, for anyone who wants Ainu history told person by person. It is in the Special Exhibition Hall: ¥1,200 for adults, ¥600 for university students, free for high schoolers and younger, and the ticket covers the permanent galleries. Closed Wednesdays.