Marking Ownership on Ainu Objects
Three Museum Collections in the United States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2289460 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher B Lowman (0000-0001-7442-8470, University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 46-60 |
| Publication date | 2018-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Museum Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0892-8339 • E-ISSN: 1548-1379 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/muan.12168 |
| OpenAlex | W2791626002 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 24 |
Ainu ethnographic objects in U.S. museums exist in collections mediated by collectors during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Marks and modifications on these objects provide insight into Indigenous uses and meanings that were not always present in ethnographers' accounts. This is particularly important when considering trade items, because they encompass evidence of changes in meaning as they moved through differing cultural contexts. Trade items can be hard to find in collections that were made using the paradigm of salvage ethnography. However, Japanese historical records, Ainu poetry, and Ainu language all suggest that trade goods were an important part of Ainu religious practice. Using these sources, along with an examination of Ainu-inscribed marks of ownership, I compare collections made by Western collectors specifically for museums and reassemble their contents with a focus on Ainu understandings of the objects' meanings. [Ainu, Japan, collecting
Art · Economic history · Ethnography · Fur trade · Indigenous · Inscribed figure · Literature · Poetry · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Japanese History and Culture · Philosophy
Entangled Objects
Victorian Anthropology
Ainu in London, 1910
An Asian Frontier
Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans
Managing the cultural promotion of indigenous people in a community-based Museum
The Ainu of Northern Japan
Gli Iku-Bashui Degli Ainu
The Paleocene Pantodonta
The Early Years of Native American Art History
Regional variations in Ainu culture
The Ainos and Japanese
The fabric of indigeneity
Ainu Folklore. Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan
Transnational Indigenous Exchange
Together with the Ainu
Collecting Cultures and Cultures of Collecting
Ainu
Ethnographic Salvage and the Shaping of Anthropology1
The Ainu and Their Culture
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |