title: Joan Rivers

text: Mainstream comedians and contemporaries who have claimed that Rivers was an influence on them include: Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Whitney Cummings, Chris Hardwick, Joy Behar, Amy Schumer, Whoopi Goldberg, Chelsea Handler, Louis C.K., Roseanne Barr, Greg Proops and David Letterman. She is considered a pioneer of women in comedy by many critics and journalists.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Jesse Wesley Williams is an American actor, director, producer and activist. He played Jackson Avery on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" (2009–22) and has appeared in the films "The Cabin in the Woods" (2012), "The Butler" (2013) and "Band Aid" (2017). He has provided voice acting and motion capture for Markus in "" (2018). He has also served as an executive producer of the Academy Award-winning short, "Two Distant Strangers" (2020) and the Tony Award-winning revival of "Take Me Out" (2022), the latter of which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams was born in Chicago to Johanna Chase, a professional potter, and Reginald Williams. Jesse Williams has said his mother is a Swedish American and his father is an African American from Georgia. His two younger brothers specialize and work in the field of visual arts. Williams graduated from Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island in 1998. After he graduated from high school his father began teaching history in northern Maine, while his mother continued to work in pottery.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams graduated from Temple University with a double major in African American Studies and Film and Media Arts. Following in the footsteps of his parents, he taught high school in the Philadelphia public school system for six years teaching American Studies, African Studies, and English.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In 2005, Williams began to study acting and was chosen to participate in the New York Actors Showcase presented by ABC Television, one of 14 actors chosen from among over 800 individuals who auditioned. Since 2006, he has appeared in a number of television series, films and theatre productions. In 2012, he established a production company, farWord Inc.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In May 2012, a fan campaign was organized to try to influence film executives to cast him in the role of Finnick Odair in "". This news resulted in some "Hunger Games" fans protesting casting decisions made by the film executives.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In 2013, Williams wrote an opinion piece for CNN which analyzed the film "Django Unchained". Later that year he narrated the audio version of the book "The Bane Chronicles: What Really Happened In Peru", by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In 2006, Williams appeared in an episode of "Law & Order", portraying the character Kwame. He also appeared in the role of Drew Collins, in two episodes of the ABC Family series "Greek".


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: On October 15, 2009, Williams began appearing as surgical resident Jackson Avery, in the ABC television series "Grey's Anatomy". On June 8, 2010, it was announced Williams would be a series regular, starting in season 7. It was announced on May 6, 2021, that he would be exiting the show, his final episode airing May 20 on ABC. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021, Williams said the decision to leave the show was "a collective thing" and part of a discussion the actor had with showrunner Krista Vernoff about Jackson's trajectory that ultimately helped solidify 11 seasons of storyline.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: BuddyTV ranked him No. 6 on its "TV's 100 Sexiest Men of 2010" list and No. 11 in 2011. Jesse was named the TV Actor of the Year at the 2011 Young Hollywood Awards.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In 2008, Williams made his film debut in the supporting role of Leo in the sequel to the 2005 film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". Two years later, he appeared in "Brooklyn's Finest" (2010), starring Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, and Ellen Barkin. In 2008, Williams signed on for his first leading role, as Holden McCrea in the MGM/United Artists horror film "The Cabin in the Woods". Produced by Joss Whedon and directed by Drew Goddard, it was released April 13, 2012.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: On June 9, 2015, "Variety" announced Jamie Bamber, Kellan Lutz, Jesse Williams, and Jess Weixler had joined the cast of the thriller film "Money", directed by Martin Rosete and produced by Atit Shah.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In May 2016, Williams was executive producer of the documentary film "". In 2021, Williams produced an American short-film titled "Two Distant Strangers", written by Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe. This short film won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2021.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams has served as a guest director for student productions at the Urban Arts Partnership 24 Hour Plays Off-Broadway, at the request of Rosie Perez and Anna Strout.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In March 2022, Williams made his Broadway debut in the revival of Richard Greenberg’s "Take Me Out". Williams stars in the lead role of Darren Lemming. He's been nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams is the youngest member of the board of directors at The Advancement Project, a civil rights think tank and advocacy group. He is also the executive producer of Question Bridge: Black Males, a multifaceted media project, art exhibition, student and teacher curriculum and website, focused on the black male identity and the diversity within the demographic. He has written articles for CNN and "The Huffington Post", and has been a guest on Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room. "


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: In June 2016, Williams won the humanitarian award at the 2016 BET Awards, delivering a speech highlighting racial injustice, police brutality, and the invention of whiteness. As a result of his speech, dueling petitions were circulated: one to have Williams fired from "Grey's Anatomy" and one to keep him on the series.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: career. He modeled for Kenneth Cole Productions, Levi's, and Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. He can be seen as the love interest of R&B singer Rihanna in the music video for her single "Russian Roulette" from her 2009 album "Rated R". He also appears in the music video for Estelle's song "Fall In Love", from the album "All of Me". In 2018, Williams appeared in the video for "Tell Me You Love Me" By Demi Lovato. Williams also modeled for Lane Bryant in 2012.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams did the voice acting and performance capture for Markus in the video game "", which first released on May 25, 2018, for the PlayStation 4. He also did the voice acting and performance capture for Duke in the video game "NBA 2K21", which released worldwide on September 4, 2020, for multiple consoles.


title: Jesse Williams (actor)

text: Williams dated Aryn Drake-Lee for five years before the two married on September 1, 2012. The couple have two children together, a daughter Sadie Williams (b. December 2013) and a son Maceo Williams (b. October 2015). The couple filed for divorce in April 2017. The divorce was finalized in October 2020.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Anthony Jay Robbins (né Mahavoric, born February 29, 1960) is an American author, coach, speaker, and philanthropist. He is known for his infomercials, seminars, and self-help books including the books "Unlimited Power" and "Awaken the Giant Within".


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins was born Anthony J. Mahavoric in North Hollywood, California, on February 29, 1960. Robbins is the eldest of three children, and his parents divorced when he was seven. He is of Croatian heritage from both sides of his family. His mother then remarried several times, including a marriage with Jim Robbins, a former semi-professional baseball player who legally adopted Anthony when he was 12.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins attended Glendora High School. During high school, Robbins grew ten inches in a year, a growth spurt later attributed to a pituitary tumor. He has said his home life was "chaotic" and "abusive". When he was 17 years old, he left home and never returned. Robbins later worked as a janitor, and did not attend college. One day he asked the landlord on site, who was a family friend, about how he became so successful. The landlord then told him that he started to turn his life around after going to a Jim Rohn seminar.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins began promoting seminars for motivational speaker and author Jim Rohn when he was 17 years old. He subsequently learned to firewalk and incorporated it into his seminars.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 2014, Robbins joined a group of investors to acquire rights to launch a Major League Soccer franchise in Los Angeles referred to as the Los Angeles Football Club. The soccer team entered competition in 2018.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 2016, Robbins partnered with Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber and Washington Wizards co-owner Ted Leonsis to purchase Team Liquid, an eSports professional gaming organization.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins has worked on an individual basis with Bill Clinton, Justin Tuck, Hugh Jackman, and Pitbull. He has counseled American businessmen Peter Guber, Steve Wynn, and Marc Benioff.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins was criticized for comments alluding to the Me Too movement at a seminar in San Jose, California, on March 15, 2018, when he said: "If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else… all you've done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good." He went on to tell a story about a "very powerful man" who passed on hiring a female candidate even though she was the most qualified because she was too attractive and would be "too big a risk". He later posted an apology on his Facebook page.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 1991, Robbins founded the Anthony Robbins Foundation, intended to help the young, the homeless, the hungry, the elderly, and the imprisoned. Independent charity watchdog Charity Navigator gave the foundation a rating of four out of four stars in 2017.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 2014, he donated the profits of his book, "Money: Master the Game", along with an additional personal donation, through Feeding America to provide meals to people in need. Robbins works with a water company called Spring Health, which provides fresh water to small villages in rural eastern India to prevent waterborne diseases.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins helped raise money for Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit organization that works with governments to fight against child trafficking and slavery with the assistance of former CIA, Navy SEALs, and Special operations operatives.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In May 1995, Robbins Research International (RRI) settled with the Federal Trade Commission over alleged violations of the agency's Franchise Rule. Under the settlement, RRI did not admit to having violated any law, but agreed to pay $221,260 in consumer redress.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Wade Cook sued Robbins for allegedly using copyrighted terms from Cook's book "Wall Street Money Machine" in his seminars. In 2000, a jury awarded Cook a $655,900 judgement, which was appealed. Cook and Robbins settled for an undisclosed amount.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 2001, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that "The Vancouver Sun" had defamed Robbins when it called him an "adulterous, wife-stealing hypocrite". The court awarded Robbins $20,000 in damages and his legal costs.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In July 2012, the "San Jose Mercury News" published a story reporting that multiple people had been burned and hospitalized during one of Robbins's fire-walking events on July 19, 2012. This story was picked up by other media outlets, including Fox News, "The New York Times", and CNN. Aspects of these reports were later challenged by Robbins himself along with some of the on-site medical professionals.


title: Tony Robbins

text: On June 24, 2016, it was reported that "dozens were burned and required medical attention after attempting to walk on hot coals during a fire-walking event at a Tony Robbins seminar in Dallas, Texas". Several attendees were transported to medical facilities to treat burns, and a bus was used as a staging-area for between 30 and 40 people who were less seriously hurt. A spokeswoman for the Robbins organization stated, "Someone unfamiliar with the process of the fire-walk called 911 reporting the need for emergency service vehicles […] there was no need for emergency personnel […] only 5 of 7,000 participants requested an examination beyond what was readily available on site."


title: Tony Robbins

text: In May 2019, an investigation by "BuzzFeed News" detailed accusations against Robbins of his sexual harassment of fans and staff members, such as groping fans at events and exposing his genitals to his assistants. Robbins denied the allegations and also stated, "I have been the target of a year-long investigation by BuzzFeed. Unfortunately, your organization has made it clear to my team that you intend to move forward with publishing an inaccurate, agenda-driven version of the past, pierced with falsehoods."


title: Tony Robbins

text: In November 2019, "BuzzFeed News" published a six-part article accusing Robbins of molesting a teenage girl during his time as a "star speaker" at SuperCamp, an elite summer camp in southern California. The article claims the events took place in 1985 when Robbins was 25, and that there were at least two eyewitnesses. Other media outlets also reported on these allegations. Robbins denied wrongdoing and filed suit on "BuzzFeed News" in Ireland. In response, "BuzzFeed News" said that they stand by their reporting and suggested that Robbins's decision to file the summons in Ireland was an "abuse" of the Irish court.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In July 2010, NBC debuted "Breakthrough with Tony Robbins", a reality show that followed Robbins as he helped the show's participants face their personal challenges. NBC canceled the show after airing two of the planned six episodes due to low viewership of 2.8 million. In March 2012, the OWN Network picked up the show for another season beginning with the original first season set to re-run and thereafter leading directly into the new 2012 season. In April 2012, Robbins began cohosting "Oprah's Lifeclass" on the OWN Network.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 2015, filmmaker Joe Berlinger directed and produced the documentary "", about the Tony Robbins event "Date with Destiny" after filming it in Boca Raton, Florida, in December 2014. It premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in March 2016. The documentary was translated into languages for 190 countries and released by Netflix on July 15, 2016.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 1984, Robbins married Rebecca Jenkins after meeting her at a seminar. Jenkins had three children from two former marriages, whom Robbins adopted. Robbins and Jenkins filed for divorce in 1998.


title: Tony Robbins

text: In 1984, Robbins fathered a child with former girlfriend Liz Acosta. Their son, Jairek Robbins, is also a personal empowerment coach and trainer.


title: Tony Robbins

text: Robbins was a vegan for 12 years, he then added fish to his diet. Whilst eating a fish-heavy diet he developed mercury poisoning and nearly died. His diet now consists of mostly vegetables with a small amount of animal protein.


title: Gundam

text: Academics in Japan have viewed the series as inspiration; in 2008, the virtual Gundam Academy was planned as the first academic institution based on an animated TV series.


title: Gundam

text: As of March 2020, the franchise is fully owned by Bandai Namco Holdings through subsidiaries Sotsu and Sunrise. The "Gundam" franchise had grossed over in retail sales by 2000. By 2022, annual revenue of the "Gundam" franchise reached ¥101.7 billion per year, ¥44.2 billion of which was retail sales of toys and hobby items.


title: Gundam

text: "Mobile Suit Gundam" was developed by animator Yoshiyuki Tomino and a changing group of Sunrise creators with the collective pseudonym of Hajime Yatate. The series was originally entitled "Freedom Fighter Gunboy" (or "Gunboy") for the robot's gun, with teen boys the primary target demographic. Early production had a number of references to freedom: the White Base was originally "Freedom's Fortress", the Core Fighter was the "Freedom Wing" and the Gunperry was the "Freedom Cruiser". The Yatate team combined the English word "gun" with the last syllable of the word "freedom" to form the portmanteau "Gundom". Tomino changed it to "Gundam", suggesting a unit wielding a gun powerful enough to hold back enemies like a hydroelectric dam holding back water. In keeping with the concept, Gundams are depicted as prototypes or limited-production, with higher capabilities than mass-produced units.


title: Gundam

text: Most Gundams are large, bipedal, humanoid vehicles controlled from a cockpit by a human pilot. The cockpit is located in the torso, while the head serves as a camera to transmit images back to the cockpit. Most of the series protagonists are Newtypes, genetically advanced humans adapted for space. Newtypes have psychic abilities that enable them to sense each other across space and to utilize special mobile suits.


title: Gundam

text: "Mobile Suit Gundam" reportedly pioneered the real robot subgenre of mecha anime. In contrast to its super robot cousins, "Mobile Suit Gundam" attempted realism in its robot design and weaponry by running out of energy and ammunition or malfunctioning. Its technology is derived from actual science (such as Lagrange points and the O'Neill cylinder in space, and the use of Helium-3 as an energy source) or feasible technology requiring only a few fictional elements to function (such as Minovsky Physics).


title: Gundam

text: Most of the "Gundam" animation (including the earliest series) is set in what is known as the Universal Century (UC) calendar era, with later series set in alternate calendars or timelines. Although many new "Gundam" stories are told in their parallel universe with independent timelines (giving them greater creative freedom), the original UC storyline continues to be popular. It established the series, setting the standard for hard science fiction in anime; the original "Gundam" marked the maturing of the giant-robot genre. Nostalgia for the oldest "Gundam" shows (and its status as a pop-culture icon in Japan) is a factor in its continuing success.


title: Gundam

text: "SD Gundam", a spinoff of "Gundam" which began during the mid-1980s, features super deformed designs and emphasizes comedy and adventure. "Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G", "Gundam Build Fighters", and "Gundam Build Divers" feature contemporary settings and use Gunpla as plot elements.


title: Gundam

text: Except for "Mobile Suit Gundam 00", which follows the current calendar era, all "Gundam" series are set in a fictional era, begin after a drastic event or chain of events, and typically involve a major conflict between Earth and space colonies (and in some cases the Moon and terraformed planets). An exception are "Gundam Build" timelines, which are set in an alternate present time where all other "Gundam" installments are fictional.


title: Gundam

text: At the 2018 Anime Expo, Legendary Pictures and Sunrise announced a collaboration to develop a live-action "Gundam" film. Brian K. Vaughan was brought in to write and serve as an executive producer for the film. In April 2021, it was reported that the project had landed at Netflix and that Jordan Vogt-Roberts had been hired to direct.


title: Gundam

text: Manga adaptations of the "Gundam" series have been published in English in North America by a number of companies, such as Viz Media, Del Rey Manga and Tokyopop, and in Singapore by Chuang Yi.


title: Gundam

text: "Gundam" has spawned over 80 video games for arcade, computer and console platforms, some with characters not found in other "Gundam" media. Some of the games, in turn inspired spinoff novels and manga. Most "Gundam" video games, except "", were released only in Japan.


title: Gundam

text: Hundreds of Gundam models, primarily made of plastic but sometimes with resin and metal detail parts, have been released. They range in quality from children's toy kits to hobbyist and museum-grade models, and most are in 1:35, 1:48, 1:60, 1:100 or 1:144 scale. Promotional 1:6 or 1:12 scale models are supplied to retailers and are not commercially available. For "Gundam" 30th anniversary, a full-size RX-78-2 Gundam model was constructed and displayed at Gundam Front Tokyo, in the Odaiba district; it was taken down on March 5, 2017. A new statue of the Unicorn Gundam was erected at the same location, now renamed The Gundam Base Tokyo.


title: Gundam

text: Bandai, "Gundam" primary licensee, produces a variety of products. Other companies produce unofficial merchandise, such as toys, models and T-shirts. Products include Mobile Suit In Action (MSiA) action figures and Gundam model kits in several scales and design complexities. Each series generally has its own set of products, MSiA and model lines such as Master Grade and High Grade Universal Century may extend across series. The most popular action-figure line has been the Gundam Fix series, which includes the mecha in the animated series, manga and novels and accessories to create an updated version. In addition to Master Grade and High Grade Gundams, Bandai released a 30th-anniversary series of Gundam models in 2010. The Real Grade (RG) Gundam series combined the Master Grade's detailed inner structure with additional colour separation, making the 1:144-scale series complex in design and compact in size. After the introduction of the RG Gundam series, Bandai released the Metal Build series in March 2011 (beginning with the 00 Gundam).


title: Gundam

text: Bandai maintains several websites to promote "Gundam" projects; Gundam Perfect Web is the official Japanese site. Its English-language counterpart is the US-maintained Gundam Official. In 2005, the website hosted the Gundam Official User Forum. The forum was based on the existing fan forum, Gundam Watch, using many of its staff. When the project was retired, Gundam Watch was reborn and became Gundam Evolution.


title: Gundam

text: A number of series-specific websites have been created, often available for a limited time (usually to promote a DVD release). Common content includes character and mecha listings, lists of related merchandise and pay-for-download content. Special pages are frequent, often presenting downloadable wallpaper or a small game. The "Superior Defender Gundam Force" website has a game in which players take the role of villain Commander Sazabi, attempting to blast his subordinate with weapons.


title: Gundam

text: "Gundam" is a Japanese cultural icon; it is a ¥50-billion-annual business of Bandai Namco, reaching ¥54.5 billion annual revenue by 2006, and annual revenue by 2014. Stamps were issued, an Agriculture Ministry employee was reprimanded for contributing to the Japanese Wikipedia Gundam-related pages, and the Japan Self-Defense Forces code-named its developing advance personal-combat system Gundam.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: Dead to Me is an American black comedy television series created by Liz Feldman and executively produced by Feldman, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Jessica Elbaum. The series premiered on May 3, 2019, on Netflix and stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini as two grieving women who bond during therapy. The first season received positive reviews. In June 2019, Netflix renewed the series for a second season which was released on May 8, 2020. At the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, Applegate received a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: In July 2020, the series was renewed for a third and final season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production of the third season was delayed until mid-2021, and was then further delayed by Applegate's multiple sclerosis diagnosis. The third and final season was released on November 17, 2022.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: At the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, the show received four nominations including Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Applegate and Cardellini.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: "Dead to Me" is about a friendship that blossoms between Jen (Applegate) and Judy (Cardellini). Jen is a recently widowed real estate agent based in Laguna Beach, California, trying to come to terms with her loss through therapy, exercise, and other methods. She uses anger and resentment as an outlet for her grief. She meets Judy in a grief support group. Jen mourns her husband, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver, while Judy claims that she is grieving for her fiancé who died of a heart attack. In actuality, Judy is the hit-and-run driver whose fiancé broke up with her. The two characters face their struggles differently, as Jen finds herself in a dark place while Judy maintains a positive disposition. This difference quickly leads to a deep bond between the two. Jen becomes more unhinged as she unravels the mystery of her husband's death and Judy's secrets.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On April 5, 2018, it was announced that Netflix had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of ten episodes. The series was created by Liz Feldman who was also expected to write for the series and executive produce alongside Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Jessica Elbaum. Production companies involved with the series were slated to consist of Gloria Sanchez Productions and CBS Television Studios. On November 2, 2018, it was reported that Amy York Rubin would direct the first and second episodes of the series.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On April 1, 2019, it was announced that the series was set to be released on May 3, 2019. On June 3, 2019, the series was renewed for a second season, set to be released in 2020. On April 10, 2020, Netflix announced that the second season would be released on May 8, 2020. On July 6, 2020, Netflix renewed the series for a third and final season. Filming for the third and final season began on May 7, 2021. However, production has been paused since mid-August due to Applegate’s health. On December 21, 2021, it was reported that there were positive COVID-19 cases on the set, but filming was not impacted or shut down. There were three weeks of filming left to conclude in early 2022, however filming did not wrap until April 25, 2022. The third and final season premiered on November 17, 2022.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On July 11, 2018, it was announced that Christina Applegate had been cast in one of the series' two lead roles. On August 3, 2018, it was reported that Linda Cardellini had been cast in the series' other lead role. A week later, it was announced that Max Jenkins and Luke Roessler had been cast in series regular roles. On September 12, 2018, it was reported that James Marsden and Ed Asner had been cast in starring roles. In October 2018, it was announced that Sam McCarthy had joined the cast in a series regular capacity and that Diana-Maria Riva had been cast in a recurring role. In October 2019, Natalie Morales was cast in the recurring role of Michelle on the second season.


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 86% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""Dead to Me" doesn't always deliver on the gallows humor that it promises, but the sterling duo of Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini elevates the series above its pulpier aspects—offering a deeply moving relationship shaped by mutual grief." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has an approval rating of 94% based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""Dead to Me" doubles down on the twists and turns out an exciting second season that makes excellent use of its well-matched leads." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the third season holds an approval rating of 82% based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""Dead to Me"'s final season has some diminishing returns as the twists begin to feel overplayed, but Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini remain a compelling duo who viewers will want to stick with to the bitter end." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Dead to Me (TV series)

text: On July 17, 2019, Netflix announced that the series was on track to be streamed by over 30 million viewers within its first month of release on the streaming platform.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. (Similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn, including in Germany and Japan). Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among most religions after harvests and at other times of the year. The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work. Though the 1536 reforms in the Church of England reduced the number of holidays in the liturgical calendar to 27, the Puritan party in the Anglican Church wished to eliminate all Church holidays apart from the weekly Lord's Day, including the evangelical feasts of Christmas and Easter (cf. "Puritan Sabbatarianism"). The holidays were to be replaced by specially called Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving, which were observed through Christian church services and other gatherings. For example, Days of thanksgiving were called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1605. An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into Guy Fawkes Day on November 5. Days of Fasting were called on account of plagues in 1604 and 1622, drought in 1611, and floods in 1613. Annual Thanksgiving prayers were dictated by the charter of English settlers upon their safe landing in America in 1619 at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia.


title: Thanksgiving

text: According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England in search of the Northwest Passage. Other researchers, however, state that "there is no compelling narrative of the origins of the Canadian Thanksgiving day."


title: Thanksgiving

text: Antecedents for Canadian Thanksgiving are also sometimes traced to the French settlers who came to New France in the 17th century, who celebrated their successful harvests. The French settlers in the area typically had feasts at the end of the harvest season. They continued throughout the winter season, even sharing food with the indigenous peoples of the area.


title: Thanksgiving

text: As settlers arrived in Nova Scotia from New England after 1700, late autumn Thanksgiving celebrations became commonplace. New immigrants into the country—such as the Irish, Scottish, and Germans—also added their own traditions to the harvest celebrations. Most of the U.S. aspects of Thanksgiving (such as the turkey) were incorporated when United Empire Loyalists began to flee from the United States during and after the American Revolution and settled in Canada.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In 1859, the government of the Provinces of Canada declared a Thanksgiving Day in which "all Canadians [were asked] to spend the holiday in 'public and solemn' recognition of God's mercies." On 9 October 1879, Canada's Governor General, the Marquis of Lorne, declared November 6 as "a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed." The Canadian Parliament on 31 January 1957 applied the same language in its proclamation for the modern holiday: "A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed—to be observed on the second Monday in October."


title: Thanksgiving

text: The annual Thanksgiving holiday tradition in the United States is documented for the first time in 1619, in what is now called the Commonwealth of Virginia. Thirty-eight English settlers aboard the ship "Margaret" arrived by way of the James River at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia on December 4, 1619. The landing was immediately followed by a religious celebration, specifically dictated by the group's charter from the London Company. The charter declared, "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." Since the mid 20th century, the original celebration has been commemorated there annually at present-day Berkeley Plantation, ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia.


title: Thanksgiving

text: The more familiar Thanksgiving precedent is traced to the Pilgrims and Puritans who emigrated from England in the 1620s and 1630s. They brought their previous


title: Thanksgiving

text: tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. The 1621 Plymouth, Massachusetts thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. The Pilgrims celebrated this with the Wampanoags, a tribe of Native Americans who, along with the last surviving Patuxet, had helped them get through the previous winter by giving them food in that time of scarcity, in exchange for an alliance and protection against the rival Narragansett tribe.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631. According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden. Now called "3 Oktoberfeest," Leiden's autumn thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims' plans to emigrate to America.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Later in New England, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned the Plymouth colony's thanksgiving celebration and feast in 1623. Bradford issued a proclamation of Thanksgiving following victory in the Pequot War in the late 1630s to celebrate "the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won." The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, and conversely by patriot leaders, such as John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress, each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes. As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God", and calling on Americans to "unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions."


title: Thanksgiving

text: Devotees in New England and Virginia and other places have maintained contradictory claims to having held the first Thanksgiving celebration in what became the United States. The question is complicated by the concept of Thanksgiving as either a holiday celebration or a religious service. James Baker maintains, "The American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence." Baker calls the debate a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense" based on regional claims.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In 1963, President John F. Kennedy acknowledged both the Virginia and Massachusetts claims. Kennedy issued Proclamation 3560 on November 5, 1963, stating, "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together, and for the faith which united them with their God."


title: Thanksgiving

text: Other claims include an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598. Historians Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida argue that the earliest Thanksgiving service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish community on September 8, 1565, in current Saint Augustine, Florida.


title: Thanksgiving

text: The earlier Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada has been attributed to the earlier onset of winter in the North, thus ending the harvest season earlier. Thanksgiving in Canada did not have a fixed date until the late 19th century. Prior to Canadian Confederation, many of the individual colonial governors of the Canadian provinces had declared their own days of Thanksgiving. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving occurred on April 15, 1872, when the nation was celebrating the Prince of Wales' recovery from a serious illness.


title: Thanksgiving

text: By the end of the 19th century, Thanksgiving Day was normally celebrated on November 6. In the late 19th century, the Militia staged "sham battles" for public entertainment on Thanksgiving Day. The Militia agitated for an earlier date for the holiday, so they could use the warmer weather to draw bigger crowds. However, when the First World War ended, the Armistice Day holiday was usually held during the same week. To prevent the two holidays from clashing with one another, in 1957 the Canadian Parliament proclaimed Thanksgiving to be observed on its present date on the second Monday of October.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving in the United States has been observed on differing dates. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date of observance varied from state to state. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century, coinciding with, and eventually superseding the holiday of Evacuation Day (commemorating the day the British exited the United States after the Revolutionary War). Modern Thanksgiving was proclaimed for all states in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. Influenced by Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote letters to politicians for approximately 40 years advocating an official holiday, Lincoln set national Thanksgiving by proclamation for the final Thursday in November in celebration of the bounties that had continued to fall on the Union and for the military successes in the war, also calling on the American people, "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience .. fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation..." Because of the ongoing Civil War, a nationwide Thanksgiving celebration was not realized until Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s.


title: Thanksgiving

text: On October 31, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a presidential proclamation changing the holiday to the next to last Thursday in November in an effort to boost the economy. The earlier date created an extra seven days for Christmas shopping since at that time retailers never began promoting the Christmas season until after Thanksgiving. But making the proclamation so close to the change wreaked havoc on the holiday schedules of many people, schools, and businesses, and most Americans were not in favor of the change. Some of those who opposed dubbed the holiday "Franksgiving" that year. Some state governors went along with the change while others stuck with the original November 30 date for the holiday, and three states — Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas — observed both dates. The double Thanksgiving continued for two more years, and then on December 26, 1941, Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the official national Thanksgiving Day to the fourth Thursday in November starting in 1942.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Since 1971, when the American Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, the American observance of Columbus Day has coincided with the Canadian observance of Thanksgiving.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Wednesday of November, similar to the pre–World War II American observance on the last Thursday of the month. This means the Norfolk Island observance is the day before or six days after the United States' observance. The holiday was brought to the island by visiting American whaling ships.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In Brazil, National Thanksgiving Day was instituted by President Gaspar Dutra, through Law 781 of August 17, 1949, at the suggestion of Ambassador Joaquim Nabuco, who was enthusiastic about the commemorations he saw in 1909 in St. Patrick's Cathedral as an ambassador in Washington. In 1966, Law 5110 established that the Thanksgiving celebration would take place on the fourth Thursday of November. This date is celebrated by many families of American origin, by some Protestant Christian denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (which is of American origin), the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, and the Church of the Nazarene, and Methodist denominational universities. The day is also celebrated by evangelical churches such as the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving (), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references God and the holiday is celebrated in churches, the holiday is mostly celebrated in a secular manner. Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in all provinces in Canada, except for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While businesses may remain open in these provinces, the holiday is nonetheless recognized and celebrated regardless of its status.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In the West Indian island of Grenada, in the Caribbean, there is a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day which is celebrated on October 25. Even though it bears the same name, and is celebrated at roughly the same time as the American and Canadian versions of Thanksgiving, this holiday is unrelated to either of those celebrations. Instead, the holiday marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983, in response to the deposition and execution of the socialist Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop by a military government from within his own party.


title: Thanksgiving

text: In the West African country of Liberia, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the first Thursday of November. In 1883, the Legislature of Liberia enacted a statute declaring this day as a national holiday. Thanksgiving is celebrated in the country in large part due to the nation's founding as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1821 by former slaves and free people of color from the United States. However, the Liberian celebration of the holiday is notably different from the American celebration. While some Liberian families chose to celebrate with a feast or cook out, it is not considered a staple of the holiday and there is no specific food heavily associated with Thanksgiving. Some chose to celebrate the holiday by attending religious ceremonies, while others take it as a day for relaxation. Others view the holiday as an imposition from the American settlers of the country. In the years following the second civil war, some Liberians have taken the holiday as a time to be thankful for this new period peace and relative stability.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Many of the Pilgrims who migrated to the Plymouth Plantation resided in the city of Leiden from 1609 to 1620 and had recorded their births, marriages, and deaths at the Pieterskerk (St. Peter's church). In commemoration, a non-denominational Thanksgiving Day service is held each year on the morning of the American Thanksgiving Day in the Pieterskerk, a Gothic church in Leiden, noting the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving is observed by orthodox Protestant churches in the Netherlands on the first Wednesday in November (). It is not a public holiday. Those who observe the day either go to church in the evening or take the day off and go to church in the morning (and occasionally afternoon) too.


title: Thanksgiving

text: The Philippines, while it was an American colony in the first half of the 20th century, celebrated Thanksgiving as a special public holiday on the same day as the Americans. During the Japanese occupation during World War II, both the Americans and Filipinos celebrated Thanksgiving in secret. After Japanese withdrawal in 1945, the tradition continued until 1969. It was revived by President Ferdinand Marcos, but the date was changed to be on every September 21, when martial law was imposed in the country. After Marcos' ouster in 1986, the tradition was no longer continued, due to the controversial events that occurred during his long administration.


title: Thanksgiving

text: As of 2022, Thanksgiving has been revived as a commercial and cultural holiday, albeit stripped of its official status. SM Supermalls led the way in the slow revival of Thanksgiving Day on the same day as in the U.S., as in the old days. Many malls and hotels offer special sales on this day, which is part of the long celebration of Christmas in the Philippines, which begins in September (unlike on Black Friday in the United States).


title: Thanksgiving

text: Called "Umuganura Day", this is a Thanksgiving festival to mark the start of the harvest in Rwanda. It is celebrated on the first Friday of August.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November since 1941 due to federal legislation, has been an annual tradition in the United States by presidential proclamation since 1863 and by state legislation since the Founding Fathers of the United States. Traditionally, Thanksgiving has been a celebration of the blessings of the year, including the harvest. On Thanksgiving Day, it is common for Americans to share a family meal, attend church services, and view special sporting events. In addition, Thanksgiving is celebrated in public places with parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City, ABC Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia, America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth, Massachusetts, McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, and Bayou Classic Thanksgiving Parade in New Orleans. What Americans call the "Holiday Season" generally begins with Thanksgiving. The first day after Thanksgiving Day—Black Friday—marks the start of the Christmas shopping season.


title: Thanksgiving

text: Thanksgiving is usually celebrated with a family meal. Beginning in the 2010s, a new tradition has emerged to also celebrate Thanksgiving with a meal with friends, as a separate event on a different day or an alternate event on Thanksgiving day. This is referred to as Friendsgiving.


title: Thanksgiving

text: The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, is a popular German Christian festival on the first Sunday of October. The festival has a significant religious component, and many churches are decorated with autumn crops. In some places, there are religious processions or parades. Many Bavarian beer festivals, like the Munich Oktoberfest, take place within the vicinity of "Erntedankfest."


title: Thanksgiving

text: is a national holiday in Japan. It takes place annually on November 23. The law establishing the holiday, which was adopted during the American occupation after World War II, cites it as an occasion for commemorating labor and production and giving each other thanks. It has roots in the ancient Shinto harvest ceremony ().


title: Thanksgiving

text: The "Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving" does not have an official date in the United Kingdom; however, it is traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the harvest moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox. Harvest Thanksgiving in Britain also has pre-Christian roots when the Saxons would offer the first sheaf of barley, oats, or wheat to fertility gods. When the harvest was finally collected, communities would come together for a harvest supper. When Christianity arrived in Britain many traditions remained, and today the Harvest Festival is marked by churches and schools in late September/early October (same as Canada) with singing, praying and decorating with baskets of food and fruit to celebrate a successful harvest and to give thanks. Collections of food are usually held which are then given to local charities which help the homeless and those in need.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians. These regions are referred to as in historical Japanese texts.


title: Ainu people

text: Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. , the number of "pure" Ainu was estimated at about 300 people.


title: Ainu people

text: This people's most widely known ethnonym, "Ainu" (; ; ) means "human" in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to , divine beings. Ainu also identify themselves as "Utari" ("comrade" or "people"). Official documents use both names.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu are the native people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kurils. Early Ainu-speaking groups (mostly hunters and fishermen) migrated also into the Kamchatka Peninsula and into Honshu, where their descendants are today known as the Matagi hunters, who still use a large amount of Ainu vocabulary in their dialect. Other evidence for Ainu-speaking hunters and fishermen migrating down from Northern Hokkaido into Honshu is through the Ainu toponyms which are found in several places of northern Honshu, mostly among the western coast and the Tōhoku region. Evidence for Ainu speakers in the Amur region is found through Ainu loanwords in the Uilta and Ulch people.


title: Ainu people

text: Research suggests that Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures. According to Lee and Hasegawa, the Ainu-speakers descend from the Okhotsk people who rapidly expanded from northern Hokkaido into the Kurils and Honshu. These early inhabitants did not speak the Japanese language; some were conquered by the Japanese early in the 9th century. In 1264, the Ainu invaded the land of the Nivkh people. The Ainu also started an expedition into the Amur region, which was then controlled by the Yuan Dynasty, resulting in reprisals by the Mongols who invaded Sakhalin. Active contact between the Wa-jin (the ethnically Japanese, also known as Yamato-jin) and the Ainu of Ezogashima (now known as Hokkaidō) began in the 13th century. The Ainu formed a society of hunter-gatherers, surviving mainly by hunting and fishing. They followed a religion which was based on natural phenomena.


title: Ainu people

text: During the Muromachi period (1336–1573), many Ainu were subject to Japanese rule. Disputes between the Japanese and Ainu developed into large-scale violence, Koshamain's Revolt, in 1456. Takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu and Nivkh peoples of Sakhalin were subjugated and became tributaries to the Ming dynasty of China after Manchuria came under Ming rule as part of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. Women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region. Due to Ming rule in Manchuria, Chinese cultural and religious influence such as Chinese New Year, the "Chinese god", Chinese motifs such as the dragon, spirals, scrolls, and material goods such as agriculture, husbandry, heating, iron cooking pots, silk and cotton spread among the Amur natives such as the Udeghes, Ulchis, and Nanais.


title: Ainu people

text: During the Edo period (1601–1868) the Ainu, who controlled the northern island which is now named Hokkaidō, became increasingly involved in trade with the Japanese who controlled the southern portion of the island. The Tokugawa bakufu (feudal government) granted the Matsumae clan exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu in the northern part of the island. Later, the Matsumae began to lease out trading rights to Japanese merchants, and contact between Japanese and Ainu became more extensive. Throughout this period Ainu groups competed with each other to import goods from the Japanese, and epidemic diseases such as smallpox reduced the population. Although the increased contact created by the trade between the Japanese and the Ainu contributed to increased mutual understanding, it also sometimes led to conflict which occasionally intensified into violent Ainu revolts. The most important was Shakushain's Revolt (1669–1672), an Ainu rebellion against Japanese authority. Another large-scale revolt by Ainu against Japanese rule was the Menashi-Kunashir Battle in 1789. However, throughout this period and thereafter the Ainu-Japanese relationship continued to be marked by trade and commercial relationships, not conflicts.


title: Ainu people

text: From 1799 to 1806, the shogunate took direct control of southern Hokkaidō. During this period, Ainu women were separated from their husbands and either subjected to rape or forcibly married to Japanese men, while Ainu men were deported to merchant subcontractors for five and ten-year terms of service. Policies of family separation and assimilation, combined with the impact of smallpox, caused the Ainu population to drop significantly in the early 19th century.


title: Ainu people

text: In the 18th century, there were 80,000 Ainu. In 1868, there were about 15,000 Ainu in Hokkaidō, 2000 in Sakhalin and around 100 in the Kuril islands.


title: Ainu people

text: The Santan Japanese traders, when they were trading in Sakhalin, seized Rishiri Ainu women to become their wives.


title: Ainu people

text: In 1869, the imperial government established the Hokkaidō Development Commission as part of the measures of the Meiji Restoration. Sjöberg quotes Baba's (1890) account of the Japanese government's reasoning:


title: Ainu people

text: ... The development of Japan's large northern island had several objectives: First, it was seen as a means to defend Japan from a rapidly developing and expansionist Russia. Second ... it offered a solution to the unemployment for the former samurai class ... Finally, development promised to yield the needed natural resources for a growing capitalist economy.


title: Ainu people

text: As a result of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), the Kuril Islands – along with their Ainu inhabitants – came under Japanese administration. In 1899, the Japanese government passed an act labelling the Ainu as "former aborigines", with the idea they would assimilate—this resulted in the Japanese government taking the land where the Ainu people lived and placing it from then on under Japanese control. Also at this time, the Ainu were granted automatic Japanese citizenship, effectively denying them the status of an indigenous group.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu went from being a relatively isolated group of people to having their land, language, religion and customs assimilated into those of the Japanese. Their land was distributed to the Yamato Japanese settlers and to create and maintain farms in the model of Western industrial agriculture. It was known as "colonization" (拓殖) at the time, but later by the euphemism "opening up undeveloped land" (). As well as this, factories such as flour mills, beer breweries and mining practices resulted in the creation of infrastructure such as roads and railway lines, during a development period that lasted until 1904. During this time, the Ainu were ordered to cease religious practices such as animal sacrifice and the custom of tattooing. The same act applied to the native Ainu on Sakhalin after the Japanese annexation of it as the Karafuto Prefecture.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu have historically suffered from economic and social discrimination as the government as well as people in contact with the Ainu regarded them as dirty and primitive barbarians. The majority of Ainu were forced to be petty laborers during the Meiji Restoration, which saw the introduction of Hokkaidō into the Japanese Empire and the privatization of traditional Ainu lands. The Japanese government during the 19th and 20th centuries denied the rights of the Ainu to their traditional cultural practices, most notably the right to speak their language, as well as their right to hunt and gather.


title: Ainu people

text: This denial of Ainu cultural practices mostly stemmed from the 1899 Law for the Protection of Native Hokkaido Aborigines. This law and its associated policies were designed to fully integrate the Ainu into Japanese society with the cost of erasing Ainu culture and identity. The Ainu's position as manual laborers and their forced integration into larger Japanese society have led to discriminatory practices by the Japanese government that can still be felt today.


title: Ainu people

text: Intermarriage between Japanese and Ainu was actively promoted by the Ainu to lessen the chances of discrimination against their offspring. As a result, many Ainu are indistinguishable from their Japanese neighbors, but some Ainu-Japanese are interested in traditional Ainu culture. For example, Oki, born as a child of an Ainu father and a Japanese mother, became a musician who plays the traditional Ainu instrument . There are also many small towns in the southeastern or Hidaka region where ethnic Ainu live such as in Nibutani (). Many live in Sambutsu especially, on the eastern coast.


title: Ainu people

text: This discrimination and negative stereotypes assigned to the Ainu have manifested in the Ainu's lower levels of education, income levels and participation in the economy as compared to their ethnically Japanese counterparts. The Ainu community in Hokkaidō in 1993 received welfare payments at a 2.3 times higher rate, had an 8.9% lower enrollment rate from junior high school to high school and a 15.7% lower enrollment into college from high school than that of Hokkaidō as a whole. The Japanese government has been lobbied by activists to research the Ainu's standard of living nationwide due to this noticeable and growing gap. The Japanese government will provide ¥7 million (US$63,000) beginning in 2015, to conduct surveys nationwide on this matter.


title: Ainu people

text: The existence of the Ainu has challenged the notion of ethnic homogeneity in post-WWII Japan. After the demise of the multi-ethnic Empire of Japan in 1945, successive governments forged a single Japanese identity by advocating monoculturalism and denying the existence of more than one ethnic group in Japan.


title: Ainu people

text: Following the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, Hokkaido politicians pressured the government to recognize Ainu rights. Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo answered a parliamentary question on May 20, 2008 by stating that "it is a historical fact that the Ainu are the precursors in the northern Japanese archipelago, in particular Hokkaido. The government acknowledges the Ainu to be an ethnic minority as it has maintained a unique cultural identity and having a unique language and religion." On June 6, 2008, the National Diet of Japan passed a non-binding, bipartisan resolution calling upon the government to recognize the Ainu as indigenous people.


title: Ainu people

text: In 2019, eleven years after this resolution, the Diet finally passed an act recognizing the Ainu to be an indigenous people of Japan. Despite this recognition of the Ainu as an ethnically distinct group, political figures in Japan continue to define ethnic homogeneity as key to overall Japanese national identity; Taro Aso, in 2020, notably claimed that “no other country but this one has lasted for as long as 2,000 years with one language, one ethnic group and one dynasty”.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu have often been considered to descend from the diverse Jōmon people, who lived in northern Japan from the Jōmon period ( 14,000 to 300 BCE). One of their , or legends, tells that "[t]he Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came".


title: Ainu people

text: Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon culture, cultures thought to have derived from the diverse Jōmon-period cultures of the Japanese archipelago.


title: Ainu people

text: According to Lee and Hasegawa of the Waseda University, the direct ancestors of the later Ainu people formed during the late Jōmon period from the combination of the local but diverse population of Hokkaido, long before the arrival of contemporary Japanese people. Lee and Hasegawa suggest that the Ainu language expanded from northern Hokkaido and may have originated from a relative more recent Northeast Asian/Okhotsk population, who established themselves in northern Hokkaido and had significant impact on the formation of Hokkaido's Jōmon culture.


title: Ainu people

text: The linguist and historian Joran Smale similarly found that the Ainu language likely originated from the ancient Okhotsk people, which had strong cultural influence on the "Epi-Jōmon" of southern Hokkaido and northern Honshu, but that the Ainu people themselves formed from the combination of both ancient groups. Additionally he notes that the historical distribution of Ainu dialects and its specific vocabulary correspond to the distribution of the maritime Okhotsk culture.


title: Ainu people

text: A 2021 study confirmed that the Hokkaido Jōmon population formed from "Terminal Upper-Paleolithic people" (TUP people) indigenous to Northern Eurasia and from proper Jōmon people, which arrived from Honshu about 15,000 BC. The Ainu in turn originated from the Hokkaido Epi-Jōmon and from the Okhotsk people in Hokkaido.


title: Ainu people

text: Another study in 2021 (Sato et al.) analyzed the indigenous populations of northern Japan and the Russian Far East. They concluded that Siberia and northern Japan was populated by two distinct waves:


title: Ainu people

text: Genetic testing has shown that the Ainu belong mainly to Y-DNA haplogroup D-M55 (D1a2) and C-M217. Y DNA haplogroup D M55 is found throughout the Japanese Archipelago, but with very high frequencies among the Ainu of Hokkaidō in the far north, and to a lesser extent among the Ryukyuans in the Ryukyu Islands of the far south. Recently it was confirmed that the Japanese branch of haplogroup D M55 is distinct and isolated from other D branches for more than 53,000 years.


title: Ainu people

text: Several studies (Hammer "et al". 2006, Shinoda 2008, Matsumoto 2009, Cabrera "et al". 2018) suggest that haplogroup D originated somewhere in Central Asia. According to Hammer "et al"., the ancestral haplogroup D originated between Tibet and the Altai mountains. He suggests that there were multiple waves into Eastern Eurasia.


title: Ainu people

text: A study by Tajima "et al". (2004) suggest that fourteen out of sixteen Ainu (or 87.5%) belong to YAP+ lineages (Y-haplogroups D-M55* and D-M125), with 13/16 (81.3%) belonging to D-M55 and 1/16 (6.25%) belonging to D-M125 (the latter is much more typical of mainland Japanese males than Ainu). The presence of Haplogroup C M217 in the Ainu suggest a degree of genetic admixture with the Nivkhs. Two out of a sample of sixteen Ainu men (or 12.5%) belong to , which is the most common Y chromosome haplogroup among the indigenous populations of Siberia and Mongolia. Hammer "et al". (2006) found that one in a sample of four (or 25%) Ainu men belonged to haplogroup C M217.


title: Ainu people

text: Based on analysis of one sample of 51 modern Ainu, their mtDNA lineages consist mainly of haplogroup Y [ = 21.6% according to Tanaka "et al." 2004, or = 19.6% according to Adachi "et al." 2009, who have cited Tajima "et al." 2004], haplogroup D [ = 17.6%, particularly D4 (xD1)], haplogroup M7a ( = 15.7%), and haplogroup G1 ( = 15.7%). Other mtDNA haplogroups detected in this sample include A (), M7b2 (), N9b (), B4f (), F1b (), and M9a (). Most of the remaining individuals in this sample have been classified definitively only as belonging to macro-haplogroup M.


title: Ainu people

text: According to Sato "et al." (2009), who have studied the mtDNA of the same sample of modern Ainus (=51), the major haplogroups of the Ainu are N9 [ = 27.5%, including Y and N9 (xY)], D [ = 23.5%, including D (xD5) and D5], M7 ( = 19.6%), and G ( = 19.6%, including G1 and G2); the minor haplogroups are A (), B (), F (), and M (xM7, M8, CZ, D, G) ().


title: Ainu people

text: Studies published in 2004 and 2007 show the combined frequency of M7a and N9b were observed in Jōmons and which are believed by some to be Jōmon maternal contribution at 28% in Okinawans [ M7a1, M7a (xM7a1), N9b], 17.6% in Ainus [ M7a (xM7a1), N9b], and from 10% [ M7a (xM7a1), M7a1, N9b] to 17% [ M7a1, M7a (xM7a1)] in mainstream Japanese.


title: Ainu people

text: In addition, haplogroups D4, D5, M7b, M9a, M10, G, A, B, and F have been found in Jōmon people as well. These mtDNA haplogroups were found in various Jōmon samples and in some modern Japanese people.


title: Ainu people

text: A study by Kanazawa-Kiriyama in 2013 about mitochondrial haplogroups, found that the Ainu people (including samples from Hokkaido and Tōhoku) have a high frequency of N9b, which is also found among Udege people of eastern Siberia, and more common among Europeans than Eastern Asians, but absent from the geographically close Kantō Jōmon period samples, which have a higher frequency of M7a7, which is commonly found among East and Southeast Asians. According to the authors, these results add to the internal-diversity observed among the Jōmon period population and that a significant percentage of the Jōmon period people had ancestry from a Northeast Asian source population, suggested to be the source of the proto-Ainu language and culture, which is not detected in samples from Kantō.


title: Ainu people

text: A study by Adachi "et al." 2018 concluded that: "Our results suggest that the Ainu were formed from the Hokkaido Jomon people, but subsequently underwent considerable admixture with adjacent populations. The present study strongly recommends revision of the widely accepted dual-structure model for the population history of the Japanese, in which the Ainu are assumed to be the direct descendants of the Jomon people."


title: Ainu people

text: A 2004 reevaluation of cranial traits suggests that the Ainu resemble the Okhotsk more than they do the Jōmon but there are large variations. This agrees with the references to the Ainu as a merger of Okhotsk and Satsumon referenced above. Similarly more recent studies link the Ainu to the local Hokkaido Jōmon period samples, such as the 3,800 year old Rebun sample.


title: Ainu people

text: Genetic analyses of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 gene frequencies links the Ainu to Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The genetics of a variety Asian groups show Ainu and of Native Americans are place relatively close can be traced back to Paleolithic groups in Siberia.


title: Ainu people

text: Hideo Matsumoto (2009) suggested, based on immunoglobulin analyses, that the Ainu (and Jōmon) have a Siberian origin. Compared with other East Asian populations, the Ainu have the highest amount of Siberian (immunoglobulin) components, higher than mainland Japanese people.


title: Ainu people

text: A 2012 genetic study has revealed that the closest genetic relatives of the Ainu are the Ryukyuan people, followed by the Yamato people and Nivkh.


title: Ainu people

text: A genetic analysis in 2016 showed that although the Ainu have some genetic relations to the Japanese people and Eastern Siberians (especially Itelmens and Chukchis), they are not directly related to any modern ethnic group. Further, the study detected genetic contribution from the Ainu to populations around the Sea of Okhotsk but no genetic influence on the Ainu themselves. According to the study, the Ainu-like genetic contribution in the Ulch people is about 17.8% or 13.5% and about 27.2% in the Nivkhs. The study also disproved the idea about a relation to Andamanese or Tibetans; instead, it presented evidence of gene flow between the Ainu and "lowland East Asian farmer populations" (represented in the study by the Ami and Atayal in Taiwan, and the Dai and Lahu in Mainland East Asia).


title: Ainu people

text: A genetic study in 2016 about historical Ainu samples from southern Sakhalin (8) and northern Hokkaido (4), found that these samples were closely related to the ancient Okhotsk people followed by Ainu samples from southern Hokkaido, pointing to some substructure among the ancient Ainu population.


title: Ainu people

text: Recent autosomal evidence suggests that the Ainu derive a majority of their ancestry from the local Jōmon period people of Hokkaido. A 2019 study by Gakuhari "et al"., analyzing ancient Jōmon remains, finds about 79.3% Hokkaido Jōmon ancestry in the Ainu. Another 2019 study (by Kanazawa-Kiriyama "et al".) finds about 66% Hokkaido Jōmon ancestry. A genetic study in 2021 (Sato "et al".) found that the Ainu probably derived about ~49% of their ancestry from the local Hokkaido Jōmon, ~22% from the Okhotsk (samplified by Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples), and ~29% from the Yamato Japanese. Population genomic data from various Jōmon period samples show that their main ancestry component split from other East Asian people at about 15,000 BCE. Following their migration into the Japanese archipelago, they became largely isolated from outside geneflow. However geneflow from Ancient North Eurasians towards the Jōmon period population was detected along a North to South cline, with a peak among Hokkaido Jōmon.


title: Ainu people

text: Physical differences could be observed between different Ainu subgroups and clans. According to anthropologists "…features considered to distinguish the Ainu from other populations in the area, especially the Japanese, are the tendency to dolichocephaly (long-headedness), a well developed glabella, a deeply depressed nose root, widely projecting cheekbones, a comparatively massive mandible (lower jaw), and an edge to edge bite", as well as more body and facial hair. Many Ainu men have abundant wavy hair and often wear long beards.


title: Ainu people

text: The book of "Ainu Life and Legends" by author Kyōsuke Kindaichi (published by the Japanese Tourist Board in 1942) contains a physical description of Ainu:


title: Ainu people

text: Many have wavy hair, but some straight black hair. Very few of them have wavy brownish hair. Their skins are generally reported to be light brown. But this is due to the fact that they labor on the sea and in briny winds all day. Old people who have long desisted from their outdoor work are often found to be as white as western men. The Ainu have broad faces, beetling eyebrows, and sometimes large sunken eyes, which are generally horizontal and of the so-called European type. Eyes of the Mongolian type are rare but occasionally found among them.


title: Ainu people

text: A comparative study by Brace et al. (2001) argues for a closer morphological relation of the Ainu with prehistoric and living European groups, compared to with other East Asian groups. The authors concluded that part of their ancestors may have descended from a population (dubbed "Eurasians" by Brace et al.) that moved into northern Eurasia and eastwards in the Late Pleistocene, which significantly predates the expansion of the modern core population of East Asia from Mainland Southeast Asia.


title: Ainu people

text: Overall anthropometric characteristics and cranial features group the Ainu people most closely together with Native Americans, especially Eskimos, followed by other East Asians, rather than with Europeans.


title: Ainu people

text: A study by Kura "et al". 2014 based on cranial and genetic characteristics suggests a mostly Northern Asian ("Arctic") origin for Ainu people. Thus, despite the Ainu sharing certain morphological similarities to Caucasoid populations, the Ainu are essentially of North Asiatic origin. Genetic evidence support a closer relation with Paleosiberian Arctic populations, such as the Chukchi people.


title: Ainu people

text: A study by Omoto has shown that the Ainu are more closely related to other East Asian groups (previously mentioned as 'Mongoloid') than to Western Eurasian groups (formerly termed as "Caucasian"), on the basis of fingerprints and dental morphology.


title: Ainu people

text: A study published in the scientific journal "Journal of Human Genetics" by Jinam "et al". 2015, using genome-wide SNP data comparison, found that some Ainu carry two specific gene alleles, associated with facial features commonly found among Europeans, but generally absent among Japanese people and other East Asians.


title: Ainu people

text: Ainu men were first recruited into the Japanese military in 1898. Sixty-four Ainu served in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), eight of whom died in battle or from illness contracted during military service. Two received the Order of the Golden Kite, granted for bravery, leadership or command in battle.


title: Ainu people

text: During World War II, Australian troops engaged in the hard-fought Kokoda Track campaign (July–November 1942) in New Guinea, were surprised by the physique and fighting prowess of the first Japanese troops they encountered.


title: Ainu people

text: In 2008 Hohmann gave an estimate of fewer than 100 remaining speakers of the language; other research (Vovin 1993) placed the number at fewer than 15 speakers. Vovin has characterised the language as "almost extinct". As a result of this, the study of the Ainu language is limited and is based largely on historical research. Historically, the status of the Ainu language was rather high and was also used by early Russian and Japanese administrative officials to communicate with each other and with the indigenous people.


title: Ainu people

text: Despite the small number of native speakers of Ainu, there is an active movement to revitalize the language, mainly in Hokkaidō, but also elsewhere such as Kanto. Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations, as well as using it as a teaching tool for language learners.


title: Ainu people

text: As of 2011 there has been an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaidō, in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist and former Diet member Shigeru Kayano, himself a native speaker, who first opened an Ainu language school in 1987 funded by Ainu Kyokai.


title: Ainu people

text: Although some researchers have attempted to show that the Ainu language and the Japanese language are related, modern scholars have rejected the idea that the relationship goes beyond contact (such as the mutual borrowing of words between Japanese and Ainu). No attempt to show a relationship with Ainu to any other language has gained wide acceptance, and linguists currently classify Ainu as a language isolate. Most Ainu people speak either the Japanese language or the Russian language.


title: Ainu people

text: Concepts expressed with prepositions (such as "to", "from", "by", "in", and "at") in English appear as postpositional forms in Ainu (postpositions come after the word that they modify). A single sentence in Ainu can comprise many added or agglutinated sounds or affixes that represent nouns or ideas.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu language has had no indigenous system of writing, and has historically been transliterated using the Japanese kana or Russian Cyrillic. it is typically written either in katakana or in the Latin alphabet.


title: Ainu people

text: Many of the Ainu dialects, even those from different extremities of Hokkaidō, were not mutually intelligible; however, all Ainu speakers understood the classic Ainu language of the Yukar, or epic stories. Without a writing system, the Ainu were masters of narration, with the Yukar and other forms of narration such as the Uepeker (Uwepeker) tales being committed to memory and related at gatherings which often lasted many hours or even days.


title: Ainu people

text: Traditional Ainu culture was quite different from Japanese culture. According to Tanaka Sakurako from the University of British Columbia, the Ainu culture can be included into a wider "northern circumpacific region", referring to various indigenous cultures of Northeast Asia and "beyond the Bering Strait" in North America.


title: Ainu people

text: Never shaving after a certain age, the men had full beards and moustaches. Men and women alike cut their hair level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, trimmed semi-circularly behind. The women tattooed () their mouths, and sometimes the forearms. The mouth tattoos were started at a young age with a small spot on the upper lip, gradually increasing with size. The soot deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark was used for colour. Their traditional dress was a robe spun from the inner bark of the elm tree, called "attusi" or "attush". Various styles were made, and consisted generally of a simple short robe with straight sleeves, which was folded around the body, and tied with a band about the waist. The sleeves ended at the wrist or forearm and the length generally was to the calves. Women also wore an undergarment of Japanese cloth.


title: Ainu people

text: Modern craftswomen weave and embroider traditional garments that command very high prices. In winter the skins of animals were worn, with leggings of deerskin and in Sakhalin, boots were made from the skin of dogs or salmon. Ainu culture considers earrings, traditionally made from grapevines, to be gender neutral. Women also wear a beaded necklace called a tamasay.


title: Ainu people

text: Their traditional cuisine consists of the flesh of bear, fox, wolf, badger, ox, or horse, as well as fish, fowl, millet, vegetables, herbs, and roots. They never ate raw fish or flesh; it was always boiled or roasted.


title: Ainu people

text: Their traditional habitations were reed-thatched huts, the largest square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the center. There was no chimney, only a hole at the angle of the roof; there was one window on the eastern side and there were two doors. The house of the village head was used as a public meeting place when one was needed. Another kind of traditional Ainu house was called "chise".


title: Ainu people

text: Instead of using furniture, they sat on the floor, which was covered with two layers of mats, one of rush, the other of a water plant with long sword shaped leaves ("Iris pseudacorus"); and for beds they spread planks, hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for coverlets. The men used chopsticks when eating; the women had wooden spoons. Ainu cuisine is not commonly eaten outside Ainu communities; only a few restaurants in Japan serve traditional Ainu dishes, mainly in Tokyo and Hokkaidō.


title: Ainu people

text: The functions of judgeship were not entrusted to chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not exist, nor did the community resort to imprisonment. Beating was considered a sufficient and final penalty. However, in the case of murder, the nose and ears of the culprit were cut off or the tendons of his feet severed.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu hunted from late autumn to early summer. The reasons for this were, among others, that in late autumn, plant gathering, salmon fishing and other activities of securing food came to an end, and hunters readily found game in fields and mountains in which plants had withered.


title: Ainu people

text: A village possessed a hunting ground of its own or several villages used a joint hunting territory (iwor). Heavy penalties were imposed on any outsiders trespassing on such hunting grounds or joint hunting territory.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu hunted Ussuri brown bears, Asian black bears, Ezo deer (a subspecies of sika deer), hares, red foxes, Japanese raccoon dogs, and other animals. Ezo deer were a particularly important food resource for the Ainu, as were salmon. They also hunted sea eagles such as white-tailed sea eagles, raven and other birds. The Ainu hunted eagles to obtain their tail feathers, which they used in trade with the Japanese.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu hunted with arrows and spears with poison-coated points. They obtained the poison, called "surku", from the roots and stalks of aconites. The recipe for this poison was a household secret that differed from family to family. They enhanced the poison with mixtures of roots and stalks of dog's bane, boiled juice of Mekuragumo (a type of harvestman), Matsumomushi ("Notonecta triguttata", a species of backswimmer), tobacco and other ingredients. They also used stingray stingers or skin covering stingers.


title: Ainu people

text: They hunted in groups with dogs. Before the Ainu went hunting, particularly for bear and similar animals, they prayed to the god of fire, the house guardian god, to convey their wishes for a large catch, and to the god of mountains for safe hunting.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu usually hunted bear during the spring thaw. At that time, bears were weak because they had not fed at all during their long hibernation. Ainu hunters caught hibernating bears or bears that had just left hibernation dens. When they hunted bear in summer, they used a spring trap loaded with an arrow, called an "amappo". The Ainu usually used arrows to hunt deer. Also, they drove deer into a river or sea and shot them with arrows. For a large catch, a whole village would drive a herd of deer off a cliff and club them to death.


title: Ainu people

text: Fishing was important for the Ainu. They largely caught trout, primarily in summer, and salmon in autumn, as well as "ito" (Japanese huchen), dace and other fish. Spears called ""marek"" were often used. Other methods were ""tesh"" fishing, ""uray"" fishing and ""rawomap"" fishing. Many villages were built near rivers or along the coast. Each village or individual had a definite river fishing territory. Outsiders could not freely fish there and needed to ask the owner.


title: Ainu people

text: Men wore a crown called "sapanpe" for important ceremonies. "Sapanpe" was made from wood fibre with bundles of partially shaved wood. This crown had wooden figures of animal gods and other ornaments on its centre. Men carried an "emush" (ceremonial sword) secured by an "emush at" strap to their shoulders.


title: Ainu people

text: Women wore "matanpushi", embroidered headbands, and "ninkari", earrings. "Ninkari" was a metal ring with a ball. "Matanpushi" and "ninkari" were originally worn by men. Furthermore, aprons called "maidari" now are a part of women's formal clothes. However, some old documents say that men wore "maidari". Women sometimes wore a bracelet called "tekunkani".


title: Ainu people

text: Women wore a necklace called "rektunpe", a long, narrow strip of cloth with metal plaques. They wore a necklace that reached the breast called a "tamasay" or "shitoki", usually made from glass balls. Some glass balls came from trade with the Asian continent. The Ainu also obtained glass balls secretly made by the Matsumae clan.


title: Ainu people

text: A village is called a "kotan" in the Ainu language. Kotan were located in river basins and seashores where food was readily available, particularly in the basins of rivers through which salmon went upstream. In the early modern times, the Ainu people were forced to labor at the fishing grounds of the Japanese. Ainu kotan were also forced to move near fishing grounds so that the Japanese could secure a labor force. When the Japanese moved to other fishing grounds, Ainu kotan were also forced to accompany them. As a result, the traditional kotan disappeared and large villages of several dozen families were formed around the fishing grounds.


title: Ainu people

text: "Cise" or "cisey" (houses) in a kotan were made of cogon grass, bamboo grass, bark, etc. The length lay east to west or parallel to a river. A house was about seven meters by five with an entrance at the west end that also served as a storeroom. The house had three windows, including the "rorun-puyar," a window located on the side facing the entrance (at the east side), through which gods entered and left and ceremonial tools were taken in and out. The Ainu have regarded this window as sacred and have been told never to look in through it. A house had a fireplace near the entrance. The husband and wife sat on the fireplace's left side (called "shiso") . Children and guests sat facing them on the fireplace's right side (called "harkiso"). The house had a platform for valuables called "iyoykir" behind the shiso. The Ainu placed "sintoko" (hokai) and "ikayop" (quivers) there.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu people had various types of marriage. A child was promised in marriage by arrangement between his or her parents and the parents of his or her betrothed or by a go-between. When the betrothed reached a marriageable age, they were told who their spouse was to be. There were also marriages based on mutual consent of both sexes. In some areas, when a daughter reached a marriageable age, her parents let her live in a small room called "tunpu" annexed to the southern wall of her house. The parents chose her spouse from men who visited her.


title: Ainu people

text: The age of marriage was 17 to 18 years of age for men and 15 to 16 years of age for women, who were tattooed. At these ages, both sexes were regarded as adults.


title: Ainu people

text: When a man proposed to a woman, he visited her house, ate half a full bowl of rice handed to him by her, and returned the rest to her. If the woman ate the rest, she accepted his proposal. If she did not and put it beside her, she rejected his proposal. When a man became engaged to a woman or they learned that their engagement had been arranged, they exchanged gifts. He sent her a small engraved knife, a workbox, a spool, and other gifts. She sent him embroidered clothes, coverings for the back of the hand, leggings and other handmade clothes.


title: Ainu people

text: The worn-out fabric of old clothing was used for baby clothes because soft cloth was good for the skin of babies and worn-out material protected babies from gods of illness and demons due to these gods' abhorrence of dirty things. Before a baby was breast-fed, they were given a decoction of the endodermis of alder and the roots of butterburs to discharge impurities. Children were raised almost naked until about the ages of four to five. Even when they wore clothes, they did not wear belts and left the front of their clothes open. Subsequently, they wore bark clothes without patterns, such as "attush", until coming of age.


title: Ainu people

text: Newborn babies were named "ayay" (a baby's crying), "shipo", "poyshi" (small excrement), and "shion" (old excrement). Children were called by these "temporary" names until the ages of two to three. They were not given permanent names when they were born. Their tentative names had a portion meaning "excrement" or "old things" to ward off the demon of ill-health. Some children were named based on their behaviour or habits. Other children were named after impressive events or after parents' wishes for the future of the children. When children were named, they were never given the same names as others.


title: Ainu people

text: Men wore loincloths and had their hair dressed properly for the first time at age 15–16. Women were also considered adults at the age of 15–16. They wore underclothes called "mour" and had their hair dressed properly and wound waistcloths called "raunkut" and "ponkut" around their bodies. When women reached age 12–13, the lips, hands and arms were tattooed. When they reached age 15–16, their tattoos were completed. Thus were they qualified for marriage.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu are traditionally animists, believing that everything in nature has a (spirit or god) on the inside. The most important include , goddess of the hearth, , god of bears and mountains, and , god of the sea, fishing, and marine animals. is regarded as the creator of the world in the Ainu religion.


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu have no priests by profession; instead the village chief performs whatever religious ceremonies are necessary. Ceremonies are confined to making libations of , saying prayers, and offering willow sticks with wooden shavings attached to them. These sticks are called (singular) and (plural).


title: Ainu people

text: They are placed on an altar used to "send back" the spirits of killed animals. Ainu ceremonies for sending back bears are called . The Ainu people give thanks to the gods before eating and pray to the deity of fire in time of sickness. They believe that their spirits are immortal, and that their spirits will be rewarded hereafter by ascending to (Land of the Gods).


title: Ainu people

text: The Ainu are part of a larger collective of indigenous people who practice "arctolatry" or bear worship. The Ainu believe that the bear holds particular importance as 's chosen method of delivering the gift of the bear's hide and meat to humans.


title: Ainu people

text: John Batchelor reported that the Ainu view the world as being a spherical ocean on which float many islands, a view based on the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He wrote that they believe the world rests on the back of a large fish, which when it moves causes earthquakes.


title: Ainu people

text: Ainu assimilated into mainstream Japanese society have adopted Buddhism and Shintō, while some northern Ainu were converted as members of the Russian Orthodox Church. Regarding Ainu communities in () and other areas that fall within the Russian sphere of cultural influence, there have been cases of church construction as well as reports that some Ainu have decided to profess their Christian faith. There have also been reports that the Russian Orthodox Church has performed some missionary projects in the Sakhalin Ainu community. However, not many people have converted and there are only reports of several persons who have converted. Converts have been scorned as (Russian Ainu) by other members of the Ainu community. Even so, the reports indicate that many Ainu have kept their faith in the deities of ancient times.


title: Ainu people

text: According to a 2012 survey conducted by Hokkaidō University, a high percentage of Ainu are members of their household family religion which is Buddhism (especially Buddhism). However, it is pointed out that similar to the Japanese religious consciousness, there is not a strong feeling of identification with a particular religion, with Buddhist and traditional beliefs being part of their daily life culture.


title: Ainu people

text: Most Hokkaidō Ainu and some other Ainu are members of an umbrella group called the Hokkaidō Utari Association. It was originally controlled by the government to speed Ainu assimilation and integration into the Japanese nation-state. It now is run exclusively by Ainu and operates mostly independently of the government.


title: Ainu people

text: Other key institutions include "The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC)", set up by the Japanese government after enactment of the Ainu Culture Law in 1997, the Hokkaidō University Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies established in 2007, as well as museums and cultural centers. Ainu people living in Tokyo have also developed a vibrant political and cultural community.


title: Ainu people

text: Since late 2011, the Ainu have cultural exchange and cultural cooperation with the Sámi people of northern Europe. Both the Sámi and the Ainu participate in the organization for Arctic indigenous peoples and the Sámi research office in Lapland (Finland).


title: Ainu people

text: On 27 March 1997, the Sapporo District Court decided a landmark case that, for the first time in Japanese history, recognized the right of the Ainu people to enjoy their distinct culture and traditions. The case arose because of a 1978 government plan to build two dams in the Saru River watershed in southern Hokkaidō. The dams were part of a series of development projects under the Second National Development Plan that were intended to industrialize the north of Japan. The planned location for one of the dams was across the valley floor close to Nibutani village, the home of a large community of Ainu people and an important center of Ainu culture and history. In the early 1980s when the government commenced construction on the dam, two Ainu landowners refused to agree to the expropriation of their land. These landowners were Kaizawa Tadashi and Kayano Shigeru—well-known and important leaders in the Ainu community. After Kaizawa and Kayano declined to sell their land, the Hokkaidō Development Bureau applied for and was subsequently granted a Project Authorization, which required the men to vacate their land. When their appeal of the Authorization was denied, Kayano and Kaizawa's son Koichii (Kaizawa died in 1992), filed suit against the Hokkaidō Development Bureau.


title: Ainu people

text: The final decision denied the relief sought by the plaintiffs for pragmatic reasons, the dam was already standing, but the decision was nonetheless heralded as a landmark victory for the Ainu people. In short, nearly all of the plaintiffs' claims were recognized. Moreover, the decision marked the first time Japanese case law acknowledged the Ainu as an indigenous people and contemplated the responsibility of the Japanese nation to the indigenous people within its borders. The decision included broad fact-finding that underscored the long history of the oppression of the Ainu people by Japan's majority, referred to as Wa-Jin in the case and discussions about the case. The decision was issued on March 27, 1997, and because of the broad implications for Ainu rights, the plaintiffs decided not to appeal the decision, which became final two weeks later. After the decision was issued, on 8 May 1997, the Diet passed the Ainu Culture Law and repealed the Ainu Protection Act—the 1899 law that had been the vehicle of Ainu oppression for almost one hundred years. While the Ainu Culture Law has been widely criticized for its shortcomings, the shift that it represents in Japan's view of the Ainu people is a testament to the importance of the Nibutani decision. In 2007 the 'Cultural Landscape along the Sarugawa River resulting from Ainu Tradition and Modern Settlement' was designated an Important Cultural Landscape of Japan. A later action seeking restoration of Ainu assets held in trust by the Japanese Government was dismissed in 2008.