Ainu Ancestral Remains, Long Held in Australia, Returned

In an indigenous victory, Ainu ancestral remains, long held in museums in distant Australia, have at last been returned to local Hokkaido communities.

By Noah Oskow

On Saturday, May 6th, an Ainu delegation hailing from Japan entered Melbourne Museum in Australia for the fulfillment of a long-awaited promise. Said vow had been made some six years ago, but the controversy the promise concerned was far older. In 2017, then-ambassador to Japan Richard Court told the Ainu Association of Hokkaido that two Australian universities had agreed to the return of ill-gotten indigenous Ainu remains. The ancestral artifacts, consisting of four sets of Ainu skulls, had been sent to Australia for purported research purposes nearly 100 years ago.

The Ainu people are the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido, which is now Japan’s most northern main island. The Ainu are also indigenous to the neighboring large island of Sakhalin, as well as the Kuril chain, both now held by Russia but with a long history of contested ownership with Japan.

As an indigenous people group with their own isolate language and unique culture, the Ainu have long been subject to academic and scientific interest from their…