 The ethnographic displays are the pride of the Museum collections.Artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show that the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin and theKurile Islands had highly distinctive traditional cultures. There were three main ethnic groups in Sakhalin - theNivkh people, mainly in the north of the island,Orok, in the central area, andAinu, in the south. There were also small numbers ofEvenk people. The Ainu are one of the oldest and most enigmatic peoples of the world. They differ greatly from neighbouringMongoloid peoples, not only in appearance, but inlanguage and many other features of their material and spiritual culture. Light-skinned and bearded Ainu men, and Ainu women with tattoos round the mouth and on the hands, were a war-like people. Their main arms were swords, worn in vegetable fibre sword-belts, heavy fighting clubs with sharp spikes, and bows and arrows. A unique exhibit is the armour, woven from narrow strips of bearded seal skin. This armour protected a warrior's body completely, and is now a very rare and precious object.  Fishing and hunting implements (including those for sea fishing), a spear, a harpoon, a hook, and bows and arrows show that adaptation to the natural conditions of the island was highly developed. When hunting for animals the Ainu used arrows poisoned with aconite. The display also has woodentableware, for both everyday and ceremonial use, decorated with carved spiral designs. Near it are the carved sticks used during ritual drinking. During these rites men first raised their moustaches with the help of the sticks, and then the sticks were dipped in the drink and offered to the spirits, with whom they mediated. They are decorated with carvings showing everyday activities, like seal or whale-hunting, or the bear festival. Women sewed clothes and footwear from skins of sea and land animals. An oriental-style robe of fish skin is decorated with applique of coloured fabric. The applique decoration is round the collar, the cuffs of the sleeves and on the hem. This, according to Ainu belief, protected against the influence of evil spirits. In winter they wore a seal skin garment, ornamented with fur mosaic and fabric applique. For summer clothes they wove fabric from nettle and elm bark-lining. There is an Ainu loom on display, of horizontal type, and strung with nettle threads. Fabric garments are splendidly ornamented with coloured embroidery. Head bands are made from fabric or woven from willow shavings.  At present we have only museum exhibits to remind us of the Sakhalin Ainu, whose fortune turned out to be sad. After 1945. all who remained were evicted to Hokkaido. Many ofthe Ainu and Nivkh articles were collected by the distinguished researcher into the local cultures,B.O.Pilsudskii, who was originally a political exile to Sakhalin, late last century. Amongst his items are the models of the traditional houses of the Nivkh, inhabiting cold North Sakhalin. Winter houses were dug into the ground, while summer houses were built on piles, near the mouths of salmon-spawning rivers. Traditional Nivkh culture was based on salmon fishing and sea hunting. The collection has fishing implements: a needle for net plaiting, a model of a fishing net with sinkers, a salmon hook, and weapons for hunting sea and land animals, such as a wooden club for bloodless seal slaughter and a spear. Boats of different styles were used. The collection has a model of ahollowed-out boat. There is also Nivkh wooden tableware - spoons, scoops, and troughs for their favourite food mixture,'mos', (berries, fish, and seal fat), all splendidly ornamented with carving. Seal fat was kept in dried sea-lion stomachs. Many articles made of birch bark, such as the models of various baskets, a bucket for water, and boxes for storing small objects are especially refined. All of them are decorated with the typical spiral design of the Lower Amur region.  Nivkh clothes differed from those of the Ainu. The usual garment had a wide wrap-over left flap. The collection has a man's winter garment, made of velvet and dog's fur, from the beginning of the 20th century. On the left one can see an original item of men's hunting clothes - a skirt made of seal's fur. Women's robes are ornamented with embroidery in the spiral Amur style. Metal ornaments adorn the hems. A winter fur hat with lynx ears is a sign of the owner's wealth. Footwear, made of seal and sea-lion furs, is remarkable for its durability and water-resistance. Nivkh women had unsurpassed skills in processing the skins of fish, and made footwear, clothes, tobacco-pouches, and bags from them. The Orok (and Evenk) people are representatives of theTungusic linguistic family. The distinctive feature of Orok culture is reindeer-breeding. In winter they roamed the taiga of Northern Sakhalin, and in summer moved to the coast of the Okhotsk Sea andTerpenie Bay. The main means of conveyance was domestic reindeer. The animal was used with saddle and pack, and in winter was harnessed to a sledge. A reconstruction of a pack reindeer is on display. With it one can see the equipment of a nomadic life: pack bags made of reindeer skin over birch bark, large reindeer skin bags, and round boxes, decorated with geometrical coloured patterns and embroidered with white hair from the reindeer's throat. There is also an original Orok sledge, designed to travel over rough ground. Winter hunting was important. The display shows a hunter's tools: crossbows, spears, knives forbutchering, and wide skis, lined with shaggy reindeer-leg fur. Skilled Orok women made wonderful garments from reindeer skin, cut out with special knives on boards. Reindeer skin articles were decorated with embroidery including elements of vegetation and spiral patterns, implemented with the so-calledtamburny stitch. Winter clothes were made of reindeer fur: a coat, a hat, mittens, and high boots ornamented with fur inlays. Like other peoples of the island, in summer the Orok fished and stored up different species of salmon. On the coast of the Okhotsk Sea they lived in summer frame houses covered with larch bark, and in winter used portable tents made of reindeer skins. A photo shows an Orok family near their summer house. The religion of the peoples of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands was based onanimistic,totemistic and magical conceptions of nature, including animals, plants, and water. The most important ceremony was the bear festival, common to many Sakhalin and Amur peoples. A major tribal gathering was held in honour of the bear. A bear-cub was reared for it in a special cage for two or three years, and a model of the cage is in the show-case, along with the unique wooden scoop for feeding the bear. The scoop is carved with simplepictographic signs. Special arrows in a quiver killed the bear at the ritual site. The photos show the ceremony of feeding the bear, the death of the bear at anAinu festival, and the bear's burial place, which became sacred to the tribe. A bear, according to Sakhalin people's belief, was a mountain man, or spirit. For this reason, many amulets are bear-shaped. Families kept some of these for hundreds of years. Amulets had a powerful magic force. The display has family amulets, amulets for hunting and sea catching, and medical amulets to prevent or cure different diseases. Shamans treating people made amulets, or the stricken families made their own. A display shows a shaman's paraphernalia: a tambourine for summoning the spirits, a belt with large metal pendants, a head-dress made of shavings from an'inau', or sacred wand, and a mask made of bear skin. These things helped the shaman to drive out the evil spirit causing an illness, to travel to lower and upper worlds, and to help his kinsmen at difficult moments. Burial rites reveal differences between the spiritual cultures of the peoples of the region. The photos show a raised platform coffin, typical of theOrok. TheNivkh burnt dead bodies and placed a model of a wooden house at the cremation site. A flat wooden figure - receptacle of the soul of the deceased - was put into the house and was regularly offered food. The Ainu buried their dead in the ground. A separate display shows burial rites and objects associated with them. At present Nivkh, Orok andEvenk still live on the island, and the ethnographic collection of the Museum continues to be enlarged with new objects.
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