The Gender of Cloth

Abstract

This chapter narrates the “quiet revolution” that emerged in private spaces shared between elderwomen and the younger generation. Ainu women in their mid-forties to early seventies began meeting to exchange traditional knowledge, including techniques for gathering medicinal herbs and wild plants, techniques for weaving with natural fibers, embroidery patterns, and song and dance. Older generation women could recall these activities as survival skills, and as ritual and celebratory activities. In mountainous areas across Ainu women, this private sphere knowledge was maintained and transmitted generationally. While Ainu men were pressured to assimilate to Wajin socioeconomic standards, Ainu women were entrusted with preserving cultural practices, such as producing material cultural objects for the domestic sphere.