amer-ainu:“In the Ainuworldview, all beings with form contain ramat, and women makingmaking clothing
amer-ainu:“In the Ainuworldview, all beings with form contain ramat, and women makingmaking clothing poured their souls into each stitch, physicallyinserting ramat into the cloth and animating these texts with aspiritual life force.” From The Fabric of Indigeneity.Ramat is essentiallythe soul or spirit of things. In performing clothwork, Ainu womenreconnect with the ancestry that was violently ripped from theirbodies and souls, and denied to their children. An alien government,a nation of people saw Ainu culture as something to be “corrected,”at best, and Ainu people as something to be ultimately exterminated.According to the plan, I wasn’t supposed to be here. My mother wasn’tsupposed to be here. My grandmother wasn’t supposed to be here. Somepeople still argue that we aren’t. That Ainu culture is dying ordead.By weaving ramatinto my own clothing, I’m participating in the living culture that issurviving, adapting, evolving. We are still here, and our spirit isstill alive. -- source link
#ainu#stateless nations