Ainu fight for return of plundered ancestral remains: Landmark case pits indigenous people of Hokkaido against local university holding lion's share of grisly trophies This article looks at court case brought by an Ainu group in Kineusu, Hokkaido against Hokkaido University to have Ainu remains held by the University returned to them. The case raises the issue of whether we understand ancestry as individual, as Japanese law requires, or as collective and tribal as it is for Ainu group. Japan Times, Aug 12, 2013.
Hokkaido University agrees to return remains of Ainu to descendants The agreement, reached in a court-mediated settlement at the Sapporo District Court in Hokkaido on Wednesday, ends three rounds of a five-year legal battle between Ainu descendants and the university. Japan Times, 23 Mar, 2017.
Skeletons in the academic closet An article about the removal of Ainu remains and grave goods for 'scientific research' by researchers including Sakuzaemon Kodama, professor of anatomy in the medical department of Hokkaido University. The article also makes connections to the wider question of indigenous people's ownership and control over their cultural property, one of the major issues considered by the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Japan Times, 17 Nov, 2002.
Japan's indigenous Ainu battle for return of ancestors "Japan's long marginalised and little known indigenous people, the Ainu, are engaged in a protracted and symbolic struggle to have the remains of their ancestors brought home." New Zealand Herald, 2 Jun, 2013.
Ainu struggle to find solution for hundreds of unidentified skeletons "Papers were lost, bones were mixed up, and now only 23 of the 1,635 Ainu skeletons kept at nine universities can be identified." Asahi Shimbun, 13 Aug, 2013.
Hokkaido University agrees to return remains of Ainu to descendants Japan Times, Mar 23, 2017.
Ainu People call for Return of Indigenous Remains Asia Rights, 10 Aug 2011.