The Ainu had very few prized personal possessions. For women, this included their sewing needles, while for men this included their knives (makiri) and prayer sticks (ikupasuy). The Ainu relied completely on their ikupasuy to communicate with their gods. Because the Ainu do not pray directly to their gods, the ikupasuy acts as an intermediary between worshipper and the gods.

This example is finished in black lacquer painted with scrolling stems, red commas and gold rosettes. The decoration is painted rather than carved and the form unusually regular, the marks by which Fosco Maraini identified sticks lacquered by Japanese craftsmen, to whom Ainu households handed over the bare wood. Such pieces were highly prized. The commas derive from the mitsu-tomoye, a Sino-Japanese heraldic roundel broken into its parts.

Collected at Chikabumi, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan

19th–early 20th century

See: Ainu, Spirit of A Northern People, Fitzhugh and Dubriel, 1999. P. 327-334

Also: Sternberg, Leo. “The Ainu Problem.” Anthropos, vol. 24, no. 5/6, 1929, pp. 755–799.