I searched the interweb and sadly but obvious, there is no information on the photographer Kajima Seizaburo. Above is a photo of his depicting an older Ainu man. I think the first thing people of any nationality or cultural background (except Ainu of course) would find his attire peculiar. I am not really sure how to describe his “tunic” other than it would be comparable to wearing only shorts during this time. I am not sure if Japanese men would wear something similar to this unless maybe working outside? I am not sure. But I could imagine Japanese of this day referring to him as barbaric. More so that he is Ainu than his clothing. The Ainu man’s gaze is pretty cool. It seems to be a positive gaze. It looks that his eyes are closed (although I can’t tell because of the shading) but you can see that his brow is tense. Looks as though he is focusing on that pipe pretty hard.
A lot of times I hear the Ainu being compared to the Native American Indians and how their histories with invading cultures are pretty similar. So this image of an Ainu man sitting Indian style out in the wilderness (in his case it looks like a wasteland) smoking a pipe reminds me of an image of a native American sitting around a fire enjoying a peace pipe. However I am not sure if this pipe is any different from a Japanese one.
What is pretty cool is how cultural differences really play a part in this photo. A Japanese man or woman of this time would, most likely, would be shocked of his dress and his long grey beard (things that are different, scary) and would most likely view this man as being of at least a lesser nature than themselves An Ainu man or woman however would see this photo and in a calm voice say “Oh hey, its Cletus.”
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