Handmade Fair Trade in Indonesia & the United States

White brass & leather

Ainu Kotan stud buttons - 1 inch square

Weight each  - .3 ounce each

The Ainu people (Ainu means "human") are a group of indigenous people who have occupied the northern parts of the Japanese archipelago as well as parts of the Kamchatka peninsula. Hokkaido is currently the primary center of modern Ainu culture.  I became interested in Ainu people through their magnificent textile traditions and the stud buttons that make up the Ainu collection are inspired by a visual vocabulary of motifs that Ainu women deploy in improvisational, highly personal designs appliqued and embroidered on traditional robe forms called Atush. 

Atush robes were traditionally made from bark fiber, later cotton, elaborately embroidered and appliqued at the hem, cuffs, neckline, front opening and on the back, all areas of the body considered vulnerable.  Ainu motifs, generally, are considered protective and can be combined in many ways. There is a cultural value placed on deploying these basic visual forms in fresh ways to create new, personal, complex visual statements. Ainu women, by adorning their own robes and the robes of their family members, were actively protecting themselves and others from malevolent forces and dangers. 

These stud buttons feature a motif called Sik noka, a pattern of eyes that are understood as protective because they lend the wearer the ability to see malevolent beings and forces around them.  These 'eyes' ward off evil in this way.  These eye motifs are often used in conjunction with spirals and thorns that are also used to protect the wearer. I have called this stud button motif Kotan, which means village, because it also looks a bit like the thatched roofs of traditional house forms.  This is an association I see that is not necessarily coming directly from an Ainu visual vocabulary.