Ainu are a group of indigenous peoples of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Due to their distinct culture and beliefs, they faced discrimination and forced assimilation by Japan from the late nineteenth century. In Ainu culture, men after a certain age, never shave and sport long beards and moustaches. This difference to Japanese custom, which favoured clean-shaven or neatly trimmed facial hair, saw an increased fixation in Japan on Ainu hair that reinforced negative stereotypes and provided a justification for forced cultural assimilation and intermarriage. This also led to the use of the derogatory appellation ‘Hairy Ainu’ by Japanese that soon found its way into European descriptions of the people.
Alone with the Hairy Ainu is an 1893 account by the Italian-British painter Arnold Henry Savage Landor of his travels in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands in 1890. Abandoning art school in Paris in 1888, Landor decided to travel solo around the world, funding his journeys by painting portraits of local magistrates and ordinary people. In his introduction to the work, Landor emphasised that he travelled with ‘no friends, no servants and no guides’, as well as with ‘no provisions and no tent’, stating ‘when I go to a country I do my best to be like one of the natives themselves, and … I endeavour to show respect for them and their ideas, and to conform to their customs’.
This attitude saw Landor welcomed by many Ainu communities and he was able to make sketches of Ainu objects, observe cultural practices and draw portraits of individuals. These serve as an important record of Ainu culture in the years prior to the increase of Japanese assimilation efforts from 1899. Despite this, his account remains coloured by the language and attitudes of the late nineteenth century towards indigenous people.