Changes

The men of a given ''kotan'' would hunt and fish in their area, chiefly bear and salmon, while the women farmed, mainly millet, beans, barley, wheat, sorghum, and vegetables. They would usually burn the field first, creating ash which served as fertilizer, and would then cultivate a given plot for a year or two before allowing that area to return to nature, and turning to a different plot of land to claim as theirs to cultivate for a period. The Ainu, especially in Sakhalin, bred dogs, which they used for a variety of purposes, including as hunting companions, sled dogs, and for their fur/skins and their meat.

The men of a given ''kotan'' would hunt and fish in their area, chiefly bear and salmon, while the women farmed, mainly millet, beans, barley, wheat, sorghum, and vegetables. They would usually burn the field first, creating ash which served as fertilizer, and would then cultivate a given plot for a year or two before allowing that area to return to nature, and turning to a different plot of land to claim as theirs to cultivate for a period. The Ainu, especially in Sakhalin, bred dogs, which they used for a variety of purposes, including as hunting companions, sled dogs, and for their fur/skins and their meat.

Ainu never engaged in rice cultivation traditionally, but purchased rice from the Japanese, who called themselves ''Wajin'' (和人), among other terms, to identify themselves in contrast to the Ainu Other. The Ainu, meanwhile, used the word ''shisam'', meaning literally "the great and nearby," to refer to outsiders, and words such as ''kur'' and ''utar'' to refer to other Ainu groups (e.g. from a different region) or other indigenous tribes, e.g. from the nearest parts of the Asian mainland, or from Sakhalin and the Kurils.

Ainu never engaged in rice cultivation traditionally, but purchased rice from the Japanese, who called themselves ''Wajin'' (和人), among other terms, to identify themselves in contrast to the Ainu Other. The Ainu, meanwhile, used the word ''shisam'', meaning literally "the great and nearby," to refer to outsiders, and words such as ''kur'' and ''utar'' to refer to other Ainu groups (e.g. from a different region) or other indigenous tribes, e.g. from the nearest parts of the Asian mainland, or from Sakhalin and the Kurils. They traded and interacted otherwise quite actively not only with ''Wajin'', but also with [[Manchu]]s and various indigenous tribal peoples of the north.<ref>David Howell, "Is Ainu History Japanese History?," in ann-elise lewallen, Mark Hudson, Mark Watson (eds.), ''Beyond Ainu Studies'', University of Hawaii Press (2015), 106.</ref>

Ainu men often wore their hair and beards long. Their clothes were wrapped with the left side on top, the opposite of Japanese customs, and they wore fur boots, which were quite unlike the straw sandals (''[[zori]]'' or ''[[waraji]]'') Japanese were used to. They had no written language, though Japanese scholars later developed a system of representing Ainu sounds in Japanese ''[[kana]]'' through the introduction of a handful of new symbols.

Ainu men often wore their hair and beards long. Their clothes were wrapped with the left side on top, the opposite of Japanese customs, and they wore fur boots, which were quite unlike the straw sandals (''[[zori]]'' or ''[[waraji]]'') Japanese were used to. They had no written language, though Japanese scholars later developed a system of representing Ainu sounds in Japanese ''[[kana]]'' through the introduction of a handful of new symbols.