The Matagi are traditional winter hunters of the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, most famously today in the Ani area in Akita Prefecture, which is known for the Akita dogs. Afterwards, it spread to the Shirakami-Sanchi forest between Akita and Aomori, and other areas of Japan. Documented as a specialised group from the medieval period onwards, the Matagi continue to hunt deer and bear in the present day, and their culture has much in common with the bear worship of the Ainu people.
Matagi with a killed Asian black bear, in 1966 at Kamikoani, Akita
The Ainu are an ethnic group comprising related Indigenous peoples who are native to northern Japan, including Hokkaido and Northeast Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Khabarovsk Krai; they have occupied these areas known to them as "Ainu Mosir", since before the arrival of the modern Japanese and Russians. These regions are often referred to as Ezochi (蝦夷地) and its inhabitants as Emishi (蝦夷) in historical Japanese texts.
Ainu at a traditional wedding ceremony in Hokkaido
Hokkaido Ainu clan leader, 1930
A photograph of Tatsujiro Kuzuno [ja], an Ainu individual famous for being a promoter of Ainu culture
Sakhalin Ainu in 1904