What happens
The Pacific Story presents a documentary-style episode on the Ainu, the indigenous people who lived on Japan before the Japanese arrived and who fought them for centuries. The program first describes the Ainu's long resistance and their later subjugation, then turns to customs and beliefs. An elderly chief named Chief Okenbatsu, who is more than 80 years old, speaks of his people's sacred objects and the importance of the household fire goddess. The episode describes the women's tattooed lips and the bear festival, a religious ritual in which a captive bear is honored and then killed. It also recounts a historical feud between two villages over a killing. The Ainu are shown living in poverty and disease in Hokkaido, with their numbers dwindling through intermarriage and hardship.
Japan and the island of Hokkaido, including Ainu villages, mountain forests, and hot springs resorts
Characters: Chief Okenbatsu, Katansu, Coria
Listen for: Descriptions of Ainu customs, the bear festival ritual, and the account of the feud between two villages
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.