Iomante

Ainu bear sacrifice - Japanese scroll painting, circa 1870

Painting of the Ainu iyomante, bear spirit sending ceremony in Hokkaido (1875)

Iomante circa 1930

Iomante (イオマンテ), sometimes written as Iyomante (イヨマンテ), is an Ainu ceremony in which a brown bear is sacrificed. The word literally means "to send something/someone off". In some Ainu villages, it is a Blakiston's fish owl, rather than a bear, that is the subject of the ceremony. In Japanese, the ceremony is known as "sending off the bear" (熊送り, kumaokuri) or, sometimes, "the bear festival" (熊祭, kumamatsuri). In the modern day, the ceremony no longer involves the killing of an animal, but is performed for wild animals that die in accidents or captive animals that die of old age.^[1]