✳︎Product Name: Wiltu Sewapororo Wooden Statue ✳︎Artist: Gendanu (Gentaro Kitagawa) ✳︎Production Location: Abashiri, Hokkaido ✳︎Size: Height: Approximately 24cm ✳︎Production Studio: Jakka Dofuni (Abashiri) 【Artist】The late Gentaro Kitagawa / Real Name: Dahinnieni Gendanu 【Era】Showa 51 (1976) ✳︎On the bottom: (51.6 Kitagawa-san, Hokkaido souvenir) Purchase memo included. This work is a guardian deity statue "Sewapororo" from the indigenous Wiltu people of Sakhalin (formerly Karafuto). The artist is Gendanu (Gentaro Kitagawa), whose real name is Dahinnieni Gendanu, considered the last sculptor of the Wiltu. Gendanu was conscripted into the Japanese Army's special service during the war, and after the war, he was interned in Siberia before moving to Abashiri in 1955. In the post-war chaos, he aspired to revive the spiritual culture of the Wiltu and created religious sculptures through wood carving. In the 1970s, he readopted the ethnic name "Gendanu" and publicly declared his ethnic identity as a folk artist of the North. His works can be found in the "Jakka Dofuni Museum" (no longer in existence) in Abashiri and the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples. The distinctive three-pronged top of the head, the upright body shape, and the red cloth prayer decoration tied around the neck clearly indicate the amuletic design in Wiltu beliefs. The wood grain shows the texture of aging, conveying the traces of time etched with prayer. The production year is estimated to be around 1976, and very few examples of this work remain. From an ethnographic and cultural anthropological perspective, it is a valuable relic showing the religious sculpture of a northern minority. Within the serene form, a single piece where prayer and memory reside. It is a museum-quality material wooden statue that combines academic value and artistic perfection. ◉⤵︎Search Terms #Wiltu #Sewapororo #Gendanu #Gentaro Kitagawa #NorthernPeoples #Karafuto #Abashiri #Ainu #Mingei (Folk Craft) #ReligiousSculpture #EthnicMaterials #Mingei #Sakhalin #Minority #Wiltu Ura #Hirohiro Mingei #AinuCulture #Nipopo #GoldenKamuy #Abashiri #KarafutoAinu #Gendanu #LocalToys #Mingei #Shaman #Hirohiro Shigeru #HokkaidoArt ExtinctLocalToys #NorthernPeoples AinuArt #One-strokeCarving #Shintoputte #Wataraponkur #Wiltu Nakoruru LastKamuy KamuiKotan Hirohiro Sakuyo Orochon Nivkh #Sewa #EvilWard