Playing the Ainu Tonkori

Playing the ’’tonkori’’ a plucked string instrument of the Ainu people with five strings, not stopped or fretted but simply played “open“. By the 1970s the instrument was practically extinct, but is experiencing a revival along with the increased interest in Ainu heritage: in Porotokotan, a reconstructed village (kotan), now the Shiraoi Ainu Museum, southern Hokkaido, Japan.