At the entrance to Akan-Mashu National Park, known for its lakes and bubbling mud pools, red torii gates stood out against the white snow that had blanketed this part of eastern Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island.

On a park path, I suddenly saw a Yezo sika deer, with its spotted brown coat and fluffy white tail. I have encountered them before, but this sighting seemed significant because of their connection to the Ainu, the Indigenous people who live on Hokkaido and in other parts of Japan’s northern archipelago. It was an Ainu village I had come here to visit.

The Ainu belief system holds that animals and plants have spirits, called kamuy, that are always watching over humans and manifest in the world as gifts such as meat, fur and food. In the case of this type of deer, its meat is a primary component of Ainu cuisine, and parts of the animal, such as its heels and horns, are used in crafts and jewelry.

According to Upopoy, the national Ainu museum on Hokkaido, the roots of the Ainu go back about 30,000 years. No one is sure how many Ainu live in Japan today; there are no official tallies and ethnicity is based on self-identification. But a survey last year by the Hokkaido prefecture found that almost 30 percent of the Ainu respondents said they had encountered discrimination in highly homogeneous Japan.

Still, the Ainu have maintained their own language, crafts and cultural practices. And one place where their arts and crafts can be found is Ainu Kotan, a village inside the national park. The settlement, built by the Ainu themselves in the 1950s, now has about 120 residents living in homes and apartment buildings, which Kushiro city officials said was one of the largest concentrations of Ainu on Hokkaido.