Inari Sami people Inari Sami people Inari or Aanaar Sami are a group of Sami people who inhabit the area around Lake Inari, Finland. They speak the Inari (Aanaar) Sami language, which belongs to the eastern Sami languages. There are an estimated 700–900 ethnic Inari Samis in Finland, of whom approximately 300 speak Inari Sami. They are the only group of Sami who live within one state and one municipality. Inari Sami are indigenous peoples of their area. The traditional homeland of Inari Sami is the shores of the Lake Inari and the surrounding areas. Historically they are believed to have inhabited a
Inari Ōkami Buddhist were torn down. Among the populace, however, the blended form of worship continued. Some Buddhist temples, such as Toyokawa Inari, maintained Inari worship by arguing that they had always been devoted to a Buddhist deity (often Dakiniten), which the common folk had mistaken as Inari. In the Tokugawa period, when money replaced rice as the measure of wealth in Japan, Inari's role as a "kami" of worldly prosperity was expanded to include all aspects of finance, business, and industry. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, followers of Inari at the Ginza mint struck coins meant for offerings to